However, the merchant guilds of the goldsmiths,
vintners (sold wine), mercers (sold cloth), grocers, and drapers
(finished and sold English cloth) were still strong. It was a long
custom in London that freemen in one company could practice the
trade of another company. There were paint mills and saw mills
replacing human labor. There were apothecary shops and women
surgeons. Women who earned their own living by spinning were
called "spinsters".
Some prices in London were: a hen pastry 5d., a capon pastry 8d.,
a roast pheasant 13d., a roast heron 18d., roast goose 7d., a hen
4d., a capon 6d., three roast thrushes 2d., ten larks 3d., ten
finches 1d, and ten cooked eggs 1d.
Many of the guilds bought sites on which they built a chapel,
which was later used as a secular meeting place. The guild
officers commonly included an alderman, stewards, a dean, and a
clerk, who were elected. The guild officers sat as a guild court
to determine discipline for offences such as false weights or
measures or false workmanship or work and decided trade disputes.
The brethren in guild fraternity were classified as masters,
journeymen, or apprentices. They were expected to contribute to
the support of the sick and impoverished in their fellowship.
Their code required social action such as ostracizing a man of the
craft who was living in adultery until he mended his ways.
The rules of the Company of Glovers were:
1.
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