Guild , or Gild (Sax. gildan, to pay), a name given in England and France to societies organized for mutual aid and protection, as well as to confraternities whose chief object is piety or beneficence. The denomination of confraternity (confrerie) was formerly bestowed in France on lay brotherhoods united for secular as well as for religious purposes; it is now restricted to pious and charitable organizations. Before the reformation the term guild was used in England indifferently for both, and it is often so applied at present. I. Secular Guilds. Societies of artisans were organized in Rome at a very early period, and, together with merchants' corporations, continued to increase in numbers and importance until the fall of the republic. Their turbulence caused them to be suppressed in the consulship of L. Caecilius and J. Martius; but they were restored by Clodius. Incorporated with fixed statutes under the last Caesars, they spread all over the empire. The Christian religion found them among the laboring classes in the East and West, infused into them its active spirit of brotherly charity, and thus the old pagan corporation (collegium) became the Christian guild.

In 364 Valentinian I. confirmed the privileges granted by preceding emperors to the trades' corporations, and about this epoch each trade became a separate guild, whose members, as well as their offspring, could embrace no other calling. As a compensation, the guilds were empowered to accept donations and legacies, and to inherit the property of intestate members. They were also bound to provide for the requirements of the public service, and in return obtained in many instances most lucrative monopolies. Throughout the West these societies are called by early Christian writers collegia opificum, companies of craftsmen. In Piedmont some charters of guilds date from the year 707. The records of Ravenna mention a guild of fishermen in 943, one of merchants in 953, and " a provost of the guild of butchers in 1001." In southern Gaul the municipalities from time immemorial had their confraternities of tradesmen, forming the great body of free citizens, and their consuls, as the chief magistrates were called. Nor was it otherwise in northern Gaul, when the invasion of the Franks came to disturb the social growth of centuries. The annals of the Merovingian kings mention a college or guild of jewellers or workers in gold and silver; and the edicts of Dagobert designate a guild of bakers.

In 1061 Philip I. granted privileges to the master chandlers. Louis VII. in 1162 speaks of "the ancient customs of the guild of butchers," and granted to the widow of one Ives Laccobre and her heirs the right of collecting the moneys due to the royal treasury by the guilds of leather dressers, shoe and harness makers, etc. The most ancient of chartered French guilds is the hanse of merchants and watermen of the Seine, which is supposed to have sprung from the Parisian "nautes" (Lat. nautoe, sailors or boatmen) existing in the time of the Romans. This body had absolute control of the trade carried on by the watercourses of the Seine and the Yonne between Mantes and Auxerre; no merchant could bring his wares into Paris without becoming a member of this guild or obtaining from it lettres de hanse. Similar guilds sprang up in most of the commercial cities situated along the other river courses or on the seashore. Sometimes several of these formed a commercial league, such as existed between the Hanseatic towns of Germany. Above the trades were several privileged guilds, such as the merchants' guilds called les six corps, viz. : drapers, grocers, haberdashers, furriers, hatters, and jewellers. - According to Sismondi, the cities of Flanders and Holland secured the benefit of self-government before those of France or Italy; and Thierry deduces this fact from the institution of guilds or fraternities among the burghers.

Two essential characteristics belonged to them, the common banquet and the common purse. In many instances they had a religious, and in some a secret ceremonial, to knit more firmly the bond of fidelity. From the private guild, possessing the vital spirit of faithfulness and brotherly love, sprang the sworn community, the body of citizens, bound by a voluntary but perpetual obligation to guard each other's rights against the thefts of the weak or the tyranny of the powerful. The progress from the guild to the corporation can be traced in other European countries; but in the Low Countries from time immemorial they are found to coexist. All through the middle ages the Dutch and Flemish guilds exercised a preponderating influence. There is not a cathedral or church edifice of any importance in Holland or Belgium but contains some pictorial or sculptured monument commemorative of some great event connected with these guilds, and representing their costumes, banners, corporate seal, or public festivities.

In Paul Lacroix's Moeurs, usages et costumes au moyen age, are engravings of various trades' guilds of St. Trond, Hasselt, Bruges, Maestricht, Antwerp, and Ghent. - In Germany the immunities and privileges enjoyed under the Roman domination by the brotherhoods of craftsmen were swept away by feudalism; the condition of the workmen was one of serfage down to the time of the emperor Henry I. (919-'36). During the next two centuries the guilds banded themselves together, and gradually acquired such power in the cities that they rivalled the nobles in influence and aimed at controlling the municipal government. Charlemagne had felt their power, and in his capitularies laid down rules limiting the growth of guilds in conformity with local needs. The emperors Frederick II. and Henry VII. vainly attempted long afterward to suppress the guilds, whose incessant contests with the nobility led to frequent bloodshed. - The whole laboring population of England during the Anglo-Saxon period was virtually organized into guilds. The charters of many English guilds date from the 10th century; the steelyard merchants (gilda Theutonicorum) existed before 967, and were chartered in 1232; the establishment of the saddlers' company dates from the same epoch.

Trade guilds are mentioned in the Judicia Civitatis Londo-nioe, compiled by King Athelstan, and in other Anglo-Saxon laws; they must therefore have existed in 939. But it is certain that others existed before that; lawyers agree that the stallingers of Sunderland, the dredgers of Whitstable, and the free fishermen of Faver-sham have existed from time immemorial. Another famous brotherhood was the enichten or knigten guild, which existed in the reign of Edgar (died in 975), and was chartered by Edward the Confessor (1042-66). All this confirms the assertion of Lingard, that at the Norman conquest there were guilds not only in the chief cities of England, but in the surrounding rural districts, all organized on the same principles. The boroughs were made up of guilds of tradesmen, who had conquered their freedom by their union; and in each borough these guilds formed one body politic with common rights and common interests. They had each their hall or hanse house, in which they met and deliberated; they exercised the power of enacting by (or borough) laws; and they possessed, by lease or purchase, houses, pasture, and forest lands for the common use. Under Norman rule, the growth of guilds was much interfered with at first.

Henry I. (1100-35) commanded that all should receive the royal license; and he subjected several guilds, secular and religious, to heavy fines, because they had been established without license, or exercised their functions independently of it. This penalty fell heavily on London, where the religious guilds or confraternities were very numerous. They were much encouraged by Henry II.; but as they increased under this patronage, and were much given to parading with their respective "liveries" and banners, collisions between rival trades became so frequent that at length under Henry IV. they were forbidden to wear their liveries. In subsequent reigns they were permitted to appear in them at coronations, and finally it became necessary to obtain the royal license for appearing in public with their insignia. The term "livery company" was substituted for that of guild in the reign of Edward III. (1327-77), and has been applied ever since to the London trades in particular. The most ancient of these is believed to be the guild of woollen weavers (gilda telariorum), chartered by Henry I. In Stow's time there were in London G3 livery companies, 12 of which are called by him "honorable companies out of which the lord mayor is to be chosen yearly." At the present day there are 89 such guilds in London, 39 of which have halls of their own, the others meeting in Guildhall or in certain taverns.

The freemen or liverymen of "the city" elect two candidates for the mayoralty, one of whom is chosen by the court of aldermen; the liverymen also elect the sheriffs and chamberlain. Many relics exist in other English cities to attest the importance of guilds in the middle ages. Once in 20 years, toward the end of August, Preston celebrates "guild day" by a solemn procession, in which the corporation and all the local guilds take part. Throughout Norfolk, in Norwich, Aylesham, Lynn, and Worstead, survive memories of the numerous and powerful guilds of woollen workers (carders, spinners, weavers, fullers, shearers, &c), who contributed so much in their day to the commercial prosperity of England. - In Great Britain, in spite of the severe control exercised by the crown, the establishment of guilds and the exercise of independent trade were not subjected to the tyrannical restraints which existed on the continent. All trades were equal in England; every individual was free to choose the craft to which he wished to belong; and the road to apprenticeship and mastership was equally open to all. Besides, as membership in an English borough soon came to be coupled with the right of suffrage, numbers of men who did not belong to the craft sought to obtain the freedom of the guild.

But the common law, the watchful jealousy of the civil courts, and the spirit of the nation did not allow these organizations to cover the land with their network as they did in France and Germany. Beyond the limits of the boroughs, which were the centres of the great industrial guilds, labor and trade flourished in freedom over a wide domain. Still, ever since the time of Edward I., they had their distinctive liveries and banners, lived ordinarily in the same street, and not unfre-quently occupied an entire ward or quarter, and were, in fact, so many close corporations. Many of the guilds in England and Scotland maintained up to a recent date their characteristic exclusiveness; no person who was not free of the borough or of certain of these guilds was permitted to open a shop for merchandise, or exercise certain trades within the borough. These restrictions were abolished in 1835; and their place has since to a large extent been taken by the trades' unions. - In France the guilds were under the immediate control of the high officers of the crown. Thus the high chamberlain governed all the trades which bore a relation to his office, such as clothiers, upholsterers, etc.; the master of the horse was head of the farriers, etc.; and so with the other officials.

They disposed of the masterships in each trade, delivered patents, and collected the heavy fees attendant on mastership. This authority was delegated to lieutenants, who had a superintendence of their respective trades throughout the kingdom, and were called " kings of guild." They maintained in the 14th century a courtly retinue of subordinates at the expense of the tradesmen, decided all civil and criminal questions among their subjects, visited merchants' and tradesmen's houses and workshops to discover frauds, imposed fines, levied taxes, and exacted pleasure money for their own use. Between the kings of guilds themselves arose frequent conflicts of jurisdiction, in which rival pretensions were sustained by armed force; while the provosts of the various cities strenuously resisted all exercise of authority over the guilds by these officials as a usurpation of their own. The tradesmen were invariably called upon to support these conflicting claims, which led to continual riots and bloodshed. However, the authority of the provosts prevailed in the end, because their interests were identified with those of the workmen. Each craft or "mys-tery" had, besides the officers thus imposed upon it by the crown, its own chosen chiefs, designated as masters, deans, wardens, syndics, etc.

It was the duty of these to visit at all hours the workshops of members of the guild and their salesrooms, to enforce the strict rules of the craft, and to examine candidates for apprenticeship and mastership. In France the exclusive esprit de corps permitted but few to find admittance into a craft. The children of a master workman were alone free from the usual restrictions. Each trade was divided into three classes, masters, companions, and apprentices. Apprenticeship began between the ages of 12 and 17, and lasted from 2 to 10 years. In most trades a master was allowed only a single apprentice besides his son. Tanners, printers in color, and jewellers might have a second apprentice, provided he were, if possible, a kinsman. Butchers and bakers were permitted to have any number of apprentices they required. Candidates for a mastership underwent a most trying ordeal. They had to work alone, under the supervision of the syndics or judges, in order to produce a "masterpiece," or faultless piece of handicraft, besides fabricating all the tools and machinery in use in the craft. A mastership was only recognized within the borough limits. No work was to be done by night, because the trade required all workmanship to be thoroughly good. Morality and concord were secured by stringent regulations.

Illegitimate children could never become apprentices; and a stainless reputation was also necessary. Known immorality or irregularity of conduct was sufficient cause of expulsion from the guild. Each guild had its patron saint. Crispin and Cris-pinian were the patrons of shoemakers, and St. Joseph of carpenters. The patron saint had a special chapel dedicated to him in the nearest parish church or cathedral; it was furnished and decorated by the guild, and served for all ceremonies in which the craftsmen were interested. The guilds aided sick members, and took care of the families of deceased members. At a later period a union of kindred guilds enabled workmen to get employment in any city. - Among the guilds of the middle ages which exercised a widespread influence, were the brotherhoods of artisans (masons, carpenters, workers in bronze and iron, painters of stained glass, etc.), who were employed on public constructions. Even before the appearance of the ogival or Gothic style of architecture, the erection of the beautiful round-arched cathedrals and municipal edifices of eastern and western Europe had employed hosts of craftsmen and artists.

Their guilds had been everywhere special objects of favor from the civil and ecclesiastical authorities; the popes themselves bestowing on them the most coveted franchises and immunities. They were taken under the pontifical protection and declared free from the burdens which weighed on the masses, and from which the other trades and professions were not exempt. They were in consequence denominated "free." - Guilds were not limited to merchants, mechanics, and laborers; the liberal arts and the higher professions had also kindred organizations. In France the "order of advocates " has been, from the 14th century at least, a guild with its head in Paris and branches in all the cities. The distinction between the judicial body and the bar (la magis-trature et le barreau) became at an early date quite marked, one profession excluding the other, although both were inseparable coordinates in the administration of justice. St. Louis in his Etablissemens has several statutory enactments concerning the body of advocates or avantparliers. The edicts of 1274 and 1291, issued by his successors, regulate the maximum fee to be paid an advocate in each case.

In 1315 the advocates of Toulouse gave, as a body, a large sum toward the expenses of the war in Flanders. An order of the parliament of Paris in 1344 prescribes that no lawyer shall be heard in court whose name is not inscribed on the roll of advocates (rotulus nominum advocatorum); and a royal edict of 13G4 commands all advocates to plead gratuitously the cause of the poor. In every city where there was a parliament they had their dean or batonnicr elected by themselves, and a council which judged of the qualifications for membership. The applicant must be a graduate, licentiate, or doctor in laws, and after his admission pass three years as a stagialre; the council then decided whether his name should be placed on the roll. When this had been done, the advocate had the right of pleading in any court of the land where his services were asked for. The profession was incompatible with any salaried function, commercial pursuit, or labor for wages, as well as with the position of notary, avoue, or clerk; but not with any dignity that was purely honorific. The amount of their fees was left to the generosity of the client; any attempt to exact them or sue for them entailed expulsion from the order. These qualifications and privileges are substantially true of the order in its present state.

It was suppressed in 1790, and reestablished with many limitations in 1810, but was not looked upon with favor by Napoleon I. Connected with the "order of advocates" in France was la basoche, or guild of lawyers' apprentices (from Lat. basilica, a court of law, and old Fr. baseuqve and basoqiue) of the parliament of Paris. This guild was authorized by Philip the Fair in 1303. It preserved throughout its existence the character of an essentially lay organization. The title of kingdom (royaume de la basoche) was bestowed upon it from its infancy, and its chief was authorized by royal edict to assume the title of king, to wear the robes of royalty, and to surround himself with high officers named after those of the crown, and vested within the brotherhood with supreme civil and criminal jurisdiction. The king of this guild had his own great seal, kept by his high chancellor; coined money of gold and silver, which was a legal currency in all transactions between members of the guild and all who trafficked ; with them; and had his army, consisting of the members mounted and equipped.

This army sometimes paraded as many as 10,000 cavaliers arrayed in blue and yellow; it furnished a cavalry corps of 6,000 members to Henry II. in 1548, which aided effectively in quelling the revolt in Guienne. Their charter obliged them to parade annually; and the pageant never failed to draw immense crowds to Paris, all the more so as they soon added to the military spectacle dramatic representations, in which the vices of all classes in church and state were held up to merciless ridicule. This custom and their numbers so alarmed the cruel and superstitious Henry III. that he suppressed the office and title of king of la basoche, and forbade their parades and representations. Thus deprived of their prestige, they maintained their organization down to the end of the last century, and furnished an armed battalion at the commencement of the French revolution, which figured prominently on several occasions, appearing for the last time at the assault on the Bastile. The basochicus were suppressed with all other corporations in 1791. Besides the above organization among the clerks of the Parisian parliament, the cha-telet and the cour des comptes had their ba-soches. The provincial parliaments organized guilds similar to that of the capital, and vying with it in influence, turbulence, literary activity, and joyousness of spirit. - The members of the Scottish bar form a guild, with the title of faculty of advocates, which has existed from immemorial custom, with constitutional privileges founded on no statute or charter.

The body formed itself gradually from time to time on the model of the French guilds of advocates, appointing like them a dean, who is their presiding officer. - A "guild of literature and art" was originated in 1851 by Charles Dickens and Lord Lytton, for the relief of indigent men of letters and artists. A fund was created by a distinguished party of amateurs, who gave representations of the comedy "Not so Bad as we Seem;" and three buildings were erected near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, on ground given by Lord Lytton, and inaugurated July 29, 1865. II. Religious Guilds, also called confraternities or sodalities (Lat. sodalis, companion), have always been numerous and popular in Roman Catholic countries. Some of them, like the confraternity of bridge builders (fratres pontifices), were closely allied to the guilds of carpenters and masons, devoting themselves in the 13th century to opening and repairing roads, building bridges, maintaining cheap or gratuitous hostelries, and watching over the safety of travellers.

Kindred to these were the confraternities established during and after the crusades, to prevent wars between the feudal lords, to protect widows and orphans from oppression, to guard churches and monasteries from violence, and repress the bands of roving mercenaries (routiers) who infested the highways of Europe. Such were the confraternity of "the truce of God," the confrerie de Dieu in Normandy, the "militia of Christ" in northern Italy, and even the Vehmgerichte of Westphalia. These confraternities, much as they may have been perverted from their original purpose, sprang from motives of religion and beneficence. The confraternities devoted to works of pure charity were innumerable. In Rome before the late change of government upward of 200 such guilds were in activity; and the other cities of Italy were little inferior in this respect. Paris, after Rome, counted the largest number of confraternities, prominent among which are the sodality of St. Vincent de Paul, known throughout the United States, and the societies of St. Francis Xavier and St. Francis Regis, which aim at doing away with concubinage among the laboring classes, etc.

The confrerie de la passion, organized for the purpose of representing on Sundays and holidays the mysteries of Christ's passion and other Biblical subjects, was originally a lay brotherhood attending on the sick in the hospital of La Trinite in Paris. The entertainments which they instituted for the convalescents in one of the wards soon became so popular that the king gave them a monopoly of all such plays. In 1543 they opened a salle de spectacle in the rue de Mauconseil, which became the cradle of French comedy. But as the edict which renewed their charter of monopoly forbade pagan plays and other than sacred dramas, they renounced profane theatricals as inconsistent with their religious garb, and made over their privilege to another company. Religious guilds have recently much increased in England, as well among Roman Catholics as among those called ritualists in the church of England and in the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States. A list of the latter is given in the "Church Union Almanac" for 1869. In the United States and British North America confraternities are both numerous and flourishing; temperance and mutual benevolent societies among Roman Catholics generally take this form, having prescribed religious practices, a patron saint, and stated feast days.