We may say that trades unions find their prototype in the _frith guilds_ or _peace guilds_ of the Anglo-Saxon. A few words in general about them and their successors and the spirit pervading them, the causes of their existence and decay, will have a bearing on labor organizations, which are like them in "being founded on similar mental faculties and desires and as contemplating similar purposes." These _frith guilds_ seem to have been associations of neighbors for mutual help and protection. They replaced the older brotherhood of kinsfolk, which had existed among the German races, "by a voluntary association of neighbors for the same purposes of order and self-defense." An isolated existence for a man, even a freeman, was one of danger, especially when the feudal temper of the nobles increased and the Danish incursions broke over England. The ties of kindred had become weakened, and the frith guild took the place of the family. A mutual oath bound the members together, and the monthly guild feast became the substitute for the old gathering round the family hearth. A member could call upon the guild in case of violence or wrong; when charged with crime, the guild answered for him, and when guilty, punished him; when poor, it supported him; and when dead, buried him. When these guilds were located in towns rather than in the country, they inevitably tended in time to combine, and eventually the town passed from a collection of guilds into one large guild, and we have the _town guild_. The word "town" is used in contradistinction from the word "country," just as we say "town and country," "going to town," and so on. The spirit of independence and freedom, kept alive in our town meetings here, and in our local self-government, has come down to us through those old town guilds and the boroughs of England. It is to the towns of England and not to the country that we owe much of our liberty to-day. So these guilds in towns, by joining together and making a town guild, became quite strong communities. They made demands upon the crown itself, and took upon themselves the government of the towns where they were located. Their members were the landowners of the town, and the other people who came there to settle, no matter how numerous, had no part in the government. From being democratic in the beginning, as the frith guilds were, the towns became oligarchies. In the course of time the differences between town and country became more marked. The town guilds began to have less and less to do with agriculture, although at first they were interested in it. The wealth in the town is turned to trade and manufacture, such as there was in those days. So, by the time of the Norman conquest, in 1066, we hear little of town guilds, but in almost every case _merchant guilds_. The _town guild_ has become a _merchant guild_, although composed of the same constituency. The commercial spirit has become the ruling spirit of the town.