Gilds Sentence Examples

The ordinary burgesses consisted of the freeholders and the master-workmen of the gilds.

In a variety of ways it does a great deal of social service similar to that of gilds of help. Its administration has always been in the hands of laymen, and it works through local "conferences" or branches, the general council having been suspended because it declined to accept a cardinal as its official head.

All its charters were annulled, its privileges and those of its gilds swept away, and a heavy fine imposed.

In 1490 a treaty was signed at Damme between the people of Bruges and the archduke Maximilian, and very soon after this event the channel became completely closed up, and the foreign merchant gilds or "nations" left the place for Antwerp. This signified the death of the port and was indirectly fatal to Bruges as well.

It became in effect the principal feast of the Church, the procession of the Sacrament a gorgeous pageant, in which not only the members of the trade and craft gilds, with the magistrates of the cities, took part, but princes and sovereigns.

Burghers of all denominations are enrolled in one or other of the arts or gilds, and these trading companies furnish the material from which the government or signoria bf the city is composed.

In 1450 an insurrection led to the admission of the gilds to a share in the municipal government.

Trade and other gilds in antiquity held subscription suppers or g pavot, similar to those of the early Corinthian church, usually to support the needs of the poorer members.

The special quality which distinguished these prophetic gilds or companies was an intense patriotism combined with enthusiastic devotion to the cause of Yahweh.

It is obvious from numerous passages that these prophetic gilds recognized the superior position and leadership of Samuel, or of any other distinguished prophet such as Elijah or Elisha.

It had large gilds of fabri (smiths and carpenters) and centonarii (firemen) .

Peddling had been forced on the latter by the action of the gilds which were still powerful in the 18th century on the Continent.

No one knows what proportion of the industrial population was included in the organized gilds, or how complete was the control exercised by these bodies over their members.

The boatmen early erected themselves into gilds.

As in other Swiss towns the trade gilds got all political power into their hands, especially by the 18th century.

There were numerous trade gilds, one of the chief being that of the weavers, which received a charter from Henry II.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the trade declined, partly owing to the distance of the city from the sea, and partly owing to the regulations of the trade gilds.

The curious gilds called guedik must here be mentioned.

Craft gilds were already in existence, but these had no share in the government; for, though the Lubeck rule excluding craftsmen from the Rath did not obtain, they were excluded in practice.

The exclusion of the handicraftsmen from the Rath led, early in the 15th century, to a rising of the craft gilds against the patrician merchants, and in 1410 they forced the latter to recognize the authority of a committee of 48 burghers, which concluded with the senate the so-called First Recess; there were, however, fresh outbursts in 1458 and 1483, which were settled by further compromises.

It is only in the appendix to the Elohistic psalm-book that we find Heman and Ethan side by side with Asaph, as in the Chronicles; but this does not necessarily prove that the body of the collection originated when there were only two gilds of singers.

Several of the great livery companies or gilds of the City possess fine halls, containing portraits and other collections of high interest and value.

The Lord Mayor (q.v.) is elected by the Court of Aldermen from two aldermen nominated in the Court of Common Hall by the Livery, an electorate drawn from the members of the ancient trade gilds or Livery Companies (q.v.), which, through their control over the several trades or manufactures, had formerly an influence over the government of the city which from the time of Edward III.

When the association of kinsmen failed, the voluntary associations - gilds - appeared as substitutes.

Florence frequently waged war with these nobles and with other cities on its own account, although in the name of the countess, and the citizens began to form themselves into groups and associations which were the germs of the arti or gilds.

This represented the triumph of the feudal party, which had gained the support of the arti minori or minor gilds.

He was assisted by the consiglio speciale of 9 0 and the consiglio generale e speciale of 300, composed of nobles, while the capitano del popolo had also two councils composed of burghers, heads of the gilds, gonfalonieri of the companies, &c. The anziani had a council of 3 6 burghers, and then there was the parlamento or general assembly of the people, which met only on great occasions.

Each of the seven arti maggiori or greater gilds was organized like a small state with its councils, statutes, assemblies, magistrates, &c., and in times of trouble constituted a citizen militia.

If the life of the city went on uninterruptedly even during the many changes of government and the almost endemic civil war, it was owing to the solidity of the gilds, who could carry on the administration without a government.

After 1282 the signoria was composed of the 3 (afterwards 6) priori of the gilds, who ended by ousting the buoni uomini, while a defensor artificum et artium takes the place of the capitano; thus the republic became an essentially trading community, governed by the popolani grassi or rich merchants.

Again a new constitution was decreed by which the gonfaloniere and half the priori were to be chosen from the anti maggiori and the other half from the minori; on several other boards the former were to be in the majority, and the three new gilds were abolished.

By this time the Meistersinger schools 'had spread all over south and central Germany; and isolated gilds were to be found farther north, at Magdeburg, Breslau, Gorlitz and Danzig.

Medieval gilds were voluntary associations formed for the mutual aid and protection of their members.

The last two categories, which do not become prominent anywhere in Europe until the 12th century, had, like all gilds, a religious tinge, but their aims were primarily worldly, and their functions were mainly of an economic character.

Various theories have been advanced concerning the origin of gilds.

A more widely accepted theory derives gilds wholly or in part from the early Germanic or Scandinavian sacrificial banquets.

This view does not seem to be tenable, for the old sacrificial carousals lack two of the essential elements of the gilds, namely corporative solidarity or permanent association and the spirit of Christian brotherhood.

Dr Max Pappenheim has ascribed the origin of Germanic gilds to the northern "fosterbrotherhood" or "sworn-brotherhood," which was an artificial bond of union between two or more persons.

The foster-brotherhood seems to have been unknown to the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons, the nations in which medieval gilds first appear; and hence Dr Pappenheim's conclusions, if tenable at all, apply only to Denmark or Scandinavia.

Imbued with the idea of the brotherhood of man, the church naturally fostered the early growth of gilds and tried to make them displace the old heathen banquets.

Gilds were a natural manifestation of the associative spirit which is inherent in mankind.

It is not necessary to seek the germ of gilds in any antecedent age or institution.

The capitularies of 805 and 821 also contain vague references to sworn unions of some sort, and a capitulary of 884 prohibits villeins from forming associations "vulgarly called gilds" against those who have despoiled them.

The gilds of Norway, Denmark and Sweden are first mentioned in the 11th, 12th and 14th centuries respectively; those of France and the Netherlands in the 11th.

Many writers believe that the earliest references to gilds come from England.

Prayers for the dead, attendance at funerals of gildsmen, periodical banquets, the solemn entrance oath, fines for neglect of duty and for improper conduct, contributions to a common purse, mutual assistance in distress, periodical meetings in the gildhall, - in short, all the characteristic features of the later gilds already appear in the statutes of these Anglo-Saxon fraternities.

Some continental writers, in dealing with the origin of municipal government throughout western Europe, have, however, ascribed too much importance to the Anglo-Saxon gilds, exaggerating their prevalence and contending that they form the germ of medieval municipal government.

It should also be noted that there is no trace of the existence of either craft or merchant gilds in England before the Norman Conquest.

In 1388 parliament ordered that every sheriff in England should call upon the masters and wardens of all gilds and brotherhoods to send to the king's council in Chancery, before the 2nd of February 1389, full returns regarding their foundation, ordinances and property.

Toulmin Smith (1816-1869), and they throw much light on the functions of the gilds.

Some of the religious gilds supported schools, or helped to maintain roads, bridges and town-walls, or even came, in course of time, to be closely connected with the government of the borough; but, as a rule, they were simply private societies with a limited sphere of activity.

They are important because they played a prominent role in the social life of England, especially as eleemosynary institutions, down to the time of their suppression in 1547 Religious gilds, closely resembling those of England, also flourished on the continent during the middle ages.

In fact, there seems to have been little or no organic connexion between the two classes of gilds.

The greater the commercial and industrial prosperity of a town, the more rapid was the multiplication of craft gilds, which was a natural result of the ever-increasing division of labour.

The old gild merchant remained longest intact and powerful in the smaller boroughs, in which, owing to the predominance of agriculture, few or no craft gilds were formed.

This transference of the authority of the latter to a number of distinct bodies and the consequent disintegration of the old organization was a gradual spontaneous movement, - a process of slow displacement, or natural growth and decay, due to the play of economic forces, - which, generally speaking, may be assigned to the 14th and 15th centuries, the very period in which the craft gilds attained the zenith of their power.

It is unnecessary to elaborate any profound theory regarding the origin of the craft gilds.

In the 13th century the trade of England continued to expand and the number of craft gilds increased.

There was at no time a general struggle in England between the gild merchant and the craft gilds, though in a few towns there seems to have been some friction between merchants and artisans.

As a rule the craft gilds secured no dominant influence in the boroughs of England, but remained subordinate to the town government.

In England the fraternities of journeymen, after struggling a while for complete independence, seem to have fallen under the supervision and control of the masters' gilds; in other words, they became subsidiary or affiliated organs of the older craft fraternities.

Several fraternities - old gilds or new companies, with their respective cognate or heterogeneous branches of industry and trade - were fused into one body.

In dealing briefly with the modern history of craft gilds, we may confine our attention to England.

Attempts have been made to find in them the progenitors of the trades unions, but there seems to be no immediate connexion between the latter and the craft gilds.

In the words of Dr Kriegk, Geschichte von Frankfurt, (1871), the insurrection completely destroyed the political power of the gilds, gave new strength to the supremacy of the patriciate, and brought no further advantage to the rest of the citizens than a few improvements in the organization and administration of the magistracy.

Of the rise of the craft gilds in Utrecht there is no record.

All through the 13th century a continual struggle went on, but at last the gilds were victorious and were able to secure in the Gildebrief of 1304, confirmed by the bishop in 1305, a new constitution for the city.

According to this, as emended by a later Gildebrief of 1347, the existing board of seven Schepenen were to retain office for life, but the new ones, elected yearly, were in future to be chosen by the Raad either in or outside the gilds.

The Raad itself was to be chosen by the aldermen of the gilds.

The two chief aldermen of the gilds, with the two episcopal official presidents above mentioned, together were to form the supreme government of the city.

In all other cities of the Netherlands the craft gilds remained in humble subjection to a council co-opted from a limited number of wealthy patrician families.

In Utrecht, however, power was henceforth concentrated in the gilds, which became not only trade but political associations, which together constituted the sovereign community.

The gilds and burgher militia were deprived of all voice in the government, and the town council became an hereditary body.

The gilds, once supreme, henceforth ceased to have any political importance.

As at Ostia, the various gilds were of considerable importance, but we find no centonarii or fabri, perhaps owing to its relations with the East, where these popular gilds were prohibited.

The practical spirit is shown in the formation of gilds, camps and institutes.

The principal beds are near Whitstable, Faversham, Milton, Queenborough and Rochester, some being worked by ancient companies or gilds of fishermen.

On its flags were fought out many feuds between rival gilds; Egmont and Horn, and many other gallant men whose names have been forgotten, were executed here under the shadow of its ancient buildings, and in more recent times Dumouriez proclaimed the French Republic where the dukes of Brabant and Burgundy were wont to hold their jousts.

In the rue de la Regence are the new picture gallery, a fine building with an exceedingly good collection of pictures, the palace of the count of Flanders, and the garden of the Petit Sablon, which contains statues of Egmont and Horn, and a large number of statuettes representing the various gilds and handicrafts.

In the next two centuries Brussels grew in size and importance, and its trade gilds were formed on lines similar to those of Ghent.

In 1420 the gilds of Brussels obtained a further charter recognizing their status as the Nine Nations, a division still existing.

At the end of the 14th century we find all the great trade gilds established there, and the cloth manufactured at Cracow was eagerly sought after, from Prague to Great Novgorod.

The heat of a first enthusiasm necessarily cooled when the political conditions that Societies produced it passed away; and, if the prophetic Gilds.

There were formerly five trade gilds in the town, the chief industries being cloth and leather manufactures.

The history of this struggle is most important, because it was identical, as long as it lasted, with that between the old gilds of France and the new body which Colbert, for political reasons, was determined to support.

Already the members of this class show a strong tendency to bind themselves together in gilds (collegia, sodalitates), and the existence of countless associations of the kind is revealed by the inscriptions.

This policy was continued by the early emperors and extended to the whole Empire, but in spite of opposition the gilds in the provincial towns grew and flourished.

But under cover of these two main objects, the only two purposes for which such combinations were allowed under the Empire, associations of all kinds grew up. The organization of the gilds was based on that of the municipality.

But there can be little doubt that the later craft gilds were a development, through the industrial gilds of the provincial towns, of one of the most ancient features of Roman life.

Its native bankers, shopkeepers and workers are all strongly organized in gilds.

In this age the choachytae, as the Greeks called them ("libation priests, " or "shrine-openers" in Egyptian), belonged to an inferior grade of the priesthood, equivalent to the pastophori of the deities, and were organized in gilds for the different cemeteries.

At the end of the 15th century the foreign trading gilds or houses were transferred from Bruges to Antwerp, and the building assigned to the English nation is specifically mentioned in 151o.

The Lipscani was originally the street of merchants who obtained their wares from the annual fair at Leipzig; for almost all crafts or gilds, other than the bakers and tavern-keepers, were long confined to separate quarters; and the old names have survived, as in the musicians', furriers', and money-changers' quarters.

A great stimulus was given to manufacturing industry in Bavaria by the law of 1868, which abolished the last remains of the old restrictions of the gilds, and gave the whole country the liberty which had been enjoyed by the Rhine Palatinate alone.

The medieval constitution of Groningen, unlike that of Utrecht, was aristocratic. Merchant gild there was none; and the craft gilds were without direct influence on the city government, which held them in subjection.

In 1439 it decreed that no one might trade in all the district between the Ems and the Lauwers Zee except burghers, and those who had purchased the burwal (right of residence in the city) and the freedom of the gilds.

In the charter of 1254, while there is mention of a communitas capable of making a compact with the bishop, there is nothing said of any trade or craft gilds.

Later on, gilds were established, in spite of the prohibition of the old charters; but they were strictly subordinate to the town authorities, who appointed their aldermen and suppressed them when they considered them useless or dangerous.

But though in Bremen the efforts of the craftsmen's "arts" to secure a share of power had been held in check and the gilds never gained any importance, the city government did not, as at Cologne and elsewhere, develop into a close patrician oligarchy.

The marquis de Prie, who (as deputy for Prince Eugene) was the imperial governor from 1719 to 1726, encountered on the part of local authorities and town gilds vigorous resistance to his attempt to rule the Netherlands as an Austrian dependency, and he was driven to take strong measures to assert his authority.

There were gilds of mercers, tailors,.

As yet, however, none of the trade or craft gilds, as such, had a share in the government, which continued in the hands of the patrician families, membership of which was necessary even for election to the council and to the parochial offices.

In 1370 an insurrection of the weavers was suppressed; but in 1396, the rule of the patricians, having been weakened by internal dissensions, a bloodless revolution led to the establishment of a comparatively democratic constitution, based on the organization of the trade and craft gilds, which lasted with but slight modification till the French Revolution.

In many of them there had been for more than a century a struggle between the old patrician families and the democratic gilds.

The old gilds had been destroyed, compulsory apprenticeship had ceased; little protection, however, was given to the working men, and the restrictions on the employment of women and children were of little use, as there was no efficient system of factory inspection.

The first reform was the restoration of the gilds, to which the Conservatives attached great importance.

Other laws to restore gilds among.

Liechtenstein, who complained of the political influence exercised by the chambers of commerce, and demanded the organization of working men in gilds.

There were signs too of the rise of a vigorous middle class, due to the extraordinary development of the national resources (chiefly the herring fisheries, horse-breeding and cattle-rearing) and the foundation of gilds, the oldest of which, the Edslag of Schleswig, dates from the early 12th century.

Here Elisha appears as the head of the prophetic gilds, having his fixed residence at Gilga1.4 Another circle, which presupposes the accession of the house of Jehu, places him at Dothan or Carmel, and represents him as a personage of almost superhuman dignity.

The first universities of Europe consisted of corporations of teachers and of students analogous to the trade gilds and merchant gilds of the time.

In the trade gilds there were apprentices, companions, and masters.

The multiplication of art periodicals, lectures, books, photographs, meetings of societies and gilds, museums, schools of arts and crafts, polytechnics, scholarships, facilities for travel, exhibitions, even those of the Royal Academy, to which objects of applied art are now admitted, not only encourages many persons to become workers and designers in the applied arts, but exposes everything to the plagiarist, who travesties the freshest idea before it has well left the hands of its originator.

Naturally, there arose much jealousy between the gilds and the aristocratic companies, which exclusively ruled the republic. After an attempt to upset the merchants had been suppressed in 1384, the gilds succeeded, under more favourable circumstances, in 1408.

The old patrician council left the city to appeal to the Hansa and to the imperial authorities, while a new council with democratic tendencies, elected chiefly from the gilds, took their place.

In the constitution of 1669, under the pressure of a large public debt, the great companies yielded a specified share in the financial administration to the leading gilds of tradesmen.

The latter were kept down by numerous edicts, tending to restrict to certain privileged families the rank of master workman in the gilds.

Village communities and trade gilds in towns existed previously, but these were only rudimentary forms of palities.

In later documents mention is made of eighteen gilds of work-people, whose names are nowhere given, but they probably included workers in wood, workers in metal, workers in stone, weavers, leather-workers, potters, ivory-workers, dyers, fisher-folk, butchers, hunters, cooks, barbers, flowersellers, sailors, basket-makers and painters.

Oppression by the throne and the official and noble classes prevailed extensively; but the weak protected themselves by the use of the Kyei, or principle of association, which developed among Koreans into powerful trading gilds, trades-unions, mutual benefit associations, money-lending guilds, &c. Nearly all traders, porters and artisans were members of guilds, powerfully bound together and strong by combined action and mutual helpfulness in time of need.

The pressure of the trade gilds was relaxed.

The town-hall dates from 1406, while some of the houses belonging to the old gilds contain much of interest.

From a very early period there is reason to believe merchants among themselves formed gilds for social and religious purposes, and for the furtherance of their economic interests.

These gilds would, where they existed, no doubt also influence the management of town affairs; but nowhere has the Rat, as used to be thought, developed out of a gild, nor has the latter anywhere in Germany played a part at all similar in importance to that of the English gild merchant, the only exception being for a time the Richerzeche, or Gild of the Rich of Cologne, from early times by far the largest, the richest, and the most important trading centre among German cities, and therefore provided with an administration more complex, and in some respects more primitive, than any other.

The word Gilde alone forms an exception, inasmuch as, generally speaking, it was used by merchant gilds only.'

Denmark appears to be the only one of the three kingdoms, where gilds at an early date played a part of importance.

The government of the town was vested in the patrician families, who, contrary to the usual course of events in the free towns, succeeded in permanently excluding the civic gilds from all share of municipal power, although in 1347 there was a sharp rising against this oligarchy.

This committee publishes a magazine of " Life and Work," which has a circulation of over 10o,000, and has organized young men's gilds in connexion with congregations and revived the ancient order of deaconesses.

Anathoth the home of Abiathar and Jeremiah, Gibeon the old Canaanite sanctuary, the royal sanctuary at Bethel, its associations with Samuel and the prophetic gilds of the times of Elijah and Elisha, and finally Jerusalem itself, the centre of worship, give "the least of all the tribes" a unique value in the history of Old Testament religion.

The craftgilds were such societies, composed of handicraftsmen, which entered upon a struggle with the earlier gilds and finally defeated them.

Brentano (On Gilds) holds that it is wrong to represent such regulations as monopolistic, inasmuch as there was no question whatever of a monopoly in that time nor until the degeneration of the craftgilds into limited corporations of capitalists.

For an account of the "degeneration of craftgilds" a general reference may be made to Brentano, On Gilds (1870), and C. Gross, The Gild Merchant (2 vols., 1890).

Municipal organization, never quite forgotten, naturally revived under new forms, and with its "consuls" at the head of the citizens, with its "arts" and "crafts" and "gilds," grew up secure under the shadow of the church.

For the most part this is founded on Dutch models, and testifies in a high degree to the king's progressive aims. Provision was made for the better education of the lower, and the restriction of the political influence of the higher clergy; there were stern prohibitions against wreckers and "the evil and unchristian practice of selling peasants as if they were brute beasts"; the old trade gilds were retained, but the rules of admittance thereto made easier, and trade combinations of the richer burghers, to the detriment of the smaller tradesmen, were sternly forbidden.

He instituted the flamens (sacred priests) of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus; the virgins of Vesta, to keep the sacred fire burning on the hearth of the city; the Salii, to guard the shield that fell from heaven; the pontifices and augurs, to arrange the rites and interpret the will of the gods; he also divided the handicraftsmen into nine gilds.

This casting off of the episcopal yoke was followed in 1332 by an internal revolution, which admitted the gilds to a share in the government of the city and impressed upon it the democratic character which it bore down to theFrench Revolution.

These rites are common in North America, but are worked by members of gilds or societies, not by totem kins.

Grouped around their belfry-towers and organized within their gilds, they made merry in their free jocular language over their own hardships, and still more over the vices of their lords.

The privilege survived the epoch of the reconquest, and was often extended to gilds which ttie king wished to encourage.

He had to proclaim not only such important provinces as Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao, but even the capital of Spain itself, in order to check a widespread agitation which had assumed formidable proportions under the direction of the chambers of commerce, industry, navigation and agriculture, combined with, about 300 middle-class corporations and associations, and supported by the majority of the gilds and syndicates of taxpayers in Madrid and the large towns.

She had also a temple on the Aventine, which was the meeting-place for dramatic poets and actors, whose organization into gilds under her patronage dated from the time of Livius Andronicus.

Compelled to restore all their lands, their jurisdiction was bounded by their city-walls; they were forbidden to receive the dependents of the princes; all trade gilds were declared abolished; and all official appointments made without the consent of the archbishop or bishop were annulled.

It had numerous trade gilds covering such skills as metal work, pottery, and tailoring.

Further, it is subsequently found that certain classes of temple servants, the singers and porters, who had once been outside the Levitical gilds, became absorbed as the term "Levite" was widened, and this change is formally expressed by the genealogies which ascribe to Levi, the common "ancestor" of them all, the singers and even certain families whose heathenish and foreign names show that they were once merely servants of the temple.3 2.

In these Flemish cities the early oligarchic form of municipal government speedily gave way to a democratic. The great mass of the townsmen organized in trade gilds - weavers, fullers, dyers, smiths, leather-workers, brewers, butchers, bakers and others, of which by far the most powerful was that of the weavers - as soon as they became conscious of their strength rebelled against the exclusive privileges of the patricians and succeeded in ousting them from power.

When the Boyar Duma became the Senate, and the Prikazi or administrative departments were organized under the name of Colleges, and when every important town was endowed with a Rathhaus, a Polizeimeister, gilds, aldermen, and all the municipal paraphernalia of western Europe, the vices of the old institutions survived in the new.

Especially in France, but also in England and in other parts of Europe, the festival of St Crispin was for centuries the occasion of solemn processions and merry-making, in which gilds of shoemakers took the chief part.

The 18th century has a goodly tale of Jewish artists in metal-work, makers of pottery, and (wherever the gilds permitted it) artisans and wholesale manufacturers of many important commodities.

And in January 1902, reversing the policy which had its inception in the encyclical, Rerum novarum, of 1891, and had further been developed ten years later in a letter to the Italian bishops entitled Graves de communi, the "Sacred Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs" issued instructions concerning "Christian Democracy in Italy," directing that the popular Christian movement, which embraced in its programme a number of social reforms, such as factory laws for children, old-age pensions, a minimum wage in agricultural industries, an eight-hours' day, the revival of trade gilds, and the encouragement of Sunday rest, should divert its attention from all such things as savoured of novelty and devote its energies to the restoration of the temporal power.

Three new gilds were created, and nine priors appointed, three from the anti maggiori, three from the minori, and three from the new ones, while each of these classes in turn was to choose the gonfaloniere of justice; the first to hold the office was Michele di Lando.

Gilds are first mentioned in the Carolingian capitularies of 779 and 789, and in the enactments made by the synod of Nantes early in the 9th century, the text of which has been preserved in the ecclesiastical ordinances of Hincmar of Rheims (A.D.852).

This view rests almost entirely on conjecture; there is no good evidence to show that there was any organic connexion between gilds and municipal government in England before the coming of the Normans.

The manufacturers of Geneva formed in 1487 no fewer than 38 gilds, including tailors, hatters, mercers, weavers, tanners, saddle-makers, furriers, shoe-makers, painters on glass, &c. Goldsmiths are mentioned as early as 1290.

This, superseding the autonomy severally enjoyed by the towns and cities since the middle ages (see COMMUNE), aimed at welding the citizens, who had hitherto been divided into classes and gilds, into one corporate whole, and giving them all an active share in the administration of public affairs, while reserving to the central authorities the power of effective control.

These old regulated trade gilds passed gradually into joint-stock associations, which were capable of far greater extension, both as to the number of members and amount of stock, each member being only accountable for the amount of his own stock, and being able to transfer it at will to any other person.