It was a long time before these ideas emerged on the Continent. It was well to the end of the 18th century before these matters were clearly understood and recognized by law. It was not until 1777 that French law distinctly recognized the difference between old and new books, and the rights of the author. This was only twelve years before the French Revolution. At that time all the old laws were swept away and the extreme regulation of printing in France gave place to no regulation at all, which for a time made things worse than ever. It was not until into the nineteenth century that the question of copyright has been reasonably settled. There is still something to be desired before ideal conditions are reached. Copyright laws of the various nations differ greatly, but on the whole they fairly accomplish the desired results within the national boundaries. International copyright rests on the Treaty of Bern in 1887. The United States was for many years a great offender in the matter of the recognition of the rights of foreign authors. At the time of the Treaty of Bern the United States recognized the principle of international copyright, but we did not have reasonably satisfactory legislation on the subject until so recently as 1909. In this, as in other matters which we have been discussing and shall discuss in this volume, very little reference has been made to England for the reason that a separate volume will be given to the history of printing in that country. CHAPTER V TRADE GUILDS AND THE COMING OF THE NEW INDUSTRY The outstanding factor in the industrial, social, and economic life of the Middle Ages is the trade guild. The real life of any people is not the story of its wars or the record of the doings of its kings and nobles. It is the life of the people themselves. The moment we try to study this aspect of these old times we find that in the towns especially the life of the people centers around their trade guilds. The guild was an organization of all the workmen in any given trade. It included the master workman, the journeyman, and the apprentice. It controlled the whole life of the industry from the buying of materials to the selling of the finished product, from the indenturing of the apprentice to the certification of the master workman. Its peculiar strength lay in the fact that it did not exercise this control in the interest of either the employer or the employed. It exercised it in the interest of the industry as a whole. It did not forget the interests of the public. It did not permit the industry to be practised by the unauthorized or outsiders. It limited competition. It distributed labor. It prevented over-production. It assumed great responsibility for its members and it held them to a very strict accountability.