Guild

GILO.

A brotherhood or company governed by certain rules and orders made among themselves by king’s license; a corporation, especially for purposes of commerce; so called because on entering the guild the members pay an assessment or tax (gild) towards defraying its charges. T, L.; I)u Cange. A guild held generally more or less property in common, — often a hall, called a guild-hall, for the purposes of the association. The name of guild was not, however confined to mercantile companies, but was applied also to religious, municipal, and other corporations. A mercantile meeting of a guild was called a guild merchant. A fridborg (q. v.), that is, among.the Saxons, mutual pledges of ten families for each other to the king.

Spelman. See 3 Steph. Com. 31; Turner’s Hist. Ang. Sax. v. ill. p. 98.

The earliest corporations in Scotland were not for trading but to perpetuate some public service; and they took their rise from Papal bulls, royal charters, etc., or frequently such charter was presumed; Ersk. Pr. 311. “Gilds came into unconscious existence through a process of evolution, and were then acknowledged by the law.’’ It is incorrect to say that there could be no gild without the king’s license. They were incorporated and after Incorporation supervised by the mayor, bailiffs, and common council of municipalities.

Eaton, Report of Amer. B. A. (1902 ) 340.

See Toulmin Smith, English Gilds. GUILD HALL ( Law Lat. piWAo Wtf, variously spelled ghildhalla, guihalla, guihaula; from Sax. gild, payment, company, and halla, hall). A place in which are exposed goods for sale.

Charter of Count of Flanders; Hist Guinensl, 202, 203; Du Cange. The hall of a guild or corporation.

Du Cange; Spelman: e. g., 0-ildhalla Teutonicorum, The chief hall of the city ot London, where the mayor and commonalty hold their meetings. The hall of the merchants of the Hanseatic League in London, otherwise called the “Stil- a yard.”

Cowell.