find himself for life at that grade without the possibility of rising higher. Moreover, the famous divisions never existed, except in certain trades. The truth is that guild organization, even within the walls of a single town, presented several different types. It might be _simple_, or _complex_; it might be either half democratic or capitalistic in structure. 2. It was simple when it included only one trade, and this was fairly often the case. It was complex when it was composed of several juxtaposed or superimposed groups. In this case it was a federation of craft guilds, each keeping its individual life, its own statutes, and its own officers, but all united in a larger body of which they became members. This was the name which at Florence was borne by those lesser bodies of which the whole was composed.[7] The whole was called an _Arte_, and just as the _membri_ could themselves be subdivided, so the _Arte_ might be defined as a union of unions. The Middle Age was not an age of equality. Usually among the groups united under a central government there was one which predominated, which held fuller corporate rights; the others, regarded as inferiors, only enjoyed a greater or smaller part of such rights. Some did not enjoy the privilege of co-operating in the election of the federal magistrates, to whom none the less they owed obedience; others were not allowed to carry the banners, towards which they nevertheless had to contribute their share. Take, for example, the _Arte dei medici, speziali, e merciai_, at Florence, which included, as may be seen, three _membri_--doctors, apothecaries, and haberdashers. This seems a heterogeneous assemblage, but the first two are easily accounted for; and if the connection is less clear between the last and these two, it may be found in the fact that the haberdashers, like the great shops of our own day, sold some of everything, and consequently kept in their shops those foreign drugs and spices of which the _speziali_ were the usual depositaries.[8] The complication is here increased because the _speziali_, among whom Dante was enrolled, included as subordinate _membri_ the painters combined with the colour merchants, while the saddlers were coupled with the haberdashers.[9]