Note 804 — Chapter XV

Dr. Gross, taking the Trinity guild of Lynn as “a continuation of the old guild merchant,” speaks of its “line of developement” into a “simple, social-religious fraternity” (i. 161); and notes that “though the ancient function of the guild had disappeared, its social-religious successor was a quasi-official part of the civic polity” (p. 162). He does not, however, enable us to trace any such “developement,” or to distinguish “ancient functions” from later ones. From our first glimpse of the guild in the charters of John and Henry the Third to the patent of Henry the Fifth it seems to be singularly free from change, nor is any evidence produced during these centuries for its “transformation into a simple social-religious guild.” In the case of Southampton Dr. Gross sees a developement of an exactly opposite kind (ii. 231).