On the History and Development of Gilds, and the Origin of Trade-Unions - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1870 Excerpt: ... This Essay is the first and only one in English reviewing the whole subject of Gilds, those institutions so important in the Middle Ages, so well illustrating the self-organizing and self-governing power of England, where Gilds first arose, and whence they were imitated on the Continent. This Essay also contains the first and only historical investigation yet maJe into The Origin of Trades-Unions,--institutions whose vast importance the legislature is slowly recognizing, which have exercised so powerful a control on Labour in the past century, and must exercise a yet more powerful influence on the future development of Industry. It is time that the rise of these Institutions should be treated historically, and not be made the occasion of groundless speculation. On one writer's dealing with this subject, Dr. Brentano remarks, at p. Ioi, note I:--" Mr. Thornton's chapter On the Origin of Trades-Unions (in The Fortnightly Seview, New Series, vol. ii. p. 688, and in his work On, Labour and its Claims) bears the same relation to the real origin of Trade-Unions, as Rousseau's Contrat Social to the historical origin of States." The present Essay was written to serve as a General Introduction to "English Gilds: the Original Ordinances of more than One Hundred Early English Gilds, &c, A. D. 1389," edited, for the Early English Text Society, by the late Mr. Toulmin Smith. From the Report of that Society for January, 1870, the following passage on those " Gilds" and Dr. Brentano's Essay is extracted:--"As the subject of the book, rather than its language, is the important part of it, it became necessary to procure for the work a survey of the whole history of associated labour, in order to know what part of the field these 'English Gilds' occupied, and what relation t...