The system was developed in numerous Acts, of which the most important are given below (Nos. 3, 6 and 10). The most comprehensive measure was the Statute of Artificers of 1563 (No. 6). There was little original in this Act. Just as the Statutes forbidding depopulation (Part II, section I) really only developed manorial customaries into a national system, and the Poor Law Statutes (Part II, section IV) were based on the experiments of municipal authorities, so the Statute of Artificers was based partly on the practices of gilds (Part II, section II), partly on the mediæval Statutes of Labourers (see Part I, section VI, Nos. 12--19). Indeed, Cecil's original proposal (No. 5) seems to have been to re-enact 12 Richard II, cap. 3, which the rise in prices had made out of date. If seriously entertained, this idea must have been discarded. The most important innovation introduced by the statute in its final form was the substitution of a system of industrial regulation applying to almost the whole country for regulations applying to particular localities and particular trades. The most important parts of the Statute of Artificers were those relating to apprenticeship and to the assessment of wages. The former, if we may judge by the proceedings of the County Justices (Nos. 11 & 15) and of municipal authorities (Part II, section II, Nos. 9, 10, 11, 15), seem to have been administered with considerable strictness, which was only to be expected in view of the interest which gilds, boroughs, traders and craftsmen generally had in seeing that they were carried out. Judicial interpretations seem, however, to have begun at an early date to whittle them away to some extent (No. 17), for the Judges disliked rules "in restraint of trade" (No. 24 and section II, No. 18).