Only under exceptional conditions could they work at handicrafts. A Jew who possessed manual dexterity might, as was sometimes done in the thirteenth century, have worked for himself at a cottage industry, and might, though the task would have been a hard one, have gained a connection among Christians, and induced them to trust him with materials.[128] But many crafts were at the time coming under the regulations of craft-gilds. Certainly as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, there were in London fully-organised gilds of Lorimers, Weavers, Tapicers, Cap-makers, Saddlers, Joiners, Girdlers, and Cutlers.[129] In Hereford there were Gilds for nearly thirty trades.[130] It was probably very often the case, as it was with the Weavers’ Gild in London, that a craft-gild existing in any town could forbid the practice of the craft in the town to all who had not been elected to membership, or earned it by serving the apprenticeship that the Gild’s statute required.[131] The period required by the Lorimers’ statute was ten years, by the Weavers’, seven, and in some cases certainly, and probably in all, the apprenticeship had to be served under a freeman of the city.[132] The apprentice who had served his time, was still, in some towns and industries, unable to practise his craft, unless he became a citizen and entered the frank pledge.[133] It was difficult for a Jewish boy to become an apprentice, since the Church threatened to excommunicate any Christian who received into his house, as an apprentice would naturally be received, a Jew or Jewess; it was impossible for a Jewish man to become a citizen, for the king forbade his Jewish “serfs” to be in scot and lot with the other inhabitants of the cities in which they lived.