Craft Gilds (Illustrated)

There is, as I understand it, a double object in the work of this Society; it interests itself in the preservation of ancient buildings, partly because they are monuments which when once destroyed can never be replaced, and which bear record of the ages in which they were made and the men who reared them; and in this sense all that survives from the past, good and bad, coarse or refined, has an abiding value. But to some folks there seems to be a certain pedantry in gathering or studying things that are important merely because they are curiosities, a certain fancifulness in the frame of mind which concentrates attention on the errors of printers, or the sports of nature, or the rubbish of the past. And much which has been preserved from the past is little better than rubbish, as the poet felt when he wrote:

"Rome disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, but Rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it. All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings, All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of the present and future."

Still, the view Clough takes is very superficial; there is a real human interest about even the rubbish heaps of the past if we have knowledge enough to detect it; the dulness is in us who fail to recognise the interest which attaches to trifles from the past or to read the evidence they set before us.

But there is another reason why the vestiges of bygone days claim our interest—not as mere curiosities, but as in themselves beautiful objects, excellently designed and skilfully fashioned. There are numberless arts in which the men of the past were adepts; their skill as builders is patent to all, but specialists are quite as enthusiastic over the work that was done by mediæval craftsmen in other departments. Their wood-carving, and working in metals, the purity of their dyes, the beauty of their glass, these are things which move the admiration of competent critics in the present day. Machinery may produce more rapidly, more cheaply, more regular work, of more equal quality, and perhaps of higher finish, but it is work that has lost the delicacy and grace of objects that were shaped by human hands and bear the direct impress of human care, and taste, and fancy. We may be interested in the preservation of the relics of the past, not merely as curiosities from bygone ages, but as examples of beautiful workmanship and skilled manipulation to which the craftsmen of the present day cannot attain.

Most Englishmen—all those whose opinions are formed by the newspapers they read—are so proud of the vast progress that has been made in the present century, that they do not sufficiently attend to the curious fact that there are many arts that decay and are lost. In this country it appears that the art of glass-making was introduced more than once, and completely died out again; the same is probably true of cloth dressing and of dyeing. It seems to me a very curious problem to examine what were the causes which led to the disappearance of these particular industries. In each single case it is probably a very complicated problem to distinguish all the factors at work—what were the social or economic conditions that destroyed this or that useful art once introduced? But into such questions of detail I must not attempt to enter now. I wish to direct your attention to-day to a more general question, to an attempt to give a partial explanation, not of failure here and there, but of conspicuous success. In the thirteenth and fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a very high degree of skill was attained, not in one art only, but in many. It is at least worth while to look a little more closely at one group of the conditions which influenced the work of the times, and examine the organisations which were formed for controlling the training of workmen, for supervising the manner in which they lived, and maintaining a high standard of quality in the goods produced. There is no need to idealise the times when they were formed, or the men who composed them; the very records of craft gilds show that the mediæval workman was quite capable of scamping his work and getting drunk when opportunity tempted him. But the fact remains that a very great deal of first-rate work was done in many crafts, for portions of it still survive, and I cannot but believe that some of the credit is due to the gilds which set themselves to rule each craft, so that the work turned out should be a credit to those who made it.

Herein, as it seems to me, lies the secret of the importance of the craft gilds during the period of their useful activity. They were managed on the principle that "honourable thing was convenable;" that honesty was the best policy; the good of the trade meant its high reputation for sound work at fair prices. It has got another meaning to our ears;