GUILDS

The guilds so prominent in the early history of Europe, were societies organized for mutual aid in sickness, social amusement, religious purposes, trade regulation and protection, etc. They played a noteworthy part in ancient Greece and Rome but they attained their fullest development in Teutonic countries--especially in England--during the Middle Ages. The most influential of all were the Trade Guilds, which may be divided into the Guilds Merchant and the Craft Guilds. The former included merchants and land owners generally. The latter were confined to special trades or crafts and were most prominent in the larger cities, as in London. They exercised a general supervision over their respective trades and many of their rules and decisions have been perpetuated in modern statutes. The authority vested in the London Grocers' Guild, the "Grocers' Company of London," is described in the article on the GROCER. Reference is there also made to the Levant Trading and East Indian Companies, to whose enterprise was largely due the great expansion of England's commerce and the foundation of her Eastern empire. Similar in aims and scope were the great Dutch Trading Guilds which carried their commercial ventures over the entire globe and still exist in China, Japan and the Pacific.