In another way also the "foreigners" who were members of the Merchant Gild were useful to the burgess-members of it.
During earlier years all the Craftsmen who so desired, and could afford the necessary payments, were admitted into the Gild of Merchants. The designation 'merchant' was then extended to all who engaged in trade. But as the Gilda Mercatoria became in practice more and more identical with the Communa the idea seems to have grown up that landless men, renters of their shops within the towns, should not be admitted to the Gild.
[Sidenote: _Gild seems to become Communa._]
For in this period, that is during the 14th and 15th centuries, the old democratic government of the towns was giving place to a close governing council[47]. This was in no sense the Merchant Gild, though probably all the members of the select body would be members of the Gild[48]. Being also the most important of its members they would be able to use its influence for their own ends, and in these measures they would generally have on their side the majority of the "foreigners," who would not know or care much about the internal concerns of the town. Thus it came about that having secured important trading privileges the influence of the Merchant Gild was chiefly directed, though by a small coterie of its members, towards municipal rather than mercantile objects.
[Sidenote: _Rise of Craft Gilds favoured by Merchant Gild and Communa._]
[Sidenote: _This favour natural under the circumstances and proved by the Charters._]
These latter it left to be dealt with by the new companies into which the craftsmen were beginning to amalgamate. In this action they were helped and encouraged by the Merchant Gild, or as it now was in practice, the municipal authority. It is a mistake to speak of the rise of the Craft Gilds in England as a movement bitterly hostile to the Merchant Gilds and therefore strenuously opposed by the latter. The reverse was the fact. The increased complexity of the task of regulating trade, as division of labour developed and commerce expanded its bounds, became difficult, and the central body was for this additional reason glad to depute its powers to, and to exercise its functions through, smaller and specialised agencies. The charters of the Craft Gilds too contain no articles which would stand the members in stead in a conflict with a higher power, whereas if these charters had been the hardly-won prize of a severely contested struggle they would assuredly have contained some bitter articles in consequence of the past and in preparation for the future. We shall however examine the rise and history of the Craft Gilds in the subsequent chapters.