Crafts begin to close their ranks, to lay down elaborate rules of membership, of the conduct of business and the methods of manufacture, to secure incorporation, and to strengthen their hands by establishing disciplinary precedents in relation to the journeymen and apprentices. The competition of the unskilled outsider is suppressed and apprenticeship insisted on (Nos. 15 and 17), the journeyman is restrained (No. 16), and the crafts establish a wide control over the conditions of labour (No. 18). No. 19 is a characteristic indenture of apprenticeship; No. 20 illustrates the tendency to invoke the central authority, which grows in force during the fifteenth century and culminates in the direct control exercised by the Chancellor over gild ordinances in the sixteenth century; while No. 21 is an example of the social religious gild, which was one of the mediæval methods of anticipating the poor law. AUTHORITIES The principal modern writers dealing with the subject of this section are:--Madox, _Firma Burgi_; Maitland, _Township and Burgh_; Merewether & Stephens, _History of the Boroughs_; Ballard, _British Borough Charters_; Bateson, _Borough Customs_(Selden Society); Gross, _The Gild Merchant_; Gross, _The Affiliation of Boroughs_ (Antiquary, XII.); Drinkwater, _Merchant Gild of Shrewsbury_(Salop Archæol. Transactions, N.S. II.); Unwin, _The Gilds and Companies of London_; Unwin, _Industrial Organisation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries_; Green, _Town Life in the Fifteenth Century_; Toulmin Smith, _English Gilds_ (Early English Text Society); Davies, _History of Southampton_; Hibbert, _Influence and Development of English Gilds_; Hudson, _Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich_; Leonard, _Early History of English Poor Law Relief_; Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_. For contemporary records the student may be referred to the following:--Riley, _Memorials of London and London Life_; Riley, _Liber Albus_; Sharpe, _Calendars of Letter Books_; Stevenson, _Records of the Borough of Nottingham_; Bateson, _Records of the Borough of Leicester_; _Court Leet of the City of Norwich_ (Selden Society); Bickley, _The Little Red Book of Bristol_; _Rotuli Cartarum_(Record Commission); and the _Calendars of Patent, Close and Charter Rolls_(Record Office Publications). 1. PAYMENTS MADE TO THE CROWN BY GILDS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY [_Pipe Roll, 26 Henry II_], 1179-80. The weavers of Oxford render account of 6l. for their gild. They have delivered it into the treasury. And they are quit. The corvesers of Oxford render account of 15s. for an ounce of gold for their gild. They have delivered it into the treasury. And they are quit. The weavers of Huntingdon render account of 40s. for their gild. They have delivered it into the treasury. And they are quit. The weavers of Lincoln render account of 6l. for their gild. They have delivered it into the treasury.