At a later period it is clear that England was covered with a network of Frith Gilds, but whether these were Trade Gilds in the accepted sense or not has yet to be shown. It seems probable, however, that they were Agricultural Gilds enforced upon the inhabitants by their Saxon conquerors, and that in the more populous neighbourhoods and towns, craftsmen and merchants were included under their own special “tything” or possibly even had their own “hundred”. Whether this were the case or not, it will be obvious to all that in Saxon and Norman England alike, wherever several persons were plying the same trade, there must have existed some sort of organization for mutual protection and for the instruction of others. Throughout the known world from the very earliest periods, workmen of the different classes have always formed their own aggregations and have always associated themselves together for mutual assistance and protection. The need for something of this sort must have been very urgent in days when there was less security to life and property, and in days when, as we are led to suppose, the Saxon rulers felt scant sympathy for the towns where trades would be found to exist most extensively. [Sidenote: Antiquity of Gilds in England.] The more we study mediæval life in our own country, the more impossible it becomes to imagine any regular trade as existing apart from some official or semi-official organization, combining one or more of the following obligations: Control of the workers, education of novices, civil representation (generally through some influential patron or head), and nearly always carrying out the work of a burial and insurance society. That such a banding together of those, whether merchants or craftsmen, interested in any particular occupation, must have existed during the Saxon period with the object of promoting one or more of the objects mentioned, is hardly open to doubt. It would be specially in the towns, such as London, in which, as Sir Lawrence Gomme has pointed out, the Roman ideals of organization still persisted, even into Norman times, that Gild life or its analogue would be most definitely marked. [Sidenote: Gild, not Guild.] Such Societies, Unions, or Combinations for common interests, whether of Trade, Religion, or social needs, were called Gilds, the word being derived from the Anglo-Saxon _Gildan_ or _Gildare_, to pay, an allusion to the contribution demanded from every member towards the common fund. [Sidenote: Antiquity of the Horner’s Craft.]