In return for these services they were exempt from all other obligations to the State. The livelihood and wellbeing of members of colleges were thus ensured but at the cost of their liberty. Every member was obliged to sink a portion of his estate in the funds of the college, and to contribute another to its expenses. He was forbidden to will away the remainder except to his sons or nephews who in their turn were bound to enter the same trade; no member could change his own trade for any other, the priesthood alone excepted, in which case he must furnish a substitute. The goods of the corporations were thus inalienable, and whole families were bound to the same occupation in perpetuity. During the civil wars, barbarian invasions and general disunion following upon the decadence of the Empire, the Roman colleges are lost sight of, but there seems little doubt that their privileges were left intact by the foreign conquerors of Rome and that it was their direct descendants that we find flourishing once more as trade corporations in the middle ages. As early as the eighth century, the Lombards, Saxons and Franks had formed _scholae_ for members of these nationalities resident in Rome, and a little later trade guilds, founded for the mutual support and protection of their members against oppression, had already grown prosperous and strong enough to take an active part in insurrections and civil wars. We find history repeating herself. The guilds placed under the protection of a Christian saint were constituted with the obligations to bury their dead, to succour the widows and orphans of poorer members, to lend them funds in case of need and to offer masses for their benefactors. All members swore to the articles of enrolment, the statutes were formally drawn up, and many of them are preserved to this day. As funds increased, hospitals were built for sick brethren, and schools for the children; dowries were given to the daughters, and the guild standard-bearers and men-at-arms swelled the ranks of mediaeval processions just as those of their pagan predecessors had done. The colleges kept great feasts and festivals, and their messengers paraded the streets two and two bidding householders deck their windows with bunting for the coming festivities. They endowed convents and hospices and built churches, many of which still bear the name of their founders. S. Giuseppe _de' Falegnami_ was built by the carpenters' guild; S. Caterina _de' Funari_ by the ropemakers'; S. Lorenzo in Miranda in the Forum belonged to the apothecaries; S. Maria dell' Orto to the fruiterers and cheesemongers; S. Barbara to the librarians; S. Tommaso a' Cenci to the coachmen. Streets called after the cloakmakers, the ropemakers, the watchmakers and other craftsmen still mark the districts given over to these different industries.