1. It is obvious that the gilds, if they were to exercise any real authority, required to have _exclusive_ powers within a given district; it is also obvious that these exclusive powers might be misused, so as to be mischievous to the consumers of the goods; a craft gild might take advantage of its monopoly to the gain of the members and the impoverishing of the citizens. The feeling of the citizens would be that the goods supplied by the members of the gild were bad and were dear at the price. It was therefore of the first importance that the citizens should be, in the last resort, able to control the gild, and resume the privileges which their officers exercised. There is a well-known case, which is detailed in Mr. Toulmin Smith's book, which shows how the tailors of Exeter enjoyed a charter from the Crown, and how much trouble they gave to the local authorities under Edward IV.; but it was a matter of common complaint that in many places the gilds had charters from great men which exempted them from proper control.[3] Even in Coventry, where there does not appear to have been interference from without, it was necessary for the leet to keep a tight hand on the craft gilds. An ordinance of 8 Henry V. runs as follows:--"Also that no man of any craft make laws or other ordinance among them but it be overseen by the mayor and his council; and if it be reasonable ordinance and lawful it shall be affirmed, or else it shall be corrected by the mayor and his peers."[4] At a later date we have another entry of the same kind:--"Also that the mayor, warden, and bailiffs, taking to the mayor eight or twelve of the General Council, to come afore them the wardens of all the crafts of the city with their ordinances, touching their crafts and their articles, and the points that be lawful, good, and honest for the city be allowed them, all other thrown aside and had force none, and that they make new ordinances against the laws in oppression of the people, upon pain of imprisonment." In some other towns the craftsmen had to yield up their powers annually and receive them back again from the municipal authority; this was the case with the cordwainers at Exeter,[5] but the Coventry people did not insist on anything so strict. [3] Rot. Parl., II. 331. [4] Leet Book, £37. [5] Toulmin Smith, "English Gilds," p. 332.