e liberties and customs which they had in the time
of King Henry my grandfather, and that they have their guild, so
that none carry on their trade in the town of Oxford, except he be
of that guild. I grant also that the cordwainers who afterwards
may come into the town of Oxford shall be of the same guild and
shall have the same liberties and customs which the corvesars have
and ought to have. For this grant and confirmation, however, the
corvesars and cordwainers ought to pay me every year an ounce of
gold."

A guild merchant for wool dominated and regulated the wool trade
in many boroughs. In Leicester, only guildsmen were permitted to
buy and sell wool wholesale to whom they pleased or to wash their
fells in borough waters. Certain properties, such as those near
running water, essential to the manufacture of wool were
maintained for the use of guild members. The waterwheel was a
technological advance replacing human labor whereby the cloth was
fulled. The waterwheel turned a shaft which lifted hammers to
pound the wet cloth in a trough. Wool packers and washers could
work only for guild members. The guild fixed wages, for instance
to wool wrappers and flock pullers. Strangers who brought wool to
the town for sale could sell only to guild members. A guildsman
could not sell wool retail to strangers nor go into partnership
with a man outside the guild. Each guild member had to swear the
guildsman's oath, pay an entrance fee, and subject himself to the
judgment of the guild in the guild court, which could fine or
suspend a man from practicing his trade for a year. The advantages
of guild membership extended beyond profit in the wool trade.
Members were free from the tolls that strangers paid. They alone
were free to sell certain goods retail. They had the right to
share in any bargain made in the presence of a guildsman, whether
the transaction took place in Leicester or in a distant market. In
the general interest, the guild forbade the use of false weights
and measures and the production of shoddy goods. It maintained a
wool beam for weighing wool. It also forbade middlemen from
profiting at the expense of the public. For instance, butchers'
wives were forbidden from buying meat to sell again in the same
market unless they cooked it. The moneys due to the king from the
guilds of a town were collected by the town reeve.

When the king wanted to raise an army, he summoned his major baron
tenants-in-chief, who comman