has been idealized and gilded by romancers and history-mongers, with its tournaments and torture-chambers, were paid for by that despised industrial population of the towns and manors which contained the real life and wealth of mediæval England. § 6. THE GILDS AND THE TOWNS. VARIOUS KINDS OF GILDS—But besides the indirect effect of the Crusades, there was another powerful factor in the growth and emancipation of the towns after the Conquest. I refer to the _merchant_ {27} _gilds_, which were becoming more and more prominent all through this period, though the height of their power was reached in the fourteenth century. These merchant gilds were one out of four other kinds of gilds, all of which seem to have been similar in origin. The earliest gilds are found in Saxon times, and were very much what we understand by clubs. At first they were associations of men for more or less religious and charitable purposes, and formed a sort of artificial family, whose members were bound by the bond not of kinship, but of an oath; while the gild-feast, held once a month in the common hall, replaced the family gatherings of kinsfolk. These gilds were found both in towns and manors, but chiefly in the former, where men were brought more closely together. Besides (1) the _religious_ gilds, we find in Saxon times (2) the _frith_ gilds, formed for mutual assistance in case of violence, wrong, or false accusation, or in any legal affairs. But this class of gilds died out after the Conquest. The most important were (3) the _merchant_ gilds mentioned above, which existed certainly in Edward the Confessor’s time, being called in Saxon _ceapemanne_ gilds, and they were recognized at the time of the Conquest, for they are recorded in Domesday here and there as possessing lands. The merchant members of these gilds had various privileges, such as a monopoly of the local trade of a town, and freedom from certain imposts. They had a higher rank than the members of the (4) _craft_ gilds. These last were associations of handicraftsmen, or artisans, and were separate from the merchant gilds, though also of great importance. If a town was large enough, each craft or manufacture had a gild of its own, though in smaller towns members of various crafts would form only one gild. Such gilds were found, too, not only in towns but in country villages, as is known, _e.g._, in the case of some {28} Norfolk villages, and remains of their halls in villages have been found. Their gild feasts are probably represented to this day in the parish feasts, survivals of ancient custom.