Note 372 — Chapter VIII

Ibid. 118, 163. The appellation of the Guild Merchant “was more frequently applied to the aggregate of the crafts” than to the governing body of the borough. (Ibid. i. 114.) In Carlisle had the term “been used at all, it would probably have been applied to the eight guilds aggregately, rather than to the Corporation.” (Ibid. ii. 40.) In proving that the later Guild Merchant was “an aggregate of the crafts,” Dr. Gross carries us at a single step into a much later period (pp. 118-123), where the name tells us little apart from the history of the borough. The case of Coventry seems a doubtful instance.