Turner, the ingenious historian of the Anglo-Saxons, seems also to ascribe to them the origination of Gilds: and he observes, that the gilds, or social confederations, in which many of those people chose to arrange themselves, deserve very particular attention. Among other things, he says, that their gilds are sometimes alluded to in the laws. If a man without paternal relations should fight and kill another, then his maternal kinsmen were ordered to pay one third of the Were, his gild a third, and for the other part his gild was to escape. In London there appears to have been free gilds. In a charter of Canterbury, the three companies of the Citizens within the walls, and those without, are mentioned. Domesday also mentions a Gild of the Clergy in that city. In short, Gilds appear to have been very common, and in great request among the Anglo-Saxons. They seem on the whole, as our author thinks, to be friendly associations, made for mutual aid and contribution, to meet the pecuniary exigencies which were perpetually arising, from burials, legal exactions, penal mulcts, and other payments, or compensations. That much good fellowship was connected with them, cannot be doubted. The fines of their own imposition imply that the materials of conviviality were not forgotten. In short, he thinks they may be called the Anglo-Saxon clubs.—Even the more uncommon species of those confederations, called _Gilda Mercatoria_, _or Merchant’s Gild_, seems to have existed among the same people. That in mercantile and Seaports, says the same author, there were also gilds and fraternities of men constituted for the purpose of carrying on more successful enterprizes in commerce, even in the Anglo-Saxon times, appears to be a fact. Domesday, (he adds,) mentions the Gihalla, or Guildhall of the burghers of Dover. {415} The Gilds of Lynn, however, cannot be traced to so remote a period as that of the Anglo-Saxons. There may, indeed, have been gilds here at that period, and the fact can hardly be doubted, as they were then so much in vogue, but we have no traces of them now remaining. All the Lynn Gilds, whose names and remains have reached our time, seem to have sprung up long after the conquest. Of them we shall treat in the ensuing pages. SECTION II. _Names and Number of our ancient Gilds_; _with some additional observations_.