City was to be allowed to use the livery of any lord or great man, on pain of losing his office and freedom, so it is pretty evident the two evils which at the present time (1889) beset us—foreign traders and civil servant traders—were not unknown 400 years ago. We shall conclude this the first chapter of our history by a brief notice of what is to be understood by the description “Guild.” In ancient times Guilds or Gilds were of two kinds—religious and secular. The term “Guilds” is from the Saxon—to pay, an amerciement or payment towards the support of a brotherhood. The religious Guilds existed until their dissolution by Edward VI.; their foundations in some cases were very early, for at Glemsford, in Suffolk, in Canute’s time, existed a fraternity of clerks. In London, the “Cnughts” or “Cnuighten Gild,” of thirteen persons, had their district or soke outside the City walls, near the Tower, and was the origin of Portsoken Ward. The Gilda Theutonicorum, the steel-yard merchants of Dowgate, who first existed 900 years ago, and held a most important position, had their guildhall in the neighbourhood where of late years the iron trade has been so well known (Thames Street), and yet it must be borne in mind that the definition of _steel_-yard was in reality a yard for warehousing general _staple_ goods, and not solely for steel or iron ware. The transfer of all trade concerns to the management and jurisdiction of the Craft Guild was generally accomplished by a confirmation of their ordinance, that everyone carrying on a trade within the town should join the Guild, for which the Guild paid certain taxes—in London to the King—and under Henry I. (1100-1133), and every succeeding reign, the Weavers paid a fee-farm rent, and in 1179 no less than eighteen Guilds were amerced as adulterine, or set up without licence. This was the same year that Fitzstephen tells us the followers of the several trades, the vendors of various commodities, and the labourers of every kind were to be found in their proper and distinct places. Now, in proof of this, we find that to this day in the neighbourhood of Cheap (market) side the streets and lanes still exist wherein the particular trades in the old City were carried on, viz., Milk Street, Bread Street Poultry, Cornhill, Wood Street, Candlewick (now Cannon) Street, and Ironmonger Lane—in which latter thoroughfare and Old Jewry, close to the Guildhall, the ironmongers of old London carried on their business, as will be proved in another chapter.