em, as
they were to the State, for order and obedience to the laws. A wrong of
brother against brother was also a wrong against the general body of the
gild and was punished by fine or in the last resort by an expulsion which
left the offender a "lawless" man and an outcast. The one difference
between these gilds in country and town was this, that in the latter case
from their close local neighbourhood they tended inevitably to coalesce.
Under AEthelstan the London gilds united into one for the purpose of
carrying out more effectually their common aims, and at a later time we
find the gilds of Berwick enacting "that where many bodies are found side
by side in one place they may become one, and have one will, and in the
dealings of one with another have a strong and hearty love." The process
was probably a long and difficult one, for the brotherhoods naturally
differed much in social rank, and even after the union was effected we
see traces of the separate existence to a certain extent of some one or
more of the wealthier or more aristocratic gilds. In London for instance
the Cnighten-gild which seems to have stood at the head of its fellows
retained for a long time its separate property, while its Alderman--as
the chief officer of each gild was called--became the Alderman of the
united gild of the whole city. In Canterbury we find a similar gild of
Thanes from which the chief officers of the town seem commonly to have
been selected. Imperfect however as the union might be, when once it was
effected the town passed from a mere collection of brotherhoods into a
powerful community, far more effectually organized than in the loose
organization of the township, and whose character was inevitably
determined by the circumstances of its origin. In their beginnings our
boroughs seem to have been mainly gatherings of persons engaged in
agricultural pursuits; the first Dooms of London provide especially for
the recovery of cattle belonging to the citizens. But as the increasing
security of the country invited the farmer or the landowner to settle
apart in his own fields, and the growth of estate and trade told on the
towns themselves, the difference between town and country became more
sharply defined. London of course took the lead in this new developement
of civic life. Even in AEthelstan's day every London merchant who had made
three long voyages on his own account ranked as a Thegn. Its "lithsmen,"
or shipmen's-gild, were of suf