So closely indeed did the practical boundaries of Gild and town coincide that in many places the former seemed to become the Communa, when the kings began to grant charters of incorporation. Richard I. can even say that all the privileges of his charter are granted "_civibus nostris Wintoniae de gilda mercatorum_[36]," seeming to imply that at Winchester at least there were no citizens extraneous to the Merchant Gild. The villain flying from his lord could only be admitted to freedom through the machinery of the Merchant Gild. The Merchant Gild was ready to the hand of the burgesses as a centre, and the only centre, round which to rally when engaged in defending their liberties or in procuring fresh privileges. On the other hand the existence of such a secure and wealthy body, which would be at all times able to ensure payment of the _firma burgi_, and the frequent royal assessments which were laid upon the towns, would be an additional inducement to the kings in granting the charters of liberties. Glanvill, in the time of Henry II., doubtless already looked on the Merchant Gild and the Communa as, for all practical purposes, identical[37], from which the inference seems to lie that the possession of such a gild had thus early come to be looked upon as the sign and symbol of municipal independence. It is true that a town _might_ become a free borough without possessing a Merchant Gild, but this would be an exception to the general rule. It would be similar to the case of a free borough not holding the _firma burgi_: such a contingency was possible but unusual. To the mind of the lawyer therefore the possession of a Merchant Gild seemed the necessary precursor of a royal charter of privileges. And in practice this was found to be, speaking generally, the case. This apparent identity of Burgesses and Gildsmen would find palpable expression in the fact of the Gild Hall becoming the Town Hall. This naturally did not take place to any considerable extent before the 14th century, though during that period it became fairly common. It may have been that the Merchant Gild permitted the use of its Hall for public purposes, at first only occasionally and then more and more frequently until at length what had been exceptional became normal (either through precedent or purchase[38]); certain it is that the two names of Gild Hall and Town Hall became practically synonymous in about the 14th and 15th centuries. This had been foreshadowed at an early date. Domesday Book spoke of the "gihalla Burgensium[39]" at Dover. At Shrewsbury, in a charter of 1445, the Town Hall is called, as it is at this day, the Gildhall. [Sidenote: _But all Gildsmen not Burgesses._]