great strictness as to exactness of measure. The officers of the guild frequently inspected the cloth, and made a bi-monthly examination of the measures used in all the shops. Models of the prescribed measures were exhibited to the public in certain parts of the city. Nor was this all. The consuls sent delegates to every counting-house to verify the merchants' books and accounts, and punished every deviation from established rules. Every guild had a tribunal composed either solely of its own members, or jointly with those of another, for the settlement of all disputes connected with the trade, and enforced severe penalties on all who referred such disputes to ordinary courts. It may be asked how the consuls were enabled to give effect to their verdicts? The punishments were generally fines, and persons refusing to pay them, after receiving several admonitions and increased fines if still recalcitrant, were excluded from the guild and practically ruined. From that moment their merchandise, being unstamped, was no longer guaranteed by the guild; they also lost many other notable advantages, and were finally unable to continue their business in Florence, and not often elsewhere. In fact, as we have seen, the consuls chosen in Florence guarded the interests of the guild even outside the State by deputing vice-consuls for that purpose to other parts of Italy and Europe, and increasing their number in proportion with the increase of their commercial relations. The two more important consuls abroad were those in France. All these delegates were charged with even the choice of the inns to be frequented by the members of the guild. Whenever, according to the usage of the day, any state exercised reprisals on the members' goods, the consuls were bound to assist and defend them. Thus, wherever he might be, a member of the guild was sure of protection from every sort of injury or loss. The guild was a jealous custodian of its members' rights, and, in order to defend them in foreign countries or to obtain justice for injuries received, often despatched ambassadors to the governments concerned.[298] This was an invaluable help at a time when no international law existed for the protection of foreigners, and reprisals were continually used. Accordingly merchants found it better to submit to any penalty rather than be dismissed from the guild; no worse threat was needed to enforce obedience to the statutes. The six other greater guilds were all governed on the same principle as the _Calimala_. Their united body of consuls formed the _capitudini_, and these were afterwards headed by a proconsul, a magistrate held in the highest esteem.