Great as is the weight which must attach to such important authorities, I have endeavoured--by looking at the facts in my materials from an independent standpoint--to avoid being unduly influenced by their conclusions, or by a desire to find analogies where none exist. The materials from which I have worked call for but little description. They are simply the records of the Shrewsbury Gilds--either in their original form as preserved in the town Museum and Library, or as printed in the Shropshire Archaeological Society's _Transactions_. Though my view has been thus confined it has been kept purposely so. English local history is its own best interpreter, and although in some instances the documents have required illustrating and supplementing from extraneous sources, these occasions have been few. At the same time I have not omitted to notice how the effects of national events were felt in provincial changes, and I have especially striven to point out how the Shrewsbury records bear upon the various theories which have been put forward respecting Gilds. Writing thus in a historical rather than an antiquarian spirit I have not considered it necessary to overburden the pages with needless footnotes referring repeatedly simply to the records of the Shrewsbury Gilds. _October, 1890._ NOTE.--_The Gild Merchant_, by Charles Gross, Ph.D. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1890), appeared after the above had been written and the Essay sent in. I have since had the advantage of reading it. The general conclusions at which the writer arrives are so similar to those I had already formed, that I have not found it necessary to alter what I had written. I have however to some extent made use of the material he has brought together in Vol. II., chiefly by way of strengthening the authorities in the footnotes to which reference is made in the text. EXTRACT FROM THE REGULATIONS FOR THE THIRLWALL PRIZE. "There shall be established in the University a prize, called the 'Thirlwall Prize,' to be awarded for dissertations involving original historical research." "The prize shall be open to members of the University who, at the time when their dissertations are sent in, have been admitted to a degree, and are of not more than four years' standing from admission to their first degree." "Those dissertations which the adjudicators declare to be deserving of publication shall be published by the University singly or in combination, in an uniform series, at the expense of the fund, under such conditions as the Syndics of the University Press shall from time to time determine." CONTENTS. PAGES CHAPTER I. Introductory 1-6 CHAPTER II. The Merchant Gild 7-29 Note 1. Chronological Table of Merchant Gilds 24-28 Note 2. List of Trades and Professions 28-29 CHAPTER III.