dustry did not usually dwell in the old populous and wealthy towns.
It is probable that the restrictions of the gild ordinances were
disadvantageous both to the clothiers and to the small master
craftsmen, and that the latter, as well as journeymen who had no
chance to obtain an independent position, now that the town craft
organizations were under the control of the more wealthy members, were
very ready to migrate to rural villages. Thus, in as far as the
weaving industry was growing up under the management of the employing
clothiers, it was slipping out from under the control of the town
gilds by its location in the country. The same thing occurred in other
cases, even without the intermediation of a new employing class. We
hear of mattress makers, of rope makers, of tile makers, and other
artisans establishing themselves in the country villages outside of
the towns, where, as a law of 1495 says, "the wardens have no power or
authority to make search." In certain parts of England, in the
southwest, the west, and the northwest, independent weavers now set up
for themselves in rural districts as those of the eastern counties
had long done, buying their own raw materials, bringing their
manufactures to completion, and then taking them to the neighboring
towns and markets to sell, or hawking them through the rural
districts.

These changes, along with others occurring simultaneously, led to a
considerable diminution of the prosperity of many of the large towns.
They were not able to pay their usual share of taxation, the
population of some of them declined, whole streets or quarters, when
destroyed by fire or other catastrophe, were left unbuilt and in
ruins. Many of the largest and oldest towns of England are mentioned
in the statutes of the reign of Henry VIII as being more or less
depleted in population. The laws and literature of the time are
ringing with complaints of the "decay of the towns," where the
reference is to cities, as well as where it is to rural villages.
Certain new towns, it is true, were rising into greater importance,
and certain rural districts were becoming populous with this body of
artisans whose living was made partly by their handicraft, partly by
small farming. Nevertheless the old city craft organizations were
permanently weakened and impoverished by thus losing control of such a
large proportion of their various industries. The occupations which
were carried on in the country were pursued w