By whichever name we prefer to call them, the character and purpose of these mediæval guilds cannot in reality be misunderstood. Broadly speaking, they were the benefit societies and the provident associations of the Middle Ages. They undertook towards their members the duties now frequently performed by burial clubs, by hospitals, by almshouses, and by guardians of the poor. Not infrequently they are found acting for the public good of the community in the mending of roads and in the repair of bridges. They looked to the private good of their members in the same way that insurance companies to-day compensate for loss by fire or accident. The very reason of their existence was to afford mutual aid, and by timely contributions to meet the pecuniary demands which were constantly arising from burials, legal exactions, penal fines, and all other kinds of payments and compensations. Mr. Toulmin Smith thus defines their object: “The early English guild was an institution of local self-help, which, before the poor-laws were invented, took the place, in old times, of the modern Friendly or Benefit Society, but with a higher aim; while it joined all classes together in the care of the needy and for objects of common welfare, it did not neglect the forms and practice of religion, justice, and morality,” which, it may be added, was indeed the mainspring of their life and action. “The Guild lands,” writes Mr. Thorold Rogers, “were a very important economical fact in the social condition of early England. The Guilds were the benefit societies of the time, from which impoverished members could be and were aided. It was an age in which the keeping of accounts was common and familiar. Beyond question, the treasurers of the village Guild rendered as accurate an annual statement to the members of their fraternity as a bailiff did to his lord.... It is quite certain that the town and country guilds obviated pauperism in the middle ages, assisted in steadying the price of labour, and formed a permanent centre for those associations which fulfilled the function that in more recent times trade unions have striven to satisfy.”