A peculiar outgrowth of the need for protection against oppressive feudal lords, as well as against thieves, swindlers, and dishonest workmen, had been the typically urban organization known as the merchant gild or the merchants' company. In the year 1500 the merchant gilds were everywhere on the decline, but they still preserved many of their earlier and more glorious traditions. At the time of their greatest importance they had embraced merchants, butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers: in fact, all who bought or sold in the town were included in the gild. And the merchant gild had then possessed the widest functions. [Sidenote: Earlier Functions of the Merchant Gild.] [Sidenote: Social] Its social and religious functions, inherited from much earlier bodies, consisted in paying some special honor to a patron saint, in giving aid to members in sickness or misfortune, attending funerals, and also in the more enjoyable meetings when the freely flowing bowl enlivened the transaction of gild business. [Sidenote: Protective] As a protective organization, the gild had been particularly effective. Backed by the combined forces of all the gildsmen, it was able to assert itself against the lord who claimed manorial rights over the town, and to insist that a runaway serf who had lived in the town for a year and a day should not be dragged back to perform his servile labor on the manor, but should be recognized as a freeman. The protection of the gild was accorded also to townsmen on their travels. In those days all strangers were regarded as suspicious persons, and not infrequently when a merchant of the gild traveled to another town he would be set upon and robbed or cast into prison. In such cases it was necessary for the gild to ransom the imprisoned "brother" and, if possible, to punish the persons who had done the injury, so that thereafter the liberties of the gild members would be respected. That the business of the gild might be increased, it was often desirable to enter into special arrangements with neighboring cities whereby the rights, lives, and properties of gildsmen were guaranteed; and the gild as a whole was responsible for the debts of any of its members. [Sidenote: Regulative]