=51. Improvement in conditions in the later Middle Ages.=—In the early period of the towns, say before 1300, conditions were distinctly worse than they were in the last two centuries of the Middle Ages, when commerce had attained such development that it brought great wealth to some and comparative comfort to many among the city people. The town of Colchester, in England, ranked as one of importance in 1295, but a tax roll of that date shows a striking poverty in the stock in trade assessed for taxation, in the small value of household furniture, in the insignificant amount of most of the assessments, and in the preponderance of rural wealth like live-stock and agricultural produce over other kinds of personal property. In the fourteenth century, however, the population of the town doubled, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the towns of England in general freed themselves from the worst features of medieval squalor, accumulated wealth, and expended large sums in building and improvements. =52. Town organization. The merchant gilds.=—Much more might be said about the general characteristics of the medieval town, but the student of the history of commerce must devote most of his time to its economic life. He must prepare himself to accept and understand conditions quite different from those of modern times, and must try to realize how much the world has gained by the advance of the commercial organization from these early stages. In every town the merchants and manufacturers were organized in _gilds_ and subject to strict regulation. The Anglo-Saxon word gild means “a contribution to a common fund,” and came to be applied to the society itself. Societies had existed in the first part of the Middle Ages with social and religious objects, and about the eleventh century, with the springing up of trade, commercial gilds became more and more common. It is supposed that the dangers and difficulties of trade were then so great that merchants united in bands for a journey, as caravans are now formed in the unsettled countries of the East. A collection of early gild rules shows that the members were subject to regulations like the following: Every one was obliged to carry armor, a bow and twelve arrows on penalty of a fine; they must stand by and help each other when they set out for a journey; in case one member had not sold his wares the others must wait one day for him; if one was imprisoned or lost his wares on the road the others must ransom him. The organization was probably temporary at first, and the company of merchants dissolved at the end of the trip; but as such caravans became more regular at any place there grew the tendency to permanence of organization. These merchant gilds were at first also private associations, formed voluntarily by the merchants to protect themselves; but they received public recognition and became a part of the town government as the town saw the advantage it could get