In looking more closely at the powers of mediæval craft gilds, it is necessary to distinguish a little; a craft gild was a gild which had authority to regulate some particular craft in a given area. I do not, therefore, want to dwell on the features which were common to all gilds, and which can be traced in full detail in the admirable volume edited by the late Mr. Toulmin Smith for the Early English Text Society. I desire to limit consideration to the powers that were special to craft gilds. Like other gilds they had a religious side, in some cases strongly developed, and the members engaged in common acts of worship, especially in common prayers and masses for departed brethren. Like other gilds they had the character of a friendly society, and gave loans to needy brethren, or bestowed alms on the poor. Like other gilds they had their feasts, when the brethren drank their gild, and they had hoods, or livery, which they wore at their assemblies. Like other gilds they took their share in civic festivities and provided pageants at considerable cost; but all these common bonds, important as they were in cementing men into a real fellowship, and in calling forth such different interests and activities among the members, were of a pious, social, or charitable character. There was no reason why such associations should not be multiplied on all sides; even when a gild consisted of men who followed the same craft it was not a craft gild. The case of the journeymen tailors in London who assembled at the Black Friars Church may be taken as conclusive on this point. A gild was not a craft gild unless duly empowered to regulate a particular craft; it might be called into existence for this purpose, or an existing gild might be empowered to exercise such functions, much as the brotherhood of S. Thomas à Becket was changed into the Mercers' Company. The important thing about a craft gild was that it had been empowered to exercise authority in a given area and over certain workmen, as the weavers' gilds had been empowered by charter from Henry I., and as the bakers were empowered by the Court Leet at Coventry, in the sixth year of King John.