The woollen industry offers the most remarkable instances. The manufacture of cloth (which was the principal article of export to the Levantine markets) was the most advanced and the most active industry of the Middle Ages, with its appliances already half mechanical, supplying distant customers scattered all over the world. It was the prelude to that intensity of production in modern times which is the result of international commerce. The wholesale cloth merchants no longer worked with their own hands; they confined themselves to giving orders and superintending everything; they supplied the initiative; they were the prime movers in the weaving trades which depended on their orders; they regulated the quantity and quality of production; they raised the price of raw material, and the workmen's wages; they often provided the appliances for work; they undertook the sale and distribution of goods, taking the risks, but also the profits. Already they were capitalists, fulfilling all the functions of captains of industry. What became, then, of the intimate and cordial relations between masters, journeymen, and apprentices? The guilds began to assume a character unlike anything which could exist among the clothiers or blacksmiths for instance. This new state of affairs suddenly arose at Florence in the _Arte della Lana_. At some periods of its existence this guild had a membership of 20,000 to 30,000, but it was like a pyramid, with a very large base, numerous tiers, and a very small apex. At the summit were the masters, who were recruited entirely from among the rich families and formed a solid alliance for the defence of their own interests. Forced to guard against the perils which threatened their business on every hand--the difficulty of transport, a foreign country closed to them by war or by a tariff, the jealousy of rival towns--they tried to recoup themselves by employing cheap labour, and, remembering the maxim "divide and rule," they ranked the workmen they employed in different degrees of dependence and poverty. Some classes of workers, such as dyers and retailers, were affiliated to the _arte_ under the name of inferior _membri_. True, they were allowed certain advantages, a shadow of autonomy, and liberty of association, but at the same time they were kept under strict rules and under the vow to obey officers nominated by the masters alone. Thus the dyers were not allowed to work on their own account, and were subject to heavy fines if the goods entrusted to them suffered the slightest damage; the rate of wages was fixed, but not the date of payment, which was invariably delayed.