A guildsman's interpretation of history

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A GUILDSMAN'S INTERPRETATION
OF HISTORY

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" It is an important controversial work, representative of
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Athenaeum :

" The author deals with a variety of topics, among which may
be mentioned the Mediaeval Guild System, large organizations,
the division of labour, machinery and industry, the tyranny
of the middleman, the problem of his elimination, and the
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The ScoUman :

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Sheffield Independent :

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Church Times :

" The Guild Socialist Movement has its many exponents,
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critic. . . . There are signs in plenty that Guild Socialism
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Mr. G. K. Chesterton in the " New Witness " :

" We wish some of the honest elements roughly covered by
the National Party would read such a book as Mr. A. J.
Penty 's ' Old Worlds for New ' ; and they might not talk
so excitedly or at least so exclusively about Maximum
Production. . . . Even the few short words of Mr. Penty's
title contain a wide challenge to the progress of the modern
world ; they are not only a parody on Mr. Wells but a very
valid comment on him."

The Herald

" The book should be read by all who are anxious about
altering the present conditions. It has much of permanent
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bore to read a book with which you agree in every detail.
You usually go to sleep. No one will do this, however,
that reads ' Old Worlds for New.'"

Manchester Guardian :

" Mr. Penty has considerable claims to be regarded as the
pioneer of Guild Socialism."

LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.

A GUILDSMAN'S
INTERPRETATION
OF HISTORY

BY

ARTHUR T. PENTY

j \\\

AUTHOR OF "THE RESTORATION OF THE GUILD SYSTEM,'

" OLD WORLDS FOR NEW," " GUILDS AND

THE SOCIAL CRISIS"

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i

First published in May
Reprinted October

Rtfrinttd m Saxony ty tke Rodnr Procttt

cofiy frimttJ m Grtmt Britain by i'ntvm Brvthert Ltd.,

All right* rtttrued.

PREFACE

THE primary object of this history is to relate the social
problem to the experience of the past and so to help bring
about a clearer comprehension of its nature. " The reason,"
says the author of Erewhon, " why we cannot see the future
as plainly as the past is because we know too little of the
actual past and the actual present. The future depends
upon the present, and the present depends upon the past, and
the past is unalterable." It is by studying the past in the
light of the experience of the present and the present in
the light of the past that we may attain to a fuller under-
standing both of the present and the past. Certain aspects
of industrialism are new to the world, and the past offers
us no ready-made solution for them, but to understand them
it is necessary to be familiar with Mediaeval principles, for
such Mediaeval problems as those of law and currency, of
the State and the Guilds, lie behind industrialism and have
determined its peculiar development. If we were more
familiar with history we should see the problems of indus-
trialism in a truer perspective and would have less disposition
to evolve social theories from our inner consciousness. This
neglect of the experience of the past is no new thing; it
is as old as civilization itself. Thus in criticizing some
of the fantastic proposals of Plato for the reorganization
of Greek society, Aristotle says: "Let us remember that we
should not disregard the experience of the ages ; in the
multitude of years, these things, if they were good, would
certainly not have been unknown ; for almost everything
has been found out, although sometimes they are not put

6 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

together ; in other cases men do not use the knowledge
that they have." It would be a mistake to push this idea
too far, and refuse to entertain any proposal which could
not claim the authority of history, but it would be just as
well before embarking on any new enterprise to inquire
if history has anything to say about it. If we did we should
find that debatable matter was confined within very narrow
limits, and with minds enriched through the study of history
we should not waste so much of our time in fruitless discussion.
Above all, we should speedily discover that there is no such
thing as a cure-all for social ills. We should become more
interested in principles and have less regard for schemes.

Though the Guild theory is ultimately based upon histori-
cal considerations, the absence hitherto of a history written
from the Guildsman's point of view has been a serious
handicap to the movement. Not only has this lack pre-
vented it from giving historical considerations the prominence
they deserve, but when Guild ideas are adopted by Socialists
who have not been historical students they are apt to be
distorted by the materialist conception of history which
lies in the background of the minds of so many. Hence
it becomes urgent, if the movement is not to be side-tracked,
that Guildsmen should have a history of their own which
gathers together information of importance to them. In
this volume are gathered together such facts from a hundred
volumes, and it is hoped by organizing them into a consistent
theory to show not only that history is capable of a very
different interpretation from the one that materialists affirm
but that the Guild Movement has a definite historical signi-
ficance. Indeed, we are persuaded that the success which
has followed its propaganda is ultimately due to the fact
that it has such a significance.

That the materialist conception of history is a one-sided
and distorted conception, all students of history who are
not materialists by temperament are well aware. It is
made plausible by isolating a single factor in history and

Preface 7

ignoring other factors. The theory of the Class War is
as grotesque and false an explanation of the history of society
as a history of marriage would be that was built up from
the records of Divorce Courts, which carefully took note
of all the unhappy marriages and denied the existence of
happy ones because they were not supported by documentary
evidence. The heresies of Marx stand on precisely such
a footing. They are false, not because of what they say,
but because of what they leave unsaid. Such theories
gain credence to-day because capitalism has undermined
all the great traditions of the past, and thus emptied life
of its contents. It is true that by the light of the materialist
conception considerable patches of history, including the
history of the present day, may be explained. It is true
of the later history of Greece and Rome as of Europe after
the Reformation ; for in the decline of all civilizations the
material factor comes to predominate. But as an explanation
of history as a whole and of the Mediaeval period in particular
it is most demonstrably false, and only ignorance, if not
the deliberate falsification in the past, of Mediaeval history
could have made such an explanation plausible. It is
important that this should be recognized, not merely because
it is an injustice to the past to have its reality distorted,
but because of its reaction upon the mind of to-day. It
makes all the difference to our thinking about the problems
of the present day whether we believe modern society has
developed from a social system which was inhuman and
based upon class tyranny, in which ignorance and super-
stition prevailed, or from one which enjoyed freedom and
understood the nature of liberty in its widest and most
philosophic sense. If a man believes that society in the
past was based upon class tyranny he will see everything
in an inverted perspective, he will be predisposed to support
all the forces of social disintegration which masquerade
under the name of " progress " because he will view with
suspicion all traditions which have survived from the past

8 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

and have a prejudice against all normal forms of social
organization. If it be true that the Middle Ages was a
time of tyranny, ignorance and superstition, then to a
logically minded person it naturally follows that the emanci-
pation of the people is bound up with the destruction of
such traditions as have survived, for to such a mind tradition
and tyranny become synonymous terms. But if, on the
contrary, he knows that such was not the case, that the
Middle Ages was an age of real enlightenment, he will not
be so readily deceived. He will know how to estimate
at their proper value the movements he sees around him,
and not be so disposed to place his faith in quack remedies,
for he will know that for the masses the transition from the
Middle Ages has not been one from bondage to freedom,
from poverty to well-being, but from security to insecurity,
from status to wage-slavery, from well-being to poverty.
He will know, moreover, that the Servile State is not a new
menace, but that it has been extending its tentacles ever
since the days when Roman Law was revived.

Looked at from this point of view, the materialist con-
ception of history, with its prejudice against Mediaevalism,
is a useful doctrine for the purposes of destroying existing
society, but must prevent the arrival of a new one. I feel
fairly safe in affirming this, because Marx's forecasts of the
future are in these days being falsified. Up to a certain
point Marx was right. He foresaw that the trend of things
would be for industry to get into fewer and fewer hands,
but it cannot be claimed that the deductions he made from
this forecast are proving to be correct, for he did not foresee
this war. The circumstance that Marx gave it as his opinion
that the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine by Germany
would lead in fifty years' time to a great European war
does not acquit him, since the war that he foresaw was a
war of revenge in which France was to be the aggressor
and had nothing whatsoever to do with industrial develop-
ment, which this one certainly had. Not having foreseen

Preface 9

this war, Marx did not foresee the anti-climax in which
the present system seems destined to end. And this is
fatal to the whole social theory, because it brings to the
light of day a weakness which runs through all his theory —
his inability to understand the moral factor and hence to
make allowances for it in his theories. Marx saw the material
forces at work in society up to a certain point very clearly,
and from this point of view he is worthy of study. But
he never understood that this was only one half of the
problem and finally the less important half. For along
with all material change there go psychological changes ;
and these he entirely ignores. In the case in question
Marx failed to foresee that the growth of the pressure of
competition would be accompanied by an increase in national
jealousies. On the contrary, he tells us in the Communist
Manifesto (written in 1847) that national antagonisms are
steadily to diminish. But if he misjudged national — I
might almost say industrial — psychology on this most
fundamental point, it demonstrates that for practical purposes
Marx and his materialist conception of history are anything
but an infallible guide. And so we are led to inquire whether,
if Marx, owing to his neglect of psychology, proved to be
wrong on this issue, he may not be equally untrustworthy
in other directions ; whether, in fact, the anti-climax which
has overtaken national relationships may not likewise take
place in industry ; whether the process of industrial central-
ization which Marx foresaw is not being accompanied by
internal disintegration, and whether the issue of it all is
to be his proletarian industralized State or a relapse into
social anarchy. Such, indeed, does appear to me to be
the normal trend of economic development ; for when
everything but economic considerations have been excluded
from life — and the development of industrialism tends
to exclude everything else — men tend naturally to quarrel,
because there is nothing positive left to bind men together
in a communal life. Looking at history from this point

10 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

of view, it may be said that if Marx's view is correct, and if
exploitation has played the part in history which he affirms
it has, then, frankly, I do not see how civilization ever came
into existence. We know that exploitation is breaking
civilisation up ; we may be equally sure it did not create
it. Moreover, it leaves us with no hope for the future. For
if it be true that the history of civilization is merely the
history of class struggles, what reason is there to suppose
that with the end of the reign of capitalism class struggle
will come to an end ? May it not merely change its form ?
The experience of the Bolshevik regime in Russia would
appear to suggest such a continuation.

It remains for me to thank Mr. J. Pla, Mr. M. B. Reckitt,
Mr. G. R. S. Taylor, Mr. L. Ward and Mr. C. White for the
interesting material they so generously placed at my disposal,
and the Editor of the New Age for permission to reprint such
chapters and parts of chapters as appeared in his journal.

A. J. P.

66, STRAND ON GREEN. W. 4.
September 1919-

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. GREECE AND ROME . . ^ . . • 13

II. CHRISTIANITY AND THE GUILDS . . . -34

III. THE MEDIEVAL HIERARCHY . . . -47

IV. THE REVIVAL OF ROMAN LAW . . . . 58
V. ROMAN LAW IN ENGLAND . . . -73

VI. THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST MEDIEVALISM . . 85

VII. MEDIEVALISM AND SCIENCE .... IO2

VIII. THE ARTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES . . ..117

IX. THE FRANCISCANS AND THE RENAISSANCE . . 126

X. THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY . . . 139

XI. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES . 158

XII. THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND .... 170

XIII. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION . . . . 189

XIV. CAPITALISM AND THE GUILDS . . . . 214

XV. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC THOUGHT AFTER THE

REFORMATION ..... 22$

XVI. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION .... 237

XVII. PARLIAMENTARIANISM AND THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 246

XVIII. ON LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANIES . . . 259

XIX. THE WAR AND THE AFTERMATH .... 271

XX. BOLSHEVISM AND THE CLASS WAR . . . 285

XXI. THE PATH TO THE GUILDS .... 298

INDEX ....... 317

11

A Guildsman's Interpretation
of History

CHAPTER I
GREECE AND ROME

THE first fact in history which has significance for Guildsmen
is that of the introduction of currency, which took place
in the seventh century before Christ when the Lydian kings
introduced stamped metal bars of fixed weight as a medium
of exchange. In the course of a generation or two this
uniform measure entirely replaced the bars of unfixed weight
which the Greeks had made use of when exchange was not
by barter. It was a simple device from which no social
change was expected, but the development which followed
upon it was simply stupendous. Civilization — that is,
the development of the material accessories of life, may
be said to date from that simple invention, for by facilitating
exchange it made foreign trade, differentiation of occupation
and specialization on the crafts and arts possible. But
along with the undoubted advantages which a fixed currency
brought with it there came an evil unknown to primitive
society — the economic problem ; for the introduction of
currency created an economic revolution, comparable only
to that which followed the invention of the steam engine
in more recent times, by completely undermining the com-
munist base of the Mediterranean societies. " We can
watch it in Greece, in Palestine and in Italy, and see the
temper of the sufferers reflected in Hesiod and Theognis,
Amos and Hosea, and in the legends of early Rome."

The progress of economic individualism soon divided

18

14 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Greek society into two distinct and hostile classes — the
prosperous landowners, the merchants and money-lending
class on the one hand, and the peasantry and the debt-slaves
on the other. Hitherto no one had ever thought of claiming
private property in land. It had never been treated as a
commodity to be bought and sold. The man who tilled
the soil thought of it as belonging to the family, to his
ancestors and descendants as much as to himself. But
within a generation or two after the introduction of currency
the peasantry everywhere began to find themselves in need of
money, and they found that it could be borrowed by pledging
their holdings as security for loans. It was thus that private
property in land first came into existence. Land tended
to pass into the hands of the Eupatrid by default. For
lean years have a way of running in cycles, and at such times
the " haves " can take advantage of the necessities of the
" have-nots." I

The reason for these developments is not far to seek.
So long as exchange was carried on by barter, a natural
limit was placed to the development of trade, because people
would only exchange for their own personel use. Exchange
would only be possible when each party to the bargain
possessed articles which the other wanted. But with the
introduction of currency this limitation was removed, and
for the first time in history there came into existence a
class of men who bought and sold entirely for the purposes
of gain. These middlemen or merchants became specialists
in finance. They knew better than the peasantry the
market value of things, and so found little difficulty in
taking advantage of them. Little by little they became
wealthy and the peasantry their debtors. It is the same
story wherever currency is unregulated — the distributor
enslaves the producer. So it is not surprising that the
Greeks always maintained a certain prejudice against all
occupations connected with buying and selling, which they
held were of a degrading nature. For though it is manifest
that society cannot get along without traders, it is imperative
for the well-being of society that they do not exercise too
much power. The Greeks found by experience that such

1 See The Greek Commonwealth, by Alfred Zimmern, pp. 1 10-14.

Greece and Rome 15

men were no better than they ought to be and that the
association of trading with money-making reflected itself
in their outlook on life, leading them eventually to suppose
that everything could be bought and that there was nothing
too great to be expressed in terms of money.1

Though the Greeks thought much about the problem
which had followed the introduction of currency, to the end
it eluded the efforts of their lawgivers and statesmen to
solve it, and mankind had to wait until the coming of Mediae-
valism before a solution was forthcoming. Then the Guilds
solved the problem by restricting currency to its legitimate
use as a medium of exchange by means of fixing prices.
Plato, it is true, anticipated the Mediaeval solution. In
Laws (917) he actually forbids bargaining and insists upon
fixed prices. But nothing came of his suggestion. Perhaps
it was too late in the day to give practical application to
such a principle. For Plato wrote in the period following
the Peloponnesian War when profiteering was rampant, and
a restoration of the communal spirit to society, such as
followed the rise of Christianity, was necessary before such
a measure could be applied. Hence it was that Aristotle
reverted to the principle of Solon that the cultivation of
good habits must accompany the promulgation of good
laws.

All the early Greek lawgivers who attempted to solve
the economic problem which currency had introduced
sought the solution not along Guild lines, by seeking to re-
strict currency to its legitimate use as a medium of exchange,
but by restricting the use of wealth. Lycurgus preserves
the communal life of Sparta for centuries against disruption
on the one hand by inducing his fellow-citizens to resume
the habits of their forefathers, to sacrifice all artificial dis-
tinctions, under the rigid but equal discipline of a camp
which included among other things the taking of meals
in common, and on the other by enforcing a division of
the lands equally among the families and by the institution
of a currency deliberately created to restrict business opera-
tions within the narrowest limits. It took the form of
bundles of iron bars, and it appears to have answered the

1 See The Greek Commonwealth, by Alfred Zimmern, p. 274.

16 A Guildstnari's Interpretation of History

purpose for which it was designed very well, for the Spartans
never became a commercial nation.

This state of things continued down to the Peloponnesian
War, when the Spartans, finding themselves at a disadvantage
with Athens, inasmuch as without coined money they could
have no fleet, departed from the law of Lycurgus. About
the same time they threw over their system of land tenure.
Continual warfare reduced the number of Spartans, and the
accumulation of several estates in one family created dispro-
portionate wealth, a tendency which was facilitated by a
law promoted by the Ephor Epitadeus who granted liberty
to bequeath property. Thus it came to pass that instead
of the 9,000 property-owning Spartans mentioned in the
regislation of Lycurgus, their numbers were reduced to
600, of whom only 100 were in full enjoyment of all civil
rights. Naturally such economic inequalities broke up
the communal life. The poorer citizens found themselves
excluded from the active exercise of their civil rights, and
could not keep pace with the rich in their mode of living,
nor fulfil the indispensable conditions which had been imposed
by Lycurgus upon every Spartan citizen.

In Attica the problem was faced in a different way.
Lycurgus' solution consisted not merely in putting the
clock back, as such measures would be called in these days,
but by causing the clock to stand still. His solution was
a democratic one in so far as democracy is possible among
a slave-owning people. But Solon in Attica sought a remedy
along different lines. He accepted currency and the social
changes which came with it, and substituted property for
birth as the standard for determining the rights and duties
of the citizens. He divided them into four classes, which
were distinguished from each other by their mode of military
service and the proportion of their incomes which was paid
in taxation. The lowest class paid no taxes at all, were
excluded from public offices, but were allowed to take part
in the popular assembly as well as in the courts in which
justice was administered by the people. Like Lycurgus,
he sought to redress the inequalities of wealth, but, unlike
him, he sought a solution, not in the enforcement of a rigid
discipline upon the citizens, but by removing the temptation

Greece and Rome 17

to accumulate wealth. This was the object of his sumptuary
laws, which were designed to make the rich and poor look
as much alike as possible, in order to promote a democracy
of personal habits if not of income. But though he did
not put the clock back as far as Lycurgus,' he did put it
back to the extent of giving things in many directions a
fresh start. It was for this purpose that he cancelled the
debts of the peasantry and effected a redistribution of
property, re-establishing the farmers on their ancestral
holdings. Though he failed to restrain usury, he sought
to mitigate to some extent its hardships by forbidding men
to borrow money on the security of their persons, while he
took steps to redeem those defaulting debtors who had been
sold into slavery by their creditors, using any public
or private funds he could secure for the purpose ; while,
further, he allowed the Athenians to leave their money to
whom they liked provided there were no legitimate male
heirs. These reforms, together with certain changes in
the juridical administration, were the most important of
Solon's laws. He refused the supreme position in the State,
and after making his laws he went abroad for ten years
to give his constitution a fair trial. When he returned
he found his juridical reforms were very successful, but the
economic troubles, though they had been allayed, had not
been eradicated. The peasants had been put back on their
holdings, but they had no capital and could not borrow money.
They did not blame Solon for his laws, but the magistrates
for the way they were administered. The State became
divided into three hostile parties — the men of the Shore,
of the Plain, and of the Mountains — each prepared to fight
for its own economic and territorial interests.

Fortunately at this crisis a man arose capable of handling
the situation: Pisistratus, who led the mountaineers, was
not only a man of statesmanlike qualities, but a noted soldier
and a man of large private means, and after some vicissitudes
he succeeded in making himself absolute master of the country.
When in power he found a remedy for the shortage of capital
among the peasants, which was the source of their economic
difficulty, by advancing to them capital out of his own private
fortune. This provided them with a nest-egg which enabled

18 A Guildsmari's Ititerpretation of History

them to tide over the lean years, or while their trees were
growing to maturity. Their troubles were now at an end,
and we hear no more about the land question until the
Spartans, towards the close of the Peloponnesian War, came
and ruined the cultivation.

Meanwhile, as a . consequence of the development of
foreign trade, Athens became a maritime, commercial and
industrial city in which stock-jobbing, lending at usury,
and every form .of financial speculation broke loose. This
led to the division of the social body into two distinct and
hostile factions — a minority which possessed most of the
capital and whose chief concern was its increase, and a
mass of proletarians who were filled with enmity towards
this aristocracy of finance, which began to monopolize all
political power. It was thus that the religious aristocracy
which for so long a period had governed Greece was superseded
by a plutocracy whose triumph Solon had unconsciously
prepared when he took income as a basis for the division of
the classes. During the Peloponnesian War the plutocracy
became very unpopular — presumably for profiteering, to
which wars give every opportunity — and in Samos, Messenia
and Megara the people, tired of economic subjection, revolted,
slew the rich, did away with all taxes, and confiscated and
divided landed property. The war entirely undermined all
stability in the Greek States, leaving behind it as a heritage
an unemployed class of soldiers and rowers which the social
system was powerless to absorb. They became a constant
source of trouble, and from the Peloponnesian War until
the Roman Conquest " the cities of Greece wavered between
two revolutions ; one that despoiled the rich, and another
that reinstated them in the possession of their fortunes."
It was in order to find a solution for this unemployed problem
that Alexander the Great, at the recommendation of Isocrates,
undertook the conquest of Asia and planted unemployed
farm colonies of Greeks as far East as Cabul.1

Reading Greek history reminds us of the fact that the
Class War is not a doctrine peculiar to the present age. But
it is interesting to observe that it entirely failed to effect
a solution of the economic problem which distracted Greece.

1 Zimmern, p. 263.

Greece and Rome 19

Unregulated currency having given rise to economic in-
dividualism and destroyed the common ownership of property,
the solidarity of society slowly fell to pieces. It had under-
mined alike the independence of the peasantry and the
old religious aristocracy which had hitherto governed Greece,
and had concentrated power entirely in the hands of a
plutocracy which, like all plutocracies, was blind to everything
except its own immediate interests. It was thus that
Greek society, from being united, became divicjed into two
distinct and hostile classes in which the possibility of revolu-
tion became an ever-present contingency. The frequent
revolutions excited by the abuse of power of the plutocracy
led to the thinning of the agricultural population and the
misery of the inhabitants, and prepared the people to suffer
without resistance — nay, perhaps to welcome the Roman
invasion and conquest.

Uncontrolled currency brought the same evils into
existence in Rome, where the concentration of capital in
the hands of a few and its accompanying abuses developed
to a greater extent and far more rapidly than in Greece,
once they got under way. That they developed much
more slowly in the first instance was perhaps due to the
fact that whereas capitalism in Athens was a consequence
of foreign trade, in Rome it was intimately connected with
the growth of militarism. This difference is in all respects
parallel to the difference in modern times between capitalist
development in England and Germany. For while in
Greece, as in England, the development of capitalism was
a private affair due to the initiative and enterprise of
individual traders, in Rome, as in Germany, it was closely
associated with the policy of the Government.

Rome was originally a small agricultural state governed
by an aristocracy in which the Patrons and Clients, as the
two classes of society were called, bore much the same
relation to each other as the lord and serf of feudal times.
The Patrons or Patricians, as they were called at a later
date, were expected by law and custom to defend the Clients
from all wrong or oppression on the part of others, while
the Clients were bound to render certain services to the
Patrons. Just as the spread of currency undermined the

20 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

personal relationship existing between the lord and the
serf in the Middle Ages, substituting money payments for
payments in kind, so it may be assumed that the relationship
of the Patrons and Clients in the early days of Rome was
transformed by means of the same agency, for it was about
the time of the spread of currency among the Mediterranean
communities that a new order of things began to come into
existence, when the hitherto harmonious relationship existing
between the Patrons and Clients was replaced by one of
personal bitterness. The bone of contention was the
severity of the law against debtors whereby the defaulting
debtor became the slave of the creditor, and as the debtor
in nearly all cases was a Client, it created bad feeling
between the two classes.

The unpopularity of this law against debtors led to
its abolition after the fall of the Decemvirate in the fifth
century before Christ. Interest on loans was limited to
10 per cent, and later to 5 per cent., while an attempt
was made to abolish usury altogether. But the laws to
abolish it proved ineffectual. Needy borrowers resorted
to usurious lenders, who took good care that repayment
was made one way or another. The Patricians appear to
have become very grasping and tyrannical, for we read of a
series of social disturbances between them and the peasantry
over the question of debts and the unwillingness of the
Patricians to allow the peasantry to have small holdings
of their own. These disturbances were at length brought
to an end in the year 286 B.C., when the poorer citizens
left Rome in a body, out of protest, and encamped in an
oak wood upon the Janiculum. To appease this secession
they were granted 14 jugera (about 9 acres) of land each
and their debts reduced. For a hundred and fifty years
from this date until the appearance of the Gracchi we hear
no more of civil dissensions in Rome.

The great change which transformed Rome from an
aristocratic and agricultural society into a capitalistic and
military one came about as a result of the Punic Wars.
Italy was left in a state of economic distress and confusion,
and the Romans were led to embark on a career of conquest
abroad in order to avoid troubles at home. Moreover,

Greece and Rome 21

the Punic Wars completely transformed the Roman character.
From being a community of hardy, thrifty, self-denying
and religious people they became avaricious, spendthrift
and licentious. The immediate effect of these wars was
to depopulate rural Italy, for the substantial burgesses
of the towns and the stout yeomen of the country fell in
great numbers during these wars. To this evil must be
added the further one that when the campaigns were over
and the soldiers returned home they had often contracted
licentious tastes and formed irregular habits which were ill
suited to the frugal life of the Italian husbandman. So
it came about that many who possessed small estates were
eager to sell them in order that they might enjoy the irregular
pleasures of the city, while those who possessed nothing also
tended to gravitate there. Thus a flood of emigration took
place from the country to the towns. The countryside became
more and more depopulated, while the towns, and Rome most
of all, swarmed with needy and reckless men ready for any
outrage.

These small estates and holdings passed into the hands
of the great Senatorial families, who were every day growing
richer by the acquisition of commands and administrative
posts which were multiplied by every successive war. They
cultivated them by means of slaves, which as a result of the
wars now came on to the market in vast numbers, and were
sold by public auction to the highest bidders. The cheapness
of slave labour reacted to destroy the prosperity of such
small free cultivators as had remained on the land. These
privately owned large estates in turn tended to be replaced
by enormous ones, administered by joint-stock companies
which Pliny believed to be the real cause of the depopulation
and decay of Italy. All the Public Lands of certain provinces
belonged at one time to a few families, and the Roman
dominions in Africa, comprising a great part of the north of
that continent, belonged to six persons only, whom Nero,
later on, thought well to put to death.

The growth of these joint-stock companies which made
themselves the masters of the commercial movement is
to be traced to a law, passed just before the second Punic
War, which made it illegal for Senators to engage in any

22 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

commercial venture. In order, therefore, to furnish supplies
for the army and navy it became necessary to form companies
with sufficient capital to undertake the contracts, and in
these companies all the wealthy Romans, as well as officers
of State, soldiers and politicians, held shares. The Patrician
families were no exception to this rule, though they preferred
to hold their shares in secret, not caring to be compromised
in the eyes of the public, or to show that they were in any
way indebted to the bankers and publicani (tax-gatherers),
who were at the head of the commercial movement and
until the fall of the Republic were the greatest power in
Rome. Well has it been said that " the history of Roman
Property Law is the history of the assimilation of res mancipi
to res nee mancipi ; l in other words, the assimilation of real
estate to movable property, of land to currency, of aristocracy
to plutocracy.

It was thus in Rome, as in Greece, that uncontrolled
currency replaced the class divisions based upon differences
of function by class divisions based upon differences of
wealth. Financial companies invaded all the conquered
nations. There were companies for Sicily, for Asia, for
Greece, Macedonia, Africa, Bithynia, Cilicia, Syria, Judea,
Spain and Gaul. They had their headquarters at Rome,
and the Forum became a kind of stock-exchange in which
the buying or selling of shares was always going on and
where every man was trying to outwit his neighbour. These
companies speculated in everything : in land, building,
mines, transport and supplies for the army and navy, and in
the customs. This latter was the central source of corruption.
Every five years the taxes of the provinces were put up to
public auction, and that company which made the highest
bid secured the contract if proper security could be given.
When the contract was secured the successful company
paid into the Imperial Treasury the amount of their bid
and made what profit they could out of the transaction.
All they collected over and above the amount of their contract
they kept for themselves. Naturally the system led to
extortion, since the more money the companies could extort
from the taxpayers the greater was their profit. The

J Sir Henry Maine, Ancient Law, p. 283.

Greece and Rome 28

extortions incident to this iniquitous system form a principal
topic in the provincial history of Rome, for the Roman
Governors found it to their interest to support the tax-
gatherers on condition of sharing in the plunder. It has
been said that a Roman Governor needed to make three
fortunes. The first was to provide him with the means of
buying the suffrages of the people or of discharging the
debts incurred in buying them ; the second was to keep
for himself ; and the third was to provide him with the
wherewithal to fight the actions in the courts which were
certain to be brought against him when he relinquished
office.

It goes without saying that a system so corrupt could
not but react to corrupt Rome itself. The frequent laws
against bribery at elections which may be dated from the
year 181 B.C. testify to the change that was taking place.
While money was extorted from the provincials, Rome
itself escaped taxation altogether, and this reacted to render
the Senate an entirely irresponsible body, for when they
had now no longer any need to ask the people for money
they were subject to no real control and no obstacle stood
in the way of their acting as best suited their own personal
interest. All lucrative employments were seized by members
of the great Senatorial families, while a family that had once
been ennobled by office had so many opportunities for making
money that it became more difficult every day for a new
man to make his way to the Consulship or even into the
Senate, which was fast becoming a hereditary body of
legislators. It was only when difficult military services
were required that they called in the services of independent
men.

Now that successful warfare had proved itself so profit-
able to the Senatorial families and the people had entirely
lost control over them, the lust for conquest became
general. Wars were now no longer defensive, even in pretence.
Like the Germans, who appear to have copied the methods
of the Romans, the Senate resorted to the most detestable
practices in order to create internal dissensions in other
countries. They were determined to have a voice in all
matters within their sphere of interest, to make every possible

24 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

excuse for Roman interference. Senatorial commissions
were continually being despatched to arrange the affairs
of other nations, for the Roman Senator had no doubt what-
soever in his mind that his people were the strongest and
most competent to rule the world. And in the furtherance
of their aims they were entirely unscrupulous. The arrogance
and brutality of this new aristocracy of wealth knew no
limits. They destroyed Carthage and Corinth out of com-
mercial rivalry, while Cicero relates that the Senate caused
the vineyards and olive-groves of Gaul to be destroyed,
in order to avoid a damaging competition with the rich
Roman landlords,1 just as the Germans for similar reasons
sought to destroy the towns and industries of Belgium and
Northern France.

This period of Roman history should be particularly
interesting to us, as it presents so many striking analogies
to the present day. Just as the war promoted by the
militarist capitalism of Germany has brought in its train
Bolshevism and the Class War, so the militarist capitalism
of Rome bore fruit in the slave revolts. As early as 181 B.C.
7,000 slaves in Apulia were condemned to death for brigand-
age, where travelling had become dangerous without an
armed retinue. From attacking travellers they had begun
to plunder the smaller country houses, and all except the
very rich were obliged to leave the country. But there
was not any general revolt until 133 B.C., when the slaves
of Sicily revolted. The Romans there were now to feel
the vengeance of men brutalized by oppression. Clad
in skins, and armed with stakes and reaping-hooks, they broke
into the houses and massacred all persons of free condition,
from the old man and matron to the infant in arms. Once
the standard of revolt was raised, thousands joined in,
while the insurrection not only spread over the whole of
the island, but broke out in various parts of the Empire.
No one could tell where it would stop. For a time they
met with success, and defeated an army of 8,000 Romans,
but in the end the revolt was suppressed with great cruelty,
though it took two years to effect it. A second Slave War
broke out in Sicily thirty years later, and a third after the

* Cicero, De Republica, III. 6.

Greece and Rome 25

lapse of another thirty years, the latter being led by a
gladiator named Spartacus, after whom the German Bolsheviks
named their secret organization. Both of these revolts
were suppressed like the first one, and when at length slavery
came to an end it was not due to a successful revolt but
to a changed attitude of the Roman citizen towards the
institution of slavery. " During the first century of the
Empire, chiefly under the influence of the Stoic philosophy,
as later under that of Christianity, there had been growing
up a feeling that a slave was, after all, a human being, and
had some claim to be treated as such under the Roman law.
Antoninus followed out this idea both in legislation and in
his private life, as did his successor also, who adored his
memory. They limited the right of a master over his
slaves in several ways ; ordaining that if cruelty were proved
against a master, he should be compelled to sell the slave
he had ill-treated." * By such means slavery gradually
gives way to Feudalism, which we shall consider in a later
chapter.

Though these revolts were successfully suppressed, they
shook the complacency of the Romans. A force was set
in motion which by a natural sequence led to the Civil Wars
and eventually to the Dictatorship and the Empire. Before
the Slave War actually broke out it was becoming evident
to thinking men that things could not go on in the way they
were going and that reform was becoming a matter of urgency.
Tiberius Gracchus, who now came to the front as a reformer,
was the son of one of the few Romans in whom any public
spirit had survived. When travelling through Etruria he had
noted her broad lands tilled, not by free yeoman as of old,
but by slaves. Soon after this the Slave War broke out, and
as he had previously spoken his mind freely on this matter,
public opinion in Rome fastened on him as the man to under-
take the work of reform. After being elected a Tribune,
he proposed to revive the Licinian Law of 364 B.C. by which
it was enacted that no head of a family could hold more
than 500 jugera (nearly 320 acres) of the Public Land,
modifying it only to the extent that permission was to be
given to every son to hold half that quantity in addition

1 Rome, by W. Warde Fowler, p. 244.

26 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

on becoming his own master. It should be explained that
by Public Land was meant land owned by the Roman State
of which there was much ; for the Senate had retained its
hold on a large part of the land of Italy acquired by Rome,
though it was mostly leased to the great proprietors. To
propose, therefore, that no one should hold more than 500
jugera was to attack the great landholders and companies
who administered the vast estates, worked by slave labour,
and to seek to replace them by a free yeomanry. Those
who gave up possession were to receive compensation for
improvements they had effected.

After some difficulty Gracchus succeeded in getting
his bill carried by acclamation by the Assembly of Tribes.
Within certain limits it was put into operation, and there
is reason to believe that it did some good in regard both
to depopulation and agriculture. But in order to get it
carried during his year of office — and if he could not manage
it then he would have to give it up for some time — he de-
liberately broke with law and usage by carrying a bill deposing
the Tribune who acted for the Senate and was opposed to
him. This violent and irregular procedure provoked a
resistance which cost him his life. He had laid himself
open to the charge of attempting to make himself master
of the State, and as it was a maxim of Roman Law that
the man who aimed at tyranny might be slain by any one,
his enemies were not slow to take advantage of his imprudence.
He and many of his supporters were killed on the Capitol
when he had been Tribune for seven months, and the populace
of Rome made no attempt to save him. Nine years later
his brother Caius Gracchus was elected Tribune and took
up his work, but he and his supporters were likewise slain
by their political enemies.

Whatever the Gracchi failed to do, they certainly shook
the power and prestige of the Senate. They gave it a blow
from which it never recovered. The cruel times that followed
made the best men of both parties regret the untimely end
of those who had sacrificed wealth, rank and tranquillity
in the hope of reforming the State by peaceful methods.
But it was not to be done. The path to reform was blocked
by the forms of a constitution which had served their purpose

Greece and Rome 27

while Rome was a small City State, but became an anachronism
when Rome became a world-wide Empire ; by the narrow
spirit of the oligarchical faction, which was opposed to all
change from self-interested reasons ; and lastly by the mean
and fickle temper of the mongrel population of Rome whose
power was sovereign in legislation and elections. These
three factors in the situation reacted upon each other, and
finally precipitated political chaos. The refusal of the
Senate to face boldly the situation which was developing
and their resolve to keep power entirely in their own hands
ended by bringing them into contempt. They refused to
listen to the Gracchi ; they had to listen to Marius. It
was a true epigram that ran " the blood of Gracchus was
the seed sown and Marius was the fruit." For there is a
definite connection between the two. It was precisely
because the Senate refused the legitimate demands of reform
that a situation developed which mastered them. The
Senate, like our own Government, being entirely under the
control of capitalist influences, developed that same total
incapacity to act except when pressure was brought to bear
upon it. And so it happened that a time came when un-
scrupulous adventurers rose to power who understood the
art of exploiting their stupidity. While the oligarchy
controlling the Senate found themselves able to suppress
revolts against their power from below, they found them-
selves powerless to control the growing power of their own
generals, the jealousies between whom became a constant
source of danger and anxiety to the State, whose interests
they were supposed to serve, and led eventually to the civil
wars which in the last century before Christ brought the
whole Roman system to the very brink of ruin.

The reason for these troubles is not far to seek. When
Tiberius Gracchus said, " The wild animals of Italy have their
dens and lairs ; the men who have fought for Italy have
light and air and nothing more. They are styled the masters
of the world, though they have not a clod of earth they
can call their own," he put his finger on the central weakness
of the Roman policy of warfare which created in Italy a
landless proletariat of desperate men. It became clearer
to the people every day that the governing class expected

28 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

them to do the fighting while they themselves were to take
all the plunder. This realization led to the growth of
dissatisfaction which broke loose when the governing class,
by opposing the reforms of Gracchus, destroyed the confidence
of the people in their good intentions. The consequence
was that as nobody felt any loyalty to the Government,
the instinct of loyalty which is natural to the vast majority
of men was transferred from the Republic to individual
generals, whom they regarded as their patrons. The Roman
armies, which were such excellent fighting machines, were
composed of the soldiers of Marius, of Sulla, of Pompey
or of Caesar. Their swords were at the command of any
leader who offered a chance of booty. This new state of
things, which reached its height during the civil wars, took
its origin with the great Scipio. He had been refused levies
by the Senate which he deemed necessary for the invasion
of Africa, and he raised volunteers on his own credit, rewarding
them with grants of land in Southern Italy. Marius and
Sulla held out prospects of booty to the men who served
under them, and so on until the fall of the Empire — the
loyalty of the soldiers had to be bought. It was the natural
and inevitable consequence of the destruction of a free
yeomanry in Italy and the rise of a professional soldier
class. It is thus to be seen that there is a very definite
connection between the attitude of the governing class to
the reforms of Gracchus and the civil wars that followed
forty-five years later and which were finally Brought to an
end by the triumph of Augustus.

With the advent of Augustus a new chapter in Roman
history is opened. The Republic gives way to the Empire,
Roman society takes a new lease of life ; order begins to
get the upper hand of anarchy. The immediate cause of
the change was that the Senate and Roman people, after
bitter experience became at last reconciled to the idea of
despotism. They no longer claimed the exclusive right to
deal with the ever-increasing administrative business of
the Empire, and allowed Augustus a free hand to deal with
the chaos which had overtaken it as best he could. This
he did in the only way it is possible for a despot to govern —
by means of a highly centralized bureaucracy, which he

Greece and Rome 29

superimposed over popular institutions, many of which he
restored, in form at least, where they had fallen into decay.
This may not have been an ideal solution of the problems
of the Roman Empire, but it was eminently practical. It
preserved Roman civilization for centuries from the fear of
invasion from without and from disruption from within.
Augustus curbed the power of the capitalists and placed
the taxation of the Empire on a new basis by the preparation
of a Survey in which every house, field and wood was duly
valued by responsible officials, thus getting rid once and for
all of the system of extortion which was the central source
of political corruption. With his capable and loyal helper
Agrippa, he travelled over the whole Empire working hard
at making settlements of all kinds, and carrying on military
operations where they were absolutely necessary. Augustus
found the Empire in a state of chaos, he left it a strongly
compacted union of provinces and dependent kingdoms.

But Augustus was too clear-headed a man to trust entirely
to the machinery of State. He understood that the satis-
factory working of any system of government depended
ultimately on the character of the people, and so he sought
to promote a revival of the old Roman spirit. He called
the poets to his aid, and is said to have suggested to Virgil
the subject of the Mneid, which came to be looked upon as
almost a sacred book, loved and honoured as much by
Christian Fathers as by Pagan scholars. He saw that if
his government was to be stable, Rome and Italy must be
loyal, contented and at peace ; and this he secured by
what in these days is called welfare work. " The city of
Rome, with a population of perhaps half a million, of all
races and degrees, had been a constant anxiety to Augustus
so far, and had exercised far more power in the Empire
than such a mixed and idle population was entitled to.
He saw that this population must be well policed, and
induced to keep itself in order as far as possible ; that it
must be made quite comfortable, run no risk of starvation
have confidence in the goodwill of the gods, and enjoy plenty
of amusements. Above all, it must believe in himself,
in order to be loyal to his policy. When he returned to
Rome after crushing Antony and Cleopatra, the Romans

80 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

were already disposed to believe in him, and he did all he
could to make them permanently and freely loyal. He
divided the city into new sections for police purposes, and
recruited corps of watchmen from the free population ;
he restored temples and priesthoods, erected many pleasant
and convenient public buildings (this incidentally giving
plenty of employment), organized the supply of corn and
of water, and encouraged public amusements by his own
presence at them. He took care that no one should starve,
or become so uncomfortable as to murmur or rebel. On
the other hand, he did not mean this motley population
to continue to have undue influence on the affairs of the
Empire. True, he gave them back their Free State, and
you might see magistrates, Senate and assemblies in the
city, just as under the Republic. But the people of the
city henceforth had little political power. The consuls
and Senate, indeed, were far from idle, but the assemblies
for election and legislation soon ceased to be realities. In
elections no money was now to be gained by a vote, and
in legislation the people were quite content with sanctioning
the wisdom of Augustus and his advisers." r

Though the reforms of Augustus preserved the Empire
for centuries, they preserved it at the expense of its vitality,
for what Augustus introduced was essentially what in these
days we call the Servile State. He maintained order by
undermining the independence and initiative of the citizens.
This weakness gradually made itself felt, for as time wore
on the Roman Empire became increasingly an automatic
movement of machinery dependent entirely on the Caesar
of Rome. The great extension of governmental control
led eventually to the incorporation of the Collegia as sub-
ordinate adjuncts of the State. Exactly what these Collegia
originally were or eventually became we are not quite sure,
for our information about them is very scanty, and it is
therefore unwise to call them Guilds. It is probable they
were originally friendly societies, and we know that in the
early days of the Empire they began to undertake public
duties. The Collegia of the building trade, for instance,
began to undertake the duties of a fire-brigade in Roman

1 Rome, by W. Warde Fowler, pp. 196-7.

Greece and Rome 31

towns, and this system of delegating functions to organized
groups of workers led to the formation of Collegia in different
trades. The Government having assumed responsibility
for the provision of an adequate food supply, privileges
were granted to bakers, corn merchants 'and shippers in
the provinces. This happened at least as early as the reign
of Antoninus Pius. In the year A.D. 271 all the incorporated
Collegia were pressed into public service by Aurelian in
order to fortify Rome, and this appears to have been the
beginning of a closer association between the Collegia and
the State. Severus Alexander, we are told, " pursued the
old policy of stimulating enterprise by bounties," and
incorporated " all industries whatsoever " in Guilds and
regulated their status in the eyes of the law, which was
doubtless a step in the direction of finally converting them
into the strictly hereditary castes whose existence is pre-
supposed by the legislation of the Constantinian epoch.
Though the whole subject is one of great uncertainty, it
does appear that efforts were made in Rome to balance the
centralizing movement by decentralization as much as
possible, and that group organization began to come into
existence.1

The great defect in the constitution of the Empire was
that as the position of Emperor was elective the succession
was never guaranteed, and in the third century after Christ
this led to serious disorders, which, lasting for a hundred
years, were finally brought to a close by the Emperor Diocle-
tian. But these things were only incidents in a decline
in which a certain demoralization overtook everything.
The provincial cities lost their initiative and energy. They
became too dependent upon the centralized Government
which daily became more paternal. The old virtues of
courage and sacrifice vanished before the growth of pessimism
in which the populations, enervated by luxury and sensuality,
became feebler and feebler, until finally they were unable
any longer to offer effective resistance to the inroads of the
barbarians.

We may be sure then that Roman civilization would

1 See The Roman Empire, by H. Stuart Jones, pp. 272-3. Also Two
Thousand Years of Guild Life, by J. M. Lambert, pp. 22-31.

82 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

not have fallen had not Roman society suffered from internal
decay. The reforms of Augustus merely delayed the final
catastrophe ; they could not prevent it, for Roman civiliza-
tion for centuries before, as we have seen, had been rotten
at the core. Successful warfare had made Rome wealthy,
but it left the increased wealth of the community entirely
at the mercy of the jugglers of finance, who were destitute
of patriotism except in so far as its claims coincided with
the protection of 'their interests. It was to protect the
interests of these economic vampires that the enlightened
system of Roman Law was formulated. So often have
we been reminded of the gift that Roman Law is to civilization
that most people have accepted it without question, little
suspecting the iniquity that reigns at its heart. For the
aim of Roman Law, unlike Greek Law, was not to secure
justice but to bolster up a corrupt society in the interests
of public order. Uncontrolled currency having led to
capitalism and capitalism having given rise to social disorders,
Roman Law stepped into the breach and sought by legalizing
injustices to preserve order. It was not concerned with
moral principles. Its aim was not, like Mediaeval Law, to
enable good men to live among bad l but to enable rich men
to live among poor. This it did by following the line of
least resistance, which was to give legal sanction to social
injustices once established. Hence the infamous Statute
of Limitations, by which, after the expiration of a certain
period, the actual holder of an estate could no longer be
compelled to restore it to the true owner, unless the latter
should be able to show that within the prescribed time he
had demanded restitution with all the prescribed formalities.
Well did Heine say of this last condition that it " opened
wide the door of chicanery, particularly in a state where
despotism and jurisprudence were at their zenith, and where
the unjust possessor had at command all means of intimida-
tion, especially against the poor who might be unable to defray

1 " This is the reason why the law was made, that the wickedness of man
should be restrained through fear of it, and that good men could safely live
among bad men ; and that bad men should be punished and cease to do evil
for fear of the punishment." (From the Fuero Juzgo, a collection of laws,
Gothic and Roman in origin, made by the Hispano-Gothic King Chindavinto,
A.D. 640. In the National Library of Spain, Madrid.)

Greece and Rome 33

the cost of litigation. The Roman was both soldier and
lawyer, and that which he conquered with the strong arm
he knew how to defend by the tricks of law. Only a nation
of robbers and casuists could have invented the Law of
Prescription, the Statute of Limitations, and consecrated
it in that detestable book which may be called the bible
of the Devil — I mean the codex of Roman Civil Law." l
But the evil does not end here. Not only did the revived
study of Roman Law during the Middle Ages operate to
undermine the communal relations of society and re-establish
private property, but in more recent times it has brought
confusion into thought about social questions by diverting
attention from the primary issue of currency and its regulation
to concentrate it upon the relatively secondary issue ot
property. We shall see its sinister influence at work corrupt-
ing the thought of the French Revolution as indeed of the
Socialist Movement to-day.

1 Confessions, by Heinrich Heine.

CHAPTER II
CHRISTIANITY AND THE GUILDS

THE underlying cause of the failure of Greece and Rome
to grapple with the economic problems which followed the
introduction of currency is to be found in the Pagan philo-
sophy of life. That philosophy was one of self-sufficiency
and self-assertiveness on a basis of senuous enjoyment,
and as such was incapable of exercising a restraining
influence upon men when and where foreign trade and
successful warfare brought great wealth within their reach.
The worship of materialism had ended in leaving society
at the mercy of economic problems which eluded the efforts
of statesmen and reformers alike. If, therefore, society
were ever again to recover its old-time solidarity and be
lifted out of the slough of despondency into which it had
fallen, it was essential that life and its problems should be
faced in a spirit fundamentally different from that of
Paganism. This new spirit the world found in Christianity :
with the spread of its teachings the tide begins to turn
and a new chapter opened in the history of mankind.

In these days we are so accustomed to regard religious
faith as something essentially divorced from the ordinary
routine of life that it is difficult to realize that Christianity
in the Early Church was as much a gospel of social salvation
in this world as of happiness in a life to come. The two
went hand in hand, and it was this that gave Christianity
the wonderful power which made it such a driving force.
The Early Church continued the communistic tradition of
the Apostles. Thus we read in Acts ii. : —

Then they which gladly received this word were baptized ; and the
same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And
they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in
breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul ; and

34

Christianity and the Guilds 35

many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed
were together, and had all things common, and parted them to all men, as
every man had need.

And again, at the end of Acts iv. there is to be found
another description of their life: —

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one
soul : neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed
was his own ; but they had all things in common. And with great power
gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus : and great
grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked ;
for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought
the price of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles'
feet : and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being
interpreted, the son of consolation), a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,
having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.

Looking at Christianity in the light of these texts, we
find ourselves in the presence of a creed whose aim it was
to promote communal relationships in society, for it is
manifest that in the mind of the Early Christians the
Fatherhood of God involved the Brotherhood of man, and
vice versa. If men and women were to live together as
equals, if they were to share a common life and hold goods
in common, they must have in common ideas as well as
goods, or there would be no cement to bind them together.
In order that common ideas might prevail amongst them,
they must acknowledge some supreme authority, some
principle of conduct which was above and beyond personal
opinion. Above all, they must be fortified in spirit against
any temptation to private gain. If wealth was not to
obtain a hold upon them they must cultivate an attitude
of indifference towards riches. This was the gospel of
Christ in its social aspect. It taught men not to despise
the world but to renounce it, in order that they might
acquire the strength to conquer. In teaching this gospel
Christianity introduced the world to a new moral principle.
Hitherto the world was divided between two opposed theories
of life or moral principles — Paganism and Buddhism. The
gospel of Paganism had been to urge men to conquer the
world, and it found an end in despondency. Buddhism,
realizing the moral failure which must necessarily follow

36 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

the pursuit of purely material aims, sought to solve the
problem by teaching men to renounce the world, which
it taught was illusion. Such an attitude towards life is
repugnant to healthy-minded men, as being merely an
evasion of the whole problem of life. Nevertheless, the
choice was ultimately between Paganism and Buddhism —
for all religions clove to one or the other idea, until Chris-
tianity appeared in the world, when by teaching men to
renounce the world in order that they might conquer it,
it fused the two apparently contradictory moral principles.
It sought, as it were, by a strong appeal to what was centri-
petal in his nature, to counteract the natural centrifugal
tendencies in man. It was through this new moral principle
that Christianity triumphed, for it proved itself to be a
principle of great dynamic power, capable of bracing up
the moral fibre, and inspiring heroism and a great awakening
of human forces. The founders of Christianity conclude
by an earnest invocation of the end of the world — i.e. the
end of the existing social order, and not of the earth, as is
generally supposed — and strange to say, their invocation
was realized. The lowly quiet man not desirous of riches
came into his own. He began to be respected, and was
no longer treated with scorn, as he had been under Paganism.
From this point of view, the triumph of Christianity may
justly be regarded as a triumph of democracy. " In the
fourth century the Council of Constantinople was composed
of bishops who were ploughmen, weavers, tanners, black-
smiths, and the like." l

Although pure communism survives to-day in the monastic
orders of the Roman Church, the communism of laymen
did not last very long. Exactly how long we are not quite
sure, but it is generally assumed that it did not survive
apostolic days for any lengthy period. The reason does
not seem far to seek. Experience proves that communism
in household possessions is not compatible with family life,
and it is to be assumed that the Early Christians were not
long in finding this out. But the communal ownership
of land is a different matter, and the effect of the Christian

1 The Church and Democracy, pamphlet by Charles Marston, quoted in
Socialism in Church History, by Conrad Noel.

Christianity and the Guilds 87

teaching was undoubtedly to preserve for centuries the com-
munal system of land ownership of the barbarian tribes
who overran the Empire in the west, as it doubtless restored
communal ownership in places where it had disappeared.
That confusion should exist in regard to the attitude of
Christianity and the Mediaeval world towards property is,
I am persuaded, due to the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas
is regarded as representative of the Mediaeval point of view.
It is insufficiently realized that his teaching about property
was of the nature of a compromise intended to reconcile
stubborn facts with the communistic teaching of the Gospel.
In the thirteenth century, when he wrote, the Church was
already defeated. It had failed in the attempt to suppress
the revival of Roman Law, and the practical consequence
of the failure was that landlordism was beginning to supplant
communal ownership. To attack the institution of property
as such was difficult, for the Church itself was implicated.
It was already immensely rich. It is said it was in possession
of a third of the land. In such circumstance, Aquinas
apparently thought the only practicable thing to do was to
seek to moralize property. Hence his endorsement of
Aristotle's dictum " private property and common use."
Possession was not to be considered absolute, but conditional
upon the fulfilment of duties. A man might not hold more
property than that for which he had personal need. Although
certain forms of private property might be held, it must be
administered in accordance with the necessities of the holder's
own position. Superfluity was common, and the right and
property of the poor. In certain cases of necessity " all
things became common."

It was the communistic spirit of Christianity that gave
rise to the Guilds. They were called into existence by the
needs of protection and mutual aid. The earliest Guilds,
as might be expected, were religious Guilds, and were volun-
tary associations. Their purposes were what we would call
social, as well as religious ; their funds being expended on
feasts, masses for the dead, the Church burial fees, charitable
aid, and the like. Brentano tells us that the Guilds had a
dual origin, and resulted from the amalgamation of the
sacrificial societies of the barbarians with the religious

88 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

societies of Christendom ; he tells us that the word Guild
meant originally a festival or sacrificial feast, and was applied
subsequently to the company who thus feasted together.1
The Guilds probably had historical continuity with the
Roman Collegia, some of which were partly craft and partly
religious, others entirely religious.

With the dissolution of the Roman Empire it was natural
that associations should be formed for the purposes of
defence. Such were the Frith Guilds, which were compulsory
associations, each with a corporate responsibility for the
conduct of its members. They provided also for common
aid in legal matters, such as defence against false accusation.
These Guilds, however, need not detain us any more than
the great number of other Guilds which existed for particular
purposes, such as hunting and fishing, for the repairing of
the highways and bridges, and for various other objects.
We must pass on to the Middle Ages, when the Guilds
definitely became economic organizations, under the pro-
tection of patron saints, for it is with economic Guilds that
we are specially concerned.

" The primary purpose of the craft Guild was to establish
a complete system of industrial control over all who were
associated together in the pursuit of a common catting.
It enveloped the life of the Mediaeval craftsman in a network
of restrictions which bound him hand and foot. It did
not suffer the minutest detail to escape its rigid scrutiny
and observation. It embodied in its regulations a whole
social system, into which the individual was completely
absorbed by the force of public opinion and the pressure
of moral and social conventions. It embraced within its
scope not only the strictly technical, but also the religious,
the artistic, and the economic activities of Mediaeval society.
It was first and foremost undoubtedly an industrial organiza-
tion, but the altar and the pageant, the care for the poor
and the education of the young, were no less part of its
functions than the regulation of wages and hours and all
the numerous concerns of economic life." »

1 History and Development of Guilds, by L. Brentano.
» An Introduction to the Economic History of England, by E. Upson,
PP- 295-6-

Christianity and the Guilds 39

There can be little dou|?t that it was because the Guilds
of the Middle Ages were pervaded by religious sentiment
that they were so successful as economic organizations,
for we must not forget that the sense of brotherhood and
human solidarity was restored to the world by Christianity
after it had been broken up by the growth of capitalism
under the Roman Empire. This sense of the brotherhood
of mankind made possible the Just Price which was the
central economic idea of the Middle Ages. It was an idea
unthinkable in Rome, where' conquest and exploitation
seemed but the natural order of the universe. The Just
Price left no room for the growth of capitalism by the manipu-
lation of exchange, for it demanded that currency should
be restricted to its primary and proper use as a medium
of exchange.

It was this Mediaeval conception of the Just Price that,
for the first time in history, made the regulation of currency
possible, and it is only by relating all the Guild regulations
to this central idea that so many of them become intelligible.
The Just Price is necessarily a fixed price, and, in order to
maintain it, the Guilds had to be privileged bodies having
an entire monopoly of their respective trades over the area of
a particular town or city ; for it was only by monopoly that
a fixed price could be maintained, as society found to its
cost when the Guilds were no longer able to exercise this
function. Only through the exercise of authority over its
individual members could the Guild prevent profiteering, in
its forms of forestalling, regrating, engrossing, and adultera-
tion. Trade abuses of this kind were ruthlessly suppressed
in the Middle Ages. For the first offence a member was
fined ; the most severe penalty was expulsion from the
Guild, which meant that a man lost the privilege of practising
his craft in his native town.

But a Just and Fixed Price cannot be maintained by
moral action alone. If prices are to be fixed throughout
production, it can be done only on the assumption that a
standard of quality can be upheld. As a standard of quality
cannot finally be defined in the terms of law, it is necessary,
for the maintenance of a standard, to place authority in
the hands of craftmasters, a consensus of whose opinion

40 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

constitutes the final court of appeal. In order to ensure a
supply of masters it is necessary to train apprentices, to
regulate the size of the workshop, the hours of labour, the
volume of production, and the like ; for only when attention
is given to such matters are workshop conditions created
which are favourable to the production of masters. It is
thus that we see all the regulations — as, indeed, the whole
hierarchy of the Guild — arising out of the primary necessity
of maintaining the Just Price.1

The elaborate organizations of the Guilds did not spring
full-grown, but were evolved gradually, as a result of experi-
ence in the light of the central idea of the Just Price. Support
is given to the thesis that, as economic organizations, the
Guilds grew up around the idea of the Just Price, by the
fact that when Guilds first made their appearance they
were not differentiated into separate trades. The first
Guilds which assumed economic functions were the Guilds
Merchant,* which the various charters acknowledged as the
ruling power within cities, and upon which they confer not
only the right of regulating trade, but the right of municipal
self-government. Being mixed organizations, they would
naturally be concerned primarily with the maintenance of
a standard of morality in commercial transactions. In
the eleventh century, when the first of these charters in
this country was granted by the sovereign, the towns were
small, the largest not containing more than seven or eight
thousand inhabitants. Agriculture was still one of the
main occupations of the burgesses, and its produce one of
the principal elements of their trade. It was, perhaps, the
smallness of the towns that accounts for the fact that at
that date craftsmen did not organize themselves separately
but became members of the Guilds Merchant, or, in other
words, of the municipality, for in those days the two

1 Apprenticeship became an integral element in the constitution of the
Craft Guild because in no other way was it possible to ensure the permanency
of practice and the continuity of tradition whereby alone the regulation of the
Guild for honourable dealing and sound workmanship could be carried on from
generation to generation ; or to raise up, as one Guild expresses it, " honest
and virtuous masters to succeed us in the worshipful fellowship for the main-
tenance of the feats of merchandise " (Lipson, pp. 282-3).

* The earliest known reference to the Guilds Merchant is in a charter to the
town of Burford, 1087-1107 (ibid., p. 240).

Christianity and the Guilds 41

were identical. All concerned in industry, in whatsoever
capacity, joined the same organization. A comparatively
small town would contain merchants enough — each of
them trading in several commodities — to form a Guild
Merchant, and at that time anybody who bought and sold
anything beyond provisions for daily use ranked as a merchant.
The population, indeed, would need to be much greater
before separate trades could support organizations of their
own. This point of development was reached about a
hundred years later, when the Craft Guilds, after making
their separate appearance, finally substituted their collective
power for that of the Guilds Merchant, which survived as
the municipality controlling the separate Craft Guilds.

The immediate grievance that precipitated the struggle
which ended in the establishment of the Craft Guilds was
the fact that membership of the Guilds Merchant was confined
to such as owned land in the towns. At first there was no
objection to this, because in those early days every burgess
held land. Gradually, however, a class of craftsmen appeared
that did not own land, and as these were excluded from
the Guilds Merchant, they rebelled. No doubt the craftsmen
who were members of the Guilds Merchant had their own
grievances, for in a mixed organization it invariably happens
that those things which concern the majority or dominant
party receive attention, while the interests of the minority
are neglected. As, a century after the formation of the
Guilds Merchant, the craftsmen everywhere were in revolt,
it is a fair assumption that it was because they found their
particular interests neglected. Anyway, it is interesting
to observe that the craftsmen who were the first to rebel
— the weavers and fullers — were those who did not produce
exclusively for a local market, and who would consequently
be the first to feel the tyranny of the middleman. When
all circumstances are taken into account, this explanation
of the rebellion of the craftsmen seems to me to be the only
probable one. The explanation generally given by economic
historians, that the quarrel between the weavers and the
Guilds Merchant was due to the fact that as the Flemings
had originally introduced the weaving industry into England
a certain proportion of the men engaged in that craft would

42 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

be of alien ancestry, and the Guild merchants would in
consequence be inclined to act unfavourably towards them,
has been disposed of by Mr. Lipson,1 who contends that it
was not that the Guilds Merchant desired to exclude the
weavers, but that the weavers declined to be brought within
the jurisdiction of the Guilds Merchant. It seems to me,
however, that he errs when he offers as an explanation of
their refusal the purely selfish one that, having secured
special royal charters for themselves, the weavers strove
to evade the control of the Guilds Merchant in order to
avoid the payment of taxes, because it is reasonable to assume
that special royal charters would not have been granted
unless the weavers could show due cause why they should
be accorded exceptional treatment, which suggests the
existence of a real grievance against the Guilds Merchant.
If the motive had been such as Mr. J-ipson suggests, it is
certain that all other crafts would have supported the
endeavour of the Guilds Merchant to bring the weavers
into line. The fact that the submission of weavers in the
year 1300 was speedily followed by the formation of separate
Guilds for other crafts clearly demonstrates that there
was some general economic cause at work, and this, I submit,
was the grievance under which the producer has at all times
laboured — the tendency to fall under the domination of
the middleman. On the Continent these struggles between
the Guilds Merchant and the craftsmen developed into
fierce civil wars, but in England the struggle was not so
violent. In both cases, however, the end was the same.
Political equality was secured, and political power in the
municipality passed out of the hands of the merchants into
those of the craftsmen, who organized separate Craft Guilds
for each trade, these Guilds henceforth buying the raw
materials for their members and, in certain cases, marketing
their goods. The services of the merchants were now dis-
pensed with. What became of the merchants we hardly
know, but probably the Merchant Adventurers about whom
we read later are a revival of them. The whole subject,
however, is obscure.

Within a century of the general establishment of Craft
' Lipaon, pp. 323-7.

Christianity and the Guilds 48

Guilds we find that monopolies began to appear among
them, and are followed by struggles between the journeymen
and the masters. Hitherto it had been possible for every
craftsman who had attained to " sufficient cunning and
understanding in the exercise of his craft " to look forward
to a day when he would be able to set up in business on his
own account, and to qualify as a master of his Guild, and
in this connection it must be understood that the Mediaeval
Guild was not an organization which sought to supplant
the private individual producer by a system of co-operative
production. The Guild did not seek to organize self-governing
workshops, but to regulate industry in such a way as to
ensure equality of opportunity for all who entered it. About
the middle of the fifteenth century, however, a time came
when this ideal could be upheld only with increasing difficulty,
for a class of skilled craftsmen came into existence who had
no other prospect beyond remaining as journeymen all their
lives. When once the permanent nature of these decayed
circumstances had become recognized, the journeymen began
to organize themselves into societies which are called by
Brentano " Journeymen Fraternities," and in Mr. Lipson's
recent work " Yeomen's Guilds " which, while accepting an
inferior status as unalterable, sought to improve the
position of their members as wage-earners. There were
strikes for higher wages, sometimes with success. These
fraternities, in other cases, acted merely as defensive organiza-
tions, to combat a tendency towards a lowering of the standard
of living which seems to have made its appearance about
that time, and which was due to the same group of econo-
mic causes which precipitated the Peasants' Revolt. The
Peasants' Revolt will be dealt with in a later chapter.

It is interesting to observe that in the formation and
organization of the journeymen societies the Friars played
an important part, as they did in the organization of the
Peasant's Revolt, a circumstance which probably accounts for
the fact that these fraternities were in the first place formed
as religious ones. The Master Saddlers of London complained
that " under a feigned colour of sanctity the journey-
men formed 'covins' to raise wages greatly in excess."1

* Lipson, p. 357.

44 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

From the outset the London Guilds adopted a policy of
repression towards them, but in other towns — as at Northamp-
ton and at Oxford — a spirit of compromise prevailed. At
Chester the bitterness became so intense that the quarrel
was fought in quite a Continental style, the Master Weavers
attacking the journeymen with pole-axes, baslards, and
iron-pointed poles. Generally speaking, no solution of
the difficulty was arrived at. The journeymen waged a
kind of guerilla warfare against the masters, much as trade
unions do against capitalists to-day. In 1548 an Act of
Parliament forbade the formation of unions for improving
conditions of labour, but this was when the Guilds had for
all practical purposes ceased to exist as organizations regu-
lating the conditions of production.

Critics of the Guilds are accustomed to point to these
struggles as testifying to the prevalence of a tyrannical
spirit within the Guilds, but such, however, is to misjudge
the situation. It becomes abundantly clear from a wider
survey of the economic conditions of the later Middle Ages
— as we shall discover when we consider the defeat of the
Guilds in a later chapter — that, whatever evils the Guilds may
have developed, the changes which overtook them came about
as the result of external influences operating upon them
from without, rather than through defects which were
inherent in their structure from the beginning. It cannot
be said of them that they carried within themselves the
seeds of their own destruction, as will readily be understood
when it is remembered that, as Mr. Lipson has said, " their
underlying principle was order rather than progress, stability
rather than expansion " ; or, as I would prefer to put it,
order rather than expansion, stability rather than mobility.
While it is clear that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
the masters endeavoured, by making their admission fees pro-
hibitive, to exclude others from their ranks, it is manifest that
this policy was dictated by the instinct of self-preservation,
when they were beginning to feel the pressure of the com-
petition of capitalist manufacture. This spirit of exclusive-
ness did not actuate the Guilds in their early days. The
problem then was not how to keep people out of the Guilds,
but how to get them in. The Guilds Merchant were willing

Christianity and the Guilds 45

at the start to extend privileges to all who agreed
to abide by the Just Price. When the Guilds changed, it
was because they had failed in their original aim of making
the Just Price co-extensive with industry, and were suffering
from the consequence of their failure. Looked at from this
point of view, the internal quarrels of the Guilds appear as
the dissentions not of victorious but of defeated men, not
of the spirit which created the Guilds, but of the spirit that
destroyed them.

Even if this interpretation be not accepted, it would be
irrational to condemn the Guilds because they laboured
under internal dissensions, for on such grounds every human
organization which existed in the past or exists to-day
stands condemned within certain limits, such dissensions
being in the nature of things. The experience of history
teaches us that all organizations need readjustment from
time to time : the growth of population alone is sufficient
to cause this. Moreover, every social organization tends to
develop little oligarchies within itself. Mr. Chesterton
has well said that " there happen to be some sins that go
with power and prosperity, while it is certain that whoever
holds power will have some motive for abusing it." From
this point of view, the test of righteousness in social con-
stitutions is not that they do not develop oligarchies and
tyrannies, for all institutions tend to do this. Rather let
us ask what resistance may be organized against any such
encroachments on popular liberty, and it is the eternal
glory of the Guild system that such rebellion was always
possible. The motto of the old Liberals, that " the price
of liberty is eternal vigilance," is, says Mr. de Maeztu, no
more than the organization oj this jealousy of the Guilds." «
I would respectfully recommend this idea to the considera-
tion of the Fabian and the Marxian alike, for it is the failure
to perceive this central truth of the Guilds that leads the
one to place faith in a soul-destroying bureaucracy, and the
other in class war. These ideas are but different aspects
of the same error — a complete inability to understand what
is the norm in social relationships. Shrinking from the
very thought of rebellion, the Fabian seeks the creation

1 Authority, Liberty, and Function, by Ramiro de Maeztu, p. 198.

46 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

of a Leviathan against which rebellion would be in vain ;
while, with an outlook equally perverted, the Marxian
imagines that the social struggle which is inherent in any
healthy society, and is necessary to effect periodic readjust-
ments, can, by a grand supreme effort be abolished once and
for ever.

CHAPTER III
THE MEDIEVAL HIERARCHY

" HEAVY laborious work," says Heinrich von Langenstein,
the Mediaeval economist, " is the inevitable yoke of punish-
ment which according to God's righteous verdict has been
laid on all the sons of Adam. But many of Adam's descend-
ants seek in all sorts of cunning ways to escape from this
yoke and live in idleness without labour, and at the same
time to have a superfluity of useful and necessary things ;
some by robbery and plunder, some by usurious dealings,
others by lying, deceit, and the countless forms of dishonest
and fraudulent gain by which men are for ever seeking to
get riches and abundance without toil." r

It is because in every society a minority of men have
always been, and probably always will be, actuated by such
anti-social motives that government all at times is necessary.
They bring to naught the dreams of the philosophic anarchist
and other kinds of social idealists the moment any attempt
is made to give practical effect to their theories. As it
was understood in the Middle Ages, the function of govern-
ment was to give protection to the community by keeping
this type of man — the man of prey — in a strict subjection.
By insisting upon the maintenance of a Just and Fixed
Price, the Guilds were able to keep him under in the towns
where their jurisdiction obtained. It is for this reason
that the Guilds are to be regarded as the normal form of
social organization in the Middle Ages, for as the Mediaeval
idea was that man should live by the sweat of his brow,
no other form of organization would have been necessary,
had all men been actuated by the best intentions. Outside

1 History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages, by Johannes
Janssen, vol. ii. p. 94.

48 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

the towns, however, such economic control -had not been
established, because a precedent condition of such control
was never attained. In rural areas the man of prey had
never been brought entirely under military and civil control,
and it was the attempt to subjugate him that brought into
existence the Feudal System. The primary necessity of
self-defence was its raison d'etre.

Such appears to be the probable explanation of the pheno-
menon of Feudalism, for exactly how it came into existence
is largely a matter of conjecture. After the break-up of
the Roman Empire, when Europe was overrun by barbarian
tribes and orderly government had broken down, the man
of prey found himself at large. Robber knights (or brigands,
as they would be termed in those days) made their appear-
ance everywhere in Western Europe, and preyed upon the
industrious part of the population. Divided into groups or
clans, these people would find it expedient to be permanently
organized for the purposes of self-defence, ready always to
repel the raider whenever he chanced to make his appearance.
It would be necessary in such communities to carry on the
dual vocations of agriculture and defence. The clan would
be divided into two sections, the more adventurous spirits
taking upon themselves the responsibility of military defence,
while the rest would agree to feed them : out of such an
arrangement it can be seen that the Feudal manor might
gradually arise. The fighting-men would tend to become
a class apart, and would claim rights and privileges over
the non-combatant section of the community. The chieftain
of the fighting-men would become the lord, and the fighting-
men would be his retainers. This system would be imposed
upon other clans by means of conquest. The successful
chief would divide the conquered territory among his followers,
and compel the conquered peoples to become their serfs.
In other cases, the Feudal relationship would be established
because some group of people sought the protection of a
superior lord.

Looking at Feudalism from this point of view, it may
be said that while its existence was due to the depredations
of the robber knights, and though these, knights would have
certain groups of workers at their mercy, there would be

The Mediaeval Hierarchy 49

other knights, or lords, who came into being as protectors of
the communal rights of the people. Such were the chivalrous
knights of romance and legend. By reason of the different
circumstances which had created the various Feudal groups
— in fact, according to whether they owed their existence to
depredation or defence — a different social life would obtain
within the group. The serfs would enjoy varying degrees of
liberty. The serfs of the robber knights would be tyrannized
over, because the robber knights would never feel their
position to be secure ; but the serfs of the chivalrous knights
would enjoy all the advantages of a communal life, for the
chivalrous knights, owing their position to popular election,
would have no desire to tyrannize. After the lapse of
centuries and the changes inevitable in an hereditary in-
stitution, the original character of the groups, influenced
by the changing personalities of the lords, would tend to
become modified.

Anyway, although William the Conqueror is popularly
supposed to have introduced the Feudal System into England,
it is nowadays admitted that it existed here long before the
Norman Conquest, that much of it was not developed until
after the Norman period, and that at no time was Feudalism
a uniform and logical system, outside of historical and legal
textbooks. Feudal land was held in various ways and on
various terms by the villains, the cottiers, and the serfs.
According to Domesday Book, the last mentioned did not
exceed more than 16 per cent, of the whole population.
In addition to these, however, there were the free tenants,
who did no regular work for the manor, but whose services
were requisitioned at certain periods — such as harvest-time
— when labour was required.

The principle governing the Feudal System was that
of reciprocal rights and duties, for lord and serf alike were
tied to the soil. Although the serf had to give half of his
labour to his lord, it was not exploitation, as we understand
the term ; for in return for his labour, which went to support
the lord and his retainers, military protection was given
to the serf. The amount of labour which a lord could exact
was a definite and fixed quantity, and was not determined
merely by the greed of the lord. The class division was

4

50 A Guildsmari* s Interpretation of History

primarily a difference of function rather than a difference
of wealth. The baron did not own the land, but held it
from the king on definite terms, such as furnishing him with
men in times of war, and of administering justice within
his domains. But in this country the baron rarely possessed
that criminal jurisdiction in matters of life and death which
was common in continental feudalism. He assisted at the
King's Council Board, when requested. To suit their own
convenience, the barons divided up these territories among
their retainers, on terms corresponding to those on which
they held their own. It was thus that the whole organiza-
tion outside of the towns was graduated from the king,
through the greater barons, to tenants who held their posses-
sions from a superior lord to whom they owed allegiance.

Such was the principle of the Feudal System. Although
the system was in no way uniform in the majority of cases,
it probably worked fairly well, for the relation between the
lords and the serfs was an essentially human one. Based
upon recognized services and rights, it was not a barrier
to good understanding and fellowship. In countries where
semi-feudal relationships still exist — as on many of the
large estates in these countries — in Cuba and Mexico, there
is no feeling of personal inferiority between master and man.
A traveller from these parts tells me that in Cuba it is the
custom for owners of big plantations to breakfast with
their men. The owner sits at the head of the table with
his overseers, friends, and guests, and below the "salt" sit
the workmen, according to rank and seniority, down to
the newest black boy. Meeting on the plantation, the
owner exchanges cigarettes with his men, and they discuss
with animation politics, cock-fighting, or the prospects of
the crop. Feudal England, I imagine, was something
like this, and not the horrible nightmare conjured up by
lying historians, interested in painting the past as black
as possible, in order to make modern conditions appear
tolerable by comparison. Where there was a good lord life
would be pleasant, for the serf lived in rude plenty. The
defect of the system would be the defect of all aristocracies
— that where there was a bad lord redress would be difficult
to obtain. For though a lord might, in theory, be deprived

The Mediaeval Hierarchy 51

of his fief for abuse of power, the abuse would have to be
very gross before such a thing could happen. We are safe,
I think, in concluding that where the lord was inclined
to be arbitrary it would be difficult to restrain him, though,
of course, as the people would in those days have the Church
on their side, their action would tend to modify the original
proposition.

The Feudal System was essentially a form of organization
adapted to a stage of transition with no finality about it.
As the relationships existing between the lords and the
serfs were dictated primarily by military necessity and
based upon payment in kind, they were bound to have
been disintegrated by the growth of orderly government
on the one hand and the spread of the currency on the other.
There was, nevertheless, nothing in the nature of things
why when Feudal society did disintegrate it should have
been transformed into landlordism and capitalism, for as
the old Feudal order was dissolved by the spread of currency
the agricultural population might just as conceivably have
been organized into Guilds. Moreover, I believe they would
have been, but for a change in the legal system which entirely
undermined the old communal relationships of the Feudal
groups ; or, to be precise, if the Communal Law which had
hitherto sustained Mediaeval society had not been displaced
by the revival of Roman Law. This issue we shall have
to consider in the next chapter.

Whatever misgivings Mediaevalists may have had respect-
ing the institution of Feudalism, they had none respecting
the institution of Monarchy. Feudalism they might regard
as a thing of transition which was bound to pass away, but
the institution of Monarchy they contemplated on quite a
different plane. It was a part of the natural order of things,
and almost with one voice Mediaeval publicists declared
monarchy to be the best form of government. St. Thomas
Aquinas defends the institution of monarchy entirely on
the grounds of practical expediency. One man must be
set apart to rule, because " where there are many men
and each one provides whatever he likes for himself, the
energies of the multitude are dissipated unless there is,
also, some who has the care of that which is for the benefit

52 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

of the multitude." l " A power that is united is more
efficacious in producing its effect than a dispersed or divided
power." a " The rule of the many nearly always ended in
tyranny, as clearly appears in the Roman Republic, which,
while for some time the magistracy was exercised by many
enmities, dissensions, and civil wars, fell into the hands
of the most cruel tyrants. "3

There is here no suggestion of the Divine Right of Kings.
That was a post-Reformation idea and the invention of
James I. The doctrine of the unconditional duty of obedience
to monarchs was wholly foreign to the Mediaeval mind.
Monarchs were instituted for the sake of the people, not the
people for the sake of the monarchs. " As a rule, each
prince on his accession was obliged to swear fidelity to all
written and traditional customs, and it was only after he
had conferred a charter of rights that fealty was pledged
to him. Thus, Duke Albert IV of Bavaria directed that
every prince's son or heir should, on receiving the vow of
fealty, secure to the State deputies of the prelates, nobles,
and cities, their freedom, ancient customs, and respected
rights ; and pledge himself not to interfere with them in
any way. The formal clause, ' The land and each inhabitant
of it shall be undisturbed in his rights and customs,' was
a sure guarantee against the arbitrary legislature of the
princes without counsel, knowledge, or will of the Estate-
General." 4

According, then, to the Mediaeval view, the king was not
so much the ruler as the first guardian of the State ; not
so much the owner of the realm as the principal administrator
of its powers and interests. His power was not absolute,
but limited within certain bounds. The principle involved
is the one which runs through all Mediaeval polity of reciprocal
rights and duties. All public authority was looked upon as
a responsibility conferred by a higher power, but the duty
of obedience was conditioned by the rightfulness of the
command. " The Mediaeval doctrine taught that every
command which exceeded the limits of the ruler's authority

* New Things and Old in St. Thomas Aquinas, edited by H. C. O'Neill,
pp. 222-3. * Ibid., pp. 226. J Ibid., pp. 227.

4 Janssen, vol. ii. pp. 131-2.

The Mediaeval Hierarchy 53

was a mere nullity, and obliged none to obedience. And
then, again, it proclaimed the right of resistance, and even
armed resistance, against the compulsory enforcement of
any unrighteous and tyrannical measure, such enforcement
being regarded as an act of violence. Nay, more, it taught
(though some men with an enlightened sense of law might
always deny this) that tyrannicide was justified, or, at least,
excusable." I Manegold of Lautenbach teaches that the
king who has become a tyrant should be expelled like an
unfaithful shepherd. Similar revolutionary doctrines are
frequently maintained by the Papal party against the wielders
of State power. John of Salisbury emphatically recommends
the slaughter of a tyrant, for a tyranny is nothing less than
an abuse of power granted by God to man. He vouches
Biblical and classical examples, and rejects the use of poison,
breach of trust, breach of oath.3 St. Thomas Aquinas is
against tyrannicide, but is in favour of active resistance
against tyrants, though he recommends that " if the tyranny
is not excessive it is better to bear it for a time than, by acting
against the tyrant, to be involved in many perils that are
worse than tyranny." 3

The paradox of the position was that it was precisely
in the Middle Ages, when there was nothing sacrosanct
about the institution of monarchy, that kings were popular
and their lives were very much safer than they are to-day.
They were supposed to act impartially, to protect the people
against oppression by the nobles, and to be the impersonation
of justice, mercy, generosity, and greatness ; and it is to
be presumed that it was because they did to some extent
fulfil such expectations that monarchy was popular. It
was an ancient and generally entertained opinion that the
will of the people was the source of all temporal power ;
but, while kings owed their authority immediately to the
goodwill of the people, it was felt that, ultimately, it was
derived from God. Which belief is an entirely rational
one, for, considering that all legitimate monarchies are
hereditary, if God does not choose the actual successor to

1 Political Theories of the Middle Ages, by Dr. Otto Gierkc, p. 35.

1 Ibid., p. 143.

3 New Things and Old in St. Thomas Aquinas, pp. 227-8.

54 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

the throne, then no one does. To accept God as the ultimate
source of authority was to the Mediaeval mind a much more
satisfactory explanation than the legal fictions with which
moderns seek to escape from the dilemma.

All earthly lordship is, however, limited by its nature.
It is limited by human and geographical considerations.
Hence, in this world there are many temporal powers. But
the universe is one. If human intercourse is to be possible, if
temporal powers are to prevail, there must be certain common
standards of morals, of thought and of culture. If these are
to be upheld in the world, they must rest on certain fixed
and unalterable dogmas. There must be the recognition
of an ultimate good, a true and a beautiful. But men, owing
to their limitations, are incapable of determining the nature
of these. Left to themselves, they tend to emphasize their
points of difference and to lose what they have in common.
They will worship material things, and, like the builders
of Babel, end in a confusion of tongues, no man knowing
what to or what not to believe. Hence the need of Divine
interposition to reveal to the world the nature of the truth
by which alone mankind can live, and to secure its recognition
among men. Hence, also, the Christian Church, which
exists to uphold in the world the revealed truth which other-
wise would be forgotten, and to transmit the truth, pure
and undefiled, from generation to generation. And hence,
again, the priority of the Spiritual over the Temporal Power,
of the Church over the State. For the State, being of its
nature earthly, maintains itself by considerations of expe-
diency, and, apart from the daily reminder of permanent
truth which the existence of a spiritual power gives, would
place its reliance entirely in the sufficiency of material things.

Such was the Mediaeval conception of the social order.
It rested upon the constitutive principle of unity underlying
and comprehending the world's plurality. The Mediaevalists
reconciled the philosophical contradiction implied in the
simultaneous existence of the one and the many by accepting
in the visible world a plurality of temporal powers, supported
and sustained by the indivisible unity of the spiritual power.
Along with this idea, however, came the necessity of the
division of the community between two organized orders

The Mediaeval Hierarchy 55

of life, the spiritual and the temporal ; for it was maintained
that the care of the spiritual and moral life of the community
— the whole-hearted pursuit of wisdom — was incompatible
with political administrative work. Granting certain pre-
supposed conditions, Church and State were the two necessary
embodiments of one and the same human society, the State
taking charge of the temporal requirements, and the Church
of the spiritual and supernatural. Hence the Holy Roman
Empire, the Mediaeval conception of which was that of two
swords to protect Christianity, the spiritual belonging to
the Pope and the temporal to the Emperor. Although
it claimed continuity with the Roman Empire, it was in no
sense an attempt to revive the idea of universal monarchy,
since it was laid down that the Emperor, though he was the
first and august monarch — the highest of Papal vassals —
was not to aim at the establishment of a universal monarchy,
the destruction of nationalities, or the subjection of other
nations to his personal rule. On the contrary, it was the
mission of the Church to achieve an ideal union of mankind
by changing the heart and the mind of man. What was
required of the Emperor was that, in the first place, he should
seek to establish amongst the nations a system of organization
— a League of Nations, as it were — which should arbitrate
on international questions, in order that war among Christian
nations might be brought to an end. In the next, it was to
be his duty to lead the Christian princes in defence of the
Faith against all unbelievers.1 This Mediaeval Empire,
which dates from the year 800, when Charlemagne was
crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III, continued
to exist until the end of the eighteenth century, when what
remained of it fell finally before the armies of Napoleon ;
but until the thirteenth century, when its decline definitely
set in, it was the centre of European national life and as a
matter of fact it did succeed in preserving peace in Central
Europe for centuries. It is of more than passing interest
to note that the sinister influence which undermined its

1 At the beginning the object of the Empire could have had ncthing
to do with the suppression of heresy, for though a popular movement against
heresy existed at an earlier date, it was not until the latter half of the twelfth
century that its suppression was countenanced by the Church.

56 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

power was precisely the same one which corrupted Mediaeval
civilization, and has led to the anarchy and confusion of the
modern world.

Modern historians are accustomed to look upon the
inauguration of the Holy Roman Empire as the great mistake
of the Middle Ages, inasmuch as, by giving rise to a long
succession of quarrels between the two heads of Christendom
it led to a spirit of religious and political intolerance. Such
a judgment is perhaps a superficial one, for there was no-
thing in the original conception of the Empire which would
necessarily have produced such results. At the time of
its first promotion a strong case was to be made in its favour.
Christendom was then in great danger of being overthrown
by the Saracens, while the Papacy lived in fear of the
Lombards. The Church was sorely in need of a temporal
defender. Twice did Charlemagne cross the Alps to rescue
the Papacy from the clutches of the Lombards, thus bringing
temporal security to it. The great quarrel between the
Popes and the Emperors over the Right of Investiture, which
terminated early in the twelfth century, defined the respective
spheres of influence of the Spiritual and the Temporal Powers.
Once this source of difficulty had been removed, there is
no reason to suppose that, in the ordinary course of things,
the doctrine as taught by Pope Gelasius in the fifteenth
century, that " Christian princes are to respect the priest
in things which relate to the soul, while the priests in their
turn are to obey the laws made for the preservation of order
in worldly matters, so that the soldier of God should not
mix in temporal affairs and the worldly authorities have
naught to say in spiritual things," r which was accepted prior
to the quarrel over Investiture, might not have been resumed
when the quarrel was ended. Unfortunately for the success
of the Empire, an indirect consequence of the quarrel was the
revival of Roman Law, and this, by raising issues of such
a nature as to make compromise impossible, destroyed for
ever the possibility of co-operation between Church and State.
After this revival, the issue was no longer one of defining
the respective spheres of influence between the two authori-
ties, but the more fundamental one of whether considerations

1 Janssen, vol. ii. p. HI.

The Mediceval Hierarchy 57

of principle or of expediency should take precedence ;
whether, in fact, there was a higher law which earthly
monarchs should obey, or whether law should be dependent
entirely upon the personal will of princes. This issue was
fundamental, and, as I have already said, it made compromise
impossible. As compromise was impossible, co-operation
was impossible. It became a question of who should rule ;
whether the Church would consent to make herself subservient
to the ambitions of princes, or whether political arrangements
were to be regarded as part and parcel of the ecclesiastical
organization. As the Emperors sought to encroach upon
the prerogatives of the Church, the Popes strove to attain
temporal power, and the struggle resulted in corrupting both
Church and State, and in breaking up the Mediaeval social
order. In proportion as the Holy See succeeded in this
aim it became increasingly secularized, its territorial posses-
sions leading it to subordinate spiritual duties to acquisitive
ambition. When, after the Great Schism in the earlier
part of the fifteenth century, the Popes succeeded in asserting
their frnal and triumphant absolutism, they became to
all intents and purposes mere secular princes, by whom
religion was used as an instrument for the furtherance of
political ambitions. Their enormous revenues were spent
upon the maintenance of Papal armies and fleets and a
court unrivalled in its magnificence and corruption. This
state of things continued until the Reformation came upon
the Church as a scourge from God and paved the way for
the counter-Reformation, when the Church, after the loss
of her temporal authority, found recompense in a renewal
of her spiritual vitality.

CHAPTER IV
THE REVIVAL OF ROMAN LAW

MENTION was made in the preceding chapter of the revival
of Roman Law, which was incidental to the quarrels between
the Popes and the Emperors, and eventually broke up
Mediaeval society and inaugurated the modern world. The
importance of this revival demands that more should be
said about it.

To understand exactly what is meant by the revival
of Roman Law it is first of all necessary to realize that though,
as a completely codified system resting upon the will of the
Emperor, Roman Law had fallen largely into desuetude,
it did not disappear entirely from the world after the fall
of the Roman Empire. While retaining their own laws and
customs, which were communal in character, the barbarian
tribes that had invaded the Empire and settled within its
borders, incorporated in their tribal codes certain of the
Roman laws that did not clash with their communal arrange-
ments. Definite information upon this period is lacking,
but it is to be assumed that the Roman laws which they
adopted were of the nature of rules and regulations rather
than such as were concerned with conduct. It is natural
to make this assumption ; because, in the first place, of the
existence of a large body of law, best described as regu-
lations, which has to do with public convenience, and is
not to be directly deduced from moral considerations (the
rule of the road is a well-known example of this kind
of law), might be readily adopted by peoples possessing
a social and economic life entirely different from the Roman
one ; and in the next because, as the Roman method
is essentially adapted to the needs of a personal ruler, it
would be natural that the chiefs of the tribes would avail

58

The Revival of Roman Law 59

themselves of the decisions on delicate points of law
which had been arrived at by the Roman jurists. It was for
this reason that the study of Roman Law had never been
entirely abandoned, and the Visigothic compilation became the
standard source of Roman Law throughout Western Europe
during the first half of the Middle Ages. Together with the
Canon Law of the Church, Roman Civil Law was studied at
the ecclesiastical faculties of jurisprudence, for learning during
the so-called Dark Ages meant little more than the salvage
of such fragments of ancient knowledge as had survived the
wreck of Roman civilization.1

Though parts of the Roman Code which were concerned
with matters of convenience became incorporated in the tribal
law of the barbarians, Roman Law in its fundamental and
philosophic sense had been abandoned in favour of the
Canon Law of the Church. The latter, which consists of
the body of laws and regulations made or adopted by
ecclesiastical authority for the government of the Christian
organization and its members, differs as a judicial science
from Roman Law and Civil Law, inasmuch as it is primarily
concerned with the conduct of another society, the Kingdom
of God upon Earth. As such, its ultimate source is God.
It consists of Apostolic letters, ordinances of the Councils,
and Papal Bulls, briefs, or decretals. It was not yet, however,
a definitely codified system, and did not become one until
the twelfth century, when Gratian gave it a systematic
form. Prior to the time of Gratian, the Canon Law took
the form of decisions pronounced in cases submitted to the
Pope from all parts of Christendom. By such means the
Christian rule was brought into relation with the communal
life of the tribes, and a body of law was coming into existence
capable of maintaining the communal life of the people along
with a higher and more complex civilization. But the
promise of a society which might have realized the Kingdom
of God upon Earth was never fulfilled, and it was not fulfilled
because of the sinister influence of Roman Law, which was
resurrected to break up the unity of Christendom.

The circumstances that led to the revival of Roman Law
are immediately connected with the great quarrel over the

1 Cf. Roman Law in Mediaval Europe, by Sir Paul Vinogradoff, pp. 4-7.

60 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

Right of Investiture which became such a burning issue
during the pontificate of Gregory VII. The organization
of the Church had been a haphazard growth. The Church
shared in feudal land-holding ; in addition to the tithes,
immense estates had come into her possession, by bequests
from the faithful, or through the labours of the monastic
orders, who had reclaimed vast tracts of waste land. For
the defence of her property the Church resorted to secular
means. Bishops and abbots, confiding their domains to
laymen, on condition of assistance with the sword in case
of need, became Temporal Lords — with vassals to fight for
them, and with courts of justice — exercising all the privileges
common to lay lords. On the other hand, there were bishop-
dukes, bishop-counts, and the like, who were vassals of
other lords, and especially of the king, from whom they
received the investiture of their temporalities. In some
cases, abbeys and churches had been founded by the faithful
on condition that the right of patronage — that is, the choice
of beneficiaries — should be reserved for them and their heirs.
Thus in various ways ecclesiastical benefices were gradually
transformed into fiefs, and lay suzerains claimed the same
rights over ecclesiastics as over other vassals from whom
they received homage and invested them with the emblems
of their spiritual offices.

Had this system not been grossly abused, it might have
continued indefinitely. During the vacancy of a bishopric
or abbey, its revenues went to fill the royal treasury, and
when short of money, monarchs everywhere took advantage
of their positions as patrons and allowed benefices to remain
without pastors for long periods. The Emperor Otto II
was charged with having practised simony in this connection ;
while under Conrad II the abuse became prevalent. At
the close of the reign of William Rufus, one archbishopric,
four bishoprics, and eleven abbeys in England were found
to be without pastors. At a Synod of Reims in 1049 tne
Bishops of Nevers and Coutances affirmed that they bought
their bishoprics. The system led, moreover, to favouritism.
Lay authorities interfered in favour of those in whom they
were interested, so that, in one way and another, the system
became a crying scandal and Gregory VII resolved to put

The Revival of Roman Law 61

a slop to it. He considered, too, that it was intolerable
that a layman, whether emperor, king, or baron, should
invest ecclesiastics with the emblems of spiritual office —
ecclesiastical investiture should come only from ecclesiastics.
It was this that led to the great struggle over the Right of
Investiture. To the Emperor Henry IV it was highly
undesirable that the advantages and revenues accruing
from lay investiture should be surrendered ; it was
reasonable, he thought, that ecclesiastics should receive
investiture of temporalities from their temporal protectors
and suzerains. After a bitter struggle, which was carried
on all over Christendom, a compromise was agreed upon
and ratified at the Diet of Worms in 1122. The Emperor,
on the one hand, preserved his suzerainty over ecclesiastical
benefices ; but, on the other hand, he ceased to confer
the ring and crozier, and thereby not only lost the right of
refusing the election on the grounds of unworthiness, but
was deprived also of an efficacious means of maintaining
vacancies in ecclesiastical offices.

Meanwhile, the dispute led to the establishment at Raven-
na of a faculty of jurisprudence, under the patronage of
the Emperor, which had important consequences. Countess
Matilda of Tuscany — a staunch supporter of Gregory VII —
in 1084 sought to counteract the influence of this Imperialistic
school by the creation of a centre for the study of Roman Law
that would act on the Papal behalf ; and it was in connection
with this school at Bologna that Irnerius, who had already
taught didactics and rhetoric, began to devote himself to the
study of jurisprudence. Prior to this date the study of Roman
Law had been traditional rather than scholarly. Exponents
of the law did not go back to the original sources of legal
science, but took the law very much as they found it — as a
thing of custom or tradition, whose credentials they had
no reason to suspect. Irnerius, however, abandoned this
more or less casual method study in favour of a return to
the original sources of Roman Law, taking the Justinian
Code as a guide. It is from this new departure that the
revival of Roman Law is to be dated.1 The researches

1 As to the exact contribution of Irnerius to the revival, the following
passage of the chronicler, Richard of Ursperg, supplies us with an important

62 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

undertaken in the first instance to strengthen the Papal
case against the Emperor had results very different from
what had been intended. They resulted in the revival of
a theory of law which was favourable to the Emperor rather
than to the Pope, and which immediately caused the struggle
between them to be embittered, by raising in an acute form
the question of supremacy, and eventually undermining
Mediaeval civilization by dethroning the Canon Law in
favour of the Roman Code.

That the Glossators, as the pioneers of this revival were
called, did not foresee the consequences of their work — that
they did not see that they were seeking the promotion of
a system of law antipathetic to everything that Christianity
stood for — is probably true. At the same time, there is
no reason to doubt that it was the superficial brilliance of
the Roman Code which led them astray. They were in-
fatuated by its beauty, its searching analyses, its logical
deductions, and brilliant explanations. It had such a
simple and plausible way of dealing with immediately
practical issues that they came to regard it as the very
embodiment of common sense, and deemed it to be entitled to
the same universality of application as the laws of mathe-
matics and logic, little suspecting the iniquity that reigned
at its heart. It was, as we saw in the first chapter, originally
formulated for the purpose of preserving a capitalistic and
corrupt society from premature dissolution, and we shall
see that its revival, by seeking always the promotion of
individual and private interests at the expense of communal
and public ones, operated to introduce into Mediaeval society
the same evil elements as had corrupted Rome. Unable
to conceive the practical possibility of realizing justice in
a society whose communal ties had been dissolved by an
unregulated currency, Roman Law had addressed itself
to the more immediately practicable though less ambitious
task of maintaining order. This it achieved by disregarding

clue. It reads : " Dominus Irnerius, at the request of the Countess Matilda,
renewed the books of the laws, which had long been neglected ; and, in
accordance with the manner in which they had been compiled by the Emperor
Justinian of divine memory, arranged them in divisions, adding, perchance,
a few words here and there " (The Universities of Europe in the Middle
Ages, by Hastings Rashdall, vol. i. pp. 116).

The Revival of Roman Law 63

moral issues, by inculcating the policy of following always
the line of least resistance (thus exalting momentary ex-
pediency above considerations of right), by giving legal
security and sanction to private property (no matter by
what means it had been obtained) as the easiest way of
avoiding continual strife among neighbours. It was, in
fact, a system of law designed primarily for the purpose
of enabling rich men to live among bad, as emphatically
as the Canon Law was designed to enable good men to live
among bad ; for while the Canon Law based its authority
upon the claim of right, the ultimate appeal of Roman Law
was to might rather than to right, since, according to it,
right and wrong are not eternally fixed and immutable
principles — not something above and beyond personal
predilections — but are dictated entirely by considerations of
expediency and convenience. In a word, the Roman Law
does not conceive of law as a higher authority over men —
as a development of the moral law — but postulates the
existence of a divorce between law and morality as two
entirely incompatible and opposed principles.

Naturally, systems of law differing so fundamentally
as the Roman and the Canon Laws sought the support of
different sanctions. The Canon Law, as we saw, rested
on the assumption that there was a higher law of the universe,
and that all justice proceeds from God. Accordingly, it
happened under Canon Law that the ruler was merely a
functionary — the agent or director of right — exercising power
conditionally upon the fulfilment of duties which were
enjoined upon him. On the contrary, Roman Law, sub-
stituting order for justice as the aim of law, sought its
ultimate sanction in the will of the Emperor, whom it invested
with sovereign power, declaring him to be the source of
all law, which could only be altered by his own arbitrary
decree, in general as in individual cases. This was a natural
and inevitable deduction from the Roman theory. Making
no claim to supernatural revelation, it was driven by this
self-imposed limitation to search for authority not in the
ascendancy of truth, of ideas, or of things, but in the authority
of persons, finally in one person — the Roman Emperor.
Hence it is that Roman Law is by nature opposed to demo-

64 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

cratic ideals. For whereas, under Canon Law, it can be
maintained that if the ruler is merely a functionary exercising
powers conditionally upon the fulfilment of certain duties he
may be challenged if he fail in them, there can be no appeal
on a basis of principle or right against the kind of authority
exalted by Roman Law, for how can the king do wrong if
the source of law resides in his personal will. In consequence,
rebellion against the abuse of authority in all countries
where Roman Law obtains takes the form of an appeal from
the Divine Right of Kings to the Divine Right of the People ;
that is, from one will to many wills. And this can merely
increase the confusion, since as apart from the recognition of
the existence of an authority which transcends the individual
will no agreement is possible among a multitude of wills,
reaction to the authority of an autocracy can only be a matter
of time. It is a vicious circle from which there is no escape,
as the modern world must discover sooner or later.

The tendency inherent in Roman Law towards autocracy
was not long in manifesting itself. The Commentators,
who succeeded the Glossators, led the way. Perceiving that
their own personal interests were to be served by espousing
the cause of the Emperor rather than that of the Pope,
they declared that the Roman Empire still existed inasmuch
as the Roman Emperors of the German Empire were the
legal successors of the Emperors of Rome, and that, in
consequence, the will of the Emperor was still law and the
Justinian Code binding. This speciousness is, however, to
be regarded as the merest camouflage. In the first place,
because subsequent developments suggest that this dogma
of continuity was advanced only because the lawyers found
in it a convenient fiction whereby the rule of the lawyers
might be substituted for the rule of Emperor and Pope alike ;
and in the next place, because it so happened that while,
in theory, what was received was the law of Justinian's
books, in practice what was received was the system which
the Italian Commentators had long been elaborating, and, as
Gierke insists, this was an important difference. The system
which the Commentators advanced was a thing of compromise
between the old Roman Law and the existing German Law.
It was the thin edge of the wedge ; it was designed to give

The Revival of Roman Law 65

immediate practical results, and it was successfal. A start
was made, and as time wore on the system became more
and more Roman, and less and less German, until, eventually,
it became almost purely Roman.1 The Hohenstaufen
family fell into the trap which the Commentators had so
carefully prepared for them. They accepted the decision
of the Commentators as a justification of their absolutism,
and henceforth did all in their power to secure the acceptance
of the new code. Frederick Barbarossa at once claimed
for himself all the rights which the Caesars had exercised,
and Roman Law was used by the Emperors as a weapon
against Canon Law in ecclesiastical-political disputes. These
new developments aroused the opposition of the Church,
which set itself against the spread of Roman Law. In
1180 Pope Alexander III forbade the monks to study the
Justinian Code. In 1219 Honorius III extended this pro-
hibition to all priests, and in the following year he forbade
laymen, under pain of excommunication, to give or listen to
lectures on the Justinian Code in the University of Paris.
In 1254 Innocent IV extended this last prohibition to France,
England, Scotland, Spain, and Hungary. But such pro-
hibitions were of no avail. Roman Law found support
among the secular princes, and it was proving itself too
profitable to those who followed it to be easily sup-
pressed under such circumstances. It is said that so
eager were students to acquire a knowledge of it that at
one time the study of theology was almost abandoned.

Meanwhile, efforts were made to meet the danger by more
positive measures. In 1151 Gratian published the Decretum,
in which the materials collected by a succession of Canonists
were re-edited and arranged with a superior completeness.
His labours paved the way for the first official code of Canon
Law which was promulgated by Gregory IX in 1234. It
was hoped that the publication of this Papal law-book would,
by defining the issues, settle the dispute once and for all ;
but, unfortunately, it did nothing of the kind. The struggle
between Church and State increased in intensity and bitter-
ness. In the year 1302 Boniface VIII promulgated his famous

1 Cf. Introduction to Gierke's Political Theories of the Middlf Ages, by
F. W. Maitland, p. xv.

5

66 A GuildsmarCs Interpretation of History

Bull, Unam Sanctum, in which the case for Papal supremacy
was set forth. Its main propositions were drawn from the
writings of St. Bernard, Hugh of St. Victor, St. Thomas
Aquinas, and the letters of Innocent III. As such, it
summarizes the conclusions of thirteenth-century thinkers
on the relations of Church and State. The claim for supremacy
rests on the affirmation that the spiritual authority is higher
than the temporal authority, that the Church, as the guardian
of the Christian law of morals, has the right to establish
and guide the secular power, and to judge it when it does
not act rightly.1 It was the last desperate attempt which
the Papacy made to save Christian morals from corruption
at the hands of the Roman lawyers. It did not have the
desired effect, for the secular authorities treated with scorn
the idea that they should surrender unconditionally to the
Pope. It was a situation that would never have arisen but
for the revival of Roman Law. The Popes found themselves
in a difficult position. The choice, as they saw it, was between
allowing the whole fabric of Mediaeval civilization to be
undermined by the worst of Pagan influences, or of asserting
the supremacy of the Papacy in secular affairs. It was
a desperate remedy to seek, and one conceivably worse than
the disease. It was an attempt to seek to effect by external
means a change that can come only from within. Experience
teaches us that reform cannot be imposed from without
in that kind of way. But what is so easy for us, with the
experience of attempted reform behind us, to see to-day
was not so easy to see in the Middle Ages, when methods
were still untried, and in justice to the Mediaeval Papacy we

1 The chief passage of Unam Sanctum should be quoted. It reads :
" There are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal ; our Lord said iiot
of these two swords, ' it is too much,' but ' it is enough.' Both are in the
power of the Church ; the one spiritual, to be used by the Church ; the
other material, for the Church ; the former that of priests, the latter that
of kings and soldiers, to be wielded at the command and by the sufferance
of the priest. One sword must be under the other, the temporal under
the spiritual. . . . The spiritual instituted the temporal power, and judges
whether that power is well exercised. The eternal verse of Jeremiah is
adduced. ' If the temporal power errs, it is judged by the spiritual.' To
deny this is to assert with the heretical Manicheans two co-equal principles.
We therefore assert, define, and pronounce that it is necessary to salvation
to believe that every human being is subject to the Pontiff of Rome "
(Milman's History of Latin Christianity, vol. vii. p. 125).

The Revival of Roman Law 67

ought at least to acknowledge that, whatever motives may
have actuated it, whatever mistakes it may have made,
it fought, at any rate, on the right side. It did not allow
civilization to become corrupted, exploitation to be legalized,
without first making desperate efforts to prevent it ; and,
though the Church itself in turn became corrupted by the
evil influences which had been let loose upon the world,
it resolutely fought them so long as the issue was doubtful.

Although the Roman lawyers had been encouraged and
patronized by the Emperors, it was not until the fourteenth
century, when Charles IV assigned to jurists of the Roman
School positions in the Imperial chancery, placing them
on a par with the lower nobility, that Roman Law began
to exercise much influence in Germany. Henceforth the
Roman lawyers used all their influence and energy in securing
recognition of the Roman Code as the one most fit for universal
application. In 1495 the " Reichskammergericht " — the
central Imperial Court — deliberately adopted Roman Law
for its guidance as the common law of the Empire. In
1534 and 1537 the principalities of Julick and Berg (in the
Rhine province) resolved to remodel their laws on the Roman
pattern, in order to avoid clashing with the central Imperial
Court. Under the influence of such considerations the
movement towards the codification of local laws, on the
basis of their reformation and of the reception of Roman
doctrine, sweeps over Germany. The towns of Worms and
Nuremberg (1479) were among the first to carry through
such reformations. Most of the monarchically organized
principalities followed suit, with the notable exception of
some of the North German States, which remained faithful
to the jurisprudence of the Sachenspeigel 1 — of which
we shall speak hereafter. Hitherto faculties of jurisprudence,
consisting mainly of experts in the Canon Law, had been
complements of the theological faculties. Now, however,
foundations were made in the German universities for the
teaching of Roman Law as a secular study.

The reception of Roman Law appears mainly as a move-
ment of the upper classes and of the political authorities con-
nected with them. Once it had succeeded in establishing itself

« Cf. Vinogradoff, pp. 127-8.

68 A Guildsmaris Interpretation of History

at the top, dependent bodies found it to their advantage
to come into line. Its rapid spread in the German towns
in the early sixteenth century was due primarily to the
rapid expansion of German commerce about that time,
which created a demand for a uniform system of law. Mediae-
val Law, where it was not of Canonical origin (that is, the
law of tribal origin), was a local affair. As a unity, German
Law did not exist at the close of the Middle Ages. It was
broken up into countless local customs, which, for this very
reason, were unable to tackle the wider problems of civil
intercourse consequent upon the expansion of trade. The
fundamental principle of German Customary Law amounted
to a recognition of the right of each group of citizens to apply
its own customary ideas to the dealings of members with one
another. The law of knights and of fees was differentiated
not only from the law of the country in general but also from
municipal law, guild law, and peasant law ; while, further,
there was the great cleavage between the lay and the eccle-
siastical courts. The laws of these different groups remained
in close touch with popular conceptions, and sometimes
attained considerable eminence in their treatment of legal
problems, but they were not connected with any legal system
and lacked precision in details. Most legal questions had
to be settled finally by unwritten or unenacted law, which
had to be " found " for the purpose. Thus it came about
that at the very moment when in Germany the social and
economic unit was changing from a local to a national one,
when German society was enjoying a kind of hothouse
prosperity, resulting from its commercial relations with
Italy and the Levant on one side and with the Scandinavian
North, Poland, and Russia on the other, German Customary
Law was crippled by the absence of a common code of laws
and a lack of professional learning. Further progress was
possible only through providing a remedy for these defects,
and this the Roman lawyers were able to do. They triumphed
because at this critical period they were able to supply a
felt need for a uniform system of law. Mediaeval Customary
Law went down not because it was not good law, not because
it was by its nature unfitted for grappling with the problems
of a wider social intercourse, but because its systematic

The Revival of Roman Law 69

study had been too long neglected and it was unable to offer
effective resistance to the disciplined enemy.1

Although Mediaeval Customary Law was defeated, it
put up a good fight towards the finish. In the same way
that scholars set to work to codify the Canon Law when
its position was threatened by the spread of Roman Law,
so the Customary Law found scholars anxious to save it.
Many authoritative treatises on Customary Law now made
their appearance. The most remarkable and influential
of these was compiled by Eike von Repgow on the law of
the Saxons. It provided the courts of Saxon Germany
with a firm basis in jurisprudence, which was widely accepted
and maintained. The Northern Territories, armed with this
jurisprudence of the " Sachenspeigel," opposed a stubborn re-
sistance to the encroachments of Roman Law. Commenting
on this fact, Sir Paul Vinogradoff says : " This proves
that the wholesale reception of Roman rules is not to be
accounted for by any inherent incompetence in German
Law, since where, as in Saxon lands, excessive particularism
and uncertainty were counteracted, German Law proved
quite able to stand its ground." *

This admission from such a high authority on Roman
Law is important, and it becomes doubly important when
considered in connection with another passage, in which
he expresses his opinion as to the motives which led to the
reception of Roman Law. "It is evident," he says, " that
the reception of Roman Law depended on political causes :
the legal system was subordinated to the idea of the State
towering over individuals and classes, and free from the
intermixture of feudalism. It was bound to appeal to the
minds of all the pioneers of the State conception, to ambitious
Emperors, grasping territorial princes, reforming legists,
and even clerical representatives of law and order. Coming
as it did from an age of highly developed social intercourse,
Roman Law satisfied in many respects the requirements
of economic development. "3 In other words, Roman Law
succeeded because it gave support to the individual who
pursued his own private interests without regard to the
commonweal, without concern even whether others were

1 Cf. Vinogradoff, pp. 109-11. » Ibid., p. 113. 3 Ibid., p. 130-1.

70 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

thereby ruined. Hence it was that the introduction of the
Roman Code created unspeakable confusion in every grade
of society. Exactly in proportion as it grew and prevailed,
freedom and liberty went to the wall. The lawyers invested
avaricious and ambitious princes and landlords with legal
authority not only to deprive the peasants of their communal
rights, bat to evict them from their life-lease possessions
and to increase their taxes. Such immoral procedure
destroyed the feeling of brotherhood in communities and
encouraged enormously the spirit of avarice. The vocation
of law degenerated everywhere into a vulgar moneymaking
trade. On every side it sowed the seeds of discord, and the
people lost their confidence in the sanctity and impartiality
of the law.

There is an amusing story of a French lady who, visiting
Orleans and seeing so many law students, exclaimed : " Oh,
woe, woe ! In our neighbourhood there is but one attorney,
and he keeps the whole country in litigation. What mischief
will not this horde make."1 Everywhere the lawyers excite
the indignation of public-spirited men. The charge is brought
against them that they create rights and discover wrongs
where none exist, that they encourage greed in the merchants,
that they disgust men with public life by complicating matters
with interminable formalities and tiresome trifles. Old
customs and unwritten laws lose their force ; the lawyers
regard as valid nothing that cannot be sustained by docu-
mentary evidence. In a sermon preached in Germany in
1515 we find the following : " When I warn you to beware
of usurers and of those who would plunder you, I also warn
you to beware of advocates, who now prevail. For the
last twenty or thirty years they have increased like poison-
weeds and are worse than usurers, for they take away not
only your money but your rights and your honour. They
have substituted a foreign code for the national one, and
questions that used to be settled in two or three days now
take as many months and years. What a pity people cannot
get justice as they did before they knew these liars and
deceivers whom no one wanted." *

If there be any comfort to be got from this painful story

i Janssen, vol. ii. p. 173. a Ibid., vol. ii. p. 175.

The Revival of Roman Law 71

it is that in the long run the Emperors whose ambitions
first let this evil loose upon the world got nothing out of it
for themselves. They were, as much as the peasantry, a
part of the Mediaeval order of society, and the spread of Roman
Law undermined their power as efiectively as it destroyed
the prosperity of the peasantry. The system of private
warfare which existed in pre-Christian times had never been
abolished within the Empire, but it had been kept within
certain bounds. It was permissible only under certain
circumstance?, when authorities refused or had not the power
to interfere. Certain formalities were to be observed. Com-
batants were not to attack an enemy before giving him three
days' notice. Hostilities were to be suspended on certain
days, called " The truce of God." Certain persons, such as
clergymen, pilgrims, labourers, and vine-tenders, and certain
places, such as churches and cemeteries, were to be respected.
But in later times, as a consequence of the corrupting influence
of Roman Law, which spread broadcast the seeds of discord
and increased greed and avarice among the princes, this
spirit of chivalry disappeared, and the mighty availed them-
selves of every opportunity to oppress the weak. Every
description of violence and outrage went unpunished, and
the Empire was a prey to anarchy and confusion. Hence
it was that for once ecclesiastics and lawyers came together
in face of a common peril, and the doctrine was taught
that social salvation could be found only by the Emperor
asserting his ancient authority. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa,
the great ecclesiastical and secular reformer of the fifteenth
century, voiced the popular sentiment when he blamed the
Emperors for believing that a remedy could be found by gentle
means. " What but ruin," he says, " is to be expected
when each one thinks of himself ? If the sovereign hand has
lost its power to quell interior dissensions, avarice and greed
will prevail, war and private quarrels will increase, the
dismembered Empire will go to ruin, and what has unjustly
been acquired will be squandered. Let not the princes
imagine that they will long retain what they have plundered
from the Empire ; when they have broken all the ties that
bind the States, and mangled the head and the limbs, there
must be an end of all authority ; there is none left to whom

72 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

to turn for help — and where there is no order there is anarchy,
there is no more safety for any one. While the princes are
fighting among themselves a class will arise who will know
no right but the force of arms, and as the princes have destroyed
the Empire they in their turn will be destroyed by the
rabble. Men will seek for the German Empire and not find
it. Strangers will divide our lands and we shall be subject
to foreign powers." * But the Emperor was powerless. His
Empire had been disintegrated by Roman Law.

1 Janssen, vol. ii. pp. 149-50.

CHAPTER V
ROMAN LAW IN ENGLAND

PASSING on from a consideration of the reception of Roman
Law in Germany to a consideration of its influence in England
it will be necessary in the first place to challenge the opinion
of the legal profession that law in this country is English
and not Roman.

In the sense in which the legal profession use the word
Roman, no doubt their judgment is well-founded. The
legal mind is fond of hair-splitting technicalities and differ-
ences, and without doubt they have their reasons for believing
that English Law differs from Roman Law, though I have
not succeeded in discovering what they are. But any
decision in this matter must depend upon how Roman Law
is denned. If emphasis is to be given to secondary details,
then it may be that experts could bring sufficient evidence
to show that English and Roman law are very different.
But if we take our stand upon broad, fundamental propositions,
this is clearly not the case. One does not need to be a legal
expert to understand that English Law to-day is in all its
essentials a law designed to enable rich men to live among
poor as emphatically as Mediaeval Law was designed to enable
good men to live among bad, and that this different moral
aim separates it from English Mediaeval Law as completely
as it identifies it with the Roman Code. English Law to-day
may have historical continuity with the Common Law of
the earlier Middle Ages, but in its informing spirit, its broad,
basic principles and framework, there is no denying it is
Roman through and through. The writers of legal textbooks
such as Bracton based their ideas upon Roman Law, and it
was always in the minds of lawyers for guidance and com-
parison if it was not actually quoted from the bench. Every-

74 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

where English Law, like Roman, exalts private interests at
the expense of communal ones, and in consequence conceives
of the State as an instrument for the maintenance of order
rather than the enforcement of justice. For a law which
exalts private interests is essentially an instrument of anarchy,
and maintains order only for the purpose of putting off the
evil day.1

In England, as on the Continent, the principles of Roman
Law were imposed from above, and got a footing by appealing
to the immediate self-interest of the monarchy. Henry II
saw their value as a means of increasing his personal power
at the expense of his barons, and it was in his reign that the
process which culminated in the highly centralized monarchy
of the Tudors began to make headway. Henry had destroyed
the military independence of the barons by instituting scutage,
whereby the barons agreed to a money payment in lieu of
their obligation to provide him with men-at-arms in time of
war. He now set to work with the help of his legal advisers
to undermine their power in their own domains. The
manorial courts of the barons had been partly shorn of their
powers by the judicial reforms of Henry I. Henry II sought
to carry this work further by developing the curia regis or
Royal Court of Justice. That court had originally been the
court of the king's barons, corresponding to the court of
his tenants, which every feudal lord possessed. From this
central court, Henry sent out justices on circuit, and so brought
the king's law into touch with all parts of the kingdom,
breaking open the enclosed spheres of influence of the manorial
courts by emptying them of their more serious cases, and
it may be that at the start these justices dispensed a law which
was cheaper, more expeditious, and more expert than that
of the manor and scarcely different in intention. It was by
such means that the idea was gradually promoted that the
king's law and the king's right took precedence over those
of other individuals and groups, and the people were induced
to acquiesce in a change, the ultimate consequences of which
they were unable to foresee.

At first sight these changes have all the appearance of
a change in the right direction. Feudalism rested on local

* Cf. Ashley's Economic History, vol. i. part i. p. 131.

Roman Law in England 75

isolation, on the severance of kingdom from kingdom, and
barony from barony, on the distinction of race and blood,
on local military independence, on an allegiance determined
by accidents of birth and social position. It might appear,
therefore, that now, when the circumstances which had created
feudalism were disappearing, when the spread of currency
was undermining its integrity, that the new developments
that aimed at breaking down this isolation, destroyed the
military independence of the barons, took the administration
of the law out of the hands of men without a legal training,
and placed it in the hands of experts, who brought order and
uniformity into it, was a change in the right direction. And
so it might have been, had not the justices whose decisions
were to leave a lasting impression on the law of the land been
men who despised the common and traditional law. Their
minds had been trained upon Roman Law, and they set to
work to remodel the common law in such a way as to undermine
the basis of Mediaeval institutions and popular liberty. In
the long run, much the same kind of thing happened in England
as in Germany, though the English lawyers were perhaps
more subtle in their methods. They did not advocate a
revival of the Justinian Code ; perhaps because the fiction
of continuity could not very well be applied in this country,
but they introduced the changes piecemeal. Bracton, the
great jurist of the time, upon whose writings our knowledge
of the period is largely based, sought to accomplish this end
by fitting English facts into a framework of Roman Law.1
Such is the English Common Law.

The contrast between the old Mediaeval Law and the new
Anglicized Roman Law is most strikingly illustrated by the
new legal attitude towards the question of private property,
and in the treatment of the law of persons. A suspicion gains
ground that a consequence of the introduction of Roman
ideas of law was an attempt in the thirteenth century to
transform feudalism into slavery. Nothing was sacred to
the lawyers that could not be supported by documentary
evidence. The rights and customs of the people they looked
upon as nominal and revocable. " In Anglo-Saxon times,
the predecessor of the villain, the ceorl, was not a slave at

1 Cf. Viaogradoff, p. 97.

76 A Guildsmaris Interpretation of History

all, but had a standing against his lord in the court of law."1
But the Roman Code made no provision for the rights of
different social classes. It recognized only autocrats and
slaves. Hence it was that, when confronted with Feudalism
an institution in which the lords were not autocrats but
functionaries, and the villains not slaves but dependents,
the lawyers were at a loss as to how to apply the Roman
rule. They appear to have vacillated for some time, but
" after some contradictory decisions the court ended by
applying strictly the rule that villains have no claim
against their lords and that in law what is held by the
villain is owned by the lord."* Bracton follows Azo as
to the very important generalization " all men are born
either free or slaves." 3 There is no getting round these
facts. That a decision on this issue had to be made
suggests that, prior to the introduction of Roman ideas of
law, the right of the villain to appeal against his lord was
presumed, and that the courts wavered some time between
contradictory opinions, because things were happening behind
the scenes which had to be taken into consideration, or, in
other words, that their final decision was governed by con-
siderations of political expediency. We saw that, by means
of scutage, the military power of the barons had been
destroyed. The Royal Courts of Justice were now engaged
in the task of destroying their judicial power, and it is not
unreasonable to suppose that a time came when the lords
began to ask the question, " Where do we come in ? " under
the new order the king and his lawyers were seeking to
establish. It would become daily clearer to the lawyers that
if the development of the Royal Courts of Justice was to
continue and to expand, the lords would have to be brought
to terms. If they were to acquiesce in the change, their
status would have to be guaranteed in some new way. And I
suggest that a bargain was struck. The Crown was to be
allowed to absorb the judicial functions, and the lords were
to be allowed to enslave their serfs.

But the change could not stop here. If the lord was to
be given absolute control over his serfs, he must be made
absolute owner of the land, for the spread of currency into

1 C. Vinogradoff, p. 100. * Ibid., p. 100. 3 Ibid., p. 98.

Roman Law in England 77

rural areas by substituting money payments for payment in
kind was disintegrating the old feudal order. Hence it came
about that the lawyers revived the Roman individualistic
theory of property. The lord was to be acknowledged no
longer as a functionary who held his land conditionally upon
the fulfilment of certain specific duties towards his serfs and
tenants, but was to be recognized as the absolute owner of
the land, while, moreover, he was to be given certain privileges
over the common lands. The foundation of the law on this
subject is in the " Statute of Merton " of 1235, which laid
down that lords might " make their profit " of their " wastes,
woods and pastures," in spite of the complaints of " knights
and freeholders " whom they had " infeoffed of small tenements
in their manors," so long as these feoffees had a sufficient
pasture so much as belongeth to their tenements." * This was
the thin end of the wedge. Like all the law on the subject,
it is delightfully and intentionally vague, in order that the
lawyers might twist and twine its meaning, and the lords
bully their dependents as best suited their ends. The question,
of course, arises how much is " sufficient pasture." This is
obviously a matter of opinion, and as the burden of proof
lay upon the tenant, who, if he objected to enclosures, had
to prove that he could not find sufficient pasture, the statute
in effect granted the lords the right to enclose the common
lands to their hearts' content, and allowed the peasantry
no redress against injustice, as the courts were in conspiracy
against them.

Before the lawyers came along with their Roman Law,
Feudalism was a defensible if not an ideal form of organization.
But the lawyers poisoned the whole system. They became
the stewards of the lords and instructed their noble patrons
" in all the legal methods of taming down the peasants so that
they might not shoot up too high." They put them up to
all the little dodges by means of which the common lands
might be enclosed, and how, by attacking things piecemeal,
they might encroach upon the communal rights of the people.
They were behind the evictions which the new commercial
lords undertook, in order that tillage might be turned into

1 An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, by W. J.
Ashley, vol. i. part ii. p. 271.

78 A Guildsmaris Interpretation of History

pasture, when sheep-farming became so profitable. By
such means funds were secured to feed the ever-increasing
taste of the upper classes for luxury and display, and by
such means the unrest was created which led to the Peasants'
Revolt of 1381, when the lawyers got all they were looking
for. Every one of them who fell into the hands of the rebels
was put to death; " not until all these were killed would the
land enjoy its old freedom again " the peasants shouted as
they fired the houses of the stewards and flung the records
of the manor courts into the flames. When they entered
London they set ablaze the new inn of the lawyers at the Temple
together with the stately palace of John of Gaunt and the
houses of the foreign merchants, against whom also they had
grievances. Whoever may have had doubts as to the source of
the mischief, the peasants, who were led by the friars, had their
minds made up. It was not a rising against Feudalism as
it had existed a couple of centuries earlier, but a rising against
a corrupted Feudalism in general and the lawyers in particular,
whom the peasants rightly believed had corrupted it as they
believed they were corrupting the mind of the young sovereign.
For one object of their rising was to free him from evil counsel-
lors whom they believed abused his youth.

The Peasants' Revolt is the turning-point in English history,
as similar revolts on the Continent in the latter half of the
fourteenth century are the turning-point in the history of
Continental nations. To ascribe the break-up of Mediaeval
society to the economic changes which followed the Black
Death is to draw a smoke-screen across history. It is to
attribute to a general and indefinable cause social phenomena
which can be most explicitly traced to a very definite and
particular one, since the economic confusion which followed
the Black Death would not have come about had not the
communal relations which held society together a couple
of centuries earlier been disintegrated by the machinations
of the lawyers. The peasants, therefore, in seeking the
destruction of the lawyers put their finger rightly on the
primary cause of the dissolution of the old Mediaeval order.
To this extent their instincts were true. But unfortunately
while they were right as to the cause of the evils from which
they were suffering they were wrong in regard to their general

Roman Law in England 79

economic policy. Quite apart from the lawyers, the old
feudal order based upon payment in kind was being disinte-
grated by the spread of currency into rural areas which was
substituting money payments for services, and it was urgent,
if economic difficulties were not to follow upon this change,
that currency should be regulated in rural areas by Guilds.
But this aspect of the problem they appear to have over-
looked entirely, for instead of demanding charters from their
sovereign for organization of agricultural Guilds along with
their demand for the abolition of serfdom, they demanded
liberty to buy and sell. This mistake was a fatal one, since
if they had demanded charters for Guilds the whole course of
English history would have been different. For then the
Guilds would have covered the whole area of production, and
as capitalism would not then have been able to get a foothold,
the position of the Guilds in the towns would not have been
undermined in the sixteenth century by the pressure of the
competition of capitalist industry. After a time such Agricul-
tural Guilds would have been sufficiently wealthy to buy
out the landlords in the same way that the plutocracy of
Rome came to dispossess the landed aristocracy, or they would
have acquired sufficient power to confiscate the lands if
this policy had recommended itself. But this great oppor-
tunity of recovering the land of England for the people was
lost because the peasants at the time saw only their immediate
interests. Profiting by a rising market, they did not under-
stand the dangers to which an unregulated currency exposed
them. But when at last in the sixteenth century they did
become cognizant of the evil, it was too late. The Guilds
in the town had been defeated and capitalism was already
triumphant. It is strange how history repeats itself. As
in Rome we saw that, an unregulated currency gave rise to
Roman Law, so in the Middle Ages we see the revival of Roman
Law being accompanied by the spread of an unregulated
currency. There is a definite connection between these two
phenomena. The Roman theory postulating an individual-
istic society was not only opposed to all organizations within
the State, because in the time of the Republic such organiza-
tions had been used as a basis of conspiracy but to the mainten-
ance of the Just Price as well, for a right to buy in the cheapest

80 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

market and sell in the dearest was admitted in the Justinian
Code. There can therefore be no doubt whatsoever that the
influence of the lawyers would be opposed to the spread of
Guild organization in rural areas.

In spite of the popular feeling against the lawyers which
the Peasants' Revolt evinced, the legal profession steadily
strengthened its grip on the government of the country.
By the reign of Elizabeth the lawyers had not only concentrated
all judicial functions into their own hands, but Parliament
itself had become an assembly of lawyers. Bacon, though
himself a lawyer, had a great contempt for the profession.
No amount of legal knowledge, he believed, would make a
statesman or equip a man to deal with matters of high policy.
" The wisdom of a lawyer," he said, " is one, that of a lawmaker
another. Judges ought to remember that their office is to
interpret law, and not to make law or give law." And so
he viewed with alarm the growing influence of Parliament,
as it implied the growing influence of lawyers. " Without
the lawyers," he said, " the country gentlemen would be
leaderless." He had no objection to Parliament so long as
they did not attempt to control the Government, but he
clearly foresaw the paralysis that would overtake State policy
if ever the lawyers got the upper hand. For though later
the Revolution taught men that lawyers prefer some form
of monarchy, it is a nominal or limited monarchy in which
they believe. Their ambition is not to occupy the throne but
to be the power behind the throne, and it is this ambition
that makes them at once so powerful and so irresponsible,
which enables them at once to commit injustice and to visit
others with the consequences.

As against the idea of a sovereign assembly, Bacon exalted
the Crown. The royal prerogative represented in his mind
the case of enterprise and initiative as against pedantry and
routine. But monarchy in his da.y was beginning to find its
position difficult in the new order which it had been one of
the chief means of promoting. Monarchy, as I insisted
earlier, was essentially a Mediaeval institution. The monarchs
were the highest of temporal authorities, but they were
subject to the spiritual authority of the Popes. Monarchs
did not care very much about this. They were restive under

Roman Law in England 81

it even when they acquiesced. They wanted their rule to
be absolute, and it was this that led them to give support to
the Roman lawyers, who made law depend upon the monarchs'
will and not ultimately upon a higher and external authority.
After quarrelling with the Popes for centuries the monarchs
succeeded in countries where Protestanism had triumphed
in emancipating themselves from the control of the Popes.
But things did not then work out exactly as they expected.
When the Popes were gone the religious sanction was gone,
and monarchs began to find that instead of contending against
the Popes they had to contend against their own peoples,
who now began to question their authority. Hence the
doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings by which James I
sought to rehabilitate monarchy. He wrote two treatises
on the subject in which he expounded his views. In one
of these, A King's Duty in his Office, he distinguished the
lawful ruler from the tyrant by the fact that the former
feels responsibility towards God, while the latter does not.
Hence the lawful ruler claims unconditional obedience from
his subjects and was answerable to God alone, but the people
owe no allegiance to the tyrant. But in the other one,
Basilicon Doron, which was prepared for his eldest son Henry
and was not written for publication, he maintains that a
king was to be obeyed whether he ruled justly or unjustly.
In the first place because in abolishing monarchy the State,
instead of relieving, would double its distress, for a king
can never be so monstrously vicious that he will not generally
favour justice and maintain order ; and in the next, because
a wicked king is sent by God as a plague on people's sins,
and it is unlawful to shake off the burden which God has
laid upon them. " Patience, earnest prayer and amendment
of their lives are the only lawful means to move God to relieve
them of that heavy curse." T It was essentially the philosophy
of Protestantism and Roman Law which treats all rights
as subjective as opposed to the doctrine of objective rights
postulated by Mediae valism.3

So far from settling matters, the system of government

1 See Political Thought in England from Bacon to Halifax, by G. P.
Gooch, pp. 7-22.

* See Authority, Liberty and Function, by Ramiru de Maeztu.

82 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

by prerogative as preached and practised by James only
made matters worse. It brought him into collision with
the lawyers and the Puritans, who shattered the power of
the Stuarts. The opposition which James had to face came
from the lawyers, and particularly from Edward Coke, who
was their leader. He had served successively under Elizabeth
as Speaker and Attorney-General, and in these positions
he appeared mainly as a defender of the Crown against the
dangers of conspiracy. But on being appointed Chief Justice
of Common Pleas his attitude towards the king changed,
and he now began to play the role of champion of the courts
against the encroachments of the king. He was the greatest
legal scholar of his age, and being a conservative by tempera-
ment, he came to exalt the common law above king and
Parliament. It was the sovereign, and supreme over both
of them. His position was altogether too paradoxical
to become a constitutional theory, for the rule of the law,
according to his interpretation, would mean not merely the
rule of the lawyers but finally the rule of the pedant and
antiquarian. To Coke, law was an end in itself, and he
believed just as much in the Divine Right of Law as James
believed in the Divine Right of Kings, and so a collision
became inevitable. Through the patronage of kings, the
Roman lawyers had been gradually raised to positions of
highest authority in the land. Now the time came when
the law, which was mainly their own creation, was to be used
as a weapon with which to challenge the royal authority.
Though Coke's idea of the sovereignty of law as an
esoteric science interpreted by professional jurists died with
its author, it is customary to regard him as one of the founders
of constitutional government. The contest between King
and Parliament continued for nearly a century and was only
finally brought to an end by deposing the last of the Stuarts,
which was followed by the enactment of the Bill of Rights
passed in 1689 which put an end for ever in England to all
claim to Divine Right or hereditary right independent of
the law. It was, among other things, a great victory for the
lawyers. Henceforth an English monarch became just as
much the creature of an Act of Parliament as any member
of the Civil Service. Parliament also secured absolute

Roman Law in England 83

control over taxation and the Army, which incidentally
owed its existence as a permanent institution to the fact
that after the Revolution the Army of Cromwell refused to
be disbanded, regarding itself as the defender of the liberties
of the people against landlords, royalists and Catholics.
With Parliament supreme the triumph of the lawyers was
assured. Little by little, as their ally, Capitalism, whom they
had succeeded in emancipating from the " fetters of the
Middle Ages," undermined in the economic world what
was left of the old social order, the control yf government
passed into their hands until, in our day, they are supreme.
But what kind of government is it ?

Parliaments built of paper

And the soft swords of gold,
That twist like a waxen taper

In the weak aggressor's hold.

Such is Mr. Chesterton's description of a government of
lawyers. Experience is teaching us that Bacon was right
in holding that no amount of legal knowledge will equip a
man for the high policy of State. Roman Law, being divorced
from morals, tends to corrupt the minds, where it does not
corrupt the morals of those who study it. And it comes
about this way : without a base in morality, law inevitably
becomes increasingly complicated, for its framework can
only be maintained amid such circumstances by denning
precisely every detail. Instead, therefore, of the mind
of the student being directed towards a comprehension
of the broad, basic facts of life, it is directed towards the
study of subtle controversies and hair-splitting differences
which befog the intelligence. As success in the legal pro-
fession follows preoccupation with such trivialities, a govern-
ment composed of lawyers is necessarily a weak government
that waits upon events because it is incapable of decision
on vital issues. But while on the one hand Roman Law
reduces its devotees to impotence so far as constructive
statesmanship is concerned, on the other the very complexity
of the law paralyses the efforts of men without legal training
to secure reform. Hence it is, while parties have changed
and battles have been fought over burning political issues,

84 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

nothing can get done. And because reform becomes im-
possible, anarchy grows apace, which in turn encourages
the growth of legalism in vain attempts to put a boundary
to the growth of disorder. It is thus the modern world
has entered a vicious circle in which anarchy begets legalism
and legalism begets anarchy and from which there can
be no escape so long as the principles of Roman Law remain
unchallenged.

Considering the iniquity that has been associated with
Roman Law almost from the days of its revival, it is extra-
ordinary that it should 'still command respect. But what
is more extraordinary still is that while it succeeded in
corrupting Mediaeval society it has not only succeeded in
escaping censure itself, but has managed to transfer the
odium which belongs to itself to the institutions which it
was the means of corrupting. The Church, the Monarchy,
Feudalism and the Guilds each in turn suffered at its hands.
Each and all of them in turn have been condemned as
intolerable tyrannies because each of them in some measure
stood for the communal idea of society, and as such at different
times have offered resistance to the growth of a system of
law whose aim it has been to dissolve all personal and human
ties and to replace them by the impersonal activity of the
State. If Capitalism to-day is our active enemy, let us
clearly recognize that Roman Law is the power behind the
throne.

CHAPTER VI
THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST MEDIEVALISM

AN appreciation of the part which Roman Law played in
the corruption of Mediaeval society and in the creation of
modern thought and civilization should go a long way
towards the removal of the prejudice which prevails to-day
against most things Mediaeval, and which distorts out of
its proper perspective everything which then existed. This
prejudice has many roots, and therefore it becomes necessary,
ere proceeding with our story, to seek the removal of the
prejudice by explaining its origin. I hope to show that
though to-day this prejudice may be little more than a
misunderstanding, it did not begin as such, but as a conspiracy.
We need not go far to find evidence in support of this
contention. Consider, for one moment, the utterly irre-
sponsible way in which the word Mediaeval is thrown about
in the daily Press. Among a certain class of writers it is
the custom to designate as Mediaeval anything which they
do not understand or of which they do not approve, quite
regardless of the issue as to whether it actually existed in
the Middle Ages or not. During the war, for instance,
how often did we read of Mediaeval Junkerdom, notwithstand-
ing the fact that the Middle Ages was the age of chivalry,
and that, as a matter of fact, tjie spirit of German militarism
approximates very nearly to that of the military capitalism
of Ancient Rome. For the Romans, like the Germans,
did not hesitate to destroy the towns and industries of their
rivals. It was, as I have already pointed out, for commercial
reasons that they burnt Carthage and Corinth, and caused
the vineyards and olive-groves of Gaul to be destroyed,
in order to avoid a damaging competition with the rich
Roman landlords. Or, again, when anything goes wrong

85

86 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

in a government department, for reasons not apparent
on the surface, the shortcoming will be described as Mediaeval
regardless of the fact that bureaucracy is a peculiarly Roman
institution and scarcely existed in the Middle Ages. There
is no need to multiply instances, as they are to be met with
in the Press daily. But the result is tragic. An all-pervading
prejudice is created, which militates against clear thinking
on social and political questions, for a prejudice against
Mediae valism is a prejudice against all normal forms of
social organization ; it is a prejudice which may spell Bol-
shevism in the days to come ; for, after all, Bolshevism
is itself nothing more than modern prejudices and historical
falsehoods carried to their logical conclusions.

Now, it stands to reason that this gross solecism is not
without a cause. Nobody on the Press ever speaks of Rome
or Greece in this irresponsible way, and the question needs
to be answered : Why is the Middle Ages the only period
in history singled out for such thoughtless misrepresentation ?
The answer is, that at one time this indiscriminate mud-
slinging had a motive behind it — a motive, however, that
has since disappeared. Cobbett, I think, got at the bottom
of it when, a hundred years ago, he pointed out that Protestant
historians had wilfully misrepresented the Middle Ages
because there were so many people living on the plunder of
the monasteries and the Guilds, and consequently interested
in maintaining a prejudice against the Middle Ages, as the
easiest way of covering their tracks. It was not for nothing
that Cobbett's History of the Reformation I was burnt by the
public hangman. It was burnt because it was more than
a history — because it exposed a conspiracy. But the pre-
judice exists ; it has other roots which require to be attacked.

We need not pause to consider how the prejudices of
freethinkers have militated against an understanding of the
Middle Ages, as the free thinking of freethinkers is no longer
above suspicion. In so far as their prejudices are in these
days a force to be reckoned with, it is as a part of the Marxian
or Bolshevik gospel. The rise to popularity of the Marxian
creed has given the anti-Mediaeval prejudice a new lease

1 A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, by
William Cobbett. (Reprint by Washbourne & Co., is. 6d.)

The Conspiracy against Medicevalism 87

of life, by refusing in the first place to admit that any but
material forces have ever played more than a secondary
part in the shaping of history, and what naturally follows
from it, distorting or ignoring such facts as do not happen
to fit in with the materialist conception. How gross are the
prejudices which have been impressed upon the minds of
the workers may be understood by any one who will take the
trouble to read such a book as that produced by one of
the Neo-Marxians, A Worker Looks at History, by Mr. Mark
Starr. It is an important book because of the wide circulation
it has amongst the workers. Popular misconceptions and
prejudices are exaggerated. In the chapter entitled " The
Renaissance from the Mediaeval Night " the author, after
referring to the schools of Alexandria, says : " Christianity
proscribed philosophy, abolished the schools, and plunged
the world into an abyss of darkness from which it only
emerged after twelve hundred years." Mr. Starr is indignant
at this. But it never occurs to him to enquire what these
schools taught ; and this is important. He assumes that
they taught what he admires in the Pagan philosophers,
for whom I have as much regard as has Mr. Starr. But
these schools of the Neo-Platonists were degenerate institu-
tions. They taught everything that Mr. Starr would hate.
Their teaching was eclectic — a blending of Christian and
Platonic ideas with Oriental mysticism. They believed in
magic. Their reasoning was audacious and ingenious,
but it was intellectual slush without any definite form or
structure. Above all, it encouraged a detachment from the
practical affairs of life, and thus became an obstruction
to real enlightenment. It was well that these schools were
suppressed ; they needed suppressing, for no good can come
of such misdirection of intellectual activities, and I doubt
not had Mr. Starr been then alive he would have risen in
his wrath against their unreality. The Early Church was
opposed to these degenerate intellectuals, because, while
the Church desired to establish the Kingdom of God upon
Earth, they were content for it to remain in heaven. But
Mr. Starr has been so prejudiced against Mediaevalism that
he attributes to the Church all the vices which it sought to
suppress.

88 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Though the Early Church closed the schools of the Neo-
Platonists, it did not suppress philosophy. On the contrary,
Greek culture was preserved at Constantinople, while much
of Greek philosophy was absorbed in Christian theology.
Before the close of the New Testament Canon, Greek
philosophy had begun to colour the expression of Christian
doctrine ; in the hands of the Fathers of the Church it entered
into its very substance. The logos of Plato reappears as the
doctrine of the Trinity, which, incidentally, is not an ex-
planation of the universe, but " a fence to guard a mystery."1
It reappears, however, not as an intellectual abstraction,
but as a concrete reality, and, as such, possesses a dynamic
power capable of changing the world. It was this burning
desire to change the world which made the Early Christians
so impatient with the Neo-Platonists, who made speculation
an excuse for inaction, as it makes the Neo-Marxians to-day
rightly impatient with a certain type of Socialist intellectual.
Moreover, it was this insistence upon practical activity
which made Christianity so dogmatic in its theology.
Marxians at any rate ought to realize that strenuous activity
must rest upon dogmas. On the other hand, the weakness
of Pagan philosophy was that it was powerless to influence
life. " Cicero, the well-paid advocate of the publicani
and bankers, whom he frequently calls in the most idyllic
style ornamentum civitatis, firmamentum rei publics flos
equitum while philosophizing on virtue, despoiled with
violence the inhabitants of the province he administered,
realizing, salvis legibus, two million two hundred thousand
sestercia in less than two months. Honest Brutus invested
his capital at Cyprus at 48 per cent. ; Verres in Sicily
at 24 per cent. Much later, when the economic dissolu-
tion of the Republic had led to the establishing of the
Empire, Seneca, who, in his philosophical writings, preached
contempt of riches, despoiled Britain by his usury." *

While the prejudice against Mediaevalism doubtless had
its origin in malice and forethought, it is encouraged by the
fallacious division of Mediaeval history into the Middle Ages

1 Essays in Orthodoxy, by Oliver Chase Quick.

» A. Delonmc, Les Manieurs d' Argent a Rome, quoted in Nitti's Catholic
Socialism.

The Conspiracy against Medicevalism 89

and the Dark Ages. By means of this artificial and arbitrary
division the popular mind has been led to suppose that
mankind was plunged into darkness and ignorance after the
decline of Roman civilization, while it is generally inferred
that this was due to the spread of Christianity, which it
is supposed exhibited a spirit hostile to learning and enlight-
enment rather than to the inroads of the barbarian tribes.
A grosser travesty of historic truth was never perpetrated.
But the travesty is made plausible by the custom which many
historians have of detailing the history of a particular
geographical area, instead of making history continuous
with the traditions of thought and action, the geographical
centres of which change from time to time. Treating the
history of Western Europe according to the former method,
the period of Roman occupation is followed by one of barbar-
ism, in which almost every trace of civilization disappears for
a time, and no doubt the people who dwelt in this part of
Europe did live through a period of darkness. That, however,
was the case with the Western Empire only. The Eastern
Empire was never overrun by the barbarians. On the
contrary, its capital, Constantinople, maintained during
all this period a high state of civilization, and was the artistic
and cultural centre of the world. While the barbarian hordes
were overrunning the Western Empire, the Eastern Church
preserved the traditions of Greek culture, which, as order
became restored in the West, gradually filtered through
Venice until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The subse-
quent emigration of Greek scholars and artists to Italy
removed the last barrier between the culture of Eastern
and Western Europe.

It was at Constantinople, during the sixth century,
that the Code of Justinian was made. It is painful for me
to have to record this fact, seeing that it led, unfortunately,
to the revival of Roman Law, and it is mentioned here
not as a recommendation, but merely as testimony to the
existence of intellectual activity during the so-called Dark
Ages. The task of extracting a code from the six camel-
loads of law-book certainly testifies to the existence of learning.
Moreover, it was during this period that the Byzantine school
of architecture flourished. The reputation of the cathedral

90 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

church of Santa Sophia, built in the sixth century, was so
great that the twelfth-century William of Malmesbury knew
of it " as surpassing every other edifice in the world." Of
this architecture Professor Lethaby writes : —

" The debt of universal architecture to the early Christian
and Byzantine schools of builders is very great. They
evolved the church types ; they carried far the exploration
of domical construction, and made wonderful balanced
compositions of vaults and domes over complex plans.
They formed the belfry from the Pharos and fortification
towers. We owe to them the idea of the vaulted basilican
church, which, spreading westward over Europe, made our
great vaulted cathedrals possible. They entirely recast
the secondary forms of architecture ; the column was taught
to cany the arch, the capital was reconsidered as a bearing
block and became a feature of extraordinary beauty. The
art of building was made free from formulae, and architecture
became an adventure in building once more. We owe
to them a new type of moulding, the germ of the Gothic
system, by the introduction of the roll-moulding and their
application of it to ' strings ' and the margins of doors.
The first arch known to me which has a series of roll-mouldings
is in the palace of Inshatta. The tendency to cast windows
into groups, the ultimate source of tracery and the foiling
of arches is to be mentioned. We owe to these Christian
artists the introduction of delightfully fresh ornamentation,
crisp foliage, and interlaces, and the whole scheme of Christian
iconography." T

This is no small achievement. Only an age as indifferent
to the claims of architecture as our own could underrate
its magnitude. To the average historian, however, this
period of history is a blank, because he lacks the kind of
knowledge and sympathy necessary to assess its achievements
at their proper value. To his mind, enlightenment and
criticism are synonymous ; and, finding no criticism, he
assumes there was no enlightenment, not understanding that
criticism is the mark of reflective rather than of creative
epochs. For, though at times they appear contemporaneously,
they have different roots, and the critical spirit soon destroys
1 Architecture, by Professor W. R. Lethaby.

The Conspiracy against Medicevalism 91

the creative, as we shall see when we come to consider the
Renaissance. How false such standards of judgment are may
be understood by comparing the Dark Ages with our own. In
those days there was plenty of architecture, but little, if any,
architectural literature. To-day the volume of architectural
literature and criticism is prodigious, but there is precious
little architecture.

While the traditions of culture all through this period
were preserved and developed in the Eastern Church with
its centre at Constantinople, the task which fell to the
Western, or Roman, Church was of a different order. Upon
it was thrust the task of civilizing the barbarian races of the
West which had overthrown the Roman Empire, and it
is to the credit of the Early Church that it succeeded where
the Romans had failed. Success was achieved through
different methods. Roman civilization had been imposed
by violence and maintained by compulsion : it was always
an exotic affair, and it fell to pieces when the force of the
barbarians became at last more powerful than that of the
Roman Empire. The success of Christianity is attributable
to the fact that it effected a change in the spirit of the peoples.
This great achievement was the work of the early Monastic
Orders, whose missionary zeal was destined to spread
Christianity throughout Europe.

The early Christian monks had been characterized by
a decided Oriental tendency to self-contemplation and
abstraction, and in their missionary enterprises their inter-
course with the rude populations was limited to instructing
them in the homilies and creeds of Christ. Augustine and
his forty companions, who were sent forth by Gregory the
Great to convert Britain (A.D. 596), " acted on a very
different principle, for in addition to the orthodox weapons
of attack and persuasion which they employed against
their opponents, they made use of other, but equally powerful,
methods of subjugation, by teaching the people many useful
arts that were alike beneficial to their bodies and their
minds. As soon as they settled in Kent, and had begun
to spread themselves towards the north and west, they
built barns and sheds for their cattle side by side with their
newly erected churches, and opened schools in the immediate

92 A Guildsmari s Interpretation of History

neighbourhood of the house of God, where the youth of
the nominally converted population were now for the first
time instructed in reading, and in the formulae of their faith
and where those who were intended for a monastic life
or for the priesthood, received the more advanced instruction
necessary to their earnest calling." 1

We read that the Benedictines of Abingdon, in Berkshire,
were required by their canonized founder to perform a
daily portion of field labour, in addition to the prescribed
services of the Church. " In their mode of cultivating
the soil they followed the practices adopted in the wanner
and more systematically tilled lands of the south. They
soon engaged the services of the natives in the vicinity and
repaid their labours with a portion of the fruits of their toil,
and in proportion as the woods and thickets were cleared,
and the swamps and morasses disappeared, the soil yielded
a more plentiful return ; while the land, being leased or
sub-let, became the means of placing the monastery, which
was, in fact, the central point of the entire system, in the
position of a rich proprietor. From such centres as these
the beams of a new and hopeful life radiated in every
direction." *

" The requirements of the monks, and the instruction
they were able to impart around them, soon led to the
establishment in their immediate neighbourhood of the first
settlement of artificers and retail dealers, while the excess
of their crops, flocks and herds, gave rise to the first
markets, which were, as a rule, originally held before the
gate of the abbey church. Thus hamlets and towns were
formed, which became the centres of trade and general
intercourse, and thus originated the market tolls, and the
jurisdiction of these spiritual lords. The beneficial influences
of the English monasteries in all departments of education
and mental culture expanded still further, even in the early
times of the Anglo-Saxons, for they had already then become
conspicuous for the proficiency which many of their members
had attained in painting and music, sculpture and architecture.
The study of the sciences, which had been greatly advanced
through the exertions of Bede, was the means of introducing

1 Pictures of Old England, by Dr. Reinhold Pauli, chap. ii. » Ibid.

The Conspiracy against Medievalism 98

one of his most celebrated followers, Alcuin of York, to the
court of Charlemagne, for the purpose of establishing schools
and learning in the German Empire. And although every
monastery did not contribute in an equal degree to all these
beneficial results, all aided to the best of their power and
opportunities in bringing about that special state of cultiva-
tion which characterised the Middle Ages." »

So much for the Dark Ages and the malicious libel which
insinuates that the Mediaeval world was opposed to learning.
So far from such insinuations being true, every Monastic
Order, for whatever purpose originally founded, ended in
becoming a learned order. It was the recognition of this
fact that led St. Francis, who was a genuinely practical
man, to insist that his followers should not become learned
or seek their pleasures in books, " for I am afraid," he says,
" that the doctors will be the destruction of my vineyard."
And here is found the paradox of the situation : so long as
learning was in the hands of men who valued it as such
it made little headway, but when at length the new impulse
did come, it came in no small measure from the Franciscans,
from the men who had the courage to renounce learning
and to lead a life of poverty, for in the course of time the
Franciscans became learned, as had done the other orders.
Thus we see that the central idea of Christianity — to renounce
the world in order to conquer it — bears fruit not only in
the moral but in the intellectual universe.

Sufficient has now been said to refute the charge that the
Mediaeval Church was opposed to learning. The case of
the Franciscans in decrying learning is the only one known
to me, and their action, as we shall see in a later chapter,
turned out to be a blessing in disguise. What the Mediaeval
Church was against was heresy, which was often associated
with learning, but the suppression of heresy is a thing funda-
mentally different from opposition to learning, and there
is nothing peculiarly Mediaeval about it. The Greeks con-
demned Socrates to death for seeking to discredit the gods,
while Plato himself came finally to the conclusion that in
his ideal State to doubt the gods would be punishable by
death. The Roman Emperors persecuted the Christians

« Ibid.

94 A Guilds-man's Interpretation of History

for refusing observance to the gods, Marcus Aurelius himself
being no exception to this rule, while we ourselves show
equal readiness to persecute heresy against the State, as
in the case of the pacifist conscientious objectors. And
so it will always be when great issues are at stake. A people
with a firm grip on fundamental truth attacks heresy at
its roots in ideas. A people like ourselves, that has lost
it? grip on primary truth, waits until it begins to influence
action, but once the heresy is recognized, all peoples in all
times have sought its suppression.

Before going further, let us be clear in our minds as to
what we mean by heresy. At different times it has meant
different things, but, in general, it might be defined as the
advocacy of ideas which, at a given time in a given place,
are considered by those in power as subversive to the social
order, and the instinct of self-preservation has impelled all
peoples in all times to suppress such ideas. In the Mediae-
val period such persecutions were associated with religion,
because in that era all ideas, social and political, were discussed
under a theological aspect. The position is simple. If it
be affirmed that every social system rests finally upon the
common acceptance of certain beliefs, any attempt to alter
beliefs will tend, therefore, in due course to affect the social
system. Plato carried this idea much farther than the
question of religious beliefs. In the Republic he says :
" The introduction of a new style of music must be shunned
as imperilling the whole State ; since styles of music are
never disturbed without affecting the most important political
institutions." " The new style," he continues, " gradually
gaining a lodgment, quietly insinuates itself into manners
and customs ; and from these it issues in greater force, and
makes its way into mutual compacts ; and from making com-
pacts it goes on to attack laws and constitutions, displaying
the utmost impudence until it ends by overturning everything,
both in public and in private." Plato here recognizes that
if communal relations in society are to be maintained and
men are to share common life, it can be only on the assumption
that they share common ideas and tastes. From this it
follows that the nearer a society approaches the communal
ideal the more it will insist upon unity of faith, because

The Conspiracy against Medievalism 95

the more conscious it will be of ideas that are subversive
of the social order.

The heretic was the man who challenged this community
of beliefs, and it was for this reason that he was looked upon
as a traitor to society. In the Middle Ages a man was not
originally interfered with because he held unorthodox views.
He was interfered with because he sought by every means
in his power to spread such views among the people, and
he met with much stronger opposition from the public
themselves than from ecclesiastic authority. The ideas
for which the heretics were persecuted were individualist
notions disguised in a communist form. The heretics had
no " sense of the large proportion of things." They were
not catholic-minded in the widest meaning of the term.
They had no sense of reality, and if they had been allowed
to have their own way they would have precipitated social
chaos by preaching impossible ideals.

The position will be better understood if we translate the
problem into the terms of the present day. Suppose the
Socialists succeeded in abolishing capitalism and established
their ideal State, and then suppose a man came along preach-
ing individualist ideas, attempting to bring back capitalism
in some underhand way by the popularization of a theory
the implications of which the average man did not under-
stand. At first, I imagine, he would not be interfered with.
If he began to make converts, however, a time would come
when Socialists would either have to consent to the over-
throw of their society in the interests of capitalism or take
measures against him. If ever they were faced with this
dilemma there can be little doubt how they would act. The
Medievalist attitude towards the heretic was precisely what
the Socialist attitude would be towards such a man. The
controversies over the Manichean, Arian, and Nestorian
heresies raged for centuries, and no action was taken against
them until it became clear what were the issues involved,
when the Church, through its Councils, made definite pro-
nouncements and the heresies were suppressed. They were
suppressed because men had instinctively come to feel that
they imperilled not only the unity of the Faith but the
unity of the social order as well.

96 A Guildsmaris Interpretation of History

Historical evidence suggests that this is the right avenue
of approach, since the persecution of heretics began with
secular and not with ecclesiastical authority. During the
first three centuries of the Early Church there was no persecu-
tion of heretics. All the influential ecclesiastics then agreed
that the civil arm might be employed to deal with them,
by prohibiting assemblies and in other ways preventing
them from spreading their views, but that the death penalty
was contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. For centuries
such was the ecclesiastical attitude, in both theory and
practice. This attitude did not recommend itself to the
successors of Constantine, however, who, continuing in the
persuasion of the Roman Emperors that the first concern
of the imperial authority was the protection of religion,
persecuted men for not being Christians, in the same spirit
that their predecessors had persecuted men because they
were Christians. At a later date — somewhere about the
year 1000 — when Manicheans expelled from Bulgaria spread
themselves over Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the
people, thinking that the clergy were supine in the suppression
of heresy, took the law into their own hands and publicly
burnt the heretics. Thus it is recorded that in 1114, when
the Bishop of Soissons, who had sundry heretics in durance
in his episcopal city, went to Beauvais to ask advice of the
bishops assembled there for a synod, the " believing folk,"
fearing the habitual soft-heartedness of the ecclesiastics,
stormed the prison, took the accused out of the town and
burnt them. Such incidents, which suggest the Lynch
law of America, were not uncommon in the early Middle
Ages, when the persecution of heretics was due to the fanatical
outbursts of an over-zealous populace or to the arbitrary
action of individual rulers, but never to ecclesiastical
authority.

It was not until the latter half of the twelfth century
that the attitude of the Church changed, owing to the rise
of the Catharists, better known to history as the Albigenses,
so called from the town of Albi (in South-west France),
where a council was held against them. The Albigenses
taught a creed that carried the Manichean heresy to its
logical conclusion. The Manicheans had identified good

The Conspiracy against Medicevalism 97

and evil with spirit and matter. According to them, spirit
was good and matter was evil. Hence their contempt of
the body, and hence, too, the Christian dogma of the Resurrec-
tion of the Body, whereby it was sought to combat the evils
consequent upon such a perverted attitude towards life
by affirming " that in any final consummation the bodily
life of man must find a place no less than the spiritual." x
The Manichean heresy had been taught by the Gnostic
sects in the early days of Christianity. It had been suppressed
but had reappeared again from time to time in its old form.
Now, however, it was to receive a new development. If
spirit were good and matter evil, if the bodily life of man
on earth were to be regarded as a form of penance to which
man was condemned because of evil deeds in former lives,
then the sooner he could by self-effacement and rigid discipline
pay the penalty of his misdeeds (that is, to work off the
bad karma, as Theosophists would say) the better it would
be for him. Hence it was that the ascetic rigorists among
the Albigenses preached a doctrine which was tantamount
to the advocacy of suicide — they sought to escape this life
by slow starvation. Although such extremists were at all
times few in number, they were the objects of an adoring
reverence from the people, which led to the rapid spread
of such teachings in Germany, France, and Spain. About
the same time, and mixed up with the Albigenses to some
extent, there occurred an outburst of witchcraft, magic,
and sorcery — the old religion, as the Italians call it — and
the Church was at last roused to action. Terribly afraid
of this new spirit, which she considered menaced not only
her own existence but the very foundations of society as well,
the Church in the end shrank from no cruelty that she might
be rid of it for ever. The action of the Church was rather
the result of panic produced by suspicions in the minds
of normal men than an outburst of primitive savagery.
In the South of France the Albigenses were very powerful,
for not only were they very zealous, but the nobility, for
reasons of their own, supported them, a circumstance which
imparted to the Albigenses the aspect of a powerful political
party, in addition to that of an heretical sect. They were

1 Essays in Orthodoxy, by Oliver Chase Quick.

7

98 A Guildsman?s Interpretation of History

condemned at various Councils, including the Lateran Council
of 1179, but these condemnations merely increased the
opposition of the Albigenses. Pope Innocent III, whose
juristic mind identified heresy with high treason, resolved
to extirpate the heresy, and in 1198 he sent two Cistercian
monks to try pacific measures. These failing, he began his
serious and deliberate policy of extermination. He ordered
a crusade to be preached against the Albigenses. Indulgences
were promised to all who took part in this holy war, and
soon afterwards Simon de Montiort (father of the founder
of the English parliament) led a crusade which was carried
on until ended politically by the Treaty of Paris in 1229.
The Albigenses, as a political party, were now suppressed,
and an Inquisition was left behind to uproot any sporadic
growth of heresy. The Inquisition then established was a
secular and temporary institution. The definite participa-
tion of the Church in the administration of the Inquisition
dates from 1231, when Gregory IX placed it under ecclesias-
tical control. Exact information as to the motives which
led him to take this action is lacking, but the hypothesis
is advanced by the writer of the article on the Inquisition
in the Catholic Encyclopedia that its introduction might
be due to the anxiety of the Pope to forestall the encroach-
ments of the Emperor Frederick II in the strictly ecclesiastical
province of doctrine. This hypothesis I am disposed to
accept, for it makes intelligible much that would otherwise
be obscure, and, if it be correct, means that the establishment
of the Inquisition is finally to be attributed to the influence
of Roman Law.

It will be remembered that the Commentators won the
favour of the J£mperors by declaring that, as the successors
of the Roman Emperors, their will was law, and that the
Hohenstaufen family gladly accepted this decision as a
justification of their desire for absolutism. Frederick II,
following in the footsteps of his father, Frederick Barbarossa,
sought by every means to make his power supreme over
Church and State. Bearing this in mind, it is not unreason-
able to suppose that the rigorous legislation that he enacted
against heretics, and which he unscrupulously made use of
to remove any who stood in the path of his ambitions, was

The Conspiracy against Medievalism 99

not to be attributed to his affected eagerness for the purity
of the Faith, but because he saw that the power that persecuted
heresy became, ipso facto, the final authority in matters of
faith, and that with such a weapon in his hands he would
be in a position to encroach gradually upon the ecclesiastical
province of doctrine, so that finally Church doctrine would
come to be as much dependent upon the will of the Emperor
as the Civil Law. It is suggested that Gregory perceived
whither Frederick's policy was leading, and that he resolved
to resist his encroachments in the only way that was open
to him. He could not have prevented the persecution of
heretics even had he so desired, for, as we have seen, their
persecution was rooted in popular feeling. What he could
do, however, was, by regularizing the procedure, to prevent
Frederick from abusing his power, and Gregory accordingly
instituted a tribunal of ecclesiastics that would pronounce
judgment on the guilt of those accused of heresy. This
action was immediately of service to the heretics, for the
regular procedure thus introduced did much to abrogate
the arbitrariness, passion, and injustice of the civil courts
of the Emperor.

The Church, then, undertook the task of deciding who
was and who was not a heretic, and this was as far as inter-
ference went. What was to be done with one found guilty
of heresy was, as heretofore, left to the civil authorities to
decide. Torture had been used in civil courts as a means
of extracting evidence, but its use was for long prohibited in
the ecclesiastical courts. Its introduction into the latter
was due to Pope Clement V, who formulated regulations
for its use, but it was to be resorted to only under very
exceptional circumstances. Why the Pope should have
been led to make this decision — what especial factors should
have impelled him to take a step so fatal — is not evident,
but we do know that .torture was most cruelly used when
the Inquisitors were exposed to the pressure of civil authorities,
and that in Spain, where the Inquisitors were appointed
by the Crown, the Inquisition, under the presidency of
Torquemada (1482-94) distinguished itself by its startling
and revolting cruelty. Here again, however, as in the case
of the Emperor Frederick II, it was used as an instrument

100 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

to further the political ambitions of the Kings of Spain,
who profited by the confiscation of the property of the
heretics, which was not inconsiderable, remembering that
several hundred thousand Jews at this time quitted Spain
to avoid persecution. Pope Sixtus IV made several attempts
to stop the deadly work, but was obliged through pressure
from Spain to deny the right of appeal to himself. The
situation had then got quite out of hand. The persecution
of heretics ceased to be a popular movement, and became
generally detested. Its cruel punishments, secret proceedings,
and prying methods caused universal alarm, and led not
only to uprisings of the people against a tyranny which
was regarded by many as " worse than death " but, by invest-
ing heretics with the crown of martyrdom, defeated its
own ends and brought orthodox Christianity into discredit.
After the period of the Reformation the Inquisition relaxed
its severity, but it lingered on until it was finally abolished
in Spain in 1835.

The passions that are aroused by the very name of the
Inquisition make it difficult to judge its work, while an
impartial history of it has yet to be written. From its
history, as from that of the persecution of heresy, there
clearly emerges the fact that religious persecution was due
in the first place to the initiative of the civil authority,
that at a later date it became a popular movement, and
that for centuries the ecclesiastics resisted the demands
of both the civil authorities and the people for persecution.
Furthermore, when the attitude of ecclesiastics changed it
was owing to the heresy of the Catharists, which threatened
at the same time not only the existence of the Church but
the very foundations of society ; and that when at last the
Papacy did move in the matter it was because of the danger
that worse things might happen if the persecution of heretics
was to continue independent of ecclesiastical direction.
Looking at the dilemma which presented itself to Gregory IX,
it is extremely difficult to say which was the less
momentous of the two evils between which he had to choose
— whether he was to allow ambitious Emperors to persecute
heretics as a means of furthering their Imperial desire to
control the Church, or whether, by regularizing the procedure,

The Conspiracy against Medievalism 101

the Church might mitigate the evils of lay prosecution,
even though she incurred the odium of tyranny as a conse-
quence. But of this we may be certain, that the tyranny
was not only foreign to the spirit of Christianity and ecclesi-
astical authority, but it was directly attributable to the
spread of Roman Law, which, awakening in the hearts of
Emperors and Kings the desire to subordinate religion to
State authority, as had been the case in Rome, awakened
also the Pagan spirit of religious persecution. The contrary
hypothesis generally held, that the religious persecution
is due to the intolerance of ecclesiastical authority, is unten-
able, not only because the facts of history flatly contradict
it, but because as compulsion is emphatically an attribute
of the State, the ecclesiastical authority is finally powerless
to use it to further its ends apart from the co-operation of
the State. And the best proof I can bring in support of
this contention is that the Church was powerless to suppress
Roman Law — the heresy that laid the foundations of material-
ism and undermined the position not only of the Church but
of Christianity itself — because it was supported by the secular
authorities.

CHAPTER VII
MEDIEVALISM AND SCIENCE

EVERYBODY nowadays is willing to grant that the Middle
Ages was great in architecture ; though I would remind
admirers of Gothic that this appreciation is quite a recent
thing. The right to admire Gothic had to be fought for.
Less than a hundred years ago Sir Walter Scott thought
it necessary to apologize to his readers for his love of it.
This change of opinion as to the merits of Gothic is due to
the powerful advocacy of Ruskin and to the activities of
the architects of the Gothic Revival. We are now beginning
to realize that the Medievalists knew something about
economics and social organization. But few people realize
that not only was the basis of science laid in the Middle
Ages but that its methods remain Mediaeval to this day,
for in this respect science remained unaffected by the influence
of the Renaissance.

That so much ignorance should obtain on this subject is
due to the conspiracy about things Mediaeval which Cobbett
was the first to expose. The popular notion is that during
the " long Mediaeval night/' when the Church held sway over
men's minds, education was hampered ; Papal Bulls forbade
the study of chemistry and practical anatomy, as dissection of
the human body was regarded as an heretical experiment ;
all reasoning was deductive, and such experimentalists as
there were wasted their time in the search for the philosopher's
stone which was to transmute base metal into gold, or for
the elixir of life ; whilst the bulk of the people were kept
in a state of " grovelling ignorance and superstition." All
advance was made by scholars who were persecuted by the
Church in order to keep the people in subjection to its tyranny,

and the results of their labours have enabled science to

102

Medicevalism and Science 103

confer untold benefits upon civilization. But I will not
press this latter point. Poison gas, liquid fire, and bombs
from aeroplanes, have brought a doubt into many minds
as to the truly beneficial intentions of science, and there
are many in these days who incline to the view that the
" Mediaeval prejudice," so called, was not altogether unjustified
after all.

In these circumstances it is somewhat distressing to
find that the Medievalists had no such prejudice. It is
possible they might have had, could they have clearly foreseen
all the horrors which science has let loose upon the world.
But they were not sufficiently far-sighted, and as a matter
of fact they applied themselves to the study of science with
great avidity. It will clear the air if we begin by bringing
evidence to refute these popularly accepted notions. The
supposed Papal decree forbidding the study of chemistry
turns out on examination to be nothing of the kind. The
decretal of John XXII (1316-34) did not aim at the chemist,
but at the abuse of chemistry by the alchemist, who incident-
ally was not the fool he is popularly imagined to be, but a
trickster who cast counterfeit money and a fraudent company
promoter who got money out of people by getting them to
subscribe to schemes for extracting gold from sea-water,1
and it was on this account that he was condemned.
Legitimate science, as we shall see later, was encouraged
and subsidized by the Popes. Meanwhile it may be observed
that while the Medievalists distinguished between chemistry
and alchemy, no such distinction obtains to-day. Our
alchemists do not waste their time in attempting to make
gold out of silver ; they have found a much more profitable
business in making wool out of cotton, silk out of wood,
and leather out of paper ; while these abuses are not
in these days forbidden by Papal Bulls but are taught
and encouraged at our technical universities.

Now let us turn to the supposed prohibition of dissection
which it is popularly taught was regarded as an heretical
experiment because it came into collision with the Christian
dogma of the Resurrection of the Body. There may, of

1 The text of this decree is to be found in The P^pe* and Science, by
Dr. J. J. Walsh, pp. 125-6.

104 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

course, have been ignorant people who objected to it on this
score, but such an objection could not have been advanced
officially because, as we saw in the last chapter, the dogma
does not relate to our existing physical bodies but to the
fact " that in any final consummation the bodily life of man
must find a place no less than the spiritual." Such being
the case, it is not surprising to find that in the Middle Ages
no objection was made officially to dissection on religious
grounds. The Bull promulgated by Boniface VIII which
has so often been interpreted as forbidding dissection had
another purpose. Its aim was to stop a barbarous custom
which had grown up of boiling the corpses of distinguished
people who had died in foreign lands in order to remove the
flesh before sending the bones home to be buried. Bene-
dict XIV on being asked as to whether this Bull forbade
dissection replied as follows : —

" By the singular beneficence of God the study of medicine
flourished in a very wonderful manner in this city (Rome).
Its professors are known for their supreme talents to the
remotest parts of the earth. There is no doubt that they
have greatly benefited by the diligent labour which they
have devoted to dissection. From this practice beyond
doubt they have gained a profound knowledge of their art
and a proficiency that has enabled them to give advice for
the benefit of the ailing as well as a skill in the curing of
disease. Now such dissection of bodies is in no way contrary
to the Bull of Pope Boniface. He indeed imposed the penalty
of excommunication, to be remitted only by the Sovereign
Pontiff himself, upon all those who would dare to disembowel
the body of any dead person and either dismember it or
horribly cut it up, separating the flesh from the bones. From
the rest of this Bull, however, it is clear that this penalty
was only to be inflicted upon those who took bodies already
buried out of their graves, and, by an act horrible in itself,
cut them in pieces in order that they might carry them
elsewhere and place them in another tomb. It is very
clear, however, that by this, the dissection of bodies, which
has proved so necessary for those exercising the profession
of medicine is by no means forbidden." J This reply of

1 The Popes and Science, p. 59.

Medievalism and Science 105

the Pope's ought to settle the question, but if further corrobor-
ation is needed it may be mentioned that at this time dis-
section was carried on in all the important cities in Italy,
at Verona, Pisa, Naples, Bologna, Florence, Padua, Venice,
and at the Papal Medical School at Rome.

Let us now pass on to consider the introduction of science
into Europe by the Saracens. As a plain statement of fact,
Europe in the Middle Ages did get science from the Saracens.
This is perfectly true. But the deduction it is usual to make
from this fact — namely, that the lower state of Western
European civilization at that time was due to the prejudice
against science of the Mediaeval mind under the influence
of Christianity — is most demonstrably false. The difference
between the two levels of civilization is to be accounted for
by the simple fact that whereas the Saracens established
their Empire over communities already civilized in which
the traditions of Roman civilization survived, the Mediae-
val Church had the much more difficult task of rebuilding
Western civilization from its very foundations after it had
been entirely destroyed by the barbarians. Naturally this,
in its early stages, was a much slower process. Bearing in
mind these circumstances, there is nothing remarkable in
the fact that the Saracens knew of Aristotle and the sciences
at a time when Western Europeans did not. But that
the Mediasvalists accepted them from the Saracens is surely
evidence of an open-mindedness which did not disdain to
learn from a heterodox enemy, rather than of an incurable
prejudice against all new kinds of knowledge. How unsub-
stantial is this charge against the influence of Christianity
becomes apparent when the question is asked, Whence did the
Saracens get their knowledge of Aristotle and the sciences ?
They could not have got it direct from the Greeks, for Mahomet
was not born until the year A.D. 571, and as Christianity
had established itself at least two centuries before in the
communities around and east of the Mediterranean basin,
apart from other evidence it would be a reasonable speculation
to assume that they got their knowledge from some Christian
source. But it so happens that this is not a matter of
speculation but of ascertained historical fact, the Christian
sect of Nestorians having been the connecting link by which

106 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Greek science and philosophy were transmitted from the
conquered to the conquerors, and it came about this way :

" When the Caliphate was usurped by the Ommiades,
the fugitive Abbasid princes, Abbas and AH, sojourned
among the Nestorians of Arabia, Mesopotamia and Western
Persia and from them acquired a knowledge and a love of
Greek Science and philosophy. Upon the accession of the
Abbasid dynasty to the Caliphate in A.D. 750, learned
Nestorians were summoned to court. By them Greek books
were translated into Arabic from the original or from Syraic
translations and the foundations laid of Arabic science and
philosophy. In the ninth century the school of Bagdad
began to flourish, just when the schools of Christendom
were falling into decay in the West and into decrepitude
in the East. The newly awakened Moslem intellect busied
itself at first chiefly with mathematics and medical science ;
afterwards Aristotle threw his spell over it and an immense
system of orientalized Aristotelianism was the result. From
the East Moslem learning was carried into Spain ; and from
Spain Aristotle re-entered Northern Europe once more and
revolutionized the intellectual life of Christendom far more
completely than he had revolutionized the intellectual life
of Islam.

" During the course of the twelfth century a struggle had
been going on in the bosom of Islam between the philosophers
and the theologians. It was just at the moment when,
through the favour of the Caliph Almansur, the theologians
had succeeded in crushing the philosophers that the torch
of Aristotelian thought was handed on to Christendom.
The history of Arabic philosophy, which had never succeeded
in touching the religious life of the people or leaving a
permanent stamp upon the religion of Mohammed, ends
with the death of Averroes in 1198. The history of Christian
Aristotelianism and of the new scholastic theology which
was based upon it begins just when the history of Arabic
Aristotelianism comes abruptly to a close." *

Early in the thirteenth century Aristotle made his debut
in the University of Paris. But the translations studied

1 The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, by Hastings Rashdall,
vol. i. pp. 351-2.

Medievalism and Science 107

were not taken from the Greek but from the Arabic. Thus
Aristotle arrived in an orientalized dress and was accompanied
by commentators and by independent works of Arabian
philosophers, some of which claimed the sanction of Aristotle's
name. This new learning, which brought with it a whole
cargo of heresies, was associated with the name of Averroes
(who incidentally was persecuted by the Saracens as a heretic
during his lifetime and remembered only as a physician
and jurist after his death). " It stirred the mental powers
to recover an earlier and now lost truth sometimes moving
the mind to science, sometimes to strange apocalyptic vision ;
now to a conviction that a fresh outpouring of the Spirit was
impending, now to pantheistic denial of all explicit revela-
tion or positive religion, now to a defiant sectarianism, now
to the wild torture of ascetic individualism." l Whatever
the form, all were animated by a genuine hostility to the
powers that were, and Paris was the scene of an outburst
of free thought which at one time promised to pass far
beyond the limits of the schools. This outbreak of heresy
goes far to explain the alarm with which the advent of the
Arabic Aristotle was at first regarded. It was followed by
a persecution of heretics. In 1210 "a batch of persons
infected with heresy — priests and clerks from the neighbouring
Grand-pont — were handed over to the secular arm, some
for the stake, others for perpetual imprisonment. At the
same time the books of Aristotle upon natural philosophy
and his commentators were forbidden to be read at Paris
publicly or privately for a period of three years."*

The rapidity with which Aristotle, and even his Arabic
commentators, lived down these suspicions and was trans-
formed into a pillar of orthodoxy is one of the most remarkable
facts in the history of the Middle Ages. The study of Aris-
totle had been forbidden by the Council of Paris. It was
renewed by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 but with the significant
reservation " until they have been examined and purged
of all heresy." But this ban was soon removed. Copies
of Aristotle in the original Greek were obtained from Con-
stantinople, and with the aid of these the theologians soon

1 Rfligious Thought and Heresy in the Middle Ages, by F. W. Busscll, p. 6.
1 Rasbdall, vol. i. pp. 356-7.

108 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

learnt the art of distinguishing the genuine Aristotle from
spurious imitations and assisted greatly in the advancement
and purification of science by the resistance they offered
to the study of alchemy, astrology and magic with which
in those days it was associated. In 1254 nearly the whole
range of Aristotelian writings were prescribed by a statue
of the Faculty of Arts at Paris as textbooks for its masters.

These facts, then, make it clear that there was no opposition
to the study of Aristotle and the sciences as such, but to
the heresies which were associated with them. Experience
proved that so far from this opposition being detrimental
to the cause of science it had the opposite effect of furthering
its interests by cleansing it of falsities. The task of proving
to the world that faith and science might go hand in hand
was the work of the two great monastic orders of St. Dominic
and St. Francis, which came into existence about this time
and immediately owed their existence to the need of defending
Christendom against the new forces of wealth and learning
which threatened it with ruin. The intellectual life of
Europe for the next two centuries is so intimately bound
up with these two great orders that it becomes necessary
to pause to give a brief account of them.

While both of these orders attacked what was ultimately
the same problem, they attacked it in fundamentally different
ways. The problem as St. Francis saw it was that the social
evils and heresies had their root in a corrupted human nature
to which men became increasingly liable as they acquired
wealth and so lost touch with the primary facts of life. St.
Francis was a simple, unintellectual layman, and confronted
with the problems of his age, he turned his back upon the
world with its wealth, its learning and its heresies, which
he regarded as vanities, and taught a gospel of poverty,
work and renunciation. His followers were to renounce
wealth and all intellectual pursuits and seek salvation through
work. They were to labour among the poor, and in order
that they might be of service to them they were to seek
identity with them in position and fortune. In a word,
the Franciscans were the Salvation Army of their day,
differing with them' to the extent that they eventually became
one of the great intellectual forces of the age.

Medicevalism and Science 109

St. Dominic approached the problem from the opposite
end. It was not with him so much that the heart was
going wrong as the head. He accepted civilization and its
accompaniments. Science, music, architecture, painting were
each to be regarded as a path through which truth could
be approached. But he realized clearly as few people
to-day did, until quite recently when the war shook us
out of our complacency, that knowledge may just as easily
be an agent for evil as for good. Nay, more easily ; since
left to itself without any central and guiding principle to
co-ordinate its activities, it will, instead of serving the common
interests of mankind, degenerate into mere pedantry by
being exalted as an end in itself, or become a disruptive
force by giving rise to heresies, or be used for selfish and
personal ends. Hence it was that the Dominicans, like
the Franciscans, broke with the monastic tradition of settling
in the country and established themselves in the towns,
and firstly in those where universities were established —
at Paris, Bologna and Oxford — in order to keep themselves
informed of all the learning of the day. They realized that
though the suppression of heresy might prevent foolish
people, who were carried off their feet by the introduction
of new ideas, from bringing truth itself into discredit by
seeking the popularization of immature thought, yet Mediaeval
civilization could not be preserved merely by repressive
measures and that the only final justification for such repres-
sion was as a measure of expediency to gain time for the
proper formulation of thought, in order that it might be
organized into a constructive force instead of dissipating
itself in intellectual subtleties, heresies and disruptive
influences. Their method made for thoroughness and was
the enemy of superficiality.

The Dominicans were not long in demonstrating to the
world the wisdom of their policy. Two great Dominicans,
Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, were the means
of purging the reputation of Aristotle of ill fame by the
development of a great system of orthodox Aristotelianism
which drew a clear line between the provinces of science
and religion. " The lines laid down by Aquinas as to the
attitude of reason towards revelation are, amid all change

110 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

of belief as to the actual content of revelation, the lines
in which, as much in the Protestant as in the Mediaeval
or Modern Roman Churches, the main current of thought
has moved ever since." I It revolutionized theology. One
of their contemporaries insists on the absolute novelty
of their methods, arguments, reasons, objections and replies.
They not only won back the universities to the allegiance
of the Church but secured for science the patronage of the
Church. Henceforth science becomes a recognized faculty
in every Mediaeval university, and its study is encouraged
by the Popes. John XXII was a great patron of science,
as indeed was Pius II. An extract from his Bull promulgated
for the University of Basle in 1460 will bear quotation. It
runs : " Among the different blessings which by the grace
of God mortals can attain to in this earthly life, it is not
among the least that, by persevering study, he can make
himself master of the pearls of science and learning which
point the way to a good and useful life. Furthermore,
education brings man to a nearer likeness to God, and enables
him to read clearly the secrets of this universe. True educa-
tion and learning lift the meanest of earth to a level with
the highest." " For this reason," continues the Pope,
" the Holy See has always encouraged the sciences and
contributed to the establishment of places of learning, in
order that men might be enabled to acquire this precious
treasure and, having acquired it, might spread it among
their fellow-men." It was his ardent desire " that one of
these life-giving fountains should be established at Basle,
so that all who wished might drink their fill at the waters
of learning."8

Such words did not fall upon deaf ears. The annals
of the universities show how zealously the clergy acted on
the Pope's exhortation to study science not only by advising
young men to follow such studies but by attending as students
themselves. For in the Mediaeval universities men of all
ages and from every class of society mingled together. Young
men of peasant origin were there with men of ripe years and
of established position — abbots, provosts, canons and princes.
Never were there more democratic institutions. The comrade-

1 Rashdall, vol. i. p. 367. * Janssen, vol. i. pp. 88-9.

Medievalism and Science 111

ship through the university was one in which all who went
there met on equal terms. The universities were self-
governing corporations, they paid no taxes, and were accorded
many privileges as a token of respect to learning. All
classes contributed to their support, but the clergy were
by far the most generous.

But to return to our subject. Not only did the labours
of Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas effect a re-
conciliation between the Church and science by indicating
the spirit in which the new teaching was to be received,
but they also wrote upon psychology, metaphysics, physics,
physiology, natural history, morals and social science. The
former especially was an indefatigable student of nature.
His twenty-one folio volumes are considered a perfect ency-
clopaedia both of the knowledge and polemics of his time,
and it is claimed for them that together with the compila-
tions of Vincent of Beauvais they laid the basis of the great
scientific encyclopaedias of our day. Albertus, moreover,
applied himself energetically to the experimental sciences.
But the credit for this new departure, which revolutionized
the method of science, belongs to the Franciscans rather
than the Dominicans. " They took up the study of physics
and chemistry, not, however, as heretofore, by the path of
theoretical speculation, but by the co-operation of experiment
— an advance in method they were the first to establish,
and by which Roger Bacon arrived at the most remarkable
results in almost every branch of physical science." l

Now the fact that this new development came through
the Franciscans is interesting, and I think it is fair to assume
that it was no accident. Immediately it was due to the
fact that the care of the sick which was enjoined upon them
tended to direct their minds towards the study of medicine
and natural history. But there was a deeper reason. The
Franciscans had a strong practical bend of mind. Learning
being forbidden them by the rule of their order, they naturally
acquired the invaluable habit of observing facts for them-
selves— a habit which book-learning is very apt to destroy.
Men who begin life with much book-knowledge are very
apt to look at things from the special angle provided by

* Pictures of Old England, by Dr. Reinhold Pauli, chap. ii.

112 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

the books they have read and to neglect the lessons which
the observation of facts can teach. It was thus that the
Franciscans' renunciation of learning stood them in good
stead ; it proved to be the means whereby a new impulse
was given to the acquisition of knowledge. The central
idea of Christianity — that the world can only be conquered
by those who are first prepared to renounce it — is a principle
of action that holds good just as much in the intellectual
and scientific as in the moral universe, and I might add that
in so far as any progress has in these days been made in the
revival of architecture, the crafts and arts, it has come about
through the actions of men who proceeded upon this principle.
The return to fundamentals always involves renunciation.

While it is to be acknowledged that the foundations
of modern science were laid in the Middle Ages, it is equally
important to recognize that the new impulse which the
Franciscans gave was essentially a Mediaeval one, and that
science remains Mediaeval in its method to this day. For
when the Franciscans threw over the method of theoretical
speculation in favour of co-operation by experiment, they
gave practical application in the realm of science to the
method of work which in the Middle Ages obtained in the
arts, for, as we shall see in the next chapter, Gothic Art
was the creation of experimental handicraft, and it was
the abandonment of this method owing to Renaissance
influences that finally led to the disappearance of art from
the world. But science never threw over this Mediaeval
experimental, craft basis, which is the secret of its progres-
sive development, and it remains Mediaeval in method to
this day.

But while science remains Mediaeval in its method, it
is no longer Mediaeval in its spirit, for it has rejected the
discipline by which the Mediae valists sought to guide it.
The judgment of Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas
that there were two orders of science — the natural, com-
prising everything that can be grasped by reason, and the
supernatural, which comprises all the truth known by revela-
tion— was accepted alike by the Church and the students
of science, and the heretical tendencies which had come
with the Arabic Aristotle dwindled to impotence. Averroistic

Mediasvalism and Science 118

beliefs lingered on in a mere or less disguised and purely
speculative form, disputants in the Arts avoiding the charge
of heresy by taking cover under the convenient distinction
between philosophical and theological truth, maintaining
that what was true in the one might be false in the other
and vice versa. But when in the sixteenth century, owing
to the influence of the Renaissance of which we shall have
something to say hereafter, belief in the absolute truth of
the Christian revelation had come to be widely questioned,
there was a new outburst of pantheism and free thought.

It was because of his advocacy of heresies, and not because
of his scientific opinions, that Bruno was put to death. The
case of Galileo is different, and it is too long a story to be
gone into here. There were faults on both sides, but it
cannot be maintained that the attitude of the Church was
determined by hostility to science, and in this connection
I cannot do better than quote Huxley, who, writing to
Professor Mivart in 1885, said : "I gave some attention
to the case of Galileo wh^n I was in Italy, and I arrived
at the conclusion that the Popes and the College of Cardinals
had rather the best of it." *•

In judging the attitude of the Church at this period we
must not forget that the Copernican theory had not then
been proved, but was only advanced as a hypothesis and
was violently attacked by scientists at the time. Kepler
and Newton finally proved it. What the Church objected
to was not the theory that the earth was round, but the
entirely illogical deduction which Galileo made from it
that therefore Christianity was false. For Christianity
has nothing to say on the matter at all. It is not a theory
of the universe, but a theory of conduct basing its claim
for acceptance upon Divine sanction. The Church, moreover,
bases its authority upon the Christian tradition, and not
upon the Bible. But the Church was nervous, and justifiably
nervous, at the consequences which might follow the popular-
ization of such a theory, whether it eventually proved to
be true or not, and had no desire to meet trouble half-way.
For the average man does not discriminate very carefully,

1 Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 424. See also Whetwell's History of Inductive
Sciences.

8

114 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

and the fact that the story that Joshua commanded the
sun to stand still upon Gibeon is to be found in the Bible
is sufficient in the minds of many to discredit the whole
Christian theology as a degrading superstition and to release
them from all the moral obligations which Christianity sought
to impose. And this nervousness was not felt only by the
Roman Church. Whereas the Church did its best to handle
a difficult situation in a diplomatic way, demanding no
more than that scientists should not preach unproven
hypotheses as truth, the leaders of Protestantism were
violent in their opposition. Luther denounced Copernicus as
an arrogant fool who would overthrow all scientific astro-
nomy and contradicted Holy Writ, while Melanchthon wished
the promulgation of such pestilent doctrines to be suppressed
by the civil power.1 In the turmoil of the Reformation
science and heresy became more closely related though
by no means identified, for science was followed and encour-
aged as much by the post-Reformation Church as by the
Mediaeval one.

It is to be observed that heresy is not necessarily a belief
in something false, but an exaggeration of one aspect of
truth insisted upon to the damage or denial of other and
equally important truths. The tendency of scientists to
exaggerate the importance of the material side of things
whilst ignoring as imponderable the spiritual and moral
side of life is their peculiar form of heresy. It results in
a loss of mental balance, a failure to see life as a whole,
in its true proportions. It makes the scientist an untrust-
worthy guide in the practical affairs of life. The publication
of Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning and the Novum
Organum served only to increase the tendency of the scien-
tific mind towards monomania — a tendency which appears
to be the inevitable accompaniment of an exclusive pre-
occupation with the study of phenomena. The inductive
method is the method of reasoning familiar to all who concern
themselves with the practical arts, and is invaluable for the
attainment of certain immediate and definite ends. But
the attempt of Bacon to give it universal validity — for,
as Macaulay said, it is ridiculous to suppose he invented

1 See Prowe, Nicolaus Copernicus, vol. i. part ii. p. 232-4.

Medicevalism and Science 115

it — must after the experience of over three centuries of
work upon such lines be judged a failure, for science is as
far from the truth of things as ever. " After a glorious
burst of perhaps fifty years, amid great acclamation and
good hopes that the crafty old universe was going to be
caught in her careful net, science finds herself in almost
every direction in the most hopeless quandaries ; and whether
the rib story be true or not, has, at any rate, provided no
very satisfactory substitute for it." x

The reason for this failure is obvious. Tlsere is no such
thing as a purely materialist explanation oi'the universe.
Final causation is not to be found in the material world,
and scientists, in excluding the spiritual side of things from
their calculations as imponderable, exclude the consideration
of those things which might offer an explanation. For
unity is to be found at the centre of life ; it is not to be
deduced merely from a study of phenomena on the circum-
ference. But even if science were to follow the lead given
by Sir Oliver Lodge and carried its investigations beyond
the material into the realm of psychic phenomena, it could
never penetrate the final mystery of life. The moral principles
to which religions give sanction are finally commandments
and incapable of rationalist explanation, though experience
of their working may be able to give them rationalist justi-
fication. They are not to be deduced from the study of
phenomena, but rest finally on the affirmation of the
supernatural.

While it must be admitted that reasoning based exclusively
upon phenomena has failed to penetrate the mystery of
the universe, the invasion of other departments of inquiry
by the inductive method of reasoning, such as that of sociology
has been followed by results equally disastrous. It has
produced endless confusion. It is possible to deduce second-
ary truth from primary truth, but not the reverse, which
science attempts. I sometimes think that the Devil made
his debut in the modern world as the friend of learning,
which he had the insight to see might be used for the purpose
of banishing wisdom by the simple and apparently innocent
device of multiplying knowledge. At any rate, whether the

1 Civilisation : its Cause and Cure, by Edward Carpenter.

116 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Devil planned or no, such has been its practical effect. For
the multiplication of knowledge has certainly introduced
confusion into the popular mind. Thus it has come about
that the scientific method of inquiry has had the effect of
burying primary truth under an avalanche of secondary
half-truths. It has exalted knowledge above wisdom,
mechanism above art, science above religion, man above
God. In thus reversing the natural order of the moral
and intellectual universe, it has led to a general state of
mental bewilderment such as was never before witnessed.
The ambition of the scientist to comprehend all knowledge
has been followed by the unfortunate discovery that knowledge
— the things to be known — is bigger than his head, and he
gets some inkling of the meaning of the proverb : "A fool's
eyes are on the ends of the earth."

Considerations of this kind lead me to the conclusion
that civilization has reached a turning-point not only in its
political and economic history, but in its very methods
and ideas, and that the next development must be away
from the universal towards a reassertion of the principle
of unity which was the central principle of Mediaeval thought.
In the new synthesis which will appear, science will not
attempt to lead mankind, but will be content with a secondary
and subordinate position. Science has terribly misled the
world. But it is possible that all its work has not been
in vain. For it has explored the universe for us, and as a
result of its labours it may be that when the new order does
arrive it will rest on much surer foundations than ever did
the civilizations of the past. With the knowledge of evil
which science let loose upon the world, we know where
the pitfalls lie. But we shall never be able to conquer this
mass of knowledge which science has given us until we have
first the courage to renounce it.

IN an earlier chapter I said that the promise of Mediae valism
was never entirely fulfilled. That is true of its life and social
organization. The sinister influence of Roman Law began
to dissolve it before it was as yet firmly established. But
it is not true of the Arts, for in them the promise was entirely
fulfilled, and for this consummation we are indebted to the
two great Mediaeval orders — the Dominicans and the Francis-
cans ; the former because of their intellectual orthodoxy,
which preserved Mediaeval society from disruption at the
hands of the heretics, and because of the encouragement
and help they gave to the development of the Arts, and the
latter because of the new spirit and vitality which they
breathed into Mediaeval society. It would not be untrue
to say that from the beginning of the thirteenth century
the Mediaeval spirit as it expressed itself in thought and
in the Arts was the resultant of the action and interaction of
the Dominican and Franciscan minds. The latter, by their
emotional temperament and broad democratic sympathies,
tended to widen the range of experience, to venture on new
experiments and to encourage new developments, while the
function of the former was to be for ever gathering up,
as it were, to bring unity and order out of the diversity
to which the Franciscan spirit ever tended. Yet the more
these two orders differed, the more they were alike. They
were alike in their absolute belief in Christianity as the
truth revealed, and in their detestation of the pantheistic
rationalism which began to show its head at the beginning
of the thirteenth century, and which they combined to
crush.

117

118 A Guild&mari's Interpretation of History

Gothic Art, which reached its perfection in the thirteenth,
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was a tree with very
deep roots, and its progressive development may be dated
from the year A.D. 800, when Charlemagne, after driving
the Saracens out of France, consolidated his power and was
crowned by the Pope Emperor of the West. For this date
is not only a definite landmark in the political history of
Europe, but it marks a turning-point in the history of the
Arts, for Charlemagne was more than a successful warrior ;
he was a great patron of culture, and endeavoured successfully
to make the heart of his Empire a centre of culture and learn-
ing. The Palatine Church of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), built
by him as a national monument, may be said to have set
in motion ideas of architecture which affected the whole
of Western Europe. To this Carlo vingian centre there
came craftsmen from far and wide — from Spain, Lombardy,
and the Eastern Empire — for it was the ambition of Charle-
magne to gather together such remnants of Roman tradition
as had survived the barbarian invasions in order to effect
a revival of the Arts. His intention was to revive the Roman
Art whose splendid remains then overspread the whole of
Gaul. But from this renaissance there arose results far
different from what he had anticipated, differing from them,
in fact, as widely as his Empire differed from that of the
Caesars. His object of revivifying Art was achieved, but
not in the way he proposed, for in the space of three centuries
the movement he set on foot led to the creation of an entirely
new style, which, though it long bore traces of its origin, was
nevertheless, as a whole, unlike anything the world had
ever seen before ; in a word, Gothic Art.

The immediate reason for this result, so different from
what Charlemagne had anticipated, is to be found in the
fact that the craftsmen whom he gathered together were
possessed of traditions of design differing widely from those
of antiquity. They were, moreover, men of a different order.
The Roman workmen executed designs prepared by an archi-
tect in much the same way as do the workmen of to-day,
but their labour was essentially servile. But these newer
craftsmen, however, not only executed work but were
themselves individually capable of exercising the function

The Arts of the Middle Ages 119

of design. Moreover, they were capable of co-operating
together, for they shared a communal tradition of design
in the same way that people share a communal tradition
of language. Each craftsman worked as a link in this chain
of tradition, and this changed method produced a different
type of architecture. It was a communal architecture,
while that of the Roman was individual. Not individual
in the modern sense, for all Roman architects practised
the same style, but individual in the sense that a
Roman building was the design of one man who directed
the workman in regard to the details of his work, and
no room was left for the initiative of the individual
craftsman.

It is the variety of detail due to the initiative of individuals
that lends an interest to Gothic architecture far and away
beyond that of the personal architecture of the architect.
It has a richer texture. For in a communal art " each
product has a substance and content to which the greatest
individual artists cannot hope to attain — it is the result
of organic processes of thought and work. A great artist
might make a little advance, a poor artist might stand a
little behind ; but the work, as a whole, was customary,
and was shaped and perfected by a life-experience whose
span was centuries." x

In the Middle Ages every craft possessed such communal
traditions of design, and each craftsman produced the designs
that he executed. But in the production of architecture
there must needs be some one to co-ordinate the efforts
of the individual craftsmen. This position in the Mediaeval
period was occupied by the master mason or master carpenter,
as the case might be, who exercised a general control in
addition to the ordinary requirements of his craft. He
differed from the architect of Roman times to the extent
that his function was not to give detailed designs for others
to execute, but to co-ordinate the efforts of living units ;
it was the custom then for each craft to supply its own
details and ornaments.

This different system naturally gave different results.
Roman architecture, or, to be more correct, the Greek,

» Medicsval Art. by W. R. Letbaby.

120 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

from which it was derived, was refined and intellectual.
It was as Lowell said : —

As unanswerable as Euclid,

The one thing finished in this hasty world.

In other words, it was a kind of aesthetic cul-de-sac
from which the only escape was backwards by a return
to the crafts : for it is only by and through the actual experi-
ment with material that new ideas in detail can be evolved.
A skilful architect may have fine general ideas, but he will
have no new ideas of detail. Such details as he does use
will be studied from the work done in the past by actual
craftsmen, for, as I have already said, it is by actually hand-
ling material that new ideas of detail can be evolved. Hence
it was that the Mediaeval system of building, by giving the
master minds opportunities for actually working on their
buildings, developed a richness and wealth of detail unknown
to Greek or Roman work. And what is of further interest,
all the details to which Gothic Art gave rise had a peculiar
relation to the material used. Greek and Roman architecture
is abstract form which is applied more or less indifferently
to any material. But it is one of the aims of Gothic design
to bring out the intrinsic qualities of the materials. The
details in each case are peculiar to the material used. Thus,
in carving any natural object, it would be the aim of the
craftsman not merely to suggest the general form of the
thing intended, but to suggest, in addition, the qualities
of the material in which it is executed. The treatment would,
therefore, be conventionalized — a lion would emphatically
be a wooden lion, a stone lion or a bronze lion, as the case
might be. It would never be a merely naturalistic lion :
in each case there would be no mistaking the material of
which it was made, for the form would be developed upon
lines which the technical production of each most readily
suggests. That is the secret of convention.

Now, this change from the Roman to the Gothic method
of work is finally to be accounted for by the fact that, since
the day when the Roman style was practised, Christianity
had triumphed in the world, and with it a new spirit had come
into existence. In Greece and Rome the humble worker had

The Arts of the Middle Ages 121

been treated with scorn by men of science and philosophers.
The ordinary man accepted his inferior status as necessary
to the natural order of things. Even slaves did not regard
their position as contrary to morality and right. In the
thousand revolts of the slaves of antiquity there was never
any appeal to any ethical principle or assertion of human
rights. On the contrary, they were purely and simply
appeals to force by men who thought themselves sufficiently
strong to rebel successfully. But while these revolts failed
to abolish slavery — for there was never a successful slave
revolt — Christianity succeeded, by effecting a change of
spirit which gradually dissolved the old order. It transformed
society by bringing about a state of things in which human
values took precedence over economic values. Little by
little this changed spirit came to affect the Arts. The
humble worker began to gain confidence, and to think and
feel on his own account. This changed feeling, combined
with the communal spirit which Christianity everywhere
fostered, tended to bring into existence those communal
traditions of handicraft which reached their most consummate
expression in Gothic Art. For Gothic Art is just as demo-
cratic in spirit as the Greek and Roman is servile. Every
line of Gothic Art contradicts the popularly accepted notion
that the Middle Ages was a period of gloom and repression.
The riot of carving, the gaiety and vigour of the little grotesques
that peer out from pillars and cornices, the pure and joyous
colour of frescoes and illuminated manuscripts, the delight
in work that overflowed in free and beautiful details in the
common articles of daily use, tell the tale of a rich and
abounding life, just as much as the unanswerable logic of
Greek architecture tells of a life oppressed with the sense
of fate.

It is important that these fundamental differences should
be acknowledged. Gothic architecture was the visible ex-
pression, the flowering of the dogmas of Christianity, and
it cannot finally be separated from them. Apart from
them, it would never have come into existence. It was
precisely because the men of the Middle Ages had their
minds at rest about the thousand and one doubts and
difficulties which perplex us, as they perplexed the Greeks,

122 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

that it was possible for them to develop that wonderful
sense of romantic beauty which enabled them to build the
cathedrals, abbeys, and churches that cover Europe. If
the acceptance of dogmas puts boundaries to the intellect
in one direction, it does so to break down barriers in another,
for dogmas do not strangle thought, but cause it to flow
in a different direction. Under Paganism thought flowed
inwards, giving us philosophy ; under Christianity it flows
outwards, giving us the Arts, Guilds and economics. Gothic
Art, like Christian dogmas, rests finally upon affirmations.
It seems to say : This is the right way of treating stonework ;
this, brickwork ; this, leadwork ; and so on. And it says
all these things with authority in terms that admit of no
ambiguity.

While Gothic Art was democratic in spirit the Mediaeval
craftsman understood clearly the limits of liberty. He
knew that liberty was only possible on the assumption that
boundaries were respected, and that there is no such thing
as liberty absolute. Liberty is possible on certain terms.
It involves in the first place a recognition of the authority
of ultimate truth, or, in other words, of dogmas, because
authority is in the nature of things, and men who refuse
to accept the authority of dogmas will find themselves
finally compelled to acquiesce in the authority of persons.
That is why revolutions which begin by seeking to overturn
the authority of ideas invariably end by establishing the
authority of persons. A respect for authority of ideas
is naturally accompanied by a respect for mastership, which
is a fundamentally different thing from authority of persons.
For whereas, in the latter case, the authority is necessarily
exercised arbitrarily, in the former it is not so. The pupil
asks the master how to do a thing because he wants to know.
But the employer tells the servant what he requires doing
because the servant has no desire to know. That is the
difference between the two relationships. That feeling of
personal antagonism which exists between employers and
workers to-day did not exist between the masters and
journeymen of the Mediaeval Guilds, because the difference
between them was not primarily a difference of economic
status, but of knowledge and skill. Well has it been

The Arts of the Middle Ages 128

said that " producers of good articles respect one another ;
producers of bad articles despise one another." *

A respect for the principle of mastership permeated
Mediaeval society, while it informed the organization of
the Guilds. " In the Middle Ages," says Professor Lethaby,
" the Masons' and Carpenters' Guilds were faculties or
colleges of education in those arts, and every town was,
so to say, a craft university. Corporations of Masons,
Carpenters, and the like, were established in the towns ;
each craft aspired to have a college hall. The universities
themselves had been well named by a recent historian
' Scholars' Guilds.' The Guild, which recognized all the
customs of its trade, guaranteed the relations of the apprentice
and master craftsman with whom he was placed ; but he
was really apprenticed to the craft as a whole, and ultimately
to the city whose freedom he engaged to take up. He was,
in fact, a graduate of his craft college, and wore its robes.
At a later stage the apprentice became a companion or
bachelor of his art, or by producing a master-work, the
thesis of his craft, he was admitted a master. Only then
was he permitted to become an employer of labour, or was
admitted as one of the governing body of his college. As
a citizen, city dignities were open to him. He might become
the master in building some abbey or cathedral, or, as King's
mason, become a member of the royal household, the acknow-
ledged great master of his time in mason-craft. With
such a system, was it so very wonderful that the buildings
of the Middle Ages, which were, indeed, wonderful, should
have been produced ? " *

Such, then, was the foundation on which Gothic architecture
was built. In its earlier phase, as we meet it in this country
in the Norman architecture of the twelfth century, it is
characterized by a strong handling of masses. The Norman
builders had " a sense of the large proportions of things,"
a firm grip of things fundamental. In this early work only
a bare minimum of mouldings and ornaments are used,
but such as are used are strong and vigorous. The general
arrangement of parts which we find in Norman work persists

1 From the Human End, by L. P. Jacks.

* Lecture on Technical Education in the Building Trades, by W. R. Lethaby.

124 A Guildsmarix Interpretation of History

through all the phases of Gothic, but the details or secondary
parts, the trimmings, as it were, receive more and more
attention, until finally, in the sixteenth century, the last
phase is reached in Tudor work, when Gothic degenerates
into an uninspired formula, and the multiplication of mechani-
cal and accessory parts entirely destroys the sense of spacious-
ness, which is the mark of all fine architecture. This last
phase is exemplified in this country in Henry VII Chapel
at Westminster Abbey and King's College Chapel, Cambridge,
as in the various Hotels de Ville of Flanders. Though
architecture of this kind has the admiration of Baedeker,1
it is simply awful stuff. It is Gothic in its dotage, as anybody
who knows anything about architecture is aware.

Though there is much very beautiful architecture of the
fifteenth century, it is apparent that the decline of Gothic
dates from the middle of the century. From that time
onwards, it is, generally speaking, true to say that the
most important buildings in the civic sense are the least
important from an architectural point of view. Most of the
best examples of later Gothic are to be found where there
was not too much money to spend, for after the middle of
the fifteenth century the restraining influence in design does
not appear to come from the taste of the craftsmen, but from
the poverty of their clients.

The most important examples of Gothic are to be found
in Northern France. In the early part of the twelfth century
Paris became the cultural centre of Europe, and it remained
throughout the Middle Ages the centre of thought and culture.
It was here that the Gothic Cathedral in its essence as a kind
of energetic structure in which the various parts of pillars,
vaults and buttresses balance each other was developed.
In 1140 the abbey church of St. Denis, a few miles from
Paris, was begun, and completed within a few years, and it
established the type and set the tradition which all subsequent
cathedral builders followed. First came the cathedrals of

1 Baedeker's Guides do a great deal of harm to architecture, being entirely
untrustworthy. The buildings which they ask the public to admire are
those which are very old, or elaborate, or big, or because of some historic
association. But they never recommend those which are simply beautiful
and do not come into any of their other categories. Such buildings are
ignored by them.

The Arts of the Middle Ages 125

Paris, Chartres and Rouen, and later the celebrated culmi-
nating group of Amiens, Beauvais, Bourges and Rheims, which
are generally regarded as the high-water mark of Gothic
achievement.

All other Gothic architecture derives from the parent
stock of France. But to me the branches are-more interesting
than the stem. For though there is a magnificence and
daring about French Gothic, and though we are indebted
to it for the germ ideas, there is too much effort about it
to satisfy my taste entirely. It lacks the sobriety and
reserve of the Gothic of England, Flanders, and Italy. The
brick cathedrals and churches of Belgium have a wonderfully
fine quality about them, though their plastered interiors
are entirely devoid of interest. Only in Italy has brickwork
been so successfully treated. Gothic never took root properly
in Italy, and the more ambitious attempts at it, as are to
be seen at Orvieto and Milan cathedrals, are dreadful failures
so far as the exteriors are concerned. But the simpler forms
of Italian Gothic in civil and domestic work and in some of
the smaller churches are exquisite in taste. It is a thousand
pities that the development of Gothic in Italy should have
been arrested by the coming of the Renaissance, for there
are unexplored possibilities in it which may prove to be
the germ of a great revival some day in Italy, if not elsewhere.

In comparing Gothic with other styles of architecture,
the most extraordinary thing is that Gothic buildings, which
are badly proportioned and entirely indefensible from a
strict architectural standpoint, have a way of looking quaint
and interesting. Take the case of the belfry at Bruges,
which Mr. Chesterton once said was like a swan with a very
long neck. The tower is out of all proportion with the building,
and the various stages of it are out of proportion with each
other ; it was added to from time to time, and in any other
style of architecture a building so badly proportioned would
be a monstrosity. Yet there is a charm about this belfry
which it is impossible to deny, and if we seek for the final
cause of it, I think we shall find it in the vagaries of craftsman-
ship, in the liberty of the craftsman who was part of a great
tradition.

CHAPTER IX
THE FRANCISCANS AND THE RENAISSANCE

THE stimulus which was given to thought and discovery in
the thirteenth century by the recovery of the works of Aristotle
was the beginning of an awakened interest in the literature
and art of Paganism which culminated in that many-sided
movement which we know as the Renaissance. The move-
ment originated in Italy and spread itself over France,
England, and Germany. It is the turning-point in the history
of Western Europe and is not to be understood if it is regarded
as a rebellion against Christianity; for in its origin it was
nothing of the kind, but a reaction against the perversion
of the Christian ideal at the hands of the Franciscans. The
Renaissance was at the same time a continuation of and a
reaction against the forces which St. Francis set in motion,
while only in a secondary sense is it to be regarded as a
reaction against the scholasticism of the Dominicans.

In order to see the Renaissance in its proper perspective,
it is necessary to realize the significance and influence of
the Franciscans in the thirteenth century. They stood in
the same relation to the Middle Ages as the Socialist Move-
ment does to the modern world, in that the Franciscans
were the central driving force which created the issues in
morals and economics which occupied the thought of the
Middle Ages. Moreover, as with the Socialist Movement,
the problem of poverty was their primary concern, but
they attacked it from a different angle and by a different
method. They did not approach it from the point of view
of economics, though their activities led to economic dis-
cussions, but from the point of view of human brother-
hood. This different method of approach was due partly
to the fact that they approached it as Christians

126

The Franciscans and the Renaissance 127

appealing to Christians, and partly because in the Middle
Ages poverty was not the problem it is to-day — some-
thing organic with the structure of society — but a thing
that was essentially local and accidental. It did not
owe its existence to the fact that society was organized
on a basis fundamentally false as is the case to-day, but
because the Mediaeval organization, good as it was, was
not co-extensive with society. Poverty existed on the
fringes of society, not at its centres.

The problem arose as a consequence of the development
of trade. The monastic orders, as we saw, were the pioneers
of civilization in Western Europe. They settled down
in the waste places, cleared the woods and drained the
swamps, and around them there gradually grew up the
hamlets and towns of Mediaeval Europe. But a time came
when new towns began to spring up to meet the requirements
of trade, and in the new mercantile towns of Italy and
Southern France the lower grades of the population were
woefully neglected by the secular clergy, and in consequence
had grown up wild and ignorant of every form of religious
worship and secular instruction, while they lived in poverty
and dirt. It was against such ignorance and neglect that
the Franciscans resolved to fight, and it was in order that
they might be of service to the poor that they sought identity
with them in position and fortune. This was the origin
of the gospel of poverty that they taught, and which by the
middle of the thirteenth century their zeal and militant
spirit had carried far and wide over Christendom ; for they
were great preachers. But while they were a force in all
the great centres of Mediaeval Europe, they were excep-
tionally strong in their home in Italy. The huge churches
built for them without piers in the interior, and which are
found all over Italy, testify to the large crowds to which
they were accustomed to preach. But with the success
which followed them there came a perversion of their original
idea. Poverty as taught by St. Francis was a means to
an end. It was recommended to his followers in order that
they might be of service to the poor. But after a time this
original idea tended to recede into the background, and in
time poverty came to be looked upon as the essence of

128 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

religion. When, therefore, the excesses of this ideal began
to make religious life impossible for all except the very poor,
it produced the inevitable reaction. An influential party
among the Franciscans sought to have the original rule
modified in order to bring it more into accord with the
dictates of reason and experience. But in this effort they
were obstinately opposed by a minority in the Order who
refused to have any part in such relaxations. The recrimina-
tions between these two branches of the Order at last became
so bitter that appeal was made to the Pope to judge between
them. He appointed a commission of cardinals and theolo-
gians to inquire into the issues involved, and quite reasonably
gave a decision in favour of the moderate party. But this
only embittered the extreme party, who now denied the
authority of the Pope to interfere with the internal discipline
of the Order, affirming that only St. Francis could undo what
St. Francis himself had bound up. From attacking the
Pope they went on to attack the wealthy clergy, maintaining
that wealth was incompatible with the teachings of Christ,
and from that they went on to attack the institution of
property as such. It was thus that the split in the Francis-
cans led to those discussions about the ethics of property
which occupied so much of the thought of the Mediaeval
economists. This question, studied in the light of Aristotle,
led St. Thomas Aquinas to formulate those social principles,
which became accepted as the standards of Catholic ortho-
doxy, as at a later date led St. Antonino to affirm that
" poverty is not a good thing ; in itself it is an evil, and can
be considered to lead only accidentally to any good." r

Without doubt St. Antonino had the Franciscan gospel
of poverty in mind when he made this utterance. He
realized the terrible evils which would follow the divorce
of religion from everyday life if an ideal beyond the capacity
of the average normal man were insisted upon. Moreover,
in the early part of the fourteenth century the Franciscans
themselves had fallen from their high estate. It is a fact
of pyschology that an excess of idealism will be followed by
a fall from grace, and the Franciscans fell very low indeed.

1 St. Antonino and Meduoval Economics, by Bede Jarrett (The Manresa
Press).

The Franciscans and the Renaissance 129

The high moral plane on which they sought to live was
too much for them. The moment they relaxed from their
strenuous activity they became corrupted by the degraded
environment in which they found themselves, and rapidly
sank to that depth of coarseness, meanness, and sinfulness
which has been so well described by Chaucer. The once popu-
lar Franciscans now became objects of the same scorn and
ridicule as the monks of the Benedictine and Cistercian Orders.
We saw there was a reaction against the rule of St.
Francis within the Franciscan Order. There was now to
come a reaction from without, and the immediate form it
took was a reassertion of those very things which St. Francis
forbade his followers — scholarship and the world. An
insistence upon the value of these is the keynote of the
Humanists whose labours inaugurated the Renaissance.
The men of the Early Renaissance were not opposed to
Christianity, but to what they conceived to be the perversion
of its ideal at the hands of the Franciscans. Against the
Franciscan conception of life they warred incessantly. Their
enthusiasm for Pagan literature was inspired by the belief
that its study would lead to a fuller understanding of
Christianity. In it was to be found most precious material
for the cultivation of the mind and for the purification of
moral life. Its popularization would, moreover, tend to
restore the balance between the religious and secular sides
of life which the exaggerated teachings of the Franciscans
had temporarily upset. They had no sympathy with the later
Humanists who regarded learning as an end in itself. On
the contrary, classic literature was by them only valued as
a means to an end — the end being the Christian life. The
position was not a new one. Classic literature, as such, had
never been banned by the Church. Already in the first
centuries of Christianity the Fathers of the Church had
pursued and advocated the study of the literature of Greece
and Rome. But they had exercised discrimination. They
recognized that while many classic works had been inspired
by lofty sentiments, such was not by any means always the
case, and that while many books had been written in Pagan
times merely to extol vice, there were many other books
which, though they had no such object, might be used by

9

180 A GuildsmarCs Interpretation of History

vicious-minded persons as apologetics for vice, and so dis-
crimination had been made. The classic authors who were
above suspicion were taken into the bosom of the Church.
St. Augustine had based his theology upon the Platonic
philosophy. The Mneid of Virgil came to be looked upon
almost as a sacred book, loved and honoured as much by
Christian Fathers as by Roman scholars. Virgil had re-
mained with the Church all through the Dark Ages and
lived to inspire the Divina Commedia of Dante a century
and a half before the Revival of Learning was inaugurated
by Petrarch. All through this period great value was set
upon such classic authors as the Church had sanctioned and
had survived the wreck of Roman civilization. The Bene-
dictines preserved in their monasteries a knowledge of the
Latin classics. Virgil, Horace, Statius, Sallust, Terence,
Cicero, Quintilian, Ovid, Lucan, Martial, Caesar, Livy and
Suetonius were known and studied by them. But though
the Latin classics and the Latin language were never wholly
lost, the fortunes of the Greek classics were very different.
After the fall of the Western Empire in the fifth century
a knowledge of classical Greek rapidly faded out of the
West, becoming practically extinct, and with it disappeared
from Western Europe any knowledge of the works of Plato,
Aristotle and other Greek authors. From about the end
of the tenth century a knowledge of the Latin classics began
to be more widely diffused. But the incipient revival of
a better literary taste was checked at the beginning of the
thirteenth century by the re-discovery of Aristotle which
was followed by such a great awakening that for the time
being he came to monopolize intellectual interests and the
Latin classics that had been studied before Aristotle came
along fell into neglect. In this light the Revival of Learning
appears in the first place as an endeavour to take up the
threads of the Latin culture of the pre-Aristotelian period
of a hundred years before, and in the next to subject them to
a more systematic study. In another later and quite secon-
dary sense it became a movement of poets or men of letters
against philosophers.1 In no sense can the Revival of

1 " The inveterate quarrel, which is as old as Plato, between poets, or
men of letters, and philosopners who seek wisdom by process of dialectic.

The Franciscans and the Renaissance 181

Learning in its early stages be regarded as a rebellion against
Christianity. The early Humanists were not looked upon
as dangerous and destructive innovators. Aristotle had
been made a bulwark against heresy by the efforts of Albertus
Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, and at the time there
seemed no reason to suppose that the study of other authors
of antiquity could not be similarly reconciled and incorpor-
ated in the Christian theology. This spirit of reconciliation
survived through the greater part of the fifteenth century,
and when, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, a priceless
cargo of Greek manuscripts arrived in Italy together with
numerous Greek scholars, Plate was studied in this same
spirit of reconciliation. The proof that the Platonists of
the Renaissance were genuinely inspired by religious motives
is to be found in the fact that both Marsilio Ficino and Pico
della Mirandola eventually came entirely under the influence
of Savonarola. Ficino ejitered the Church. Pico burned
his love-poems, decided to become a friar, and was only
prevented by death.

Such was the ideal of the Early Renaissance. The
changed ideal which is the mark of the Later Renaissance
is to be accounted for by a growing consciousness on the
part of the Humanists of the ultimate irreconcilibility
between the Pagan and Christian attitudes towards life,
if not always between the Pagan and Christian philosophies.
They began to ask themselves the question whether the
Pagan world was not a bigger, broader and more humane
one than the Christian world with which they were
familiar, whether, in fact, the life of the senses which Paganism
avowed was not the life which it was intended that man should
live and whether Christianity, by placing restraints upon the
natural impulses of man, had not frustrated the ends of life.
In an earlier age under other circumstances such thoughts
would have been resisted as coming from the Devil. But
they did not appear as such to men who lived in an atmo-
sphere of intellectual and aesthetic intoxication, in a society

must not be overlooked when we read of the judgments of the later Humanists
on a scholasticism which they despised without always understanding it.
To them, technical terms were a jargon and the subtle but exquisite dis-
tinctions of Aquinas spelt barbarism " (Cambridge Modern History, vol. i.
P- 633).

182 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

in which the recovery of the remains of Greek and Roman
Art was proving a new source of guidance and inspiration.

Now it is important to recognize that the ideas with which
the Humanists had now become familiar fascinated their
minds because at the time they understood neither Paganism
nor Christianity. On the one hand they did not realize
the slough of despondency into which Pagan civilization had
fallen, while they were not familiar with Christianity as it
had been understood at an earlier age but with its perversion
at the hands of the Franciscans. For it is well to remember
that Christianity had never denied the life of the senses.
The doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body is an eternal
witness to that fact. For it was formulated, as we saw, as a
means of combating the Manichean heresy, which did deny
the sensuous life of man. But while on the one hand Chris-
tianity thereby acknowledged " that in any final con-
summation the bodily life of man must find a place no
less than the spiritual," on the other it clearly apprehended
the dangers to which the sensuous life of man was exposed,
affirming that the exercise of restraint alone could guarantee
emotional continuity. Deprived of a restraining influence,
man rapidly exhausts his emotional capacity. The man
who is for ever seeking experience and expression, because
experience and expression are natural to the healthy normal
man, soon becomes emotionally bankrupt. He becomes
blase". So it was with the later Humanists. When the
spell which bound them to Christian beliefs had been broken
no power on earth could stop them once they were fairly
embarked on the pursuit of pleasure. They went from excess
to excess, from debauchery to debauchery in a vain search
for new experiences, while they took especial pleasure in
the works of Petronius and the other disreputable authors
of Antiquity who sought to make vice attractive. Whatever
else these later Humanists failed to do, they certainly succeeded
in reviving the sensuality and epicureanism of Rome. The
Papacy, which had become associated with the revival, became
a veritable centre of corruption. When the young Giovanni
de Medici went to Rome his father Lorenzo warned him to
beware of his conduct in that " sink of iniquity." And
the warning was not given without good reason. The best-

The Franciscans and the Renaissance 133

known Popes between the years 1458-1522 were all more or
less unscrupulous evil-doers. Sixtus IV was an accomplice
in the plot against the Medici which ended in the murder
of Giuliano. Alexander VI shows an almost unparalleled
record of crimes. In this society poison became a fine art,
simony and theft everyday occurrences, and where the
Popes led, the cardinals followed. Alexander's illegitimate
son, Caesar Borgia, chief among them, was the hero of Machi-
avelli. If these monsters had lived in the Middle Ages,
we should never have heard the last of them. A record
of their crimes would have been considered an indispensable
part of every child's education. But, as it is, their story
is reserved for the few, while they are treated with a
certain curiosity, not to say indulgence, as patrons of
culture.

What happened to religion happened to the arts. The
ideas of the Renaissance were in each case their destruction.
The spirit of reconciliation which was characteristic of the
thought of the Early Renaissance is reflected in the arts of
the period. This is especially true of the Italian architecture
and the painting and sculpture of the fifteenth century,
which is Gothic in spirit and general conception combined
with details derived from the study of Roman work. In
the work of this period the Gothic and Roman elements are
always present, and the blend is exquisite. But this great
moment of transition did not last for. long. The Gothic
element begins to disappear, and with the arrival of Michel-
angelo it is entirely eliminated. The decline begins to set
in, for Michelangelo introduced a manner which proved
fatal to all the arts. That delight in natural objects, in
flowers and birds, in quaint things and queer things, which
is so peculiar to Gothic art, which probably owes its origin
to the influence of St. Francis and which made the arts of
the Middle Ages so democratic in their expression, is now
no more. Michelangelo eliminated everything that gave to
art its human interest and concentrated attention entirely
upon abstract form. In the hands of a great master such a
treatment of art is great, though cold and austere, but in
the hands of lesser men it became ridiculous, for the manner
of Michelangelo was just as much beyond the capacity of

184 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

the average artist and craftsmen as the life of poverty which
St. Francis recommended to his followers was normally
beyond the capacity of the ordinary man. And Michelangelo
set the fashion in all the arts. Mediaeval sculpture was
rich in decorative detail, but after Michelangelo sculpture
became identified with the nude. Mediaeval painting was
rich in design and colour, but after Michelangelo its primary
concern is with light and shade. Paradoxically, Michelangelo
introduced the very opposite principle into the treatment
of architecture. For he does not simplify, but elaborates
it. Prior to Michelangelo architecture was simple in its
treatment, while elaboration was confined to the decorative
crafts, but now, having robbed painting and sculpture of
their decorative qualities, he sought to obtain the contrasts
he required by making architecture itself a decorative thing.
This he did by multiplying the number of its mechanical
parts. Michelangelo disregarded altogether the structural
basis of architectural design, and in his hands architecture
became a mere theatrical exhibition of columns, pilasters,
pediments, etc. Thus he inaugurated that evil tradition
in which architecture and building are divorced, against
which we fight in vain to this day.

But Michelangelo was not the only cause of the decline.
Architecture might have survived the introduction of his
mannerisms had it not been that in the sixteenth century
the works of Vitruvius were unearthed. He had reduced
Roman architecture to a system of external rules and pro-
portions and his re-discovery was the greatest misfortune
which ever befell architecture. Though Vitruvius was a
very inferior architect, absurd homage was paid to him
because he happened to be the only architectural writer
whose works were preserved from antiquity. He was exalted
by the architects of the time as a most certain and infallible
guide as to what was and what was not a proper proportion.
We know from the writings of Serlio, an architect of the period
who did much to establish the reputation of Vitruvius,
that the craftsmen of the time objected to the pedantic
idea that only one set of proportions was allowable ; that
there was one way of doing things and no other, and in a
couple of pamphlets written by two German master builders

The Franciscans and the Renaissance 135

of the time, Matthew Boritzer and Lawrence Lacher * protests
are made against this new way of regarding architecture,
and they insist that the highest art is the result of inward
laws controlling the outward form. But such protests
availed nothing against the pedantry of the architects,
whose prestige enabled them to get their own way in spite
of the objections from the building trade. Henceforth there
is an increasing insistence everywhere upon Roman precedents
in design, and care is given to the secondary details, while
the fundamental ideas of plan and grouping are overtaken
by paralysis. Architecture, from being something vital
and organic in the nature of a growth, became a matter of
external rules and proportions, applied more or less indiffer-
ently to any type of building, quite regardless either of
internal convenience or structural necessity. When this
point of development was reached, any co-operation among
the crafts and arts which had survived from the Middle Ages
came to an end. Henceforth painting and sculpture became
entirely separated from architecture and continued an inde-
pendent existence in studios and galleries, while the minor
crafts degenerated solely into matters of trade and commerce.
The growth of pedantry in architecture was assisted by
a change in the organization of the crafts which followed
the introduction of Renaissance ideas. In the Middle Ages
it was, as we saw, the custom for craftsmen to supply their
own designs, and if every craftsman were not a designer,
at any rate every designer was a craftsman. But with the
revival of Roman ideas of design there came into existence
a caste of architects and designers over and above the
craftsmen of the building trades, who supplied designs which
the craftsmen carried into execution. At first these architects
had to proceed very warily, for the craftsmen did not seem
to care very much about this new arrangement. Thus we
read that Sir Christopher Wren, when sending his small-
scale plans and directions for the library at Trinity College,
Cambridge, adds : "I suppose you have good masons ;
however, I would willingly take a further pains to give all
the mouldings in great ; we are scrupulous in small matters,
and you must pardon us, the architects are as great pedants

1 Janssen, vol i. p. 167-8.

186 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

as critics and heralds." This letter is interesting, not only
because it testifies to the existence of trained schools of
masons and carpenters who had their own traditions of
design and could be trusted to apply them, but to the growing
spirit of pedantry which proved to be the death of architecture.
So long as architecture had its roots firmly in the crafts such
a development was impossible. But with the separation
of the functions of design and execution and the rise of a
school of architects who were proud of their scholarly attain-
ments, pedantry grew apace. The craftsman, compelled
to execute designs made by others, gradually lost his faculty
of design, while the architect, deprived of the suggestion in
design which the actual handling of material gives, naturally
fell back more and more upon Roman precedent, until,
finally, all power of invention in design came to an end
and architecture expired at the end of the eighteenth century.
Since then a succession of revivals have been attempted
which have succeeded in producing a certain number of
interesting buildings but not in effecting a general revival
of architecture.

Fortunately during this period of decline, architects
were few in number, and were only employed on the most
expensive work. The great mass of building was designed,
as well as executed, by builders. While the architects were
engaged in producing those monstrous platitudes in the
" grand manner," known as monumental architecture,
these builders were engaged in the development of a style
of 'work which carried on the vigorous traditions of Gothic
craftsmanship, while it made use of such Roman forms as
could readily be assimilated. This vernacular architecture,
which in this country we know by the names of Elizabethan,
Jacobean, Queen Anne and Georgian, is the really genuine
architecture of the Renaissance period, and it reacted to
give the architects an endowment of traditional English
taste which kept the academic tendencies of the Renais-
sance within certain bounds. But in the latter half of the
eighteenth century the pedantic ideas of the architects, owing
to the prestige of London, became enforced as stringent
standards over the whole country, and this vernacular
architecture came to an end.

The Franciscans and the Renaissance 137

While thus we see the Renaissance ended by destroying
communal traditions in the arts, it destroyed also the com-
munal traditions of culture of the Middle Ages. This culture,
which had its basis in common religious ideas, was a human
thing to the extent that it was capable of binding king and
peasant, priest and craftsman together in a common bond
of sympathy and understanding. It was, moreover, a culture
which came to a man at his work. The mason who carved
ornaments of some chapel or cathedral drew his inspiration
from the same source of religious tradition as the ploughman
who sang as he worked in the field or the minstrel who
chanted a song in the evening. It was a part of the environ-
ment in which every man lived. But the later Renaissance
had no sympathy with culture of this kind. It could not
understand craft culture. To it culture was primarily a
matter of books. It became a purely intellectual affair,
whose standards were critical, and, as such, instead
of operating to bind the various classes of the com-
munity together, it raised a barrier between the many
and the few. There is no escape from this state of
things so long as culture remains on a purely intellectual
basis, for a time will never arrive when the majority in any
class are vitally interested in intellectual pursuits. Mediaeval
culture did not expect them to be. It accepted differences
among men as irrevocable, but it knew at the same time
that all men had certain human interests in common, and
it built up a culture to preserve them.

In the place of a communal culture, the Renaissance
promoted the cult of the individual. Its history bristles
with the names of brilliant men who seem almost to be ends
in themselves. They have all the appearance of being great
creators, but when we examine them more closely we see
they are the great destroyers. For their greatness is not
their own. They were men who inherited great traditions,
which they thoughtlessly destroyed, much in the same way
as a spendthrift squanders the fortune to which he succeeds.
But while the Renaissance destroyed the great traditions, it
could put nothing in their place, for its facile half-success
left it ultimately impotent, and if we search for the final
cause of this failure, I think we shall find it in this — that

188 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

it valued means rather than ends. It concentrated its energy
upon science and criticism, but for what ends it knew not.
These, it assumed, might be left to take care of themselves.
And so it remained without a rudder to steer by or a goal
at which to aim. Science and criticism may be constructive,
but only when used by men with well-defined ends in view.
But men of this type believe in dogmas, which the men of
the Renaissance did not. Such men realize that if criticism
has any validity in society it can only be on the assumption
that it is in search of final and definite conclusions ; that if
it seeks to destroy one set of dogmas it does so in order to
create others. But the men of the Renaissance did not
understand this. They valued criticism for the sake of
criticism, not for the sake of truth but for the love of destruc-
tion. They never understood that the final object and justi-
fication of criticism is that it destroys the need of criticism ;
that the final aim and object of free thought should be the
re-establishment of dogmas.

CHAPTER X
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY

THOUGH the Reformation may be regarded at once as a
development and a reaction against the Renaissance, it
had yet at the same time roots of its own. Though it broke
out in the sixteenth century in Germany, its intellectual
foundations were laid in the fourteenth century in England
by Wycliffe — " the Morning Star of the Reformation " as
he is called. His ideas were carried all over Europe by
wandering scholars. He was the inspirer of the Hussite
Movement in Bohemia as well as of the leading men in the
Reformation.

Wycliffe was no Catholic, but a religious pervert. He
had no conception of the function of religion in its broadest
and most catholic sense as an instrument which maintained
the common life by securing the acceptance of certain beliefs
and standards of thought and morals by the whole people
and thus maintaining the Kingdom of God upon Earth.
On the contrary, his attitude towards religion was a very
narrow, self-regarding and personal one. He was concerned
with the need of a man saving his own individual soul,
and his teaching was a perversion of the whole idea of Chris-
tianity. If we keep steadily in our mind that the central
aim of Christianity is to maintain the common life, it
becomes apparent that the primary object of the priest is the
maintenance of a common standard of thought and morals.
A man by his words may secure respect for them, though
in his individual life he may fall short of their fulfilment.
But Wycliffe, viewing the corruption of the clergy of his day,
laid down the dictum that only a priest who is himself
without sin can preach the word of God. Though a
corrupt clergy is to be deplored, it becomes evident

139

140 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

that the remedy of Wycliffe is worse than the disease, inas-
much as it denies the humanity of the priest. Insistence
upon such a standard demands that a priest, instead of,
as heretofore, being acknowledged a sinner like other men.
must be a superior person. Thus he will, knowing himself
to be a sinner, become a hypocrite in the eyes of the world,
or, what is far worse, he will become a prig, committing the
most deadly of all sins, that of spiritual pride, and endeavour
to make his own conduct the standard of truth and morals.

This constituted the central heresy of Wycliffe. All
the rest flowed from it. Wycliffe himself was a prig of the
first order ; his self-sufficiency was intolerable. It was the
elect, he taught, who constituted the community of saints —
the community of God or the true Church. According to
him, the Church consisted of all true believers who had access
to the Divine mercy, who approached God by their own
prayers without the intervention of a priestly mediator,
and who were to interpret the Scriptures according to the
dictates of their consciences. For by making the Scriptures
rather than the traditions of the Church the final authority
Wycliffe made personal opinion the final test of truth. In
other Words, the Church consisted not of the hierarchy and
the people but of all the prigs and self-elected saints whose
standard of self-righteousness was henceforth to become
the standard of conduct and morals. Wycliffe was the first
of the Puritans.

In the ordinary course of events, Wycliffe would have
suffered death as a heretic, but like all the self-righteous
Puritancial crowd he had in his composition a streak of
worldly wisdom. He took care that his new gospel would
be acceptable to the hierarchy of the State if not to that
of the Church, and made his position safe by securing the
protection of John of Gaunt, whose personal conduct inci-
dentally was anything but pure. The corruption of the
clergy, Wycliffe maintained, could be traced to their excessive
wealth. It was essential, therefore, to the promotion of the
higher life in the community that the clergy should be reduced.
Hence it was Wycliffe advised the confiscation of the Church
lands by the State. That the State itself was more corrupt
than the Church, that in the hands of the lawyers who were

The Reformation in Germany 141

now controlling it the State had become a shameless instru-
ment of class oppression which was for its own ends dispos-
sessing the peasants of their lands, did not deter Wycliffe
from proposing a measure which would increase enormously
the power which was so unscrupulously used. Such larger
issues did not interest him. As to how the peasants were
likely to fare under his new regime he never, apparently,
gave a moment's thought. He was not concerned with the
well-being of the people, but with the creation of a race of
self-righteous plaster saints to replace the hierarchy of the
Church.

Such was the fundamental heresy of Wycliffe which bore
fruit a thousand-fold when the Reformation broke over
Europe. Immediately, the Reformation owed its inception
to the protest of Luther against the corruption of the Papacy
which had come about as a consequence of the revival of
Pagan thought and morals. In the year 1510, Luther
visited Rome on business connected with his monastic order,
and was deeply moved at the irreligion and corruption of
the Papal Court. Seven years after this visit he took up
a stand against the sale of Indulgences, by which at the time
Leo X was seeking to raise money for the completion of
St. Peter's at Rome, in the belief that the abuses attending
their sale were the main source of corruption. On the ist
of -November, 1517, he nailed to the doors of the Castle
Church at Wittenberg his famous thesis of ninety-five
propositions against the sale of Indulgences. The nailing
of theses to the doors of churches was in the Middle Ages
an ordinary academic procedure, and according to the usage
of the times the author was not supposed to be definitely
committed to the opinions he had expressed. But it was
apparent that Luther did not intend the debate to be an
ordinary academic one, for he had carefully chosen the day
on which to nail up his thesis. For the ist of November
was All Saints' Day. It was the anniversary of the conse-
cration of the church and was commemorated by a long
series of service, while the benefits of an Indulgence were
secured for all who took part in them. It was the day when
the largest concourse of townsmen and strangers might be
expected, and would therefore ensure a wide reading of

142 A Gwildsmarfs Interpretation of History

his thesis, nor was he disappointed with the result. He had
raised a question in which there happened to be widespread
interest. The printers could not produce copies of this
thesis fast enough to meet the demand which came from
all parts of Germany.

Now why was it that Luther's act had immediately such
marvellous practical results ? The answer is because it had
become widely recognized that the abuse of Indulgences was
a fruitful source of the corruption of the ecclesiastical
organization. It is impossible here properly to discuss this
question, not only because it is very involved, but because
the theory on which Indulgences rest is entirely unintelligible
from a purely rational or ethical standpoint. It may, however,
be said that Mediaeval theology did not create Indulgences ;
it only followed and tried to justify the practices of the
Popes and the Roman Curia. They originated in the early
days of the Church. Serious sins involved separation from
the fellowship of Christians, and readmission to the com-
munion was dependent not merely upon public confession
but also on the manifestation of a true repentance by the
performance of certain satisfactions, such as the manu-
mission of slaves, prolonged fastings, extensive almsgivings ;
which were works acceptable to God and gave outward
and visible proof that the penitent really desired to be
received again into the fold. In course of time public
confessions became private confessions to a priest, and there
grew up a system of penances proportionate to the sins.
In the seventh century these, under certain circumstances,
became commuted for money payments, and so little by
little the inward meaning receded into the background
while greater importance became attached to the outward
acts until, under the direction of the Renaissance Popes,
Indulgences had degenerated into purely commercial tran-
sactions. They had been abused everywhere, but particu-
larly in Germany, for Germany during the Middle Ages
was the richest country in Europe and as such had
become the usual resource of a Pope in financial straits.
So long as the sale of Indulgences was limited and only
made use of in exceptional circumstances, nobody thought
of objecting. But the authority of the Holy See had

The Reformation in Germany 148

been severely shaken by the Great Schism — for the
spectacle of two, and at one time three, Popes claiming
the allegiance of Christendom, whilst hurling anathemas at
each other, was anything but an edifying one. Moreover,
the Popes of the Renaissance in their pursuit of temporal
power had to all intents and purposes become secular princes,
using religion merely as an instrument for the furtherance
of their political ambitions. These Popes greatly increased
the sale of Indulgences and raised tithes and annates under
the pretext of war against the Turks, though no expeditions
were sent forth and the money collected was spent upon
other objects. When news of the corruption of the Papacy
had been noised abroad and the clergy of Germany found,
as they asserted in a petition presented to the Emperor-elect,
Maximilian, in 1510, that the Papacy could be restrained
by no agreements or conventions seeing that it granted
dispensations, suspensions, and revocations for the vilest
persons while employing other devices for nullifying its
promises and evading its own wholesome regulations, a time
came when numberless people began to ask themselves
whether the Papacy was entitled to the allegiance that it
claimed and in what sense the Popes were to be considered
the successors of St. Peter. All efforts at reform having
failed, the only remedy lay in revolution, and Germany was
ready for the signal. In 1521 the Nuncio Alexander wrote
" that five years before he had mentioned to Pope Leo
his dread of a German uprising, he had heard from many
Germans that they were only waiting for some fcol to open
his mouth against Rome." r

The immediate popularity of Luther's protest, then, was
not due to any desire for doctrinal reform but because he
stood for opposition to Rome. The doctrinal changes
associated with his name were largely improvised dogmas
called into existence by the desire to combat Papal pretensions,
for he was a man of action rather than a careful and logical
thinker and only stated an abstract position when he was
driven to it. The original idea of the Church had been
that of salvation by faith and good works. But when
Christianity triumphed and everybody was born a Christian,

1 Cambridge Modern History, vol. i. p. 690.

144 A Guildwnan's Interpretation of History

the faith came to be taken more or less for granted and
emphasis was put more and more upon good works, as being
the mark of a good Christian life. It was among other
things the emphasis which had been almost entirely placed
upon good works that led to the abuse of Indulgences.
Luther attacked this external idea of Christianity. He
had told an assembly of clergy who met at Leitzkau in 1512
to discuss the reform of the Church that reformation must
begin with the individual and involved a change of heart.
The penitence which Christ required was something more
than a momentary expression of sorrow. Hence his cardinal
dogma of justification by faith. No Christian, I imagine,
Catholic or Protestant, would object to what he meant by
this. For though he maintained that good works were not
sufficient, it is to be supposed that he meant salvation by
faith and good works. But he did not say this, and the
result was the Reformation produced results very different
from what he had intended. Under Protestantism, stress
came to be laid entirely upon questions of faith to the
exclusion of good works, and morals accommodated them-
selves to the practice of the rich. To understand exactly
why this came about we must consider the changes which
Luther introduced into Church government. Like his doc-
trinal changes, they had their origin in political expediency.
The immediate success of Luther I said was due to the
fact that he stood for opposition to Rome. Of that there
can be no doubt whatsoever. But a question arises out of
it that needs to be answered. If the Reformation, so far
as the majority were concerned, was inspired by opposition
to Rome, how was it that the movement did not take the
form of a mere separation of the Church from Rome as in
the first place it did in England ? The answer is that the
political condition of Germany made that impossible. From
the date when the revival of Roman Law led the Emperors
to attempt to control the Papacy, it had been the consistent
policy of Rome to cripple the Empire by encouraging the
congeries of sovereign princes to assert their independence
against the Emperors. The result of this policy was that
the power of the Emperor was only nominal. In reality
it did not exist. Consequently in Germany there could

The Reformation in Germany 145

be no appeal from the authority of the Pope to the authority
of State, but only an appeal from the Pope to the people ;
that is, to the community of believers. Hence it came about
that when at the Diet of Worms (1521) Luther maintained
that Popes and Councils might err, in the absence of the
support of the Emperor he was in the position of having
either to retract or to appeal to the people. Having taken
this step, certain consequences logically followed from it.
In appealing to the people he not only made their authority
supreme in matters of Church government, but in the
interpretation of the Scriptures ; a development which was
made possible by the recent invention of printing. This
was fatal for the ends he had in view, because it entirely
destroyed the value of religion as a social force capable of
binding men together, because if each individual is to interpret
the Scriptures, their meaning becomes a matter of opinion,
in the light of which every man is a law unto himself.
For if truth is declared to be subjective, it is impossible to
insist upon a moral standard which is necessarily objective.
Luther was not long in finding these things out, though he
would never admit to himself that he could possibly be
wrong. The doubts and qualms of conscience which in
later life he had with regard to the correctness of his course
of action he ascribed to the suggestion of the evil spirit.
Often at the beginning of his crusade Luther had expressed
the confident expectation that his gospel would exercise
a beneficent influence both morally and religiously. But he
was terribly disappointed. It was not long before he was
driven to acknowledge that things had grown seven times
worse than before. " People," he said, " after hearing the
Gospel steal, lie, drink, gluttonize, and indulge in all sorts
of vice. Drunkenness has come upon us like a flood and
swamped everything." f He deplored, too, the growing insub-
ordination especially of the rising generation, but his words
fell upon deaf ears. Writing of the change which followed
the transfer of authority from the hands of the priests to
those of the laity, Erasmus said : " The people will not listen
to their own ministers when the latter do not tickle their
ears ; on the contrary, these unhappy preachers must straight-

1 Jansscn, vol. iv. p. 150.

10

146 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

way be sent about their business the moment that they
show any frankness, and presume to question the conduct
of their hearers." In a letter to Luther in 1524 he wrote :
" I see that these innovations are producing shoals of
turbulent good-for-nothing people, and I dread a bloody
insurrection." x

The trouble then, I incline to think, was very much like
the trouble at the present day. Everybody wanted reform,
but they had no intention of changing their own lives. They
would support Luther to get rid of the incubus of Rome, but
that was as far as they desired to go, for they had no really
religious feeling Germany had become corrupted by wealth,
and as a matter of fact so far as Germany was concerned
it was much truer to say that the people had corrupted the
Church than that the Church had corrupted the people,
for the Humanist Movement in Germany which owed its
inception to the ecclesiastical reformer Cardinal Nicholas of
Cusa never became as corruptly Pagan as in Italy, but had
addressed itself to the higher emotions and had sought to
train the conscience of the individual to recognize his direct
responsibility to God and his fellows. On the other hand,
the corruption in Germany was of secular origin and had
come about as a result of the sinister influence of Roman
Law reacting upon the growth and development of com-
merce. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Germany
was the most prosperous country in Europe. It was the
great universal centre of commerce, the great market for
the products of nature and art. This was to be accounted
for, firstly by its central geographical position, which in the
days of the overland trade routes placed it in a position to
trade with Italy and the Levant on the one side and with
Flanders, the Scandinavian North, Poland and Russia on
the other ; and secondly by the enterprising character of
its merchants, who knew how to use their favourable position
to tlie utmost advantage. In the early Middle Ages they
had been averse- to the business of usury and had devoted
themselves exclusively to mercantile affairs. The Merchant
Guilds of the German towns had organized themselves into

> Janssen, vol. iv. p. 153.

The Reformation in Germany 147

the famous Hanseatic League,1 which had settlements in
the principal ports of the countries with which they traded.
The one in London known as the Steelyard 3 was surrounded
by high walls after the manner of a fortress. It was required
that all who lived within its walls — masters, assistants and
apprentices — should be unmarried men, for they followed
a life of strict discipline which was monastic in its character.
It was upon this monastic basis that the broad foundations
of German trade were laid in the early Middle Ages. The
adventurous and dangerous calling of the merchant in those
days fostered in them a simple and humble piety which
expressed itself in a diligent attendance on the services of
the Church and in the foundation of benevolent institutions
of every kind. It was because of such things that the mer-
chant of those early days was not looked upon askance.
It was believed that the merchant who engaged in active
trade and visited distant markets was rendering a service
to the community, and it was considered that he was entitled
to some gain for the undoubted risks he was running. But
this old-time sense of responsibility was gradually undermined
by the lawyers, whose teaching regarding wealth corrupted
the merchants ; little by little the early monastic discipline
was broken down and the merchants became avaricious and
corrupt. The trading corporations which had originally
come into existence as a means of affording mutual protec-
tion for their members in foreign parts, for the assurance of
exchange, the settling of questions of justice, taxation,
and coinage, and had recognized definite responsibilities
towards society, began to think of nothing else except of
how to secure advantages for themselves. They became
corrupt monopolies which no longer observed Guild regula-
tions. They kept up an artificial dearness in all necessary
commodities, adulterated articles 'of food and clothing,
suppressed small industries, paid low rates of wages, and
forced down the prices of agricultural produce to such an
extent that all through the fifteenth century there were

1 The word Hansa has the same significance as Guild, and was first used
in England to designate certain commercial associations (Janssen, vol. ii.

P- 47)-

» See Pictures of Old England, by Dr. Reinhold Pauli, chapter entitled
" The Hanseatic Steelyard in London."

148 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

frequent risings of the peasants against their tyranny and
oppression. All these evils were allowed to grow unhindered
because the traders played into the hands of the great
personages either by lending them money or borrowing it
from them to speculate with.

Now why did the nobility become a party to these
iniquities ? The usual Socialist answer would be, of course,
that all classes exist for the purposes of exploitation, and
therefore it is but natural that they should join with the
merchants to exploit the peasants. This, however, is not
historically true. The Feudal class, as I showed in an
earlier chapter, had a dual origin, and half of it at least,
probably three-quarters of it, came into existence to perform
a function. Their change from protectors of communal
rights to exploiters was ultimately due to the corrupting
influence of Roman Law, but immediately it was due to the
desire to " keep their end up " in a competition of luxury
and display as against the merchants. Many of the latter
had grown to be richer than kings and emperors, and vanity
had prompted them to give visible evidence of their great
riches in the adoption of a higher and higher standard of
living. Feasting and gambling became the order of the day,
while they became very extravagant in dress. Men and
women were alike in this respect, though the wives and
daughters of the merchants were the most extravagant.
Fashions changed constantly and took the form of dressing
in the costumes of other countries, of big sleeves and little
sleeves and all the other foibles with which we are familiar.
Many people saw the dangers in these innovations, and
attempts were made to put a boundary to the growth of
extravagance by the enactments of sumptuary laws. In
the year 1485 the Council of Ratisbon made the following
rules with regard to dress which are interesting as showing
the moderate demands of reformers. " The distinguished
wives and daughters of burghers shall be allowed eight
dresses, six long cloaks, three dancing dresses, and one
plaited mantle having three sets of sleeves, of velvet, brocade
and silk : two pearl hair bands not costing more than twelve
florins, a tiara of gold and pearls worth five florins, not
more than three veils costing eight florins each, a clasp

The Reformation in Germany 149

not having more than one ounce of gold, silk fringes to their
dresses, but not gold or pearl ; a pearl necklace not costing
more than five florins, a pearl stomacher worth twelve
florins, two rows of pearl round the sleeve at five florins per
ounce, a gold chain and pendant worth fifteen florins and a
necklace of twenty florins. Except for the engagement or
wedding ring, none were permitted to cost more than twenty-
four florins. Three or four rosaries were allowed, but they
were not to cost more than ten florins ; sashes of silk and
embroidery worth three florins."1 Few people would say
that there was anything very Puritanical about such a law,
though no doubt it would seem so to many women of the
day who were said to wear at one time clothing worth three
or four hundred florins while they had in their wardrobes
adornments costing more than three or four thousand
florins.

I said that many people saw the dangers of such extrava-
gance. Wimpheling, who was one of the most widely
read authors of his day, writing on the great commercial
prosperity of Germany, which he pointed out she owed to
the untiring industry and the energy of her citizens, artisans
as well as merchants, showed the reverse of the medal
adding " wealth and prosperity are attended with great
dangers, as we see exemplified ; they induce extravagance
in dress, in banqueting, and what is still worse, they engender
a desire for still more. This desire debases the mind of man,
and degenerates into contempt of God, His Church and His
Commandments. These evils are to be perceived in all
classes ; luxury has crept in among the clergy, particularly
among those who are of noble birth ; they have no real
love for souls and they try to equal the rich merchants in
their mode of living." »

Wimpheling saw, as men in all ages have seen, that
luxury leads to social catastrophe. The peril arises from
the fact that it is no longer the wise but the wealthy who
set the social standards, and a kind of social compulsion
is brought to bear upon others to live up to it whether they
can afford to do so or not. As only the very rich can afford
to go the pace, a point is soon reached when the need of

1 Janssen, vol. ii. pp. 63-4. > Ibid., vol. ii. p. 62.

150 A Guildsmaris Interpretation of History

money is very widely felt. When in Germany that point
was reached, nobody wanted to do any really productive
work, but everybody wanted to go into trade where money
was to be made. Mercantile houses, shops and taverns
multiplied inordinately, and complaints were everywhere
- made that there was no money but only debts and that all
districts and towns were drained by usury. Then there
happened in Germany what is happening to-day. Each
class attempted to save itself from bankruptcy by trans-
ferring its burdens on to the shoulder of the class beneath
it, and it was then there arose in Germany a bitter enmity
between the propertied and unpropertied classes. While
the working class were advancing towards pauperism, the
general rancour and class hatred increased in intensity as
the wealthy more and more indulged in ostentation and
display.

Such was the social condition of Germany on the eve of
the Peasants' War which broke out in the year 1524. It
is apparent that had Luther and his followers never appeared
on the scenes the spirit of discontent and class hatred which
was growing everywhere and which had been fermenting
since the beginning of the fifteenth century would have
produced tumults and seditions in the towns and provinces
of Germany. But it was the special condition of things
brought about by the evangelical preaching of Luther which
hastened the crisis and gave to the Peasants' War its charac-
teristics of universality and inhuman atrocity. Immediately
it was a movement to restore the old communal system of
land-holding which had been destroyed by the inroads of
Roman Law, and was of a purely agrarian character. The
demands of the peasants were moderate and bore few of the
traces of the intellectual and physical violence which marked
its later course. They demanded the restoration of their
old Haingerichte and other courts, the restoration of common
lands and old rights, the abolition of new exactions of rents
and services, and freedom of water, forest and pasture.
The revolt commenced with local risings of peasants in the
south-west . But when once it had started, it gathered momen-
tum quickly. It was joined first by one and then by another
revolutionary current until it united in one stream all ele-

The Reformation in Germany 151

ments of disaffection and threatened to inundate the whole
of Germany. It convulsed almost every corner of the Empire
from the Alps to the Baltic. Bavaria alone was unaffected,
and this is attributed to the fact that the Bavarian Govern-
ment had offered strenuous resistance to religious innovations.

As the rebellion extended its area, it assimilated ideas
distinct from the agrarian grievances which had prompted
it. The communist spirit was rampant in the cultivated
town circles, and its effect was to give a religious aspect to
the revolt. " The age of Christian liberty and brotherhood
had come," it was said, " and one class ought to be as rich
as another." It is not improbable that the religious element
came to predominate because it offered a convenient banner
under which sectional interests might unite. While the
merchants blamed the clergy for the troubles, the nobility
blamed the rich merchants, and so it came about that in the
early stages of the revolt the rich middle class gave some
support to the peasants. Waldshut and Memmingen were
friendly, while Zurich, Strasburg, Nuremberg and Ulm ren-
dered active assistance. Though the bulk of the insurgents
were peasants, they received others into their ranks, and
along with priests, barons and ex-officials there came men
of criminal tendencies, who are always ready to join any
revolutionary movement because of the prospect of loot
it offers. As generally happens in popular risings, these baser
elements got entirely out of hand and by their excesses brought
odium upon the whole movement. They brought about the
reaction in which the middle class element made common
cause with the nobles in suppressing the revolt. Luther,
who in the early days of the rising had written a pamphlet
in which he deprecates the use of violence, though admitting
that the demands of the peasants were just, now became
genuinely terrified at the size of the revolt and wrote a second
pamphlet in which he urged the princes to kill and slay
the peasants without mercy. The princes took him at
his word. After lasting two years the revolt was put down
with unheard-of cruelty. According to the Emperor Charles V,
a hundred thousand people were killed on both sides.

From whatever point 6f view Luther's action is examined
it remains indefensible. His first pamphlet might be defended

152 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

on the grounds that it was consistent with his former attitude
inasmuch as he had always taught the efficacy of the word
and had repudiated appeal to the sword. But there can
be no excuse whatsoever for his second one, for he must have
known that the tide had begun to turn when he wrote it and
that the princes needed no urging to be merciless. From being
a national hero Luther sank to the level of the leader of a
sect, and a sect that depended for its existence on the support
of political and financial interests. Henceforth Lutheran
divines leaned upon the territorial princes and repaid their
support with undue servility. When the princes began to
suppress the monasteries and to seize the Church lands,
Luther appears to have been taken entirely by surprise. He
deplored and censured the selfishness of the princes, but
he was powerless to prevent it. By condemning the rising,
Luther had alienated for ever the sympathy of the peasants.
His action settled the future of Protestantism by identifying
it entirely with vested interests. It is as supplying a version
of Christianity acceptable to capitalists that the subsequent
history of Lutherism interests us and is to be studied.

The appeal of Luther against the authority of the Pope
had been to the traditions of the Early Church. Those
traditions were communist, and it was because the early
Christians despised wealth that they could approach God
without the intervention of a priestly mediator and without
the likelihood of abusing the privilege. But when Luther
alienated the peasants, he separated his gospel from any
possible communist base and identified it with a class whose
traditions were not only extremely individualistic but had
an inordinate love of wealth, and this made a great difference.
For the merchants and shopkeepers who now supported him
were not the kind of people who could be relied upon to
interpret Christian ideas to any but their own advantage.
They came to support Luther, not because they had any
intention of living up to the ideals of the early Christians,
but because they resented supervision and for long had
chafed under a religion which taught that the pursuit of
wealth for wealth's sake was an ignoble and degrading thing,
however far its priests fell short of its ideal. So they wel-
comed a gospel which removed such supervision and made

The Reformation in Germany 153

them answerable only to their own consciences, from which
they had little to fear. Luther might have denounced
merchants as usurers and lawyers as robbers, but Luther's
supporters were not thin-skinned people. They saw that
the principle of an elective priesthood subject to the control
of the laity was a valuable one for the ends they had in
view and that organized on such a basis the priesthood would
soon have to do their bidding. Hence it was that the
Protestant Churches speedily came to accommodate morals
to the practice of the rich. The Scriptures might be studied
but not such parts as denounced the wealthy. On the
contrary, immorality became synonymous with sexual
immorality, swearing and drunkenness — vices to which
they were not particularly prone — while avarice, the one
sin towards which they were powerfully drawn, the new
religion was careful not to forbid. The change of attitude
towards usury is not the least of the triumphs of the
Reformation. The history of the change is interesting,
considering that Luther's first attitude towards the problems
it presented was to revert to earlier and more rigid
standards than were current in his day.

The Early Church had condemned usury in all forms
absolutely as immoral. But this strict view was modified
somewhat by later moralists and economists, who came to
realize that to forbid the taking of interest, under all cir-
cumstances, was not expedient, inasmuch as it led to serious
public inconvenience. Hence the question which agitated
the minds of moralists and economists in the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries was to determine what
was and what was not legitimate. Starting from the
principle of Aristotle that money itself cannot beget money,
the Mediaeval moralists were puzzled as to how to justify
the taking of interest. They were agreed that to seek to
increase wealth in order to live on the labour of others was
wrong, and to this extent the issue with them was a purely
moral issue. But, on the other hand, there was the question
of public convenience, as in the case of travellers who would
have to carry large sums of money about with them in the
absence of bills of exchange, or the question of risk involved
in a loan. To all such difficult and perplexing problems

154 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

the Mediaeval moralists addressed themselves, not for
theoretical but for practical reasons. For as commerce
tended to increase, it became urgent to hammer out some
principle whereby the necessities of trade could be related
to some definite moral standard.

To the end the problem evaded them. In principle
all were against usury, but public convenience demanded
that exception be made under certain circumstances. These
exceptions grew and grew in number, but no sure principle
was forthcoming, and I am left to wonder whether the failure
of the Mediaeval moralists and economists to find an answer
to the problems which usury presented may not have been
due to the fact that the problem is only partly a moral one.
The difficulties in which they found themselves in their
attempts to justify the taking of interest in certain cases
in order that public convenience might not suffer arose
because the function which the usurer performed in such
cases was essentially a public one, and should have been
undertaken by men in some corporate capacity, and not
left to the initiative of individuals. The Franciscans
appear to have come to some such conclusion, for they
founded the montes pietatis or lending houses, which advanced
loans to poor people either without interest or at a very low
rate, and thus prevented many from falling into the hands
of usurers.

In so far as the problem was a moral one, perhaps
St. Antonino * gave such answers as were to be given.
St. Antonino was an Archbishop of Florence in the fourteenth
century, and was therefore well placed for one who wished
for information. He was a representative man, and to be
acquainted with him is to be acquainted with the thought
of his generation, for he had read widely and formed judg-
ments on many of the vexed economic problems of his day.
What is more important, his judgments were of a very
practical nature, for he was constantly referred to by the
bankers and merchants of Florence to give decisions on
delicate points affecting the morality of trade. This fact
alone is worth recording, and should be of particular interest

1 See Si. Antonino and Meditfval Economics, by Bede Jarrett (Manresa
Press).

The Reformation in Germany 155

to Marxians who believe that no other motive but exploita-
tion has ever existed in trade, more especially when they
learn that St. Antonino anticipated Marx himself in affirming
that all value depends upon labour, whether of hand or head.

Though in the early days of the Reformation the reformers
were even more opposed to any compromise with usury
than the Catholic theologians, the influence of the Reforma-
tion brought a breach with Mediaeval doctrine in the latter
half of the sixteenth century. Calvin objected to the idea
of regarding money as barren when it was possible to purchase
with it property from which a revenue could be obtained.
Calvin's attitude may therefore justly be regarded as the
turning-point. It had certainly much influence in weakening
the old repugnance towards usury. But Calvin did not
allow the taking of interest under any circumstances. This
is evident from Calvin's own words : —

" Although I do not visit usuries (payment for the use
of money) with wholesale condemnation, I cannot give them
my indiscriminate approbation, nor, indeed, do I approve
that any one should make a business of money-lending.
Usury for money may lawfully be taken only under the
following conditions, and not otherwise." Among these
conditions are " That usury should not be demanded from
men in need ; nor is it lawful to force any man to pay usury
who is oppressed by need or calamity," and " he who receives
a loan on usury should make at least as much for himself by
his labour and care as he obtains who gives the loan." l

" What Calvin feared took place. In after centuries
Calvin's great authority was invoked for the wide proposition
that to take reward for the loan of money was never sinful ;
and a couple of his sentences were taken from their context
and quoted without regard to the conditions by which they
were limited. His carefully qualified approval of the claim
for usury when it was made by one business man on another
was wrested into an approval of every sort of contract
concerning the loan of money." *

What happened with regard to usury happened also
in respect to the institution of property. The communist

1 An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, by W. J.
Ashley, part ii. p. 459. » Ibid., p. 460.

156 A Guilds man' a Interpretation of History

theory and practice of the Church had been abandoned
and the Church came to recognize the institution of private
property. It was to be regarded as an evil due to the Fall,
and become a necessity, because of the presence of sin in
the world. Still the Church did not regard possession as
absolute but as conditional, and dependent upon the fulfil-
ment of certain duties. Such as failed in their duties might
be called upon to surrender it. They had no legal or moral
claim. " Private property and common use " — the formula
which Aquinas borrowed from Aristotle — became the official
attitude of the Church. The Roman lawyers sought to
reintroduce into society the old Pagan idea of absolute
property rights in the interests of the territorial princes.
But the Church would have none of it, and did all in its power
to resist the encroachments of the Roman Code. The
Reformation changed all this by removing opposition to
the inroads of Roman Law. The rights of property, from
being objective and dependent upon the fulfilment of duties,
became subjective and absolute. Luther, who had denounced
Roman Law, came to profess the most restrictive views on
property ; while Melanchthon went much further, affirming
that property existed by Divine right, and that to limit
it in any way would be contrary to the teachings of Jesus
Christ and the Apostles.

In the face of such evidence, it is impossible to maintain
the popular notion that the Reformation was a triumph
of democracy. So far from this being true, the Reformation
was in reality the triumph of the State, landlordism and
capitalism over the Church and the people, and this tendency
was present from the very start. The story which has been
so sedulously promoted in order to give the Reformation a
democratic flavour, that Wycliffe, its " morning star," was
one of the instigators of the Peasants' Revolt, is absolutely
without any foundation in fact. Considering that John
of Gaunt — whom the peasants associated with the lawyers
as the cause of their oppression — was Wycliffe's best friend
and protector, it is foolish to connect his name with the
revolt. Moreover, there is nothing in Wycliffe's writings
to suggest that he favoured insurrection. Wycliffe desired
to maintain the system of the State precisely as it then

The Reformation in Germany 157

was, while he regarded the growing power of the Church as
the menace, and it was to that he was opposed. On the
contrary, it was the Friars who organized the revolt. If
not officially, at any rate, unofficially ; for not a few of
them actually took part in the revolt, leading some of the
bands of peasants who marched to London. Anyway,
suspicion fell upon them, and it may have been one of the
reasons why, when the Reformation burst forth, the
monasteries were suppressed.

CHAPTER XI

THE great difference between the course of the Reformation
in England and in Germany is to be found in the fact that
whereas in Germany the Reformation was primarily a religious
and popular movement with certain political and economic
complications or consequences, in England the religious
movement was artificially promoted to bolster up the
political and economic changes initiated entirely by the
Crown. For though Wycliffe's gospel had been warmly
espoused on the Continent by Huss, Jerome and Luther,
his influence in England appears to have come to an end
with the suppression of the Lollards in the reign of
Richard II, and at the time when Henry VIII began to
suppress the monasteries there was not in existence any
popular movement demanding change. It is significant
that no serious change was made in the doctrine, worship
or ceremonials of the Church until sixteen years after
Henry VIII had repudiated Papal authority. Though Henry
at one time had given the Protestant Princes of Germany
great hopes of a religious union against both Pope and Em-
peror, nothing came of it. It was clearly a piece of bluff
intended to ward off a possible attack by the Emperor. For
Henry had no sympathy with Protestantism. Not only
had he opposed it and received from the Pope as a reward
for a book he had written in defence of the Catholic Faith
the title of " Defender of the Faith " (a title which English
sovereigns still use, it being popularly supposed that the
Faith referred to is Protestantism and not Catholicism,
as is actually the case) but he had actually gone so far as
to burn as heretics men who preached Protestant doctrine.

106

The Suppression of the English Monasteries 159

However much room there may be for differences of
opinion as to the motives which led Pope Clement VII
to refuse to sanction the divorce of Henry VIII from Cathe-
rine of Arragon, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the
repudiation of Papal authority by Henry which prepared
the way for the Reformation in England and immediately led
to the suppression of the monasteries was due to the fact
that Henry entertained a passionate desire to marry Anne
Boleyn and was determined that nothing should stand in
his way. As to why he did so desire, there is again a difference
of opinion. The most generous explanation is that Henry
wanted a son, and remembering that the Wars of the Roses
had resulted in the death of all possible male successors
to the throne, and that while he had three sons and two
daughters by Catherine only one daughter had survived,
it was not an altogether unnatural desire. But such an
explanation is difficult to reconcile with the facts as we know
them. It might be argued that the desire for a son impelled
Henry to seek a divorce if his matrimonial adventures had
come to an end when he married Anne Boleyn, but the
evidence in this case is strong that lust was his ruling passion,
for when within a twelvemonth he had grown tired of her
he said he had been induced to marry her by witchcraft,
which strongly suggests he was at the mercy of his lusts.
The fact that Henry's life became a succession of marriages,
divorces and beheadings suggests that he was possessed of
a mania which is equally difficult to reconcile with the
natural desire for a son or the mere pursuit of lust. It should
not be forgotten, moreover, that when he married Jane
Seymour he procured a clause in the Succession Act enabling
him in the event of failure of issue to dispose of the Crown
by will ; it being understood at the time that this concession
was made in favour of his illegitimate son the Duke of Rich-
mond, who died shortly afterwards. If the only object of
Henry's marriages was to secure the succession it may be
asked why, if it was possible for him to secure this concession
after he married Jane Seymour, he could not have done it
while he was married to Catherine of Arragon. The grounds
on which he sought to obtain a divorce from her, that he
feared he had been living in sin with her because she had

160 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

been formally married to his brother Prince Arthur, who
had died before the marriage was consummated, will scarcely
acquit a man whose subsequent life proved him to be in-
different to sin.

Whatever the truth may be as to the secret motives of
Henry, there can be n9 doubt whatsoever as to the conse-
quences of his actions, for the whole subsequent history
of England turns on his marriage with Anne Boleyn. Having
determined to marry her, and after six fruitless years being
unable to persuade the Pope to take any steps towards the
granting of a divorce, he resolved to overthrow the power
of the Pope in England by making himself the head of the
English Church. In this task he was aided and abetted
by the perfidious and cold-blooded Thomas Cranmer, whom
he immediately afterwards made Archbishop of Canterbury,
and who speedily granted Henry the divorce he desired.
By becoming a party to this disreputable business Cranmer
put himself entirely into Henry's power and henceforth
had to do his bidding, to perish at last amid those flames
which he himself had been the chief means of kindling. All
who refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in spiritual
affairs Henry mercilessly sacrificed. Sir Thomas More
and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, with many others
were executed for refusing. The executions filled the world
with horror both at home and abroad. The Emperor
Charles V is said to have declared that he would rather
have lost the best city in his dominions than such a councillor
as Sir Thomas More. Yet in spite of all Henry won through.
His success is to be attributed in the first place to the fact
that he found himself in an extraordinary strong position
owing to the centralizing process which had been going on
ever since the reign of Henry II and had concentrated in
his hands more powers than any other king of England
enjoyed either before or since, and in the next to the fact
that Henry was a man of remarkable ability while he was
entirely unscrupulous. The old nobility, who alone might
have offered resistance to his policy, had been for the most
part destroyed in the Wars of the Roses, while such as were
left were no match for him in intelligence. They were
superseded in the end by a new nobility which Henry raised

The Suppression of the English Monasteries 161

out of the commercial middle class — a class of sycophants
who enriched themselves by continual peculation. It was
thus that covetousness and fraud came to reign in high
places, and the tradition was established which identified
the governing class with exploitation.

It is possible that the monasteries would not have been
suppressed had not resistance to Henry been offered by the
Franciscans who maintained the Pope's authority. Henry
now found himself in the position of having either to abandon
his policy of making himself supreme in spiritual affairs or
of suppressing the whole Order, which he did not hesitate
to do. It now became apparent that sweeping confiscations
of monastic lands were to be made. The princes of Germany
had shown him the way, and he was not slow to learn their
lesson. Doubtless many of Henry's councillors and courtiers
who were hoping to share in the plunder were by no means
averse to such measures, for the Reformation could not have
proceeded apart from the concurrence of Parliament. But
this could not be said of Parliament as a whole. For the
Act of 1536, which transferred the property of the smaller
monasteries, three hundred and seventy-six in number, to
the King and his heirs, stuck long in the Lower House and
was not passed until Henry threatened to have some of their
heads.

The agent to whom Henry entrusted the work of sup-
pressing the monasteries was Thomas Cromwell. He had
been an underling in the service of Cardinal Wolsey. After
a roving youth spent in Italy and elsewhere he had risen by
his wits, recommending himself to Henry by his sycophancy
and by his treachery to his old master. He maintained his
position by utter obsequiousness, and there was no kind of
cruelty or tyranny of which he declined to be the agent.
Yet he was a man of cultivated tastes, with a wide acquaint-
ance of Italian literature. He had seen Machiavelli's great
work in manuscript, and from it had derived the principles
that guided him throughout his infamous career. He was
emphatically a man of the Renaissance ; that strange com-
bination of taste and rascality which it was so successful
in producing. Henry made him a peer, and appointed him
Royal Viceregent and Vicar-General. In this capacity he

11

162 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

took first place in all meetings of the clergy, sitting even
before the Archbishop of Canterbury. The procedure
adopted in the suppressions was first to set on foot a visitation
of the monasteries. In this work Cromwell was assisted by
deputies who were as villainous as himself. They prepared
reports full of false accusations in order to find pretences
for confiscating monastic property. They menaced those
who objected with charges of high treason. Subsequent
visitors appointed by Henry from among the country gentry
sent in formal reports distinctly contradicting many of the
facts alleged by Cromwell's agents. But such protests were
of no avail. Henry was out for plunder, and as Cobbett
rightly observes in this connection, "when men have power
to commit and are resolved to commit acts of injustice, they
are never at a loss for pretences."1 The monastic orders
were never heard in their defence. There was no charge
against any particular monastery or convent ; the charges
were loose and general, and levelled against all whose revenues
did not exceed a certain sum. " This alone," observes
Cobbett, " was sufficient to show that the charges were false ;
for who will believe that the alleged wickedness extended
to all whose revenues did not exceed a certain sum, and that
when those revenues got above that point the wickedness
stopped ? " »

It is clear that the reason for stopping the confiscations
at the point where the revenues did not exceed a certain
sum was that the public had to be brought into line before
any seizure of the great monasteries could be safely attempted.
The weak were first attacked, but means were soon found
for attacking the remaindei. Great promises were held
out that the King, when in possession of these estates,
would never more want taxes from the people. " Henry
employed preachers and ministers who went about to preach
and persuade the people that he could employ the ecclesias-
tical revenues in hospitals, colleges and other foundations
for the public good, which would be a much better use than
that they should support lazy and useless monks." 3 It is

1 A History of the Protestant Reformation, by William Cobbett, p. no.

- Ibid., p. 126.

3 letter written in 1540 by Marillac, the French Ambassador.

The Suppression of the English Monasteries 163

possible, of course, that Henry may have thought that he
would be able to fulfil these promises ; but he soon found
out that he would not be able to keep the plunder for himself,
and that the nobles and gentry could only be persuaded to
allow him to continue his dastardly work on condition that
he agreed to share the spoil with them. They so beset
him that he had not a moment's peace. After four years
he found himself no better off than he was before he confis-
cated a single convent. " When complaining to Cromwell
of the rapacity of the applicants for grants he exclaimed :
" By Our Lady ! the cormorants, when they have got the
garbage, will devour the dish." Cromwell reminded him
that there was much more yet to come. " Tut, man,"
said the King, " my whole realm would not staunch their
maws." I And thus it was that from confiscating the pro-
perty of the smaller monasteries he went on to seize that of
the larger ones, for there was no stopping half-way once he
had begun. Where opposition was encountered, Cromwell
and his ruffian visitors procured the murder of the parties
under pretence of their having committed high treason.
Here and there the people rose in rebellion against the devasta-
tions. But the local outbreaks came to nothing, since as
nearly every one of any consequence was sharing in the
plunder the people were deprived of their natural leaders.
During the Middle Ages, England had been the most
prosperous and happiest country in Europe, perhaps the
happiest country at any time in history. These monasteries
were wealthy and full of things of gold and silver ; and
society was so well ordered that these things remained
untouched, though there was no standing army or police.
But Cromwell and his ruffians stripped them bare of all
such things. The only parallel which history affords of
such a rich harvest of plunder is that of the conquest of
Peru, during which Cortes and Pizarro stripped the temples
bare of their gold and silver linings.

" The ruffians of Cromwell entered the convents ; they
tore down the altars to get away the gold and silver, ran-
sacked the chests and drawers of the monks and nuns,
tore off the covers of the books that were ornamented with
1 Cobbett. p. 127.

164 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

the precious metals. These books were all in manuscript.
Single books that had taken half a long lifetime to compose
and to copy out fair ; whole libraries, the getting of which
together had taken ages and ages and had cost immense sums
of money, were scattered abroad by these hellish ruffians
when they had robbed the covers of their rich ornaments.
The ready money in the convents, down to the last shilling,
was seized." l

Among the libraries so destroyed was that of St. Albans
Abbey, which was the greatest library in England. But the
destruction of libraries at the Reformation was not confined
to those of the monasteries. The original Guildhall Library,
founded by Whittington and Carpenter, was destroyed,
as were also the Library at St. Paul's Cathedral and the
predecessor of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. About
the year 1440, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, " gave to
the University of Oxford a library containing 600 volumes,
only 120 of which were valued at more than a hundred thou-
sand pounds. These books are called Novi Tractatus, or
New Treatises, in the University register, and said to be
admirandi apparatus. They were the most splendid and
costly copies that could be procured, finely written on
vellum, and elegantly embellished with miniatures and
illuminations. Among the rest was a translation into French
of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Only a single specimen of these
valuable volumes was suffered to remain ; it is a beautiful
MS. in folio of Valerius Maximus, enriched with the most
elegant decorations, and written in Duke Humphrey's age,
evidently with a design of being placed in this sumptuous
collection. All the rest of the books, which, like this, being
highly ornamented, looked like missals, and conveyed ideas
of Popish superstition, were destroyed or removed by the
pious visitors of the University in the reign of Edward
VI, whose zeal was only equalled by their avarice." a Any-
thing which was decorated apparently ranked then as
Popish superstition, which was a convenient cloak for the
pursuit of plunder.

' Cobbett, p. 130.

> The History of English Poetry; by Thomas Wharton, pp. 344-5. 1778
edition.

The Suppression of the English Monasteries 165

After the monasteries were plundered, sacked and gutted,
they were rased to the ground, and in most cases gunpowder
was employed in order to get through the job quickly. For
in granting these estates, it was in most cases stipulated that
they should be destroyed. The reason may be easily under-
stood. These wonderful Gothic buildings could not be
allowed to stand, for their continued existence would have
been a constant reminder to the people that these estates
had been plundered, while their destruction deprived them
of all hope of the old order ever being restored. The loss
of these splendid buildings, where formerly rich and poor
received hospitality on their travels, brought a feeling of
sadness to the countryside, particularly in solitary and
mountainous districts — a sadness which was not diminished
when the manor-houses of Elizabeth and James I were
built out of their ruins. The only comfort there is in this
terrible story is the knowledge that Cromwell, after he had
plundered, pillaged and devastated England, was sent to
the block by Henry, who had then no further use for him.
But Henry, the chief instigator of these crimes, got off
scot-free.

It has often been urged that the monastic orders could
not have occupied the same place in the popular affections
as they had done at an earlier date, or Henry would not have
found it possible to suppress them. The answer is that
on a straight issue they could never have been suppressed.
The people would everywhere have risen in their defence.
But Henry was too cunning to create such an issue. He
allowed important people to share in the plunder, disarmed
opposition by promises of putting their funds to a better
use, and quelled rebellions by making promises that he had
never any intention of fulfilling. Thus by trickery he
prevented united action being taken against him. The
suppression of the monasteries was for the people a loss
of the first magnitude, as the following interesting picture
of monastic estates at the time bears witness : —

" There was no person that came to them heavy or sad
for any cause that went away comfortless ; they never
revenged them of any injury, but were content to forgive
it freely upon submission, and if the price of corn had begun

166 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

to start up in the market they made thereunto with wain
load of corn, and sold it under the market to poor people,
to the end to bring down the price thereof. If the highways,
bridges, or causeways were tedious to the passengers that
sought their living by their travel, their great help lacked
not towards the repairing and amending thereof — yea, often-
times they amended them on their own proper charges.

" If any poor householder lacked seed to sow his land,
or bread, corn, or malt before harvest, and came to a monas-
tery either of men or women, he should not have gone
away without help ; for he should have had it until harvest,
that he might easily have paid it again. Yea, if he had
made his moan for an ox, horse, or cow, he might have had
it upon his credit, and such was the good conscience of the
borrowers in those days that the thing borrowed needed
not to have been asked at the day of payment.

" They never raised their rent, or took any income or
garsomes (fines) of their tenants, nor ever broke in or
improved any commons, although the most part and the
greatest waste grounds belonged to their possessions.

" If any poor people had made their moan at the day
of marriage to any abbey, they should have had money
given to their great help. And thus all sorts of people
were helped and succoured by abbeys ; yea, happy was
that person that was tenant to an abbey, for it was a rare
thing to hear that any tenant was removed by taking his
farm over his head, nor he was not afraid of any re-entry
for non-payment of rent, if necessity drove him thereonto.
And thus they fulfilled the works of charity in all the country
round about them, to the good example of all lay persons
that now have taken forth other lessons, that is, nunc
tempus alios postulat mores." x

When these estates passed into the hands of the land-
lords they speedily raised the rents and enclosed the commons.
In other cases the peasantry were simply turned out of their
holdings in order that sheep-farming might be substituted

» Cole MSS. (British Museum). XII, fol. 5, " The Fall of Religious
Houses." The author resided near Roche Abbey in Yorkshire, and had
bought some goods sold out of a church by Edward's commission. (Quoted
from Cunningham, pp. 472-3.)

The Suppression of the English Monasteries 167

for tillage. " It seems," observes Cunningham, " that
the lords had the peasantry entirely in their own power,
and that, since they were technically liable for incidents of
the nominal servitude, into which they had returned since
the failure of 1381, their lands were forfeited in law if not
in equity." r It may be said that these changes created
the problem of poverty. For though there was some poverty
in the Middle Ages, the monasteries must on the whole
have relieved it, for one of the charges brought against them
is that they were too indiscriminate in their charity and
that many beggars had become dependent on them. It is
not necessary to deny the truth of such statements, but
to point out that if the monasteries supported beggars they
were created by the landlords who, with the help of the
Roman lawyers, had dispossessed the peasants and turned
them adrift because sheep-farming was more profitable than
tillage. Are the monasteries to be condemned for having
succoured those whom the landlords had rendered homeless ?
After the suppression, the poor were deprived at one fell
swoop of alms, shelter and schooling. The consequence
was that great numbers, left entirely destitute of the means
of existence, took to begging and thieving. Henry VIII
is said to have put 72,000 thieves to death. Elizabeth
complained bitterly that she could not get the laws enforced
against them. " Such was the degree of beggary, of vaga-
bondage, and of thievishness and robbery, that she resorted
particularly in London and its neighbourhood to martial
law." But it was all of no avail. The people had been
rendered destitute, and there were only two possible policies
for dealing with them if economic injustices were to be
maintained — extermination or legal pauperism. Shrinking
from the former, resort at last was made to the latter,
and some general permanent and solid provision was made
for them. In the forty-third year of her reign there was
passed the measure which we know to-day as the Elizabethan
Poor Law, from which our Poor Law derives.

It was not only in the realm of charity and hospitality
that the monasteries were missed. It was customary for
them to maintain highways and dykes, to build bridges

1 Cunningham, p. 475.

168 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

and seawalls and other such things for the commonwealth.
Many arts that had been brought to a high state of perfection
in the monasteries were paralysed or migrated to the towns.
Sculpture, embroidery, clock-making and bell-founding were
almost entirely monastic arts. The monks had been the
chroniclers and transcribers of manuscripts in the Middle
Ages, and were among the first to set up printing presses.
It is true that monasticism had for long been on the decline,
but the monasteries had come to perform all kinds of functions
which were no part of their original purpose. The conse-
quence was that their violent suppression disorganized
the social and economic life in the community in many
directions. Their disappearance left a gap in the educational
system of the country which the reforms of the nineteenth
century have attempted in vain to fill, for the education of
the people was largely in the hands of the monastic establish-
ments ; what was not in their hands was in those of the
chantry priests, who were generally the local schoolmasters.
So it came about that when in the reign of Edward VI
the chantries were also suppressed, all provision for educa-
tion practically came to an end. The reason why so many
educational endowments date from the reign of Edward VI
is not to be found in the surmise that as a consequence of
the Revival of Learning and the Reformation a sudden
desire for enlightenment came over society, but to the fact
that when the monasteries were suppressed certain people,
feeling the gap which had been made in society, left money
for such foundations. The destruction of the monastic
system of elementary education reacted to undermine the
position of the universities, which nearly disappeared ; for
the monasteries not only provided probationers for them
but maintained many there to complete their education.
In the thirteenth century, it is said, there were 30,000 *
students at Oxford, but to such an extent did university
studies decay that " in the six years from 1542 to 1548 only
191 students were admitted bachelor of arts at Cambridge
and only 173 at Oxford." 2 When the revival of the

1 This number is given in Dr. Reinhold Pauli's Pictures of Old England.
Perhaps 3,000 would be nearer the truth.

3 Cambridge Modern History, vol. ii. p. 468.

The Suppression of the English Monasteries 169

universities did take place, their character was completely
changed. They were no longer the democratic institutions
of the Middle Ages, but finishing-schools for the rich.

Educationalists might do worse than study the Mediaeval
and monastic system of education, for it obviated one of
the most glaring defects of the present system — the gulf
between elementary and higher education. This it did by
a system of local autonomy, which made every elementary
school part of an institution which was primarily interested
in the pursuit of learning. In consequence of this there
were no elementary school teachers existing as a class apart,
cut off from the main currents of intellectual life, whose
individuality was strangled by the requirements of a code.
On the contrary, the whole system was free and humane,
while it was organic from the top to the bottom ; and this
was possible because the Medievalists were not interested
in an abstraction called " education," but in certain definite
things which they were anxious to teach. The problem
of improvising machinery is so simple when you know
what you want it to do, and so perplexing when you don't.

CHAPTER XII
THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND

THOUGH as an explanation of the whole course of history
the materialist conception is demonstrably false — since,
among other things, it fails to offer any explanation why
capitalism, after dominating Pagan civilization, was brought
under control during the Mediaeval period — it becomes more
plausible from the Reformation onwards when the material
factor increasingly tends to determine social development.
Before the Reformation, landlordism and capitalism had,
owing to the sinister influence of Roman Law, got a foot-
hold in society ; but landlords and capitalists did not have
things entirely their own way, for the Church and Crown
were still sufficiently powerful to exercise a restraining influ-
ence. But after the suppression of the monasteries, the
old order received a blow from which it never recovered.
The monastic lands, at least a fifth of the wealth of the
country, were transferred to the great landowners, and
this transference tipped the scale entirely in their favour
as against the peasantry.1 Landlordism and capitalism
were now triumphant, and with the change the economic
equilibrium of society was upset. This in turn reacted to
upset the religious and political equilibrium. The history
of English politics from now onwards is to be interpreted
in the light of these central facts. Henceforth, policy
wavers between efforts to restore the equilibrium of society
by seeking a return to the past — the direction in which
social salvation was to be found and " progress " or the
maintenance of vested interests — the policy that was even-
tually adopted.

1 The Servile State, by Hilaire Belloc, p. 69. Cunningham gives the
monastic lands as being only one-fifteenth ; whichever estimate is true, the
consequences were the same.

170

The Reformation in England 171

With the accession of Edward VI the absolutism of
Henry was relaxed. ' The late king was doomed to the
usual fate of despotic monarchs after their death ; the very
men who during his life had been the most obsequious
ministers of his will, were now the first to overturn his
favourite projects." r Though Henry had separated the Eng-
lish Church from Rome and had suppressed the monasteries,
he had not espoused the cause of Protestantism. Whether
this was from conscientious reasons, or because in his early
years having written a book in defence of the Catholic Faith,
that obstinacy and pride which were such very strong features
in his character prevented him from appearing to retract,
must be a matter of opinion. But all obstacles in the path
of the spread of the Protestant Faith were removed by his
death. Edward VI was a minor, and entirely in the hands
of his ministers, chief among whom was the Duke of
Somerset, his Protector. Somerset was a moderate man who
disliked coercion and sought to govern on a basis of civil
liberty and religious toleration. The first Parliament that
he summoned effected a complete revolution in the spirit
of the laws. The statute which at the close of Henry's
reign had given the force of law to Royal proclamations was
repealed. Nearly all the treasons created since 1352 were
swept away, many of the felonies, the Act of Six Articles by
which Henry had sought to enforce religious unity, the
laws against heresy, all the prohibitions against printing the
Scriptures in English, against reading, preaching, teaching
or expounding the Scriptures were erased from the statute-
book. The immediate consequence of it all was that the
tongues of the divines were loosed and the land was filled
with a Babel. Heretics and sectarians, Lutherans, Calvinists
and Zwinglians flocked to England, which became one great
scene of religious disputation with London as its centre,
few men knowing what or what not to believe. The more
trenchantly a preacher denounced the old doctrines, the
greater were the crowds that gathered to hear him. The
New Learning carried all before it in the large cities. This
was not because the majority of the nation desired religious
change, but because the Catholic population who had been

1 Lingard's History of England, vol. v. p. 248.

172 A Guildsman'g Interpretation of History

accustomed to leave questions of theology to be settled by
the priests found themselves at a tremendous disadvantage
when discussion on religious questions had descended to
the streets. Moreover, the issues were new, and few Catholics
knew how to answer the innovators ; and indeed this is
never quite easy. We know to-day how long it often takes
to find a satisfactory answer to some heresy on social questions.
We often know a thing is wrong and yet can't find an answer
then and there. The Catholics were at this disadvantage
at the first onslaught. New interpretations of the Scriptures
came upon them like a flood, and they were no match for the
zeal and conviction of their opponents. The only answer
they had for men who affirmed the right of private judgment
was a demand for respect for the authority of the Church,
and this was for them a very weak defence in an age when
the Church had suffered so many rude shocks.

The Catholics became very embittered. They blamed
Somerset's leniency and toleration for the Babel of opinion,
and were ready to support any movement to secure his
overthrow. The plunderers, on the contrary, had no obj ection
to such disputation. Firstly, because it diverted attention
from them and their doings ; and secondly, because if it went
far enough it would make reunion with Rome impossible,
which was to their liking. For, they reasoned, if they were
to keep possession of their stolen property England must
be separated from Rome irrevocably. Hence the cry of
" No Popery " which figures so much in all accounts of the
Reformation. It was the watchword of the plunderers, since
popery for them meant restitution.

But while the plunderers were in accord with Somerset's
policy of religious toleration, they strongly objected to his
attitude towards the agrarian troubles that were brewing.
Though he himself was one of the greatest of the plunderers,
having managed to get into his possession over two hundred
manors, he nevertheless did not stand in with the others
in their refusal of any justice to' the peasants. He was in
fact a curious mixture of the spirit of the old and the new
orders. While apparently he thought it right to get hold
of as much property as he could lay his hands on, for his
rapacity knew no bounds, on the other hand he had a firm

The Reformation in England 178

conviction that the ownership of property carried with it
certain responsibilities, and he actually got a private Act
of Parliament passed to give his tenants security of their
tenure. It was his known sympathy with the cause of the
peasants that brought the agrarian crisis to a head, giving
rise to the Peasants' Revolt of 1549 that led to his fall.

Though the agrarian problem had been intensified by
the suppression of the monasteries, it did not begin with it
but dates from the thirteenth century when the Roman
lawyers transformed the feudal lord, who was a functionary
administering communal land, into a landlord whose pos-
session of the land was absolute. From that time onwards
land began to be bought and sold, and the peasants lost that
practical security which they had enjoyed under the old
Feudal System. The extension of commerce gave rise to
a moneyed class which established itself on the land and
gradually gained admission into governing circles. To
these new landlords the feudal idea of reciprocal rights and
duties was altogether foreign. They had bought the land,
they regarded it primarily as an investment, and sought
to apply to it the same principles that they had practised
in trade, making it yield the utmost possible return for
their capital. It was not long before they discovered that
owing to the high price of English wool, for which there was
a great market in the Netherlands, the land could be made
to yield much more if employed for sheep-farming instead
of tillage. It is said that by effecting this change a landlord
could double his income. But sheep-farming required larger
holdings and less labour. Hence it became the custom for
these new landlords to exercise their manorial rights to the
full by enclosing the common lands ; to buy up several
holdings and turn them into one. The old homesteads were
left to decay, and their former tenants became either vaga-
bonds or landless labourers.1 Another means whereby these

1 " If economic causes made a new system of farming profitable, it is
not the less true that legal causes decided by whom the profits should be
enjoyed. We have already pointed out that many customary tenants
practised sheep-farming upon a considerable scale, and it is not easy to
discover any economic reason why the cheap wool required for the develop-
ment of cloth manufacturing industry should not have been supplied by the
very peasants in whose cottages it was carded and spun and woven. The

174 A GuildsmarCs Interpretation of History

new landlords sought to get greater return for their capital
was to raise the rents of their tenants. This departure from
custom and tradition was a thing the old feudal lords would
never have thought of doing, and it was felt to be a stab in
the back. The consequence of all these innovations was
to pauperize a large section of the community. Great
numbers became dependents of the monasteries which had
come to the rescue of these homeless men ; when the monas-
teries were suppressed they were left entirely destitute.
The new proprietors of the Church lands accepted no respon-
sibility for them. In consequence they wandered about
begging and stealing, and in other ways became a source
of danger to the rest of the community.

The growth of this evil had not been allowed to pass
unnoticed. Before the monasteries were suppressed Sir
Thomas More had written about the evils following upon
enclosures and sheep-farming. " Sheep are eating men,"
a phrase which he used in his Utopia, has become classical.
In 1517 Cardinal Wolsey made vigorous efforts to stop
enclosures, but without success. The cause of the peasants
had also been advocated by others in high places during the
reign of Henry VIII, but he was too busy getting himself
divorced to trouble about the condition of the peasants ;
while the suppression of the monasteries, to which in the
end he found himself committed if he was to be acknowledged
as the head of the Church in England, not only enormously
increased the evil but the resistance which he encountered
from the old order led him to the creation of a new aristocracy,
which differed from the old one to the extent that it did not
arise to exercise a public function but to act as an instrument
of oppression, and as such it identified the idea of govern-
ment with oppression. It is not true, as Marxians maintain,
that the history of all hitherto existing society has been the

decisive factor, this method of meeting the new situation created by
the spread of pasture farming, was the fact that the tenure of the vast
majority of small cultivators left them free to be squeezed out by exorbitant
fines, and to be evicted when the lives for which most of them held their
copies came to an end. It was their misfortune that the protection given
by the courts to copyholders did not extend to more than the enforcement
of existing manorial customs " (The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth
Century, by R. H. Tawney, p. 407).

The Reformation in England 175

history of class struggles. It was not true of the Middle
Ages until the revival of Roman Law began to corrupt
Mediaeval society, but it became entirely true after Henry
VIII created his plunder-loving aristocracy. But while
this generalization applies to the governing class as a whole,
there have at all times been a number of highly placed men
who were exceptions to this rule and sided with the people.
It is of vital importance to any proper understanding of the
social problem that this fact should be recognized, for the
Marxian interpretation of history not only operates to unite
the enemy and to bring division into the reformers' camp,
but by creating a prejudice against normal forms of social
organizations tends to thwart all efforts to reconstruct society
on a democratic basis by diverting the energies of the people
into false channels.

Somerset, as we saw, was one of these men. His known
sympathy with the peasants brought the question to the
front. He had denounced the misdeeds of this new aristo-
cracy with more warmth than prudence, and a party which
came to be known as the " Commonwealth's men." had come
into existence. Discourses on the Commonweal by John
Hales, its most active and earnest member, is one of the most
informing documents of the age. The failure of Parliament
to give satisfaction gave rise to agrarian disturbances in
Hertfordshire in the spring of 1548. The Protector took
advantage of the occasion to appoint a commission to enquire
into enclosures. Though Hales and other reformers were
members of it, the opposition of the new aristocracy was
such as to reduce it to impotence. Hales had obtained from
the Protector a general pardon for those who had made
illegal enclosures presented by the commission. But this
did not lessen the determination of their opposition. They
set themselves resolutely to defeat its ends. They packed
the juries with their own servants and threatened to evict
any tenants who gave evidence against them. They even
went so far as to have them indicted at the assizes. The
consequence of such high-handed procedure was that in the
spring of 1549 there was a general uprising of the peasantry.
Commencing in Somersetshire, it spread to Cornwall and
Devonshire, to Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Dorsetshire, Hamp-

176 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

shire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Norfolk and
Suffolk. In the west changes of religion were made the
pretext of the rising. But in Norfolk no such pretext was
made. The rebels demanded satisfaction for their economic
grievances. For a time it was feared that the revolt might
develop into a general rising like the Peasants' War in Ger-
many, and the new aristocracy was genuinely alarmed. In
general, however, the rebels acted without concert and without
leaders ; but in the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and
Norfolk and Suffolk, the risings assumed a more threatening
aspect. Armies were formed which threatened the Govern-
ment and would probably have succeeded, but for the fact
that England was at the time at war with France, and the
Government was able to use Italian, Spanish and German
mercenaries which had been raised for service in France.
The rebels were defeated in the west by Lord Russell and in
the east by the Earl of Warwick. The Protector found
himself in an awkward position. His sympathy with the
insurgents had weakened his action, while his readiness to
screen and pardon offenders exasperated his colleagues.
It brought to a head the dissatisfaction with his policy.
He was charged with stirring up class hatred and with
unwillingness to take drastic action against the insurgents,
and the Catholics united with the plunderers to overthrow
him. The movement was successful, and the Earl of Warwick,
who had now become the idol of the new aristocracy, became
Protector, with the title of the Duke of Northumberland.

Reaction now set in. The masses had risen against the
classes, and the classes resolved to retaliate. " Parliament
met in a spirit of exasperation and revenge, and it went back
not only upon the radical proposals of Somerset, but also
upon the whole tenor of Tudor land legislation. Enclosures
had been forbidden again and again ; they were now expressly
declared to be legal ; and Parliament enacted that lords of
the manor might ' approve themselves of their wastes, woods,
and pastures notwithstanding the gainsaying and contra-
diction of their tenants.' In order that the process might
be without let or hindrance it was made treason for forty,
and felony for twelve, persons to meet for the purpose of
breaking down any enclosure or enforcing any right of way ;

The Reformation in England 177

to summon such an assembly or incite to such an act was also
felony ; and any copyholder refusing to help in repressing
it forfeited his copyhold for life. The same penalty was
attached to hunting in any enclosure and to assembling
with the object of abating rents or the price of corn ; but
the prohibition against capitalists conspiring to raise prices
was repealed, and so were the taxes which Somerset had
imposed on sheep and woollen cloths." *

That the reaction should have assumed this form appears
to have taken the Catholics entirely by surprise. They had
assisted the plunderers to overthrow Somerset, not because
they were unsympathetic to the cause of the peasants but
because of the encouragement he had given to heretics and
sectarians, and with the idea, apparently, that his overthrow
would be followed by a return to the Catholic worship.
What they failed entirely to understand was that Protestant-
ism was acceptable to the new aristocracy because it made
their plunder secure. They failed to perceive that capitalism
was a much more deadly enemy than Protestantism of the
Catholic Faith, and that finally Protestantism was nothing
less than capitalism camouflaged. That they should have
failed to perceive this to the extent of being willing to support
the plunderers to overthrow Somerset, proves conclusively
not only that they misgauged the temper of the new aristo-
cracy but that they had themselves lost sight of the communal
basis of Christianity. It is, I believe, to this fact that the
defeat of the Catholic Church at the Reformation is finally
to be attributed, for it led it into every imaginable political
error. If the Church had kept the communal aim of Christian-
ity clearly to the forefront of its mind, it would have reverted
to the policy which it pursued in the early Middle Ages
of supporting the peasants against the secular authorities.
It was because the Church did this that it was feared by
the secular powers, and it remained powerful so long as this
aim was steadily kept in view. But when at a later date
and as a consequence of the revival of Roman Law the secular
powers became more powerful, the Church made the fatal
mistake of seeking to combat the growing spirit of material-
ism, not by a reafhrmation of the communal basis of Chris-

1 Cambridge Modern History, vol. ii. p. 497.

12

178 A Guildsman'a Interpretation of History

tianity, but by an ever-increasing insistence upon the
principle of authority, of obedience to the Church. And this
proved to be fatal by confusing the issues. For the real
issue was finally not whether the Church or the State was
to be uppermost, but whether the communal basis of society
was to be maintained. Yet, strange to say, though this was
the real issue at the back of all the quarrels between Church
and State, it never emerged into the light of day. The quarrel
had begun in the form of a challenge of the power of the
Pope by the Emperor, and so it remained to the end. The
real issue was lost sight of, and because it was lost sight of
the Church lost the power of popular appeal, and so finally
was reduced to attempts to maintain its position by intrigue.
Because the Church gave emphasis to the authoritarian
rather than the communal aspect of Christianity it sought
after the Reformation to prop itself up by alliance with the
temporal powers, and in order to secure such alliances found
itself obliged to support the exploiters against the peasants,
and so it came about that while the Church succeeded in
reforming itself at the counter-Reformation it still finds
it difficult to live down the suspicions associated with this
policy. So often to appearances has it sided with capitalism
that democrats fear that to submit to the authority of the
Church would be to submit to capitalism. The alliance of
the Roman Church with capitalism in Spain to-day is evidence
that this fear is not altogether unfounded. Socialists who
have no prejudice against Catholicism as such, who realize
that during the Middle Ages it was the sustainer of the
communal life, do feel that though the Church may sympathize
with the workers it must remain powerless to help them so
long as it is anxious to secure the support of the temporal
powers, for under such circumstances when vital issues are
at stake the Church becomes a house divided against itself.
" He that would save his life must lose it " is a moral prin-
ciple that has a lesson for the Church as much as for the
individual.

To return to our subject. It was not long before the
Catholics were made to suffer for their mistaken policy.
The motto of the plunderers was : Divide and conquer.
Having with the assistance of the Catholics succeeded in

The Reformation in England 179

defeating the peasantry, the plunderers then began to perse-
cute the Catholics. The first Act of Uniformity, passed
early in Edward's reign, was now enforced against clerical
offenders. Its object had been to secure uniformity in
Church services by means of a compromise, which all might
be persuaded or compelled to observe. A little later a
second Act of Uniformity was passed which extended the
scope of religious persecution by imposing penalties for
recusancy upon laymen. They were required to attend
Common Prayer on Sundays and holidays. If they were
absent they were to be subject to ecclesiastical censures
and excommunication ; if they attended any but the
authorized form of worship, they were liable to six months'
imprisonment for the first offence, a year's imprisonment
for the second, and lifelong imprisonment for the third.
An incidental object of these reforms was perhaps to relieve
the financial embarrassment of the Government by the
seizure of a large quantity of Church property which became
superfluous by the extensive reduction of ritual which this
Act effected, but its main object was perhaps to prevent the
growth of faction which was such an embarrassment to
the Government. Cranmer, who during the reign of Henry
VIII condemned people to the flames for not believing in
transubstantiation, was now ready to condemn them for
believing in it.

With the accession of Mary, the policy was reversed.
An attempt was made to return to the status quo ante. Mary
was a devout Catholic, she sought the restoration of the
Roman religion and the suppression of the Protestant sects
to which the leading reformers and plunderers belong.
Altogether, two hundred and eighty-six persons were put
to death during her reign. Some of these may have been
martyrs to their opinions, but the majority were the scoundrels
who had plundered the monasteries and who had sought
by treachery to destroy the Queen herself. In restoring
the Catholic Faith and in acting against these scoundrels
there can be little doubt that Mary's actions were popular.
Only three years before her accession, the peasants had
risen against the new aristocracy and religious innovations
in many parts of the kingdom, and the insurrection, as we

180 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

saw, had only been put down with the help of foreign mer-
cenaries. Was it not natural, therefore, that a Queen who
sought to restore the old worship and acted against a gang of
ruffians should be popular ?

It had been Mary's intention to take the stolen property
away from the plunderers and to restore it to the Church.
But this was no easy matter, for there was scarcely a man
of any note who had not in some degree partaken of the
spoils. Moreover, the lapse of time had created a vested
interest in the new order. Though the spoils of the Church
had been originally divided between a few, they had now by
sales and bequests become divided and subdivided among
thousands, while a new economic life had come to organize
itself around the new order. Cardinal Pole, the Pope's
envoy, came at last to the conclusion that to demand the
restitution of the stolen property under conditions which
involved the compulsory surrender of the whole or a part
of its possessions by almost every family of opulence in the
kingdom was impracticable. So the Papacy decided to
leave the plunderers in the undisturbed possession of their
property, and to confine their demands to a restoration of
the Catholic Faith and worship. On these terms, the Houses
of Parliament agreed to recognize the Papal supremacy and
allowed Pole to pronounce the reconciliation of England and
the Church of Rome.

Though Mary assented to this compromise because no
alternative, except civil war, was open to her, she was
resolved to keep none of the plunder herself. She gave up
the tenth and first-fruits ; that is to say, the tenth part of
the annual worth of each Church benefice and the first year's
income of each, which hitherto had gone to the Papacy,
the Church and monastic lands, in fact, everything which
Henry had confiscated and which were in her possession.
Her intention was to apply the revenues as nearly as possible
to their former purposes, and she did, in fact, make a start
with the restoration of institutions which her predecessors
had suppressed, in the face of great opposition. She did
it against the remonstrances of her Council and of Parlia-
ment, which feared that her generous example would awaken
in the people a hatred of themselves and the desire for

The Reformation in England 181

vengeance. Not to be undone, the plunderers entered
into a conspiracy against her. Before she had been on
the throne many months a rebellion was raised. The rebels
were defeated and the leaders executed, as was the case
in a second rebellion which followed shortly afterwards.
Mary's experience seems indeed to prove that it would have
been better for her to have risked civil war against the
plunderers at the very start than to have allowed them to
keep their spoil whilst giving hers up ; since from the enmity
which she incurred by surrendering the property her father
had confiscated, arose those troubles which harassed her
during the remainder of her short reign, and which were to
some extent responsible for her early death.

Had Mary lived, it is possible that, having defeated two
rebellions and disposed of the leading conspirators, her
example might have been followed to some extent by the
nobility and gentry. But she reigned only five years, and
Elizabeth, who succeeded, undid her good work and took back
the plunder. The reasons which led Elizabeth to reverse
Mary's policy are probably to be found in a regard for her
own personal safety. For she had no religious convictions
like her sister, and her choice in favour of Protestantism
was more a matter of policy than of principle. In the first
two years of her reign she ran simultaneously two policies
— a Catholic and a Protestant one — until she could be sure
which way the wind was blowing. The arguments for and
against maintaining the Catholic worship were for her,
apart from personal considerations of safety, almost equally
divided. On the one side of her were the clergy in possession,
who stood for the Roman supremacy and were determined
not to yield, and the peasantry who favoured the Catholic
worship. On the other was the new aristocracy of plunderers,
who clearly understood that their position would not be
safe until Protestantism triumphed, and the population
of the towns which was mainly in favour of religious change.
If, therefore, she chose to continue Mary's policy, she might
have to face conspiracies and be worn out by them like her
sister. On the other hand if she espoused Protestantism
she was probably committed to a policy of religious persecu-
tion so far as the major part of the nation was concerned.

182 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Her choice was a difficult one for a person without religious
convictions, and in the circumstances it is not surprising
that she sought to make her own position secure by the
adoption of Protestantism. But there was a difficulty in
the way. Scotland was Catholic. Mary Queen of Scots,
when married to the Dauphin of France, was styled at her
court the Queen of England and used the arms of England.
So long, therefore, as Scotland remained Catholic England, if
Protestant, could not be free from attack. Elizabeth there-
fore decided to second John Knox in his efforts to win Scot-
land for the cause of Protestantism, and to supply him
with money and arms. In 1555 he returned from Geneva, to
conduct an evangelical campaign. He was a great organizer
as well as preacher, and as he went through Scotland new
Churches sprang into existence everywhere. His campaign
was followed speedily by an insurrection, for the strife
between Catholicism and Calvinism was also a strife for
the delivery of Scotland from a foreign army. The Scottish
Protestants besieged a small French force in Leith, and a
small English force Was sent to support the insurgents.
The campaign was soon over. The French force surrendered,
very few Scots openly siding with the Queen and her French
force. Scotland now became Protestant, and danger was
no longer to be apprehended from an attack by land.

The issue was now clear. Elizabeth no longer hesitated,
but threw herself into the work of consolidating her position
by forcing Protestantism on England. If the Scottish revolt
had miscarried it would have been different. In the event
of failure she had intended to marry one of the Austrian
cousins of Philip of Spain and to pursue a Catholic policy.
The English people were now irrevocably committed to
Protestantism, landlordism and capitalism, if they were
to retain their national independence. It was only by
supporting Elizabeth through thick and thin that they could
keep themselves free from foreign complications.

Elizabeth, then, had finally decided that England should
become a Protestant country. To attain this end she stuck
at nothing. In spite of all that had happened, the English
people were still mainly Catholic in their sympathies, and
rivers of blood had to flow before they could be changed.

The Reformation in England 183

" The Protestant religion," says Cobbett, " was established
by gibbets, racks, and ripping knives." A series of Acts of
Parliament were passed which by degrees put down the
Catholic worship and reintroduced the Protestant form as
it existed under Edward VI. Catholics were compelled to
attend Protestant worship under enormous penalties, and
when this failed an Act was passed compelling all persons
to take the oath of supremacy, acknowledging her instead
of the Pope supreme in spiritual matters on pain of death.
Thus were thousands of people condemned to death for no
other crime than adhering to the religion of their fathers,
the religion, in fact, in which Elizabeth herself had professed
to believe until she became queen and had turned against
it, not from conscientious motives, but from considerations
of convenience. " Elizabeth," says Cobbett, " put, in one
way or another, more persons to death in one year, for not
becoming apostates to the religion which she had sworn to
be hers, and to be the only true one, than Mary put to death
in the whole of her reign. . . . Yet the former is called or
has been called ' good Queen Bess/ and the latter ' bloody
Queen Mary.' " J

Elizabeth's successor, James I, continued her policy of
persecuting the Catholics. Before he came to the throne he
had promised to mitigate the penal laws which made their
lives a burden, but he actually made them more severe
than ever, while there came with him from Scotland a horde
of rapacious minions who preyed upon the Catholic popula-
tion, filling their pockets by extracting from them the
maximum in fines which the statutes allowed. The conse-
quence of this was the Gunpowder Plot which was organized
by a group of Catholics " to blow the Scotch beggars back
to their native mountains," as Guy Fawkes replied when
asked why he had collected so many barrels of gunpowder.

Mention has been made of the fact that the Duke of
Somerset encouraged the sectarians who flocked to England
from the Continent to preach their doctrines in order to make
the breach with Rome final and irrevocable. These sectarians
were men of the same mentality as the heretics of the Middle
Ages, that is, men who were temperamentally incapable

1 Cobbctt's History of the Protestant Reformation, p. 244.

184 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

of seeing truth as a whole, but would fasten themselves upon
one aspect of it which they insisted upon in a spirit of narrow
fanaticism to the neglect and denial of all other aspects of
truth. At all times men of this type are a danger to society,
and in the Middle Ages they were kept v.rell in hand. But
after the Reformation, when the Bible was translated, and
copies of it multiplied by the thousand by the printing press,
recently invented, these men got their chance. They chal-
lenged the Catholic tradition upon which the Roman Church
had based its authority with the authority of the Bible,
upon which without note or comment they took their stand.
As every one now began to interpret it in his own way, it
led to the growth ot innumerable sects who poisoned the
minds of nearly the whole community. " Hence all sorts
of monstrous crimes. At Dover a woman cut off the head
of her child, alleging that, like Abraham, she had had a
particular command from God. A woman was executed
at York for crucifying her mother ; she had, at the same
time, sacrificed a calf and a cock. These are only a few
amongst the horrors of that ' thorough godly Reformation.'
We read of killings in the Bible ; and if every man is to be
his own interpreter of that book, who is to say that he acts
contrary to his own interpretation ? " s This is what making
truth subjective comes to in the sphere of religion. Only
the affirmation that truth is objective can make the common
sense of men prevail.

Out of the medley of conflicting beliefs and opinions there
gradually emerged the Puritan Movement, which became
such a formidable power in the reign of Charles I. Its
members were not bound together by a community of beliefs
but by a community of disbeliefs. They were united in
their hatred of all ritual and ceremonies, and in a longing for
liberty of conscience for all who subscribed to the " No
Popery " cry, but not for such as thought otherwise. This
new religious development is in one sense perhaps to be
ascribed to the separation of religion from the practical
affairs of life which made it a personal rather than a social
consideration. The Catholic and Mediaeval idea had been
that of salvation by faith and good works, but with the rise

' Corbett's History of the the Protestant Reformation, p. 303.

The Reformation in England 185

of Protestantism there came the idea of salvation by faith
alone. This idea, which found a ready support among
the commercial class who desired to be at liberty to determine
their own standards of morality in respect to their trade-
relationships, changed entirely the meaning of the idea
of salvation by faith. From being considered as a means
to an end — the end being good works — faith came to be
regarded as the end in itself. And with this change, religious
faith lost its social significance. Instead of implying the
acceptance of certain moral, objective and revealed truths
which experience had proved to be necessary for the proper
ordering of society, it came to imply the acceptance of certain
peculiar views as to the personal nature of God. Religion
became a matter of keeping on the right side of God, whom
the Puritans interpreted as a narrow-minded, jealously dis-
posed person, much inferior to the average human being.
Hence the endless religious discussions to decide the best
method of propitiating the Deity, which naturally came about
when religion lost its original aim of seeking the establish-
ment of the Kingdom of God upon Earth and concerned itself
with the less dignified aim of saving the individual soul
from eternal damnation.

Charles I, who came to the throne on the death of his
father in 1625, came into violent collision with this new
power. He was one of the most moral and religious men
who ever wore a crown ; but his autocratic methods made
him the last person in the world to deal with the Puritans.
Many were the grounds of quarrel between him and his
Parliament and people, but the great ground was that of
religion. So far as the people were concerned, the quarrel
was genuine. They were Protestants and Puritans by
conviction, and they looked with suspicion upon Charles,
who had married a Catholic wife and was therefore suspected
of designs to restore the Catholic worship. His action in
repealing the Sunday Observance Laws was taken as evidence
of such intention. But with the Parliament the trouble
was different. The landlords of whom it was composed had
grievances of their own. Under the two preceding reigns
they had been accustomed to have things very much their
own way, and they resented Charles's attempts to curb their

186 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

power. Realizing the troubles which arise from absenteeism,
he requested the landowners to live on their estates instead
of spending their time in London. He appointed a Com-
mission— " to inquire touching Depopulations and conversions
of Lands to Pasture " — an evil which was destroying rural
life and pressed hard upon the poorer inhabitants. Charles
was determined to put a stop to this scandal and imposed
heavy fines upon delinquents. Sir Anthony Roper was
fined no less than £30,000 for committing Depopulations.
Further, Charles so arranged matters that the weight of
taxation fell entirely upon the trading and wealthy class,
and for this he was not forgiven. Parliament resolved
to checkmate him. Government was impossible without
supplies, and they refused to vote him any. Charles answered
them by seeking to impose taxation without their consent.
Here was a clear issue about which they could fight with
some prospect of securing popular support. They raised
the cry of arbitrary government. That this arbitrary power
was exercised in the interests of the people against the land-
lords did not prevent the cry from catching on, for when
people put their faith in means rather than ends they can
be easily misled. The landlords artfully connected their
own political grievances, the exact nature of which they
concealed from the people, with the Puritan demand for
religious liberty, whatever that may have meant. *' If
it were not for their reiterated cry about religion," said
Hampden, " they would never be sure of keeping the people
on their side." x It was by such means that Parliament
secured the support of London, which was the centre of
Puritanism and which played such a decisive part in the
Civil War. The end was as we all know. Charles was
defeated, and eventually executed. The landlords triumphed,
and Parliament rewarded the people for their support by
transferring to their shoulders the burden of taxation which
was taken off land and profits on trade and put upon food.
It was thus that the foundations of English " liberty "
were laid upon a firm and democratic basis, and taxation
broadened.

» Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I, by Isaac Disraeli,
pp. 330-1, vol i., quoted in Ludovici's Defence of Aristocracy.

The Reformation in England 187

Since the defeat of Charles, no monarch or statesman
has seriously attempted to put a boundary to the depreda-
tions of landlordism and capitalism. In his Defence of
Aristocracy l Mr. Ludovici has exalted Charles as a national
hero who led a forlorn hope against the stronghold of capi-
talism and landlordism under which England still groans.
Though he glosses over the weaker side of Charles's character,
he certainly makes a very strong case out for him which leaves
little doubt in one's mind that Charles did try to govern
England in the interests of the people rather than in that of
the landlords and capitalists ; and, moreover, that it was
because he made this valiant attempt that he eventually came
to grief. So much we are willing to grant. But Mr. Ludovici
goes further, and seeks to make of his example a case for
the revival of aristocracy, forgetting, apparently, that the
evil influences against which Charles fought in vain were
largely the creation of another aristocrat, Henry VIII,
and that while it can be shown that individual aristocrats
have placed the public interest before their own, it is not true
of any aristocracy considered as a class since the revival
of Roman Law.

With the reasons which have led Mr. Ludovici and others
to advocate a revival of aristocracy I have every sympathy.
Like him, I realize the practical difficulty of initiating
measures for the public good, apart from a recognition of
the principle of authority. From one point of view the
problem confronting modern society is that of the re-establish-
ment of authority. But I contend that this difficulty is
not to be met by any attempted revival of aristocracy,
because the authority of which we stand in need is not
primarily the authority of persons, but of ideas or things
as Mr. de Maeztu terms them. The authority of the aristo-
crat presupposes the existence of certain common standards
of thought and action throughout the community ; and if
these are non-existent, as is the case to-day, it is vain to seek
a remedy in the authority of persons. The thing to do is
to seek the re-creation of the intellectual unity of a common
culture by bringing ideas and values into a true relationship
with each other. In proportion as this end can be attained

1 A Defence of Aristocracy, by Anthony M. Ludovici (Constable & Co.).

188 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

authority will reappear in society, for ideas tend to become
authoritative once they are accepted. When this is secured,
the difficulties which make Mr. Ludovici yearn for a revival
of aristocracy will have disappeared. Democracy and
authority will no longer present themselves as mutually
exclusive principles, but as complementary ones.

CHAPTER XIII
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

"Ix is no idle Hibernianism," says Mr. Chesterton, " to
say that towards the end of the eighteenth century the
most important event in English history happened in France.
It would seem still more perverse, yet it would be still more
precise, to say that the most important event in English
history was the event that never happened at all — the
English Revolution on the lines of the French Revolution." x
That such a revolution did not materialize in England
was not due to any lack of ardour on the part of those who
would have brought it about, but to the fact that the English
governing classes and the rising manufacturing class, land-
lords, churchmen, judges, and manufacturers, stood firmly
together in order to save themselves from the fate which
had overtaken the privileged classes in France. By such
means they postponed the crisis which threatened England
towards the end of the eighteenth century, until the develop-
ment of railway building came to their rescue by effecting
a general revival of trade, and, within certain limits, a redis-
tribution of the wealth of the community.

The fact that the experiment in Revolution, to which
all Western European countries were moving towards the
end of the eighteenth century, was tried in France is
to be attributed to the writings of Rousseau. " But
for Rousseau," said Napoleon, " there would have been
no Revolution," a conclusion which it is difficult to avoid,
for it was Rousseau who formulated the ideas which exercised
such a profound influence on the course of the Revolution.
Apart from Rousseau, great social, political, and economic
changes would have taken place ; for the contrasts between

1 The Victorian Age in Literature, by G. K. Chesterton.

189

190 A G-uildsmarfs Interpretation of History

wealth and poverty had become so great, famine so prevalent,
and the monarchical system of government so unworkable
that something had to be done. But there is strong evidence
to support the idea that if Rousseau and the intellectuals
associated with him had not inflamed the imagination of
the French people with impossible dreams, the change
would not have taken the direction it did. It would have
moved towards a revival of Mediaeval institutions, for though
it so happened that such Mediaeval institutions as had survived
to their day had been corrupted by Roman Law, the Mediaeval
tradition among the peasants was still strong, as evidenced
by the fact that in the years following the American War,
when systematic and widespread agitations broke out in
many parts of France, notably in the East, against the
dearness of food, the peasants, acting on their own initiative,
sought a solution of the problem by a revival of the central
economic idea of the Middle Ages — the idea of the Just
Price. The rebel bands would compel those who had
brought corn to market to sell it at a Just Price, or else they
seized the corn and divided it among themselves at a Just
Price.1 This fact alone is of the greatest significance ;
its importance cannot be exaggerated, for it indicates clearly
the direction in which a solution would have been sought
had not the influence of Rousseau and the intellectuals of
his generation operated to confuse the issue by the populariza-
tion of ideas which were antipathetic to the political and
economic philosophy of the Middle Ages.

The social, political and economic crisis which precipitated
the Revolution was accompanied by a paralysis of the body
politic. The Revolution came because the machinery of
government would work no longer. This state of things had
been brought into existence by Louis XIV, whose policy it had
been to concentrate all power in the Crown. Early in his reign
he had sought to exclude the nobility from the chief posts in
the Government. This led to the revolt of the aristocracy
known as the Fronde, which he succeeded in quelling ;
after which he summoned the nobles to his court, where he
undermined what independence they still retained by cor-
rupting them with favours and pleasures. He overcame the

1 Cf. The Great French Revolution, by P. A. Kropotkin, p. 40.

T)te French Revolution 191

resistance of Parliament to his encroachments by haughtily
imposing upon it a silence and submission of sixty years'
duration. Having by such means succeeded in destroying
the independence of all who might offer resistance to his
authority, he directed his immense power internally against
the Protestants and externally in pursuing an aggressive
policy against Germany and the Netherlands. For a time
success seemed to follow him everywhere. Internal dissatis-
faction with his policy was drowned in songs of victory.
But at length the tide turned, the men of genius died, the
victories ceased, industry emigrated with the Protestants
who fled from the country, and money became scarcer and
scarcer. Indeed, before his death Louis began to find, as
other despots have found, that the successes of despotism
exhaust its resources and mortgage its future.

The death of Louis was the signal of reaction ; there
was a sudden transition from intolerance to incredulity,
from the spirit of servility to that of discussion and assertion.
From then onwards, all through the eighteenth century,
the disintegration of society increased daily while the Govern-
ment fell into the hands of royal mistresses. Opposition
increased. The Third Estate, which possessed scarcely a
third of the land and was burdened with feudal rents to the
lords of the manor, tithes to the clergy and taxes to the king,
without enjoying any corresponding political rights and
privileges, became more and more opposed to the nobility
who were exempt from taxation arid to the wealthy clergy
who swallowed the rich revenues of the bishoprics and abbeys.
Though they were divided among themselves, they were united
in their desire to remove such inequality of burdens, while
they bitterly resented the contempt with which they were
treated by the upper classes. As time wore on they became
more and more united and increased in strength, wealth
and intelligence, until, finally, they successfully revolted.
Meanwhile, the finances got into a more and more difficult
condition, bringing about, finally, the state of things that in
the reign of Louis XVI led to the summoning of the States-
General which in turn led immediately to revolution.

Such was the problem which was developing when
Rousseau made his appearance. There was little or no

192 A Guildsntan's Interpretation of History

understanding of the nature of the problem with which
France was then perplexed ; but there was strong and justifi-
able resentment at certain obvious and concrete evils. It
was apparent that the concentration of absolute power in
the hands of the monarchy was an evil of the first magnitude,
while it was apparent that the survival of feudal rights —
of privileges without corresponding responsibilities — was
not merely an anachronism that needed to be abolished,
but that it imposed a crushing burden upon the poor, who
were called upon to support the system. Had Rousseau
been familiar with the historical growth of this problem he
would have known that the concentration of power in the
hands of the monarchy and the corruption of Feudalism
were alike due to the influence of Roman Law, and that the
solution of the problem demanded, among other things, its
supersession by the Mediaeval Law which it had replaced.
But not only was Rousseau unaware of the extent to which
the evils of society were to be traced back to the revival of
Roman Law but, like most, if not all, of his contemporaries,
he had a great admiration for it. He was a child of the
Renaissance, and as such was an admirer of the institutions
of Greece and Rome, of which, like the scholars who idealized
them, he was altogether uncritical. He was apparently
unaware that the civilizations of both Greece and Rome
had been undermined by the unregulated use of currency,
and that the problem of its regulation which had eluded
the statesmen of Greece had found a solution in the Guilds
of the Middle Ages, which had been rendered economically
possible by the triumph of Christianity. On the contrary,
not understanding that Paganism had proved itself to be
morally weak, he ascribed its decline to the spread of Christian
doctrines, which he considered had undermined the antique
virtues. He was ignorant of the fact that Christianity had
triumphed because it was a moral tonic capable of bracing
up the fibre of decadent civilizations. He had been pre-
judiced against Christianity in the days of his youth because,
brought up in Geneva, he had only known the Calvinist
version of it ; and being interested in the things of this
world, while Calvinism was only interested in the things
of the next, he jumped to the conclusion that if ever society

The French Revolution 198

was to be regenerated it would be necessary to abolish
Christianity in favour of a revival of Paganism.

It is in this light that the Social Contract, which lit the
flames of the Revolution, should be studied. Rousseau's
ideas on civil religion do not appear until the last chapter,
but they provide the key to his whole position. In order
to understand Rousseau, it is necessary to read him back-
wards. The immediate problem with which he was con-
cerned and which made him favour a Pagan form of worship
was his desire to see an identity between Church and State,
which he recognized did not exist in Christian societies !
That such a union might not be desirable, that its disadvan-
tages might outweigh the advantages, never for a moment
occurred to him. So obsessed was he with the idea of unity
that he never saw that religion and politics, when real,
never were and never can be the same thing. Hence it was
that in his search for unity he fused the categories of religious
and political thought. It would be more strictly true to
say that he confused them, for clear thinking demands
that they should remain in their separate categories. While
religion concerns itself with the ideal, politics must concern
itself with the real if it is to give practical results. Hitherto
this difference of function had been clearly recognized.
In the normal society as it existed in the Middle Ages it was
clearly recognized that while it was the function of the Church
to make good men, it was the function of government to
build them into the social structure. Moreover, it was
recognized that the success of the legislator was ultimately
dependent upon the success of the priest. The maintenance
of the Just Price presupposes the existence of just men,
and no one in the Middle Ages ever entertained the contrary
idea that the arrival of an ideal social system could precede
the arrival of ideal men. But when, after the Renaissance,
scepticism in regard to religion invaded the intellectual
world and capitalism triumphed and privileges were abused,
men of religious temperament, instead of entering the Church
as they would have done in the Middle Ages, remained outside
and turned to political speculation. The consequence of this
was that they infused the sphere of politics with the idealism
which is proper to religion, but which can have no place in

13

194 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

politics because politics must concern itself with men as
they are and not with men as they might be. In this mood
Rousseau, realizing that certain evils which he saw around
him were attributable to bad government, and wishing to
see them remedied, turned from speculating on ways and
means of remedying these abuses to speculation on the form
which an ideal State should take. But instead of setting to
work in the way Mediaevalists would have done — to consider,
firstly, how to produce good men, and then to determine
what form of government would be best suited for giving
the best results from the material so produced — good, bad,
and indifferent — Rousseau began by first thinking out how
the ideal State should be constituted, and then turned to
consider how men might be disciplined in order that his
ideal State could be maintained in its integrity. This
inversion of the natural order of thought runs all through
the Social Contract, and it was this that led to the tyrannies
and violence of the Revolution. For while religion seeks
to discipline man by an appeal to his heart and conscience,
the State is powerless to maintain a discipline except through
the exercise of force. The Jacobins, when they sought to
regenerate France by sending delegates with guillotines
into the provinces, were in their crude way attempting to
give practical application to a principle which Rousseau
had enunciated.

It was because Rousseau made morality wholly dependent
upon law, as at a later date Marx made it wholly dependent
upon economic conditions, that he was so anxious to devise
a State which would be mechanically perfect in its workings.
If morality is to be dependent upon law it is a matter of
vital importance that the State should be so constructed that
the evil desires in man will balance and neutralize each
other in an equilibrium of good. But, of course, it cannot be
done. The search for perpetual motion is not a more hopeless
quest, for man cannot by laws be made to go straight in
spite of himself. The utmost laws are capable of doing is
to secure outward observance of the moral standards of those
in power. They may, like Mediaeval Law, aim at enabling
good men to live among bad ; or, like Roman Law, at enabling
rich men to live among poor ; but to create living standards

The French Revolution 195

of morality they are powerless, for if the law attempts to
get ahead of public opinion it will not be observed, while
the attempt of a Government to secure observance under
such conditions would be to institute a tyranny that would
be its undoing.

The particular form of government which Rousseau
thought would automatically promote the public welfare
was one based upon the sovereignty of the people. He says :

" One essential and inevitable defect wlreh will render a
monarchical government inferior to a republican one is that
in the latter the public voice hardly ever raises to -the highest
posts any but enlightened and capable men, who fill them
honourably ; whereas those who succeed in monarchies
are most frequently only petty mischief-makers, petty
knaves, petty intriguers, whose petty talents, which enable
them to obtain high posts in courts, only serve to show the
public their ineptitude as soon as they have attained them.
The people are much less mistaken about their choice than
the prince is ; and a man of real merit is almost as rare in
a royal ministry as a fool at the head of a republican govern-
ment. Therefore, when by some fortunate chance one of
these born rulers takes the helm of affairs in a monarchy
almost wrecked by such a fine set of ministers, it is quite
astonishing what resources he finds, and his accession to
power forms an epoch in a country."

From the foregoing passage as from others which might
be quoted, it is evident that Rousseau did not believe in
Equality as it is understood by democrats to-day. He
would have answered the democrat who asserts that the
people have a right to exercise power regardless of the use
which they make of it, by saying that democrats in that
case take their stand 'on precisely the same ground as the
authoritarian who believes in the divine right of kings.
Both have one thing in common : they make power subjective
and absolute instead of objective and conditional upon the
fulfilment of duties. This was not Rousseau's idea. Strictly
speaking, Rousseau did not believe in Equality at all, but in
natural inequalities. He wanted to get rid of the inequalities
based upon wealth and influence in order to clear the way for
what may be termed the free movement in society of natural

19tJ A Gwldsman's Interpretation of History

inequalities. He believed in government by the wise.
" It is," he says, " the best and most natural order of things
that the wise should govern the multitude, when we are sure
they will govern it for its advantage and not for their own."
The wise were to be the executive officers of the State, but
he wanted the people to be sovereign in order that they
might keep a check on them. In this sense only did Rousseau
believe in Equality. He did not regard it as an end in itself,
but as a means to an end, the end being government by
the best and wisest. There is something very simple and
unsophisticated about all this. The whole trouble of the
world from one point of view is precisely that the best and
wisest do not automatically come to the top under democracy
any more than they do under any other form of government.
It is the clever rather than the wise who do, and, unfortunately,
the wise are rarely clever, nor are the clever usually wise.
When the wise do come to the top the millennium will have
arrived.

Rousseau himself realized this difficulty when he con-
sidered the problem of the legislator. He was of the opinion
that neither the sovereign people nor the executive were
wise enough to frame good laws. The successful accomplish-
ment of such a task required a superman. Of the legislator
or lawgiver he says : —

" Wise men who want to speak to the vulgar in their
own language instead of in a popular way will not be under-
stood. Now, there are a thousand kinds of ideas which it
is impossible to translate into the language of the people.
Views very general and objects very remote are alike beyond
its reach ; and each individual approving of no other plan
of government than that which promotes his own interests,
does not readily perceive the benefits which he is to derive
from the continual deprivations which good laws impose.
In order that a newly formed nation might approve sound
maxims of politics and observe the fundamental rules of
State policy, it would be necessary that the effect should
become the cause ; that the social spirit, which should
be the work of the institution, should preside over the institu-
tion itself, and that men should be, prior to the laws, what
they ought to become by means of them. Since, then,

The French Revolution 197

the legislator cannot employ either force or reasoning, he
must needs have recourse to an authority of a different
order, which can compel without violence and persuade
without convincing.

•' It is this which in all ages has constrained the founders
of nations to resort to the intervention of Heaven, and to
give the gods the credit for their own wisdom, in order that
the nations, subjected to the laws of the State as to those
of nature, and recognizing the same power in the formation
of man and in that of the State, might obey willingly and
bear submissively the yoke of the public welfare. The legis-
lator puts into the mouths of the immortals that sublime
reason which soars beyond the reach of common men, in
order that he may win over by divine authority those whom
human prudence could not move. But it does not belong
to every man to make the gods his oracles, nor to be believed
when he proclaims himself their interpreter. The great
soul of the legislator is the real miracle which must give
proof of his mission. . . . The choice of the moment i or the
establishment of a government is one of the surest marks
for distinguishing the work of the legislator from that of
the tyrant."

Apart from the exceptional problem which the law-
giver presents, Rousseau quite rightly realized that in
general there are certain external circumstances which
favour the rise to power of the wise as there are certain
others which tend to obstruct them. He saw that the wise
stood the best chance of success in the world, where men were
well known to each other, and where a certain measure of
economic equality obtained. Hence his advocacy of small
States and of small property. But he was not a leveller.
He says, " with regard to Equality we should not understand
that the degrees of power and wealth should be absolutely
the same ; but that, as to power, it should fall short of all
violence, and never be exercised except by virtue of station
and of the laws ; while as to wealth, no citizen should be
rich enough to be able to buy another, and none poor enough
to be forced to sell himself. ... It is precisely because the
force of circumstances is ever tending to destroy Equality
that the force of legislation should always tend to maintain

198 A Gmldsmarf s Interpretation of History

it." Rousseau's attitude towards property was not that
of the Collect! vist.

It will make the position clearer to say that the ideal
of Rousseau was that of the City States of Greece, which
existed independently of each other while they were federated
for the purpose of defence. He saw that this meant putting
the clock back ; but this did not deter him. He realized, as
all men do whose reasoning faculties have not been atrophied
by the idea of Progress, that any fundamental change in
the social system involves in some degree a return to a former
social condition. All Socialist ideas imply reversion, but
the fact that Socialists are afraid to admit it has led them
into the maze of intellectual confusion in which they find
themselves. But Rousseau lived in an age when men were
not afraid of words, and so boldly advocated a return to
the conditions of primitive society. In an earlier work he
had demanded the renunciation of cultivated life which he
asserted led to " a distinction of the talents and a disparage-
ment of the virtues," in favour of a return to nature which
was to be made the starting-point for a nobler form of exist-
ence. His description of the life of primitive society was so
vivid and full of detail, while it gave such a feeling of reality
to the existence of a golden age in the past, that Voltaire
said " it made one desire to walk on all iours." Though
Rousseau's description was a work of pure fiction — for of
primitive man he knew nothing — it came to be believed in
as gospel truth, because it served its purpose of contrasting
a simple, unsophisticated mode of existence with the arti-
ficiality and corruption of France, and gave emphasis to
his denunciations of property, privileges and tyranny.
In the Social Contract his enthusiasm for primitive man
appears to have abated somewhat. Perhaps, after all,
there was something to be said for civilization. It was
not to be regarded merely as a disease. If many natural
advantages are lost, equal or greater ones are secured.
Law and morality replace appetite and instincts ; moreover,
there are certain advantages in co-operation. Hence, though
it is accessary to return to the past, he considers that it will
not be necessary to return to any state of society prior to
the civilization of early Greece.

The French Revolution 199

It was because Rousseau was mistaken as to the historical
nature of the problem which confronted society that he was
led to regard the Greek States as models. Remembering
that these States were entirely undermined by unregulated
currency, Rousseau, to have been consistent, should have
demanded the abolition of currency. That he did not is
to be explained by the circumstance that he was apparently
as ignorant of the fact that unregulated currency had de-
stroyed the civilization of Greece and Rome as of the further
fact that the solution of this problem was found by the
Mediaeval Guilds. Had he known these facts, the course of
history might have been different. Instead of seeking
a solution that was primarily political he would have sought
one that was primarily economic. He would have supported
the peasants in their demand for the re-establishment of
the Just Price, and would have considered ways and means
of restoring the Guilds to maintain it. He would, moreover,
have seen that within the Guilds the people were sovereign
in the Middle Ages, while their sovereignty was not based
upon slavery, as was the case with the sovereign peoples
of Greece. On this issue Rousseau was not honest with
himself. Though he condemns slavery, he glosses over the
fact that the States which he exalted as models were based
upon slavery. " Slavery," he says, " is one of the unfortunate
inconveniences of civilized society."

The technical cause of the confusion in which Rousseau
found himself is to be found in the revived interest in Roman
Law which had established the tradition of thinking about
economic problems entirely in terms of property. In my
chapter on Greece and Rome I drew attention to the mutual
dependence of Roman Law and an unregulated currency,
pointing out that Roman Law came into being not for the
purpose of securing justice, but to postpone the dissolution
of a society which had been rendered politically unstable
through the growth of capitalism — itself the consequence of
unregulated currency. Despairing of the effort to secure
justice, the Roman jurists addressed themselves to the
more immediately urgent task of maintaining order by fol-
lowing the line of least resistance. Not understanding how
to regulate currency even if it had been practicable in Rome,

200 A Guildsmart s Interpretation of History

they sought to give protection and security to private property
as the easiest way of avoiding continual strife among neigh-
bours. The consequence of this was that when after the
Reformation thinkers went to Roman Law for guidance in
their speculations as to how to render government stable,
the tradition became established of thinking about social
and political questions primarily in terms of property instead
of in currency. The result of this has been that down to
this day social theory is presented statically rather than
dynamically. Rousseau's social theory was no exception to
this rule. It did not deal with the sequential steps which
would have to be taken towards the realization of his ideal
society, but presented a new society already full grown.
This limitation of Rousseau's theory became increasingly
apparent as the Revolution developed. Not only did his
constructive ideas bear no particular relationship to the
problems which had to be met, but they were a positive
obstruction in the path of their solution, by filling the minds
of the revolutionaries with a priori ideas which obscured
the real issues. The Revolution rapidly became a collision
between theorists fired with a new ideal and the political,
social and economic conditions of which they had no com-
prehension. Not comprehending them, they sought in
vain to direct the course of events until, exasperated by
failure, they came to commit crimes of which they had no
presentiment at the beginning.

Rousseau misled the revolutionaries by focusing atten-
tion upon the wrong aspect of the economic problem. He
talked about property and ignored currency. I make bold
to say that the centre of gravity of the economic problem
is not in property, but in currency, for currency is the vital
thing, the thing of movement. It is the active principle
in economic development, while property is the passive.
It is true that profits which are made by the manipulation
of currency, sooner or later assume the form of property.
All the same, the root mischief is not to be found in property
but in unregulated currency. To solve the problem of
currency by the institution of a Just Price under a system
of Guilds for the regulation of exchanges, and the adjust-
ment of the balance between demand and supply, is to bring

The French Revolution 201

order into the economic problem at its active centre. Having
solved the problem at its centre, it will be a comparatively
easy matter to deal with property which lies at the circum-
ference. Property-owners would be able to offer no more
effective resistance to change than hitherto landlordism
has been able to offer to the growth of capitalism. By
such means the reconstruction of society would proceed upon
orderly lines. All that it would be necessary to do would
be for the democratic movement to exert a steady and
constant pressure over a decade or so, and society would be
transformed without so much as a riot, much less a revolution.
But to begin with property is to get things out of their natural
order, for it is to proceed from the circumference to the
centre, which is contrary to the law of growth. It is to
precipitate economic confusion by dragging society up by its
roots ; and this defeats the ends of revolution by strengthen-
ing the hands of the profiteer, for the profiteer thrives on
economic confusion. Of what use is it to seek to effect
a redistribution of wealth before the profiteer has been got
under control ? So long as men are at liberty to manipulate
exchange, they will manage to get the wealth of the community
into their hands. This is no idle theory. All through the
French Revolution, as, indeed, according to reports, in the
Russian Revolution of to-day, speculation was rife, paper
money depreciated, while a class of nouveaux riches came
into existence and the Assemblies were powerless against
them. Marat might call for " the accursed brood of capital-
ists, stock-jobbers and monopolists to be destroyed." But
it was easier said than done. For these men exercised a
function which was absolutely indispensable to the life of
the community. They organized distribution, and it was
because the leaders of the Revolution entirely failed to see
the primacy of distribution that they let the profiteers in.
Under the pressure of circumstances the Jacobins decreed
a maximum price for provisions. But its effect was only to
cause continual dearth. Though the Jacobins could terrorize
the Convention, they could not control the revolutionary
profiteers. For the control of currency and exchange,
which would have been a comparatively simple proposi-
tion at the start, was altogether impracticable when the

202 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

country was in the throes of revolution. If instead of begin-
ning with the destruction of Feudalism, the revolutionaries
had begun with the regulation of currency and exchange, the
chaos of the Revolution would have been avoided, and
Feudalism would have fallen later as dead leaves fall from
a tree. The solution of the social problem, as of every other
problem in this universe, resolves itself finally into one of
order. Take issues in their natural order and everything
will straighten itself out beautifully, all the minor details
or secondary parts will fall into their proper places. But
approach these same issues in a wrong order and confusion
results. No subsequent adjustments can remedy the initial
error. This principle is universally true. It is as true
of writing a book, of designing a building, as of conducting
a revolution. The secret of success in each case will be
found finally to rest upon the perception of the order in which
the various issues should be taken.

It was because Rousseau had built the elaborate super-
structure of his reasoning upon a foundation of false history
that he was driven to postulate the existence of something
at the centre of society which he termed the General Will,
and upon which he relied to usher in the new social order.
Exactly what he meant by this General Will is most difficult
to determine, for while on the one hand he exalts it into a
fetish capable of performing every imaginable kind of political
miracle, on the other he proceeds to qualify his original
proposition in so many ways as almost to rob it of any
definite meaning. " So long," he says, " as a number of men
in combination are considered as a single body they have but
one will, which relates to the common preservation and the
general well-being. In such a case all the forces of nature
are vigorous and simple, and its principles are clear and
luminous ; it has no confused and conflicting interests ;
the common good is everywhere plainly manifest, and only
good sense is required to perceive it. Peace, union and
equality are foes to political subtleties. Upright and simple-
minded men are hard to deceive because of their simplicity ;
allurements and refined pretexts do not impose upon them ;
they are not even cunning enough to be dupes. ... A
State thus governed needs very few laws ; and in so far as

The French Revolution 203

it becomes necessary to promulgate new ones the necessity
is universally recognized. The first man to propose them
only gives expression to what all have previously felt, and
neither factions nor eloquence will be needed to pass into
law what every one has already resolved to do, so soon as
he is sure that the rest will act as he does." The General
Will, he goes on to say, is indestructible. It is always con-
stant, unalterable, and pure ; but when private interests
begin to make themselves felt, it is subordinated to other
wills which get the better of it. After telling us all these
fine things he has some misgivings, and proceeds : " the
General Will is always right, but the judgment which guides
it is not always enlightened," and that " there is no general
will with reference to a particular object." After making
these qualifications there does not appear to be very much
of the General Will left, and we begin to wonder what was at
the bottom of his mind. The only explanation I can offer
of these apparent contradictions is that the General Will
is something which relates to the subliminal consciousness
of mankind, but is not a part of his normal consciousness.
Mr. de Maeztu says there is no such thing as a General Will,
since " men cannot unite immediately among one another ;
they unite in things, in common values, in the pursuit of
common ends," x and Mr. de Maeztu, I think, is right.

What Rousseau feared came about. All the careful
detailed reservations he made to protect possible mis-
applications of the principles he enunciated were disregarded
by his followers. All the ideas which he regarded as means
to ends came to be exalted as ends in themselves, and to
be believed in with all the fervour of strong religious con-
viction. Nature, the Rights of Man, Liberty, Equality, the
Social Contract, hatred of tyrants and popular sovereignty
were for the Jacobins the articles of a faith which was above
and beyond discussion. They did not believe these things
in the more or less philosophic spirit in which Rousseau
believed them, but in the way that only men of simple and
violent temperaments can believe things. Their firm con-
viction made them the driving force of the Revolution, for
it gave them great strength of will, which enabled them

1 Authority, Liberty, and Function, by Ramiro de Maeztu.

204 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

completely to dominate the more intelligent but weaker-
willed members of the Assemblies, while it created a kind
of revolutionary religion in France which inspired the
armies of the Revolution.

In the Constituent Assembly the Jacobins were a small
group, and at no time were they very numerous, though during
the Convention they dominated France. The Revolution had
not yet got its stride. This first Assembly consisted of land-
lords, magistrates, physicians, and lawyers. It was what
in these days would be called a business Government ; that is,
a Government of men who wanted to see things changed
politically, but not economically, who believed in liberty,
but not in equality. They enjoyed the illusion which business
men generally enjoy, that what is in their personal interests
is necessarily in the interests of the community. This
limitation, though it gives annoyance to others, may not,
under normal conditions, have serious consequences, but
in a time of crisis it is a fatal defect for a class who seek to
wield power, for it raises a barrier between them and popular
feeling. So it was that the Constituent Assembly forfeited
the confidence of the people by two of their actions. They
thought they could decree the abolition of feudal rights
while asking the peasants to pay for their surrender, and
that they could limit the franchise to property-owners
while men were preaching daily Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity. Their attempt to distinguish between property-
owners whom they termed active citizens, and other members
of the community whom they termed passive citizens, was
unfortunate for them. For this distinction was open to an
interpretation the exact contrary of that which they had
intended. Journalists protested that those who stormed
the Bastille and cleared the lands regarded themselves as
the active citizens, and objected to being treated as the mere
raw material of a revolution for the benefit of others. But
such protests were in vain. The members of the Constituent
Assembly were entirely out of touch with popular feeling.
And they remained out of touch until the people of Paris,
armed with pikes, invaded the Assembly Hall to break up
their deliberations — a habit which, once formed, continued
almost daily throughout the Revolution. The Convention,

The French Revolution 205

while under the influence of the Girondins, corrected the
blunder of the Constituent Assembly by removing the distinc-
tion between the active and passive citizens, but in other
respects it was equally out of touch with popular sentiment.
As a result, power in the Assembly passed entirely into the
hands of the Jacobins, who, whatever their shortcomings,
at least enjoyed the confidence of the people of Paris.

The rise to power of the Jacobins — known in the Conven-
tion as the Mountain as distinguished from the Plain, which
designated all its other members — is to be attributed to
many causes, but the principal one was the imperative
necessity of firm government. The Girondins, who had
hitherto led the Assembly, were Liberals in temperament,
and like Liberals all the world over they had little sense of
reality. They were hostile to a strong executive in the name
of Liberty, hostile to Paris in the name of Federalism, and
hostile to the economic aspirations of the people in the name
of Order. The result was as might be expected : they were
conquered by the force of circumstances. A time came at
length when the growth of economic anarchy and civil
war at home, combined with the need of defending the
Republic against other European Powers, demanded strong
and vigorous measures, and these the Girondins were unable
to supply. Power passed into the hands of the Jacobins,
because they alone were capable of determined action.

The situation had been of the Jacobins' own creating.
Earlier on they had been the means of bringing about the
execution of the King, which proved to be the turning-point
of the Revolution, for not only did it bring about civil war,
but armed Europe against France. In order to save the
Republic from its enemies without, and from disruption within,
the Jacobins resorted to the most ruthless measures. They
massacred people wholesale. In the Vendee alone it is
estimated that over half a million suffered at their hands.
Old men, women, and children were all massacred, and villages
and crops were burned. Yet in spite of all their savagery,
despite the delegates sent with guillotines into the provinces
and the Draconian laws which they enforced, they had to
struggle perpetually against riots, insurrections and con-
spiracies. But the reaction upon themselves is the interest-

206 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

ing sequel. They would brook no opposition, and in order
to carry through such ruthless measures they had to be
equally ruthless with their critics. It was in order to rid
themselves of them that they instituted the Terror, which,
after a run of ten months, came to an end with the execu-
tion of Robespierre and the lead'ng Jacobins. Not that
Robespierre was by any means the worst offender. On the
contrary, his influence had not unfrequently been exerted
in favour of moderation. At a time when to be considered
an " Indulgent " was an accusation pointing to the scaffold,
he successfully opposed the arrest of seventy-three members
of the Convention, saved Catherine The"ot and her com-
panions, and defended his rival Danton when his arrest was
first suggested ; while he repeatedly refused to sign warrants
for intended arrests, and had earned the lasting enmity of
Fouche", Carrier, Collot, Tallien, Billaud-Varennes and others
by his denunciation of their atrocities, and had been the
means of effecting their return from the provinces. Tt
was the action of these men that immediately led to his
downfall. So intent was Robespierre on carrying the
system of virtue to its logical conclusion that a time came
when they felt their lives were no longer safe, and so they
combined with the Moderates to effect his overthrow.
Robespierre gave them the opportunity. Naturally sus-
picious, he complained of conspiracies, and his over-confidence
led him to attempt to get the Assembly to vote a measure
which would permit deputies to be sent to the Revolutionary
Tribunal without authorization of the Assembly. Certain
members, feeling that Robespierre was aiming at them,
and who Lad therefore nothing to lose, met this proposal
with a vigorous opposition. Si-ch determined action
broke the spell that Robespierre had cast over the Assembly.
Members who had been afraid were alraid no longer, and the
next daj the attack was vigorously renewed. Robespierre
tried to defend himself, but was met with cries of " Down
with the tyrant ! " From that moment Robespierre was lost.
Thanks to mental contagion, the cry instantly became general,
and his voice was drowned in the uproar. Without losing
a moment the Assembly decreed his accusation and outlawed
him. He appealed to the Commune of Paris, but the Conven-

The French Revolution 207

tion was triumphant against his supporters. After the lapse
of a few days Robespierre and his band of Jacobins to the
number of a hundred and four were guillotined. As his
name had become popularly associated with the Terror, his
execution was interpreted by the people as having put
an end to it. The Committee of Public Safety, recognizing
this, acted as if all along such had been their intention, and
the Terror came to an end.

But there were deeper reasons than personal enmities
to account for the fall of Robespierre. The Revolution had
entered its decadent phase. When the property of the
nobles and clergy had been confiscated, instead of being
returned to the people to be held communally, it was sold
by the Assemblies to private individuals when they were
in need of money. These large estates were on sale for
several years on terms extremely favourable to purchasers,
and had not only been bought by such peasants as could get
hold of money, army contractors and food profiteers, but
by members of the Convention itself ; while, moreover,
thousands of Jacobins had secured posts under the Govern-
ment for themselves. It was thus that the Revolution had
created new vested interests and the corruption had not only
penetrated the Convention but the Jacobin Party itself.
Honest Republicans found themselves helpless against it.
Robespierre was oblivious to these changes. He remained
as upright and fanatical as ever, never wavering in his revolu-
tionary faith, for ever reminding the people of the principles
of Republicanism, and threatening those keenest after the
spoils with the guillotine. So a coalition came into existence
which regarded the overthrow of Robespierre as the first
point to be gained. They had supported him so long as they
feared a return of the ancien regime, but when the Allies had
been defeated they had no further use for him. " What,"
said they, " is the good of a revolutionary government now
that the war is over ? " The ends of the Revolution, so far
as the great mass of its supporters were concerned, having
been attained, they desired it to be brought to an end and to
be confirmed in the possession of their riches. It was because
Robespierre failed to realize the change that had taken place
that he eventually came to grief. The only true Republicans

208 A Guildsmarts Interpretation of History

now left were the. young men, and they were to be found in
the armies spreading the revolutionary ideas over Europe.

The fall of Robespierre prepared the way for the counter-
revolution that took place a little over a twelvemonth after
his death. It took the form of a rebellion of the nouveaux riche.
During the course of the Revolution production steadily
declined, and the wholesale issue of paper money had depre-
ciated the currency to such an extent that the general want
was terrible. A time came when Republican idealism
vanished before the -general demand for food and security,
and this played into the hands of the rich, who asserted that
on the maintenance of property depended the cultivation
of the fields, all production, every means of work and the
whole social order. The absence of it, they contended, had
resulted in a general want of confidence on the part of pro-
ducers, merchants and traders, and was responsible for the
economic confusion and depression. Indeed, from the point
of view of the Republicans there was no answer. They had
rejected the idea of the communal ownership of land in favour
of private ownership. They had sold the confiscated estates,
and it was now up to the Government to guarantee the new
owners in the possession of their lands. The counter-revolu-
tion was successful, confidence was restored and trade revived.
It was thus that power passed out of the hands of the nobility
into the hands of the bourgeoisie. The Revolution had
miscarried.

As the Revolution proceeded, power became concentrated
in fewer and fewer hands. The Committee of Public Safety,
which had dominated the Convention, consisted of eight
members. Under the Directory which followed, the execu-
tive power was vested in the hands of five men. This was
provided for in its constitution, the framing of which was
the last act of the Convention. In so far as the change was
accompanied by a change of policy it was in the direction
of not seeking to reorganize France but to leave it to organize
itself, yet though the Directory left France to make its own
economic readjustment, it was quite as ruthless as the
Convention in its efforts to preserve the Republic, for it
had to struggle against a succession of conspiracies against
its power. Recognizing that a revival of Catholicism was

The French Revolution 209

taking place, the Directors imagined that the priests were
conspiring against them and deported in one year nearly
fifteen hundred of them under conditions which gave them
little chance of survival, to say nothing of large numbers
who were summarily executed, for though the Terror was
abandoned, their methods were no less sanguinary. But
in spite of their efforts things went for them steadily
from bad to worse. Finance, administration, everything,
in fact, was crumbling, until at length a point was reached
when the Directors, feeling that things could not go on much
longer, themselves sought a dictator who was at the same
time capable of restoring order and protecting them. This
is the explanation of the coup d'etat which placed Napoleon
in power. It was arranged by the Directors themselves
as the only escape from an impossible situation.

It is a mistake to suppose that Napoleon overthrew
the Revolution. On the contrary, he ratified and consolidated
it. As early as 1795, at the end of the Convention, the idea
had been canvassed of restoring the monarchy, but Louis
XVIII having been tactless enough to declare that he would
restore the ancien regime in its entirety, return all property
to its original owners and punish the men of the Revolution,
put himself out of court for the position. Indeed, the
Royalists must have been impossible people. Even Le
Bon says : " The Royalists gave proof during the whole
of the Revolution of an incapacity and narrowness of mind
which justified most of the measures taken against them."
The Monarchy being impossible, it was necessary to find
a general. Only one existed whose name carried weight
— Bonaparte. The campaign of Italy had made him famous.
He had been repeatedly pressed by the most influential
and enlightened generals to place himself at the head of the
Republic, but he refused to act upon their advice. He
saw very clearly the difficulties which would beset him if
he acted prematurely. He saw that the task of rebuilding
France was impossible unless he were in a position to exercise
absolute power in order that measuresmight be carried through
with the greatest possible speed, which, of course, was impos-
sible if every measure had to be preceded by a long discussion
in the Assemblies. He saw, moreover, that he must be

210 A Guildsmarts Interpretation of History

beyond the reach of parties, and so he preferred to wait
until the Directorate itself should seek his assistance. Con-
scious of the fact that his ideas upon the art of governing
differed fundamentally from theirs, he refused to have any-
thing to do with the government of France until they were
willing to allow him to govern in his own way, and he had
sufficient insight to see that a time was bound to come when
conditions would have reached such a pass that they would
be willing to grant him his terms.

Napoleon reserved to himself the right of initiating all
laws, and he restricted the duties of the Assemblies to
confirming or rejecting them. Yet while he insisted upon
having the last word in the framing of all new laws, he always
conferred with the two other Consuls with whom he was
associated before proceeding even with the most trivial
measures. He chose his agents of government indifferently
from the Royalists, Girondins, or Jacobins, having regard
only to their capacities. But although in his Council he
sought the assistance of eminent jurists, he appears to have
been always up against them, for he is reported to have said
that any measure which is promoted for the public good is
sure to meet with the opposition of lawyers. This fact
is not surprising when we remember that lawyers are trained
in the tenets of Roman Law, which is individualistic in inten-
tion, while measures for the public good are necessarily
communal in aim.

I said that Napoleon ratified and consolidated the Revolu-
tion. His authority speedily put an end to the Parisian
insurrections and attempts at monarchical resistance and
restored moral unity where there had only been division and
hatred. He provided work for the unemployed in building,
the construction of military roads, and in minor ways, such
as giving large orders for furniture for the Tuilleries. He
was wise enough to see that no restoration of the ancien
regime was possible, and so made no such foolish attempt,
for he saw that order could only be restored on the assump-
tion that those in possession of the land were confirmed
in their ownership. With the law passed by the Convention
enacting that all estates should be divided up at death equally
among the children of the owner he did not interfere, nor

The French Revolution 211

with many other useful measures which had been enacted
during the Revolution, such as the establishment of the
metric system and the creation of important colleges. Indeed,
all through the Revolution, much useful work of this kind
was done by technical committees, in which the majority
of the members of the Assemblies took refuge in order to
escape from the political conflicts which threatened their
lives.

The only statesman in history whose work may be com-
pared with Napoleon is Augustus, since he undertook the
task of reorganizing the Roman Empire after the Civil Wars
as Napoleon did France after the Revolution. They both
had recourse to similar methods of government. Both
sought a solution in the organization of a highly centralized
bureaucracy. Though we have no love for bureaucracy,
we yet must recognize that when the traditions of a country
have been destroyed there is no other way of delivering it
from anarchy, and the popularity of the Napoleonic regime
is a sure witness that though it was despotic it could not have
been so intolerable as that which the people had endured
during the Revolution.

The French Revolution does not appear to me to be a
thing to be defended or denounced, but to be studied, for
it is a rich field for the study of economics and psychology.
We should aim at understanding it in order that we may
profit by its mistakes. The convulsions of the Revolution
were due to the fact that it attempted an impossible task.
The revolutionists thought society could be reconstructed
anew on a purely theoretical foundation, not understanding
that the basis of every social order is to be found in certain
traditions, and that it is only possible to reshape them within
definite limits, for society can only exist by imposing certain
restraints, laws, manners and customs to constitute a check
upon the natural instincts of barbarism which never entirely
disappear. The revolutionary gospel of nature, by removing
these restraints, without which no society can exist, trans-
formed a political society into a barbarian horde, for, misled
by Rousseau, they did not understand that the aim of civiliza-
tion was to escape from nature and not to return to it. Hence
it was that while the Revolution had its moral sanction

212 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

in the demand for the redress of certain definite social
grievances, the feeling of unrest was exploited by idealists
and theorists in an attempt to realize an unrealizable thing.
Among other things, the events of the Revolution gave
the lie to what might be called the spontaneous creation
theory of democracy — the idea that the will of the people
is omnipotent and final — for democracy cannot spontaneously
create itself. Democracy will arrive when it knows how to
choose the right ideas and not a day before, for there is a law
of gravitation in human affairs which is as constant as the
law of gravitation in the physical universe, and which all
who aspire to govern society must obey. It was because
the revolutionists did not understand this that the Revolu-
tion ended by establishing not the sovereign people, but a
bureaucratic despotism.

It is remarkable how slow mankind is to learn by
experience. A crisis has overtaken the modern world which
has many parallels with the crisis which overtook France
before the Revolution, and yet with the experience of the
French Revolution to guide us, there is little or no
attempt to learn the lessons which it has to teach. On
the one hand we have a governing class, crying " Peace,
peace," when there is no peace, as jealous of maintain-
ing their privileges as the French nobility, and as un-
willing as them to meet the need of additional taxation
and equally blind to the inevitable consequences of
their short-sightedness. On the other hand, just as in
France there was a movement of peasants groping its way
back to Mediaevalism demanding the Just Price, so we have
a popular movement on a similar quest demanding a fixed
price and the control of profiteers. Just as this move-
ment back to Mediaevalism was frustrated by the French
intellectuals who exploited the popular unrest in the
interests of impossible ideals, so we have the Socialist
Movement doing just the same thing. For in all the
big fundamental things there is little to choose between
the Socialists to-day and the French Revolutionaries.
Both have got their ideas upside down. Rousseau made
morality dependent upon Law, while Marx made it dependent
upon economic condition. In theory this is a difference ;

The French Revolution 213

in practice it is not, for both make morality dependent
upon the maintenance of administrative machinery. Both
concentrate upon property and ignore currency. Both
search for a fool-proof State. And so it is in respect
of the whole range of Socialist ideas. They differ from
Rousseau only in being one degree further removed from
reality ; for Rousseau did realize that the basis of society
must rest upon agriculture, but Socialists to-day appear to
have forgotten it. The difference of their ideas regarding
property is a matter of minor importance, since the more
they differ the more they are alike. They are alike in their
belief that evil resides finally in institutions and not in
men, and in their faith absolute in the natural perfection
of mankind.

CHAPTER XIV
CAPITALISM AND THE GUILDS

WITH the French Revolution and the wars that followed
it there fell what remained in Western Europe of the old
Mediaeval Order. Henceforth political thought no longer
troubles itself with the issue of Church and State but with
Capitalism which becomes the dominating power in the world.
It will be necessary therefore for us, before proceeding further
with the political problem, to retrace our steps to watch the
rise of capitalist industry.

Capitalism, as we saw, had its origin in the growth of
foreign trade, which offered merchants abundant oppor-
tunities for making profits by the manipulation of currency,
unchecked by Guild regulations. But capitalist exploitation
began on the land, when the merchants began to invest the
wealth they had accumulated in land, and proceeded to
convert tillage into pasturage. That such a development
was possible was due, as we saw, to Roman Law, which
corrupted the old Feudal order by instituting private owner-
ship in land. Apart from Roman Law, the Feudal system
would have been transformed, for the spread of currency
into rural areas had gradually undermined its old stability
by substituting money payments for payments in kind.
But the fact that the transformation proceeded from Feudal-
ism to landlordism and capitalism instead of from Feudalism
to agricultural Guilds, which would have regulated currency
by a system of fixed prices such as obtained in the towns,
was due entirely to Roman Law, which, by instituting private
property in land, paved the way to capitalist exploitation.
Roman Law, then, created capitalism, and capitalism, we
shall see, destroyed the Guilds.

From having commercialized agriculture, capitalists

214

Capitalism and the Guilds 215

turned their attention to the capture of industry. In the
towns, capitalist exploitation was impossible, for the detailed
regulations of the Guilds covered every condition of production.
But outside of the towns in the rural areas no such regulations
existed. The capitalist there was at liberty to do as he
pleased. He could manufacture what he liked, use inferior
material, pay low wages and sell at whatever price he liked,
and there was no one to stop him. The capitalists who had
taken to sheep-farming were not long in turning such cir-
cumstances to their advantage. They employed many of
those whom they evicted from their holdings in the manu-
facture of cloth and articles made from it. It was thus
there came into existence that " domestic system " of indus-
try which was destined to be the destruction of the Guilds.
As early as the fourteenth century the Guilds began to
feel the competition of this domestic industry. The Guilds-
men complained that the goods so produced were made of
inferior material ; that one master would employ many
journeymen, have too many apprentices, and pay them a
lower wage than was allowed by the Guilds, while some
trades, as, for instance, the cappers and fullers, began to
suffer from the competition of wares produced by machinery
driven by water-mills. This led to so much improverish-
ment among the craftsmen of the towns that fulling-rmills
were forbidden by statute in 1483.

Not only were the Guilds at a disadvantage in meeting
such competition owing to the high standard of quality
which they existed to uphold, but they were further handi-
capped by the fact that the towns came in for taxation which
manufacturers outside of the towns were able to escape.
" The pressure of the Apprenticeship Act of Henry IV, the
heavy assessment which they paid for the wars with France,
and for Henry VIFs unnecessary exactions, and lastly,
the regulations made by the Guilds with regard to apprentices
and journeymen, were all telling against the old corporate
towns ; they were at a disadvantage as compared with
neighbouring villages, and there was in consequence a
considerable displacement of industry from old centres
to new ones, or to suburbs." « During the fifteenth century

1 Growth of English Industry and Commerce, by W. Cunningham, pp. 460-1.

216 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

a general decay of English towns set in. Migration was no
longer from the country to the towns, but from the towns
back to the country, and with this change there came the
decay of the Guilds which had grown up within the corporate
towns.

There can be little doubt that the newer regulations of
the Guilds which were regarded as tyrannical, and which
we hear of in the fifteenth century, were brought about by
the desire of those already in the Guilds to protect them-
selves against the competition of the rising capitalist industry.
At an earlier date, it had been possible for every journey-
man in the Guild to look forward to a day when he would
be able to set up in business on his own account as a master.
But now, when the monopoly of the Guilds was clearly break-
ing down before the rise of capitalist industry, and the
masters were beginning to feel the pressure of competition,
they began to frame regulations not with an eye to the
interests of the craft as a whole, which was beyond their
power, but solely to protect their own individual interests.
Such undoubtedly was the origin of the grievance of the
journeymen, for which they obtained redress in 1536, whereby,
on becoming apprentices, they were made to swear upon
oath not to set up in business in the towns without the consent
and licence of the masters, wardens and fellowship of their
Guild, upon pain of forfeiting their freedom or like penalty.
One of the results of this restriction was to aggravate the
tendency of journeymen to withdraw from the towns and
set up shop in the villages where they were outside of Guild
jurisdiction. To do this was often their only chance of
getting employment, for the competition of the rural indus-
tries inclined the masters more and more to overstock their
shops with an undue proportion of apprentices.

The growth of such abuses demonstrated clearly that the
craft Guilds were breaking down before the rise of capitalist
industry ; and it became evident that if industry was to
continue to be subject to regulation, the Guild system would
need to be reorganized upon national lines, or, in other words,
that Guild regulation should be made co-extensive with
industry and the various local Guilds linked up or federated
into national ones. Some such general notion appears to

Capitalism and the Guilds 217

have inspired the attempts at Guild reorganization by
Henry VII and Henry VIII, who tried to get the Guilds
placed entirely under the control of public authorities
by enacting that in the future all Guild ordinances should
be approved by the justices. This was the one reform
which complainants had demanded in 1376 and 1473, as
well as from the Tudors. Subject to such control, the
Guilds were encouraged. But the measures they took
were altogether inadequate to cope with the economic
situation which was developing. Instead of seeking to
establish a national system of Guilds, they merely extended
certain local privileges, giving certain Guilds the right to
search in rural areas within a certain radius of the towns.
Justices of the peace were to appoint searchers for the shires.

We can easily imagine why such measures were ineffective.
Capitalism had already got a firm foothold, and it could
not be brought under control except by the most determined
action on the part of the authorities, and justices of the
peace would not be the kind of people to act in such a way.
If regulations are going to be enforced, those empowered
to enforce them must be made to suffer if they neglect in
their duty, as is the case with democratically constituted
Guilds. Such Guilds might have been established in the
rural areas at the time of the Great Revolt. But the
opportunity which then presented itself was lost. The
peasants threw away their opportunity when they demanded
the liberty to buy and sell instead of the protection of Guilds,
and now the problem was not such a simple one. The develop-
ment of foreign trade made the fixing and regulating of
prices an extremely difficult one, and nothing short of a
great popular movement demanding such reforms would
have sufficed to render such measures practicable. But
no such movement existed. The peasants, who had been
driven off the land to make room for sheep, resented the
monopolies of the Guilds. They had no idea of the value
of their services in regulating currency, and welcomed action
which removed their monopoly.

The Guilds received their death-blow when they found
themselves no longer able to fix the prices of commodities,
for everything turns upon this. If prices can be fixed,

218 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

then it is a comparatively easy matter to enforce a standard
of quality and maintain the internal discipline of the Guilds,
but if prices cannot be fixed, then a standard of quality cannot
be enforced, and the Guilds' jurisdiction over their members
tends to become restricted within increasingly narrow
limits. The Guilds found themselves unable to determine
prices during the sixteenth century. In 1503 they lost their
autonomy in this respect, when it was enacted that any
change in the price of wares had to be " approved by the
Chancellor, Treasurer of England and Chief Justices of either
Bench, or three of them ; or before both the Justices of
Assizes in their circuit." x But what finally broke the
monopoly of the Guilds was the growing desire of the public
to have prices fixed by the haggling of the market* No
doubt they had acquired this taste through buying the
products of the capitalist industry, which was subject to
no regulation ; and they came to demand the same terms
from the Guild masters, who, presumably, suffering from
competition, were unable to offer effective resistance. But
there was a deeper cause for the change. The moral sanction
of the Just Price had been undermined by the lawyers, who
maintained the right of every man to make the best bargain
he could — a right which was recognized in the Justinian
Code. St. Thomas Aquinas, in challenging the lawyers,
defended the principle of the Just Price on purely moral
grounds. He failed altogether to perceive its economic
significance, contending that " human law can only prohibit
what would break up society. Other wrong acts it treats
as quasi-lawful in the sense that while not approving them,
it does not punish them " — a strange conclusion to come to,
considering how ruthlessly profiteering all through the
Middle Ages was suppressed, and that failure to suppress
it has in these days nearly broken society up. It is thus
we see the economic significance of the Guilds was not
understood, and they had no official defenders.3 From this
time onwards the Guilds lose their public functions. In
the seventeenth century, journeymen were excluded from

* Ashley, vol. i. part ii. p. 159.

» Ibid., vol i. part ii. p. 160.

3 See Ashley, vol. i. part i. pp. 135-6.

Capitalism and the Guilds 219

their membership, and they continue as societies of employers.
Two or three, even a dozen occupations, become united in
one company (for they cease to be called Guilds), which bears
the name of the occupation followed by the more influential
citizens. Such companies continue to exist to this day
in old towns in the provinces, as well as in London, and
have given rise to the various Chambers of Commerce of our
day. The property in the possession of these companies
to-day is the property that remained in the possession
of the Guilds after the confiscations made under the Chantries
Bill (1547), in the reign of Edward VI. This Bill did not
attack the Guilds as economic organizations, as is commonly
supposed, nor did it seek to confiscate the whole of the pro-
perty of the Guilds, but only such part of their revenues
as had already been devoted to certain specified religious
purposes. A great part of their wealth had been spent
in providing masses for the souls of the deceased brethren,
and it was the lands whose revenues were spent on such
purposes that were confiscated. The revenues of the craft
companies devoted to social and charitable purposes remained
with the Guilds. All the same " the disendowment of religion
in the misteries evidently accelerated the transformation
of the system ; for it removed one strong bond of union
among the members, and limited their common efforts to
the range of their material interests." x

The Elizabethan Statute of Apprentices, passed in 1563,
may perhaps be regarded as an honest attempt to save
something from the wreck. The Mediaeval policy of regu-
lating prices having broken down, it sought to protect the
position of the skilled worker from deteriorating under
competition.

" According to it no one could lawfully exercise, either
as master or as journeyman, any art, mystery, or manual
occupation, except he had been brought up therein seven
years, at least, as an apprentice. Every householder dwell-
ing in a city, town-corporate or market town, might take
apprentices for seven years at least. But only those youths
might be taken as apprentices whose parents possessed a
certain fortune ; and none could be bound but those who

1 Ashley, vol. i. part ii. p. 158.

220 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History '

were under twenty-one years of age. Whoever had three
apprentices must keep one journeyman ; and for every
other apprentice above three, one other journeyman. As
to journeymen, it was enacted that, in most trades, no
person should retain a servant under one whole year, and no
servant was to depart or be put away but upon a quarter's
warning. The hours of work were fixed by the Act to
about twelve in summer, and from day-dawn till night in
winter. Wages were to be assessed yearly by the justices
of the peace or the town magistrates, at every general session
first to be holden after Easter. The same authorities were
to settle all disputes between masters and apprentices, and
protect the latter.1

Though this was, I believe, an honest attempt to protect
the skilled workers, its mischief lay in the power given to
the justices of the peace to determine wages, for in effect
it handed the workers over to the mercy of their employers.
Thorold Rogers condemns it severely on this account, affirm-
ing that it brought down wages to a bare subsistence. All
the same, the Act does not appear to have been unpopular
among the workers, for in the eighteenth century, when
the assessment of wages had fallen into disuse, and wages
had begun to be settled by competition, the workers in the
skilled trades repeatedly petitioned Parliament to compel
the justices to carry out the regulations as to apprentices,
which they recognized would tend, by limiting the number
practising a particular craft, to keep up the standard of wages.
" When year after year, notwithstanding all the petitions
of the workmen, the Acts regulating woollen manufacture
were suspended, a factory was burnt down ; and in September,
1805, the London Fire Insurance Companies received letters
of caution from workmen, wherein they declared that as
Parliament refused to protect their rights they would do it
themselves." It was determined action of this kind that
brought the whole question to a head and led to the repeal
of the statute in the woollen trade in 1806, and for all trades
in 1814. And this, in spite of the fact that in petitions
presented to Parliament 300,000 were for the maintenance
of the statute and only 2,000 for its repeal.'

1 Brentano : History and Development of Gilds, p. 103. * Ibid., p. 128.

Capitalism and the Guilds 221

The repeal of this statute declared the state of industrial
disorganization and disorder as the only lawful state. This
state became only too soon the prevailing one in all trades.
Parliamentary reports on the condition of the ribbon trade
and the silk manufacture at Coventry, Nuneaton, and
Macclesfield describe as the immediate consequence of the
repeal, such a growth of the system of sweaters and half-
pay apprentices, that the journeymen were driven to famine,
and the female workers to prostitution. " Whilst the
statute of the 5th Elizabeth was in force," says the report,
" the distressing circumstances now complained of never
occurred." The whole of the masters and weavers therefore
petitioned in 1818 for the extension of the Spitalfields Acts
to the silk trade in the said places. Reports of the year
1817 and 1818 give an absolutely identical account of the
condition of the watchmakers at Coventry. Further, as
the justices of the peace no longer assessed wages after
having heard masters and men, the workmen now endeavoured
to introduce regulation of wages by statement-lists of prices,
agreed upon by masters and men. But they were violated
upon every occasion by the employers. The words which
Pitt spoke on the subject of the Arbitration Act were now
completely fulfilled. ' The time will come," he said, " when
manufactures will have been so long established, and the
operatives not having any other business to flee to, that it
will be in the power of any one man in a town to reduce the
wages, and all the other manufacturers must follow. If
ever it does arrive at this pitch, Parliament, if it be not then
sitting, ought to be called together, and if it cannot redress
your grievances its power is at an end. Tell me not that
Parliament cannot — it is omnipotent to protect." The
workmen were quite of the opinion of Pitt, and numberless
were the petitions which, after 1814, they addressed to Parlia-
ment for the legal regulation of their trades. But as Parlia-
ment thought it could not redress their grievances, they
tried self-help. After the repeal of the Act of Elizabeth,
combinations and unions therefore arose in all trades. But
whilst, on the one hand, the workmen were refused legal
protection, self-help, in consequence of the sgth and 40th
George III, c. 106, was considered a crime. In 1818,

222 A Guildsmari1 s Interpretation of History

bail to the amount of £200 and two sureties for £100 each
were required for the appearance of a common workman
at the next session to answer a charge of combining. The
greatest mischief was, however, that the Combination
Laws, by confounding right and wrong, led men to regard
with less aversion things really vicious. The people, in
their despair, did not shrink from the greatest deeds of violence
and the most infamous crimes in self-defence."1

The consequence of these acts of violence was that in
1825 the Combination Laws were repealed. A London
Radical, Francis Place, having by dexterously stage-managing
the evidence given before a Royal Commission, succeeded
in persuading the Government that Trade Unions owed their
existence entirely to the irritation caused by the Combina-
tion Laws and that they would disappear with their repeal.
Workmen were not granted full liberty of association, but
a half-liberty. They were allowed to combine to determine
rates of wages and hours of labour, but they were not allowed
to limit the number of apprentices or to prevent piecework.
Six months' hard labour was to be imposed on any one who
should resort to violence, threats, molestation or obstruction
in order to secure a rise of wages. The judges interpreted
this clause as extending to workmen on strike who reproached
other workmen for continuing to labour, thus making picket-
ing illegal. They also decided that Trade Unions had no
legal position, could not hold title to property nor maintain
actions in the courts in defence of their rights. These
grievances, along with a law which discriminated between
the penalties meted out to employer and employee in the
event of either breaking a contract, were removed by the
Trade Union Act of 1871, which gave the Unions legal
recognition. But it was not out of any largeness of heart
of the employers, or any political insight of the governing
class, that such status was given, but because an outbreak
of working-class violence in Sheffield had led them to suppose
that the existing law, by denying legal status to the Unions,
tended rather to provoke than to repress violent action. It
was thus at last the principles of Roman Law were success-
fully challenged, and the lie given to the Roman theory

1 Brentano: History and Development of Gilds, pp. 129-131.

Capitalism and the Guilds 228

that only by sapping every tie between man and man could
stability be given to the State.

In these days we recognize in the Trade Union Move-
ment the first step towards a restoration of the Guilds.
Already the Unions, with their elaborate organizations,
exercise many of the functions which Were formerly per-
formed by the Guilds — such as the regulation of wages and
hours of labour, in addition to the more social duty of giving
timely help to the sick and unfortunate. Like the Guilds,
the Unions have grown from small beginnings until they
now control whole trades. Like the Guilds also, they are
not political creations, but voluntary organizations which
have arisen spontaneously to protect the 'weaker members
of society against the oppression of the more powerful.
They differ from them as industrial organizations only to
the extent that, not being in possession of industry and of
corresponding privileges, they are unable to accept respon-
sibility for the quality of work done, and to regulate the
prices. But these differences are the differences inherent
in a stage of transition, and will disappear as the Unions
trespass on the domains of the capitalist.

CHAPTER XV

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC THOUGHT AFTER THE
REFORMATION

BY the end of the sixteenth century capitalism had triumphed.
Not only had it succeeded in capturing agriculture and
entirely undermining the position of the Guilds, but it had
come to exercise a preponderating influence in the counsels
of the State. The way for its advance in England had been
opened by Henry VIII, who found himself compelled to
create a new aristocracy out of the capitalists in order to
destroy the power of the Church. It was not long after
the political arrival of this new aristocracy that there came
a new valuation of political and economic philosophy.

During the Middle Ages the theory obtained that national
prosperity and well-being had its foundation in agriculture
rather than commerce. Work and not wealth or property
was the bestower of all worth and dignity. Mediaeval
economists deprecated any politico-economic movement
that encouraged the people to give up the pursuit of agricul-
ture for trade and commerce. Thus we read : —

" Among manual industries none stood higher in the
estimation of the Canon Law than agriculture. It was
looked upon as the mother and producer of all social organ-
ization and all culture, as the fosterer of all other industries,
and consequently as the basis of national well-being. The
Canon Law exacted special consideration for agriculture,
and partly for this reason, that it tended in a higher degree
than any other branch of labour to teach those who practised
it godly fear and uprightness. ' The farmer,' so it is written
in A Christian Admonition, ' must in all things be protected
and encouraged, for all depends on his labour, from the
Emperor to the humblest of mankind, and his handiwork

2S4

Political and Economic Thought 225

is in particular honourable and well-pleasing to God.' There-
fore both the spiritual and the secular law protect him."

" Next to agriculture came handiwork. ' This is praise-
worthy in the sight of God, especially in so far as it represents
necessary and useful things.' And when the articles are
made with care and art, then both God and men take plea-
sure in them ; and it is good and true work when artistic
men, by the skill and cunning of their hands, in beautiful
building and sculpture, spread the glory of God and make
men gentle in their spirits, so that they find delight in beauti-
ful things, and look reverently on all art and handicraft
as a gift of God for use, enjoyment, and edification of man-
kind."

' Trade and commerce were held in lower esteem. ' An
honourable merchant,' says Trithemius, ' who does not
only think of large profits, and who is guided in all his dealings
by the laws of God and man, and who gladly gives to the
needy of his wealth and earnings, deserves the same esteem
as any other worker. But it is no easy matter to be always
honourable in mercantile dealings, and with the increase
of gain not to become avaricious. Without commerce no
community, of course, can exist, but immoderate commerce
is rather hurtful than beneficial, because it fosters greed of
gain and gold, and enervates and emasculates the nation
through love of pleasure and luxury.' '

" The Canonical writers did not think it was conducive
to the well-being of the people that the merchants ' like
spiders should everywhere collect together and draw every-
thing into their webs.' With the ever-increasing growth
and predominance of the mercantile spirit before their eyes,
they were sufficiently justified in their condemnation of the
tyranny and iniquity of trade which, as St. Thomas Aquinas
had already said, made all civic life corrupt, and by the
casting aside of good faith and honesty opened the door
wide to fraudulence ; while each one thought only of his
personal profit without regard to the public good." l

This attitude towards social questions came to an end at
the Reformation, when, with the destruction of the Church,

* History of th» German People at the Close of the Middle Ages, by Johannes
Janssen, vol. ii. pp. 97-8.

15

226 A GuildsmarC s Interpretation of History

power passed entirely into the hands of the capitalists who
came to dominate the State. The political philosophy
which gradually came into existence under their auspices
looks at things from a very different angle. It makes no
attempt to interpret society in the light of the principle of
function, to conceive of society as a whole the parts of which
are organically related to each other. There is little or no
attempt on the part of Government to protect the interest
of the labouier ; to take measures to see that the fruits of
his labour are secured, for him. On the contrary, regard is
paid only to the interests of the merchant, while the labourer
is left to shift for himself as best he can, with only such doubt-
ful protection as the Statute of Apprentices gave to the
town workers. Though the claims of agriculture were not
altogether neglected, yet the tendency in the long run was
for statesmen and theorists to exalt manufacturers above
agriculture and exchange above production. This came
about because it was through foreign trade that the money
was made which was the main source of revenue to the
State and because there was a general tendency in the thought
of the governing and merchant classes to identify money
with wealth. The governing class of capitalists with their
henchmen the lawyers consisted no longer of men capable
of taking large and comprehensive views of society, but of
men whose minds were entirely preoccupied with its material
aspects. They concentrated all their attention upon finding
ways and means to increase the wealth of the nation but for
reasons perhaps best known to themselves they chose to
ignore the problem as to how it was to be distributed.

External circumstances favoured the growth of this
point of view in the governing class. The suppression of
the monasteries had been followed by a period of great
economic depression, when the people felt the pressure of
poverty. There was great dislocation of industry everywhere
and a debased coinage had not improved matters. The
low-water mark was reached during the reign of Edward VI.
Under Elizabeth things were lifted out of the mire and the
country rescued from economic stagnation and depression
by the encouragement given to manufacturers and foreign
trade. The popularity of Elizabeth — for in spite of her

Political and Economic Thought 227

religious persecutions she was popular — was due to the
fact that the support she gave to the policy of William
Cecil, Lord Burghley, had the effect towards the close of her
reign of restoring the national prosperity. Immediately
the policy of Burghley was prompted by the likelihood of
a war with Spain. England had become Protestant, and
as she had hitherto been dependent for war material both
as regards gunpowder and the metals necessary for the
making of ordnance upon supplies that came from ports
controlled by the Roman Catholic Powers, it was urgent if
she was to retain her independence for her to have a supply
of her own. Every means therefore was taken to foster the
manufacture of munitions of war at home, and to such an
extent was the effort successful that when at last the storm
burst and the Spanish Armada sailed for England, it was
found that the leeway had been entirely made up and that
English guns were as good if not better than those of Spain.

But the new policy did not end here. Agriculture was
encouraged for military as well as for economic reasons.
Measures were taken to make tillage as profitable as pasturage
by removing the embargo upon the export of grain, while
enclosures were stopped. The fishing trades were supported
not merely for the wealth they produced but as a school
of seamanship to train men for the mercantile and naval
marine. These things did much to mitigate the evil of
unemployment which had become so chronic under previous
reigns, but further measures were taken to deal with it
definitely and to diffuse a general prosperity by the establish-
ment of a great number of new industries that made goods
in England which hitherto had only been obtainable from
abroad. Industries for the manufacture of hardware,
sailcloth, glass-paper, starch, soap and other commodities
of common consumption were successfully established.
Mines also were opened. The assistance of German engineers
was called in for this. A new method of pumping which
they had invented made mining a more practicable and
commercial proposition.

The circumstances of the age were particularly favourable
to these new developments. The religious wars in the
Netherlands and elsewhere led to the emigration of great

228 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

numbers of skilled workmen, who found a haven of refuge
in England and brought a technical knowledge of new
industries with them. Moreover, there was the change of
trade routes so favourable to English industry. During the
Middle Ages these routes had been overland, and it was this
circumstance that brought such prosperity to the Hanseatic
towns of Germany whose central European position was
then so enviable. But with the invention of the mariner's
compass, the discovery of America and the sea route to
India, overland trade routes gave place to sea routes, and
this took prosperity away from the Hanseatic and other
inland towns and countries and transferred it to seaports
and countries with a good seaboard. This transformation,
which occupied the space of about fifty years, was very
profitable to English merchants and manufacturers, who
now began to secure a larger share of the commerce of
the world, and helped enormously to restore the national
prosperity.

It would have been a fortunate thing for England if the
political speculation which accompanied these changes had
kept its mental balance and reconciled in their true propor-
tions the old with the new. But unfortunately such was
not the case. Prosperity had been restored not by efforts
to re-establish justice in the internal ordering of society
but by seizing the opportunities which a period of economic
transition afforded for the making of money. And so faith
in the old order tended to decline while confidence in the
new increased. Capitalism had been able to restore prosperity,
and so the opinions of capitalists came to weigh more and
more in the counsels of the State. Success in the new order
depended upon adaptability, and so the opinion grew that a
country lived not by its wisdom or its justice but by its
wits. The State, which during the Middle Ages had concerned
itself exclusively with the functions of military protection
and the administration of the law, and since the reign of
Henry VIII had made itself responsible for the religious
life of the people, now began to concern itself with the pro-
motion of industry and commerce. According to the new
dispensation, wealth, or to be more strictly correct, bullion,
was the great alchemy. Success in the race for wealth was

Political and Economic Thought 229

the precursor of all other desirable things. Hence it was the
first concern of the State to see to it that there was always
a large store of the precious metal on hand. To achieve
this end, considered of such vital importance, every expedient
was considered legitimate. The Government might prohibit
the import or export of certain commodities. This industry
was to be encouraged to export by subsidizing it with bounties,
that was to be discouraged by the imposition of duties.
Charters were granted giving private monopolies to certain
companies. The test of success was to show a balance of
trade in favour of the nation and an increase in the gold
reserve. This system of the control of production and
exchange by the State is known as Mercantilism. It is,
as its name implies the interpretation, of national policy
in the terms of the counting-house. Its defect was that it
placed the State at the mercy of vested interests and was a
source of political corruption, while it became a fruitful source
of wars. In the Middle Ages wars had been territorial and
dynastic. Now they became economic and were fought
over tariffs, concessions and privileges. It was the inevitable
consequence of the defeat of the Guilds, which, changing the
ideal of industry from a qualitative to a quantitative one,
necessarily brought those who pursued it in collision with
economic interests beyond the seas. The wars with the
Dutch were deliberately provoked by the Navigation Act,
which prohibited the importation in foreign vessels of any
but the products of the countries to which they belonged.
It was intended to strike a fatal blow at the carrying trade
of the Dutch from which they drew their wealth and to secure
our supremacy on the seas ; and it was successful. The
Mercantilists clearly grasped the fundamental economic
fact, that under competitive conditions of industry the
commercial advantage of one country is often only to be
obtained at the expense of another, and that " Trade follows
the flag," as Conservatives believe to this day. Mercantilism
is not dead, it is the living faith of the commercial classes
to-day in all countries of the world. Free Traders in these
days are unwilling to face the unpleasant fact that the terms
of the economic struggle are laid down by law and maintained
by force, though Adam Smith did say, " As defence is of

280 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

much more importance than opulence, the Act of Navigation
is, perhaps, the wisest of all the regulations of England."
People who believe in commercialism ought to believe in
militarism. If one of these is to be deprecated, then the
other is. To believe in commercialism and regret militarism
is to live in a world of unrealities, as Free Traders in these
days are finding out.

Mercantilism was not a social theory but a commercial
policy evolved by men who were satisfied to assume that a
policy which suited their own immediate interests must be
good for society. It began its career during the reign of
James I, when Gerard Malynes, a specialist in currency,
whose advice on. mercantile affairs was often sought by the
Privy Council, set forth his views in a series of pamphlets
in which he urged the Government to forbid the export of
bullion. The idea was a Mediaeval one, and is altogether
unintelligible apart from the Mediaeval system of thought,
which, refusing to divorce economies from moral considera-
tions, placed the maintenance of the social order before the
interests of capital and trade. Viewing the social and economic
evils which accompanied the growth of foreign trade, it was
but natural that the Mediaevalists, like Aristotle, should regard
its increase with alarm and suspicion and seek to put obstruc-
tions in the path of its advance, and that the support of the
State should be secured for obstructionist tactics by the
convenient theory that armies and fleets could only be main-
tained in distant countries if there is money to pay for them,
and that such money would not be forthcoming when wanted
if bullion were exported from the country. But Malynes,
writing at a later date, urged his case upon other grounds —
that as exchange implied value for value, the operation of
the exchanges defrauded the revenue.

Taking his stand upon such purely technical grounds, the
first Mercantilists found no difficulty in refuting him. If
the increase of foreign trade was a good and desirable thing
quite apart from how the increased wealth was distributed —
and in official quarters this assumption was taken for granted
— then the Mercantilists were easily able to show that
restrictions on the export of bullion impeded the growth of
foreign trade. " They represented, first, that the exporta-

Political and Economic Thought 281

tion of gold and silver, in order to purchase foreign goods,
did not always diminish the quantity of those metals in the
kingdom. That, on the contrary, it might frequently increase
that quantity ; because if the consumption of foreign goods
was not thereby increased in the country, those goods might
be re-exported to foreign countries, and, being there sold
for a large profit, might bring back much more treasure than
was originally sent out to purchase them." x Thomas Mun,
who is sometimes described as the founder of Mercantilism
and whose treatise England's Treasure in Foreign Trade
which, often reprinted during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, retained almost canonical authority until it was
displaced by The Wealth of Nations, declared that " Money
begets trade and trade increases money." He compared
the operations of foreign trade to the seed-time and harvest of
agriculture. " If we only behold," he says, " the actions of
the husbandman in the seed-time, when he casteth away
much good corn unto the ground, we shall account him
rather a madman than a husbandman. But when we consider
his labours in the harvest, which is the end of his endeavours,
we shall find the worth and plentiful increase of his actions."
The sub- title of the treatise declares that " the balance
of our foreign trade is the rule of Treasury," and the object
is declared to be to exhibit the means by which a kingdom
may be enriched. " The ordinary means to increase our
wealth and treasure is by foreign trade, wherein we must
ever observe this rule — to sell more to strangers yearly than
we consume of theirs in value. For that part of our stock
which is not returned to us in wares must necessarily be
brought home in treasure." Every effort must therefore be
devoted to increase our exports and to decrease our consump-
tion of foreign commodities. Waste land should be used to
grow hemp, flax and other articles which are now imported.
We might also diminish our imports if we would lessen our
demand for foreign wares in diet and raiment. The vagaries
and excesses of fashion might be corrected by adopting
sumptuary laws prevailing in other countries. "If in our
raiment we will be prodigal, let this be done by our own
manufactures, where the success of the rich may be the

1 Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, book iv. chap. i.

232 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

employment of the poor, whose labours, notwithstanding,
would be more profitable if they were done to the use of
strangers." We may charge a high price for articles which
our neighbours need and which no other country can supply ;
but those of which we do not possess the monopoly must be
sold as cheap as possible. Foreign materials worked up in
England for export should be duty free. Our exports
should be carried in our own ships, and our fisheries should
be developed. Writing as a Director of the East India
Company, Mun pronounced our trade with the East Indies
the most profitable of our commercial activities, not only
because we obtain its products cheaply for ourselves, but
because we sell the surplus at a high price to our neighbours.
This " may well stir up our utmost endeavours to maintain
and enlarge this great and noble business, so much importing
the public wealth, strength and happiness." x

Such was the faith of Mercantilism as it was most widely
accepted. Apart from what he has to say about sumptuary
laws, which has a fifteenth-century ring about it, it is the
same faith as that of the average commercial man to-day.
Subsequent writers sought to widen out the Mercantile
theory. They deprecated the exaggerated importance given
to foreign trade and emphasized the importance of home
markets and agriculture. Rejecting the notion that the
national wealth depended on cash, they maintained that
goods paid for goods and that nature and labour were the
ultimate source of wealth. To this extent their thought
showed a reversion towards the Mediaeval point of view.
But on the other hand they were modernist, being the fore-
runners of the Free Traders. They attacked the elaborate
system of prohibitions, duties, bounties and monopolies
as an impediment rather than an encouragement to trade.
Dudley North anticipated Adam Smith when he declared,
" The world as to trade is but as one nation, and nations
are but as persons. No trade is unprofitable to the public ;
for if any prove so, men leave it off ; and wherever the trader
thrives the public thrives also." Charles Davanent, another
of the school, maintained that loss by balance in one trade
may cause profit in another. " Trade," he says, " is in its

1 Political Thought from Bacon to Halifax, by G. P. Gooch, pp. 233-4.

Political and Economic Thought 233

own nature free, finds its own channel, and best directeth
its own course." But he forgets that the same arguments
may be turned against him. For while it is true that trade
when untrammelled will find its own channel, it does not
follow that the channel it finds is a socially desirable one ;
for while loss in one trade may cause profit in another, one
man is called to bear the loss while another gets the profits,
resulting in an unequal distribution of wealth that is any-
thing but socially advantageous.

The next development of Mercantilism is associated with
the name of Adam Smith. I call it the next development
because though it is true the Manchester School reversed
the economic maxims of the Mercantilists, yet finally they
only differed from them to the extent of carrying their ideas
to their logical conclusion. The Mercantile theory of Mun
was a theory of the business of making money by foreign
trade. As such it provided a theory or policy for a group
of interests which it assumed was in the public interest, but
it took no particular pains to explain how and why. The
Free Traders who followed him attempted to give the theory
a wider application, demanding the abolition of privileges
in trade. But they went little further than making this
demand. To secure acceptance for such proposals something
more was needed. Free Trade would remain unacceptable
as an administrative proposal so long as political and economic
thought was dominated largely by Mediaeval preconceptions,
and it became necessary, therefore, to secure acceptation for
the Free Trade policy to undermine what remained of Medi-
aeval political and economic thought. This was the work
of Adam Smith. To the Mediaeval idea of privileges for all
he opposed the idea of the abolition of all privileges and
unfettered individual competition which he associated with
the gospel of Free Trade. To the Mediaeval idea of the
Just Price he opposed the idea that prices were best settled
by competition. " To buy in the cheapest market and to
sell in the dearest " was a policy calculated to secure the
greatest good of the greatest number. But such economic
principles were incompatible with the Mediaeval and Chris-
tian ideal of human unselfishness. Then, concluded Adam
Smith, such principles had no relevance in economics. Not

284 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

unselfishness but enlightened self-interest was the ideal to
be aimed at.

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith postu-
lates the doctrine of sympathy as the real bond between
human beings in their ethical relations. But in the Wealth
of Nations he makes it clear that human sympathy has no
place in economic relationships. " It is not from the benevo-
lence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker," he tells us,
" that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their
own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity,
but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities,
but of their advantage." This perverted attitude of mind
permeates the whole of Adam Smith's writings. According
to him the public well-being was secured, not by the assertion
of communal interests, by the subordination of individual
interests to those of the community, but by the deliberate
removal of all economic restraints in order that each individual
might be at liberty to pursue his own selfish ends without
let or hindrance. Laissez-faire, laissez passer was the key
to unlock all economic problems, the sole panacea for all
human ills, the only hope of social regeneration. Give free
play to enlightened self-interest and natural liberty, and
prosperity would soon shine in all its splendour on every
department of the national life, for the effect of urging each
individual to pursue his interests under a system of unfettered
individual competition would be to so stimulate trade and
cheapen production that there would soon be plenty for all
and to spare.

That Adam Smith should have been hailed as a prophet
can only be explained on the hypothesis that the moral tone
of society had already reached its nadir ere he wrote. Ruskin's
allusion to him as " the half-bred and half-witted Scotchman
who taught the deliberate blasphemy : Thou shalt hate
the Lord thy God. damn His laws and covet thy neighbour's
goods," was well deserved, and is not the less true because
he was sufficiently cunning to wrap up his devilish advice
in language of plausible sophistry instead of presenting it
in the raw. The apology of all who act as Adam Smith
would have them do is that they take the world as they
find it, but they conceal the fact that they are content to

Political and Economic Thought 285

leave it worse than they found it. Of no one is this truer than
of Adam Smith. He was the pioneer of that economic fatalism
which during its fifty years of power paralysed society. In
the hands of his followers all his half-hearted qualifications
were torn away and political economy became the rigid
soulless doctrine of every man for himself and the devil
take the hindermost, and all sympathy for the exploited was
strangled by the Ricardian " iron law of wages." That
Ruskin entirely annihilated the brazen doctrine in the first
three pages of Unto this Last, published in 1862, by ex-
posing the fallacy underlying the method of reasoning of
the Manchester economists, any one with an ounce of logic
in his composition is well aware. Yet in spite of this it showed
no signs of weakening until its most distinguished adherent,
John Stuart Mill, disowned the superstition seven years
afterwards, in 1869.

Apologists of Adam Smith urge in his defence that the
governing class took only so much from his teaching as suited
them and ignored the rest, and he is therefore not to be blamed
for the misinterpretation or misapplication of his principles.
While this plea may be urged in defence of other men, it
cannot be urged in the case of Adam Smith. Most pioneers
of thought have to complain that their followers have been
true to the letter of their advice while their spirit has been
neglected, but the governing class were true to the spirit
of Adam Smith's gospel if not to the letter. If Adam
Smith really thought that he could on the one hand urge
individuals to pursue their own selfish interests and at the
same time forgo in the public interest any privileges they
might possess, he is to be regarded as a fool of the first order,
half-witted as Ruskin called him, entirely destitute of any
understanding of the human psychology, for the heartless
competition to which he condemned those without privileges
made those who possessed privileges cling to them more
tenaciously than ever. %

But the evil of Adam Smith's gospel does not end with
the fact that it confirmed the governing class in the pursuit
of their own selfish interests ; it operated to force the work-
ing class to pursue the same policy in self-defence. Hence
the theory of Adam Smith leads logically to that of Marx.

286 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

The doctrine of individualism leads inevitably to that of
the Class War, which is the natural and inevitable rebellion
of the masses against a governing class that has become, in
the words of Sir Thomas More, " a certain conspiracy of
rich men procuring their own commodities under the name
and title of the Common Wealth."

CHAPTER XVI
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

IN the latter half of the eighteenth century there was
inaugurated a series of changes in methods of production
which gradually changed England from being a country
mainly rural and agricultural into one largely urban and
industrial. The period of transition is known as the
Industrial Revolution, and is roughly dated from about
1770 to 1840, though of course these dates are entirely
arbitrary inasmuch as industry had been moving in this
direction for at least the two preceding centuries, while
the development and expansion of the forces then set in
motion have continued ever since. But it was during
those years that the really dramatic changes were made.
In 1769 Watts made the steam engine of Newcomen into
a really practical and commercial thing by the introduction
of a separate condenser, and this invention was the central
agency for transforming industry from a basis of handicraft
to machine production. Meanwhile the textile industry
was becoming rapidly mechanized. In 1730 Kay invented
the flying shuttle ; in 1770 Hargreaves the spinning jenny.
Arkwright, Compton and Cartwright followed with their in-
ventions which made possible the application of steam power
to textile production. The ball was now fairly set rolling ;
inventions in one trade promoted inventions in another.
The inventions of the cotton industry were adapted to
the woollen and linen trades, to hosiery, silk and lace-
making. First one trade and then another succumbed to
the new inventions until in our day this tendency has
reached its climax in the growth of automatic machinery
to which the war gave such an impetus.

For some time before the Industrial Revolution burst

337

288 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

upon the world industry had been becoming more mechanical.
The introduction into the workshops of the system of the
division of labour in the seventeenth century by splitting
up the handicrafts into simple detailed operations paved
the way for change. For as machinery in its infancy was
only capable of performing separate and simplified opera-
tions, it is evident that so long as all the operations necessary
to production in any of the handicrafts were the work of
a skilled handicraftsman machinery could make very little
headway. But when the individual labourer was confined
in his operations to a single simple mechanical task, the
road was paved for the introduction of machinery by
simplifying the problem of the inventor.

This change from a qualitative to a quantitative basis
for industry was not introduced without a considerable
amount of opposition, which came both from above and
from below. The craftsmen hated it, and it is safe to say
the change would never have been made but for the defeat
of the Guilds, since so long as the workers retained any
control over the conditions of their employment they would
resist changes in production which destroyed pleasure in
work and involved their personal degradation. The instinct
of the craftsman is always against factory production.
There is no Medicsval prejudice about this, for in this respect
craftsmen have not changed since the Middle Ages. The
hand-loom weavers refused to go into the factories in
Lancashire, though the wages were higher, because they
hated the discipline of the factories and felt it a moral sur-
render to accept voluntarily such conditions of servitude.
" Although to the authors of the books on the advantages
of machinery, invention seemed to have lightened the
drudgery of men and women, it had introduced a wearing
tension ; the nervous strain of watching machinery and
working with machinery aged men and women faster than
the heaviest physical exertions." r Every craftsman instinc-
tively knows this, and it is this that lies at the bottom of
their hatred of machinery. The class to-day, as at the
time of the Industrial Revolution, which is most certain

1 The Town Labourer, 1760-1832, by J. L. Hammond and Barbara
Hammond, p. 21.

The Industrial Revolution 289

of the benefits of machinery is the class the farthest removed
from it, who profit by the conveniences it brings them and
who are not called upon to support its burden. As the
class which was required to attend machinery viewed the
matter otherwise, it is apparent that its introduction pre-
supposes the existence of a slave class in society that can
be exploited. Indeed, it was from such a class that the
first factory operatives came. " There were three main
disturbances of the regular life of the time to account for
the great stream of population into Lancashire and the
adjacent counties. There was, first, the agrarian, revolution
in England, dispossessing a large number of small agricul-
turists and breaking down the life and economy of the
old village. There was, secondly, the congestion of Ireland
and the acute distress caused by the exactions of an absentee
landlord-class. There was, in the third place, the long war ;
the disbanding of a huge army let loose a flood of men
whose ties with their own homes were broken. The building
of canals and bridges helped to make labour more mobile,
and these enterprises drew people to the districts where
labour was wanted for the factories." x

Until the middle of the seventeenth century the efforts
of the workers to resist mechanical innovations found
support in high quarters. It is well known that the Tudors
were consistently opposed to the introduction of machinery
which was injurious to handicraftsmen or would lower
the standard of quality in the articles produced. For a
long period they appear to have regarded machinery with
the same hostility as did the Luddites in the early years
of the nineteenth century. Inventive genius was then
termed " subtle imagination," and any substitute for the
manufacture by hands and feet was regarded as the ruin
of the industry concerned. For this reason the fulling
mill in 1482, the gig mill in 1552, and the tucking mill in
1555 were discountenanced. The advisers of Edward VI
and Elizabeth, though they encouraged foreign trade, were
equally opposed to mechanical innovations. James I and
Charles I assumed the same attitude. They stood by the

1 The Town Labourer, 1760-1832, by J. L. Hammond and Barbara
Hammond, p. 13.

240 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

handicraftsmen and insisted that manufacturers should not
dismiss their workmen owing to fluctuations of trade which
had been artificially created by themselves in their pursuit
of a quantitative ideal in production. Next to keeping
men in employment, the chief object which the first of the
Stuarts set before themselves was the maintenance of a
high standard of quality in the goods produced, and for
this purpose they sought to arrest that steady deterioration
of quality in wares which had followed the defeat of the
Guilds, by providing supervision for existing industries.

For a long time the opposition was successful in checking
the mechanical tendency in industry. But it was broken
down finally by the combined influence of two forces —
the growth of foreign trade and the Puritan Movement.
The discovery of America had provided England with an
apparently inexhaustible market for its commodities. This
removed the economic objection to change by providing
an outlet for the surplus products which accompanied efforts
to place production on a quantitative basis. As the fear
of unemployment was diminished the opposition was
deprived of its strongest argument — the only one perhaps
that would carry any weight with the middle-class Puritans,
who were now becoming such a power in the land, and who
joined with the landlords to overthrow Charles at the Civil
War. With the defeat of Charles the old order came to an
end. Nothing now stood in the way of business and enter-
prise, sweating and mechanical industry. The mind of
the Puritan was hard and mechanical, devoid alike of any
love of beauty or human sympathy. The Puritans were
in the main recruited from the trading classes of the
community, and denounced the restrictions which Charles
imposed on machinery as an interference with personal
liberty. Any thought of putting a boundary to mechanical
development was to them insufferable tyranny, and there
can be little doubt that the attitude of the Stuarts towards
machinery and their attempts to stem the tide of capitalist
industry was a chief contributory cause of the Civil War.
Their interferences naturally gave rise to discontent among
men whose ruling passion was that of avarice and whose
natures were so corrupted as to exalt this besetting sin

The Industrial Revolution 241

of theirs to the level of a virtue, celebrated at a later day
by Samuel Smiles. This perversion of the nature of the
Puritan is to be attributed to the fact that he denied
himself all the normal pleasures of life. He was cruel to
himself, and so he found no difficulty in being cruel to
others, especially when it was of assistance to him in the
making of money.

It was because the Industrial Revolution was dominated
by the Puritan spirit th?.t it was so relentless in its cruelty.
When we read of the terrible conditions of factory life in
Lancashire during this period, of workers locked in factories,
of the heartless exploitation of women and young children,
of the ceaseless day and night work, of children working by
relays and sleeping in filthy beds that were never allowed
to cool, of weary hands and feet following rapidly the quick
movements of the never- tiring machines, we realize that
it was dominated by men who had become dehumanized,
and that the personal independence of the workers must
have entirely disappeared, for no class of human beings
would consent to submit to such conditions who retained
a scrap of independence. It was not until 1832 that the
factory working day was reduced to twelve hours and to
ten hours in 1847. It was not without good reason that
at Ashton in 1831 it was declared " that the negroes were
slaves in name but the factory employees were slaves in
reality." *

What happened in England appears to have happened
wherever industrialism has been introduced. The Prussian
Government deliberately dispossessed the Polish peasantry
of their lands in order to ensure a cheap supply of labour
for their factories. America still exploits the cheap labour
of Eastern Europeans, while until quite recently child
labour was exploited in the cotton mills of the Southern
States almost as mercilessly as it was in England before
the passing of the Factory Acts. The Swadeshi Movement
is closely associated with the introduction of Industrialism
into India, and under its auspices the same evils are being
created. Just what the factory system is beginning to

1 The Town Labourer. 1760-1832, by J. L. Hammond and Barbara
Hammond, p. 18.

242 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

mean for India is to be inferred from a recent report of
the Indian Factory Commission : "In daylight mills the
average working time for the whole year is twelve hours
and five minutes ; in mills fitted with electric light thirteen
to thirteen and a half hours." But the Commissioners say
" in some provinces the law is ignored to an extent not
hitherto imagined. The law referring to the half-hour's
recess is generally disregarded in rice mills, grinding factories
and flour mills throughout India." In Bombay the factory
operatives inhabit slums of the most wretched character,
crowded and insanitary. Indeed, India appears to be light-
heartedly plunging into the sufferings which are the
inevitable accompaniment of factory production.1

Nowadays the Industrial system encompasses us on
all sides, and the question may be asked, Has the system
come to stay or are the difficulties in which it finds itself
to-day the beginning of the end ? If the answer to this
question depended upon votes I doubt not there would
be an overwhelming majority in favour of its retention,
for the mass of people to-day are so much a part of the
system as to be incapable of understanding how the needs
of society could be met apart from our huge machinery.
They fail altogether to realize that in the fifteenth century
the wages of the town artisan worked out at six or seven
times the cost of his board, and the agricultural labourer
earned two-thirds of this amount. Though nearly every-
body is dissatisfied with the present order of society, very
few people suspect that there is any connection between
the evils they deplore and industrial methods of production.
Others, realizing that the social problem preceded the
Industrial Revolution, are disposed to dismiss the industrial
problem as a false issue. Neither our own nor future genera-
tions, they contend, can escape the influence of modern
technology.

Now quite apart from the issue as to whether modern
technology is entitled to the respect with which it is cus-
tomary to regard it, it is manifest that it has been reared
on a base of social and economic injustice and that it is

1 See Essays in National Idealism, by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy,
pp. 157-8 (P Natesan & Co., Madras; Probstbain & Co., London).

The Industrial Revolution 248

maintained to-day by a highly complex system of finance.
It follows, therefore, that any change which threatens this
basis must react on the technology. If the highly complex
system of finance were to break down, as it already shows
signs of doing, modern technology would be involved in
the catastrophe. A very few years of social confusion
and the fabric of technology would be in pieces. For whereas
a simple or primitive technology can speedily recover from
violent upheavals, a highly complex and artificial one cannot,
because its maintenance is dependent upon a high degree
of co-operation. The imminence of an economic break-
down which is becoming generally admitted, raises, therefore,
the question, Could the modern technology be rebuilt after
the breakdown ?

Now, it is my contention that the economic and psycho-
logical conditions necessary to reconstruct it will be absent.
Once there is a breakdown the spell that blinds the modern
world will be broken and all the anarchistic tendencies
of the modern man will be liberated. Every popular demand
to-day is for something which is incompatible with the
industrial order. That this incompatibility is not recognized
is due to the fact that few people trouble to carry ideas
to their logical conclusions and imagine they can eat their
cake and have it at the same time. The realization of
these demands will, so far as the Industrial system is con-
cerned, be like putting new wine into old bottles, and it
will burst the bottles. The Industrial system demands for
its maintenance the servitude of the workers, while the
workers demand liberty. The life and soul of the system
is the race for profits ; the workers demand production
shall be for use and not for profit. Its finance and tech-
nology involve a highly centralized control ; the workers
demand a distributive initiative. This demand for some-
thing which is incompatible with the industrial ideal is not
only confined to the consciously organized political workers ;
it is made by individuals in their private capacity in every
rank of society. Industrialism, built upon the division of
labour, denies men pleasure in their work. The conse-
quence is that men seek happiness in other ways, in the
pursuit of pleasure in their leisure, in the excitement of

244 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

gambling. Both of these things tend to undermine the
old hard Puritanical morale which built up and maintained
the system. The gambling spirit in trade has, through
profiteering, dislocated the economic system, and led men
to trust to chance rather than hard work for success in life.
The craving for pleasure has become such that only the
external pressure of circumstances can keep men at work.
The reaction against speeding up has come. Nobody
nowadays wants to do any work. The old incentives are
gone. Interest has gone out of work, and there is no pros-
pect of the workmen setting up in business on his own
account, which up to a generation ago preserved a certain
morale in industry. Experience in large organizations has
taught men that success and promotion do not come to
the conscientious or capable worker, but to the toady and
bluffer. All this is demoralizing, and provides no basis
for the future reconstruction of industry on a mechanical
basis. Now that the workers are organized, the demand
of the rank and file is not to control industry. They have
too strong a sense of human values to desire that but
to get through the day with the least possible effort. The
reason for this is that what the workers in their hearts
really desire is control of their own lives in the same way
that the hand-loom weavers had control ; and it is because
mass production everywhere stands between them and
such control that subconsciously they everywhere seek the
destruction of the industrial system.1

In these circumstances, if industry is to be rebuilt
after the economic breakdown, it will have to be rebuilt
upon a different foundation, and its central aim must be
to give back to men pleasure in their work. A rebuilt
Industrialism cannot do this, because its central principle
is that of the division of labour. It is all very well for
would-be industrial reformers to talk about stimulating
the creative impulse of industry, but the system of the
division of labour precludes this possibility. I confess to
a complete inability to understand reformers who talk

1 " Capitalism cannot be controlled. But it can be destroyed and
replaced by a workers' Industrial Republic " (The State : its Origin and
Function, by Wm. Paul, p. 195).

The Industrial Revolution 245

about " stimulating the impulses of youth for creative
existence " and don't challenge the system of the division
of labour. I doubt very much whether they mean any-
thing. Nay, I do not doubt it ; I am sure of it. We know
that the system of the division of labour was the great
factor in the destruction of the creative impulse, and we
may be sure that the impulse will not reappear until the
system is destroyed. It came into existence for the pur-
poses of exploitation, and it will go with it. If men are
ever to regain control over their environment, the system
of the division of labour will need to be broken, since so
long as it remains the mass of workers will be at the mercy
of the power that directs the system.

But, it will be asked, is machinery to disappear ? It
will need to in so far as its effect has been to enslave man.
Generally speaking, this would mean that small machines
would be permitted, while large ones would be forbidden
on the principle that a large machine tends to enslave man,
because he must sacrifice himself mentally and morally
to keep it in commission, whereas a small one has not this
effect, because it can be turned on and off at will. Exceptions
would have to be made to this rule, as in the case of pumping
and lifting machinery where no question of keeping it in
commission necessarily enters. The difficulty of deciding
where a machine was and was not harmful would not be
difficult to determine once the general principle were
admitted that machinery needs to be subordinated to man.

CHAPTER XVII

PARLIAMENTARIANISM AND THE NINETEENTH

CENTURY

BY the end of the eighteenth century the regime estab-
lished by the Reformation in England began to show signs
of breaking down. The pursuit of wealth which had been
the vitalizing principle of the period was bringing in its
train all manner of economic and political complications.
It had resulted in the concentration of wealth in the hands
of the few. Class divisions and class hatred were increasing.
Money made in trade was employed in land speculation.
Rents were raised and wages reduced. After the Napoleonic
wars there came economic stagnation and widespread un-
employment. Government had fallen into the hands of
an oligarchy who wielded all political power. Spiritually,
society was dead. Religion had reached its lowest ebb.
Architecture had become a lifeless formula. The crafts,
from being media of aesthetic expression, had degenerated
into affairs of trade and commerce. Some slight tradition
of art lingered in painting, which henceforth monopolized
the name of art. Political science as a theory of the social
organism had entirely disappeared, and its place had been
taken by a new political economy which revived the laws
of the jungle. Nothing now remained of the old mediaeval
order but its human tradition which survived among the
poor. Mankind was left

Wandering between two worlds, one dead.
The other powerless to be born.

The nineteenth century is the story of the wandering.

Though the world was dead, it was not without hope.
The old order was gone. Most people thought it had gone

246

Parliamentarianism and the Nineteenth Century 247

for ever, for out of its ashes new hopes had arisen. The
French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution combined
to give the age a vision. It was not the vision of a new
social order, but of idealized anarchy, for the impulse of
the century was destructive rather than constructive.
Social order is impossible apart from privileges involving
reciprocal rights and duties. But privileges in the post-
Reformation period had come into disrepute, partly because
they were monopolized by the few instead of being shared
by the many, as was the case in the Middle Ages, but mainly
because they were so grossly abused by those who claimed
rights but repudiated responsibilities. Hence it was that
as privileges were associated with tyranny, liberty, in the
minds of Radicals, became associated with the abolition of
privileges, with the negation of social order, with anarchy.
The French Revolution had given men the hope that the
governing class might be overthrown. But its influence
was ephemeral and had evaporated by the middle of the
century. It is less to the influence of the French Revolution
than to that of the Industrial Revolution that we must look
for an interpretation of the nineteenth century, for it was
the central driving force which completely disrupted what
remained of the old social order, reducing it to atomic units
which lacked the principle of cohesion except for the pur-
poses of economic and military defence. That so little
resistance was offered to the socially disintegrating influence
of machinery was due to the fact that the automaton came
to exercise an influence over the minds of men akin to that
of magic. It hypnotized them into the belief that there
was some virtue in change for the sake of change, that
what was new was in some mysterious way superior to
the old and that in some way unknown to themselves the
machine would, if given free play, solve all social problems.
For so many generations had the descendants of the men
who stole the Church lands drilled into the minds of the
people the idea that the Middle Ages was a period of black
tyranny, ignorance, superstition and poverty, that a preju-
dice had been created which was fatal to all clear thinking
on social questions and credence was given to the idea,
enunciated by Adam Smith, that poverty was due to lack

248 A GuildsmarSs Interpretation of History

of productive power instead of to gross social and economic
injustice, as was actually the case. It was thus that during
the nineteenth century faith in the benevolence of machinery
became the faith of the people. Its sufficiency was exalted
into a dogma above and beyond discussion. A man might
question God but not the machine — to do so was heresy
in the nineteenth century. Hence the key to the century
is not to be found in ideas, for the great men of the century
left no permanent impression on their age, but in this
hypnotic belief in progress which carried all before it. As
the machine created problem after problem, barrier after
barrier was swept away, and as each one was swept away
civilization found itself somewhere where it never expected
to be.

The change in the material and economic base of society
was accompanied by the growth of an intellectual fluidity
" which is really not so much a definite conviction or
emotion as a rotting or a deliquescence, a melting and
confounding of the outlines of beliefs and desires, a going
to slush of all values, a thawing and liquefaction of all that
was hard and permanent in the world. . . . The whole of
modernism is an attempt to obliterate distinctions — to
discover similarity and unity everywhere. All men are
equal, men are the same as women, good is the same as
evil, freewill does not exist, catastrophe has no place in
the universe, and everything is gradually evolved." J The
first step in this movement towards the obliteration of
varieties was taken by Adam Smith in the Wealth of
Nations ; the last was taken by Mr. Bernard Shaw in
the Quintessence of Ibsenism. It was Mr. Shaw's strange
ambition to emancipate mankind by emptying life of its
remaining contents, but the more Mr. Shaw seeks to change
things the more he reveals himself a child of the established
material fact, who is content to take the material achieve-
ment for granted as a thing of permanence and stability.
He had lived all his life in a world of illusions, vainly
imagining he was at work laying the foundations of a new
social order, whereas in reality he was doing nothing more
or less than assisting to remove the last barrier that stood

1 Letter to the New Age, by E. Cowley. November 13, 1913.

Parliamentarianism and the Nineteenth Century 249

between industrial civilization and its final catastrophe.
For catastrophe became inevitable from the day it became
the fashion for men to deny its possibility ; for when the
fear of catastrophe was removed no power remained capable
of restraining the forces of social destruction. These crazy
heretical philosophers were followed in the nineteenth
century because they were the only people who could set
things in motion. After the Napoleonic wars economic
stagnation had overtaken England as a consequence of
the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. In the
normal course of affairs this undue concentration would
have led to a revolution in England as it did in France,
but this was averted by following the advice of these false
prophets who taught the governing class the art of post-
poning the crisis by extending the area of exploitation.
This was the secret of the success of the Free Trade policy ;
of the economic relief which uncontrolled machinery brought.
By producing large quantities of goods cheaply, which
enabled our manufacturers to exploit distant markets, by
the development of railway building which offered new
opportunities for investment and caused a great shifting
of the centres of population from villages to small towns
and from small towns to big ones, activity was stimulated
in every direction. This temporarily decentralized wealth
and brought about a distributed initiative. The prosperity
thus artificially created led people to suppose that the
principles of the new political economy were eternally true
instead of being a mere theoretical justification of measures
of economic expediency, useful at a particular juncture
but with no finality about them. The supposed central
truth of the new economics having been established in
this way, sophists found no difficulty in persuading the
world that all other ideas and traditions which clashed
with the demands of " progress " were of themselves dated.
Such ideas, they affirmed, might be true at one stage of
social evolution but not at another. All truth, they main-
tained, was relative ; absolute truth did not exist.

Meanwhile people who had preserved their mental
balance found themselves at a disadvantage. To them
the fallacies of the new gospel were manifest. They found

250 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

it easy to expose them, but impossible to base any practical
activity upon the truth as they understood it. The reason
for this was to be found in the fact that since the decline
of religion and art the links between them and the popular
mind had been broken. They were no longer understood.
Hence it came about that throughout the nineteenth
century efforts were made by means of experiments and
historical research to find lost roads and to recover lost
truths. Efforts were made to revive religion, art and social
science. This is the secret of the great intellectual and
scholastic activity of the nineteenth century. Its aim
was to enable men to regain that grip on reality which
they had lost. To talk about the nineteenth century as
being an age of enlightenment is nonsense. It was. perhaps
the darkest period in history, when the great traditions
were dead ; when great men groped for the light and
ordinary men were saved from despair by the hypnotism
of the machine.

But the world heeded such workers little. The problems
of the immediate present pressed so heavily upon the
majority that they were in no mood to listen to any gospel
that could not promise immediate results. They were
impatient with men who took longer views. Hence it was
all through the nineteenth century the blind led the blind.
Politics concerned themselves with appearances ; realities
lived underground. Two men only who were prominent
in political life were possessed of a strong sense of reality
— Cobbett and Disraeli. The former made a desperate
effort to pump realities into politics from below ; the latter
having failed to pump realities into them from above,
came to accept the situation and exploit it.

Cobbett towers above all his contemporaries as a man
in touch with realities. He associated himself with all
the Radicals of his age in their demand for the reform of
Parliament. Though he differed with them fundamentally
as to the nature of the problems of society, he saw as clearly
as they did the need of Parliamentary reform. The ideal
of government as it existed in the Middle Ages was to give
protection to the workers. It was for this purpose that
charters were given to the Guilds and the Feudal Lord

Parliamentarianism and the Nineteenth Century 251

held his position. But since the revival of Roman Law,
government had become increasingly associated with ex-
ploitation, and after the Reformation it existed for little
else. The plutocrats who controlled it not only refused
to give the people economic protection, but forbade them
to organize to protect themselves. In these -circumstances
the necessary first step towards reform was to change the
Government, but as Parliament was elected upon a franchise
which was limited and corrupt, and the people were
deprived of any place in the social scheme, this involved
electoral reform, upon which, after the Napoleonic wars
came to an end, the Radicals concentrated their attention.

Though for the attainment of electoral reform Cobbett
co-operated with the Radicals, he took a different view
to them on almost everything, and looking at the situation
from the point of view of to-day it is possible to say that
Cobbett was in the main right. He exhibited a wider grip
of the social problem than perhaps any one in the nineteenth
century, not to forget Ruskin. Though he recognized that
the governing class was corrupt, he nevertheless recognized
that the Tory stood for many things that were true. He
did not fall into that most hopeless of modern errors of
assuming that because men did not live up to their pro-
fessions therefore their professed faith was at fault, or that
because a creed contained a certain admixture of error
it might not contain a large element of truth. In the main
Cobbett was content to take the old political philosophies
and traditions for granted, and directed his attacks at
the governing class for misusing them. His fine traditional
and historic sense was here his salvation. Cobbett's History
of the Reformation may not be a work of scholarship, but
it is a work of genius. In it he shows an insight into the
Reformation and its political and economic consequence
which throws a flood of light on history and the economic
problem. It is superior to the economic histories of more
recent times to the extent that it recognizes the existence
of other things than economics.

While Cobbett rose superior to the current historical
prejudices he saw more clearly than any other man the
trend of his age. Industrialism and Adam Smith he hated,

252 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

and indeed it was the combination of the two that made
Industrialism such a scourge. But in his protests against
factory life he appears to have stood alone among prominent
reformers. The Radicals who came after him accepted
Industrialism as an established fact, and Radicalism lost
its hold on the rural population. There can but be one
reason for this — that the peasantry felt that the Radicals
in accepting Industrialism and Adam Smith had deserted
their cause and that, bad as the Tories were, the Liberals
stood for something far worse. They felt instinctively
that the Radicals' gospel of salvation was calculated to
make things worse for them by rendering the circumstances
of their life even more unstable ; and they were right.

Not only did Radicalism by the support it gave to the
Manchester School lose the peasantry, but it divided the
forces of reform in the towns. It separated Middle-Class
from Working-Class reformers. The Reform Bill of 1832
incorporated the new industrial towns and abolished the
rotten boroughs, but it did not secure payment of members.
Disappointment with the Reform Bill led to the Chartist
agitation, which was a combination of the old Radical
political party and the new Socialist and Trade Union
Movements. It revived the Radical programme of 1816.
The agitation, after being carried on for eleven years, reached
a climax when the Revolution of 1848 in France aroused
them to their last great effort. But it all came to nothing.
After 1848 the Trade Unionists retired from political agita-
tion and directed their attention exclusively to the work
of building up their own internal organizations — a policy
which they continued until in our day the Socialist agitation
brought them once more into the political field. But in
the meantime they succeeded in so consolidating their
strength that with their re-emergence they have become
a force to be reckoned with both in the political and indus-
trial world. There is no reason to doubt, therefore, that
their decision in 1848 to retire from political agitation was
the one that wisdom dictated.

But there was another cause for the decline of working-
class political agitation after 1848 — the development of
ail way building. It was this perhaps more than anything

Parliameniarianism and the Nineteenth Century 258

else that broke the power of the Chartist agitation by pro-
viding an abundance of employment, which, except for
short periods of trade depression, lasted until the end of
the century, and which reconciled the workers to the fact
of Industrialism, if not whole-heartedly, at least to the
extent of persuading them that resistance to it was hope-
less. It is well to remember that the workers at any time
have never really believed in it. In its early days they
definitely disbelieved in it and did all in their power to
resist its encroachments, going so far in the days of the
Luddite riots as to break up machinery. If they came
finally to acquiesce if not to believe in Industrialism, it
is because the old order had so completely disappeared
that they had no longer anything with which to compare
it. But still they are restless under it and must increasingly
become so until it is finally destroyed ; for a force so
mechanical runs contrary to every healthy normal human
instinct, and no peace or social and political stability is
possible so long as it remains.

The immediate political effect of the acquiescence of
the working class in industrialism was their acceptance
of the political leadership of the new capitalists into whose
hands political power had passed. They were wealthy,
and were able successfully to dispute political power with
the landed plutocracy (whom it is customary to call the old
aristocracy), of whose rule the people had had such a bitter
experience. The new capitalists had restored prosperity.
Perhaps after all there was something to be said for them.
There are two sides to every question ; the working class
might not be the entire receptacles of political wisdom.
In some such way as this, I imagine, a working man would
reason. Though he could not see eye to eye with the
capitalists, he nevertheless was up against the fact that
trade boomed and the condition of the working class was
improving. In such circumstances perhaps the best policy
was to support the capitalists in their general policy, while
by means of better working-class organization to secure
for the workers a greater share of the wealth produced.
It was a perfectly intelligible position, and it is not sur-
prising that it gained the day.

254 A Guildsmaris Interpretation of History

But there was another reason for the support they gave
— the success of the Free Trade policy as exemplified by
the repeal of the Corn Laws. England had become to
some extent dependent on the supply of foreign corn.
During the Napoleonic wars this supply was so hampered
that wheat rose to famine prices, and with this rise there
came an increase in rents and the price of land. But after
peace was made prices began to fall, and the landlords
demanded duties on corn to keep up the price of wheat.
The manufacturers, on the other hand, wanted cheap food
for their workpeople in order to be able to pay them low
wages. As a compromise, the Corn Laws of 1814 and 1828
were enacted. They provided a sliding scale of duties
which rose as prices fell, and fell as prices rose. But the
compromise did not for long remain satisfactory to the
manufacturers. While the Chartists were agitating for
political reform an Anti-Corn-Law League was started
to procure the abolition of import duties on grain. The
agitation which they carried on all over the country secured
the support of the workers, who were persuaded that the
repeal of the Corn Laws would increase the value of their
wages. As a consequence of the agitation, the failure of
the potato crop in Ireland and a bad harvest in England,
Sir Robert Peel in 1846 carried a measure for the gradual
abolition of the corn duties. The repeal of the duties did
not immediately affect the price of corn, but it enormously
increased the supply. The price of corn fell later, when
the English consumer got the benefit of the decreasing prices
which followed the exploitation of virgin lands in America
and the colonies. The repeal of the Corn Laws was followed
by the abolition of duties on hundreds of articles and the
reduction of .duties on others; direct taxation in the form
of income tax being resorted to in order to replace the loss
of revenue.

Free Trade during the nineteenth century became such
a fundamental principle of English financial policy, and
it coincided so entirely with the period of industrial expan-
sion and prosperity, that it has come to be believed in by
numberless people as something sacrosanct — the magic
formula of Free being sufficient to invest it for such people

Parliamentarianism and the Nineteenth Century 255

with a halo of sanctity which renders them entirely oblivious
to its practical consequences. But are there any real
grounds for such a faith ? As a measure of temporary
economic expediency, the repeal of the Corn Laws may be
justified, though as far as I can see there are no grounds
for supposing that the prosperity of the years which followed
the repeal was caused by it. It coincided with the period
of railway building, and there are far stronger reasons for
supposing that money began to circulate freely because
of the employment that railway building gave than because
of the Free Trade policy. It would have been well for
England if the repeal of the Corn Laws had only been
justified as a measure of expediency, but unfortunately,
as it was exalted into a principle that was sacrosanct, it
was followed at a later date by most serious consequences.
Firstly, it allowed the importation of sweated goods to bring
down the wages of labour in certain trades ; then it operated
to destroy agriculture and depopulated rural areas by
bringing the English wheat into competition with the
wheat grown on the virgin lands of America and the colonies ;
while, lastly, it has built up a vested interest inimical to
the interests of the country. It is well that we should not
lose sight of the fact that Free Trade confers privileges
just as much as Protection ; the difference being that
whereas manufacturers and farmers profit by Protection,
merchants and shippers profit by Free Trade. Both give
rise to political corruption, but whereas in one case it is
open corruption, in the other it is concealed.

That both Free Trade and Protection should give such
unsatisfactory results is due to the fact that the issue between
them is a false issue that arises in the absence of Guilds
to control production and prices. No stable economic
system would begin with economic expediency, whether in
the interests of manufacturers or merchants, but with the
protection of the standard of life of the worker. In the
absence of Guilds it is better for a community to suffer
from the corruption incidental to Protection than from
the corruption incidental to Free Trade, for its social and
economic effects are less harmful, not only because the
corruption which accompanies Protection is more open.

256 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

and can therefore be more easily attacked, but because it
must remain impossible for a community to attain economic
stability that allows the workers in any industry to be
placed at the mercy of the fluctuations of prices in distant
markets and to be undercut by the importation of sweated
goods from other countries as happened under Free Trade.
The only remedy finally is to be found in a restoration of
the Guilds, in connection with which Protection would
take its place as the natural corollary of a system of fixed
prices controlling the currency.

But there are further evils. Free Trade having placed
power in the hands of merchants and financiers, establishes
the trader's point of view in politics. With it has come
the pernicious habit of viewing social and industrial
activities primarily from the point of view of the profit
accruing from them rather than from that of the well-
being of the community as a whole, and this, as we have
had experience during the war, may on occasion bring
disaster. In peace-times this point of view was operative
in the work of social disintegration. It has led to the decrease
of the production of necessary and desirable things and
diverted labour to the production of useless and undesirable
things, or, in other words, it has exalted secondary above
primary production. Only a Government controlled by
trading interests could be blind to the folly of allowing things
to drift in this way, or if not blind, at any rate powerless
to devise means of changing the current. The Nemesis
that is overtaking us is the natural and inevitable conse-
quence of allowing the direction of the politics and industry
of the country to be determined solely by considerations
of the markets. Societies that are stable act otherwise.
The Mediaeva,lists, like Aristotle, recognized the danger
inherent in allowing the trading class to exercise an undue
preponderance of influence in national policy.

The reason why in the nineteenth century the trading
interest was able to carry all before it was ultimately due
to the complete disappearance of religion and art and the
communal ideal of society, though immediately it was
due to intellectual confusion, stupidity, and the hypnotic
influence of machinery which prevented men from giving

Parliamentarianism and the Nineteenth Century 257

serious consideration to any line of reasoning that came
into collision with its uncontrolled use. This was the
reason why Ruskin was thrown aside. He laid the basis
of a tradition of thought that might have borne fruit in
these days if men could only have held fast to that which
was good when appearances were against them. But faith
in reality was weak in the nineteenth century ; men trusted
entirely in appearances, and so it came about that when
the conclusions of the Manchester School were cast aside
they still clung to its utilitarian philosophy and habit of
mind. Disraeli in the days of his youth made an effort
to bring the age back to realities. Sybil was a valiant
attempt to persuade the governing class to face the facts
of the situation. He saw the trouble arising from intel-
lectual confusion, class stupidity, the absurdity and un-
reality of the Party System, and from the stiff-necked
attitude of capital towards labour. Sybil having missed
fire, he became disheartened, and by the time he came to
write Lothair he had abandoned his generous dreams and
taken to ironical badinage. Popanilla is a magnificent
burlesque on the utilitarian philosophy. It demonstrates
clearly that he was alive to the contradictions and absurd-
ities in which the Radicals were involved. But while he
saw clearly what was wrong, he had no clear vision as to
what was right. This was perhaps the secret of his political
career, and has led to much misunderstanding and mis-
representation. He came to fight on the Conservative
side, not because he believed in the Conservatives, but
because he disbelieved in the Radicals ; not because his
sympathies were undemocratic, but because he disbelieved
in the democratic leaders, whom he had sufficient insight
to see did not represent the people. In his efforts to defeat
a party of unconscious humbugs he became a conscious
humbug himself, for he came cynically to accept plutocracy
though inwardly despising it, while Gladstone idealized
its achievements because he never understood their inward-
ness. Still, in spite of their difference, Disraeli and
Gladstone really co-operated for the same end, to retain
power for the plutocracy, and under their combined
leadership politics drifted farther and farther away

17

258 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

from realities. The smugness and complacency of the
later Victorian age was only shaken by the emergence
of the Irish problem into the forefront of political issues.
Yet all the while great changes were being prepared under-
ground. But Parliament was cognizant of none of them.
It floated about on the surface of things, skilfully evading
every real issue until at length, in 1906, it was awakened
from its dreams of false security by the arrival of the
Labour Party at the House of Commons, when the govern-
ing class first became seriously aware of the democratic
upheaval that was taking place. The popular disappoint-
ment with the performances of the Labour Party led to a
reaction against Parliamentarianism which coincided with
the great strikes of 1911, from which time the Industrial
Movement may be dated.

CHAPTER XVIII
ON LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANIES

IN the middle of the nineteenth century a series of Acts
of Parliament were passed conferring upon joint-stock
companies the privilege of limited liability. As the conduct
of industry has been completely revolutionized and the
structure of society transformed through the promotion
of limited companies which followed the passing of these
Acts, they are to be reckoned among the most important
events of the century, and it is necessary for an under-
standing of the problems of to-day that their significance
be understood. Their reaction upon the social and indus-
trial life of the community has been to place society at
the mercy of an impersonal and intangible tyranny which
by paralysing all healthy and normal activities reacts to
introduce a kind of fatalism into economic, social and
political developments by placing every one at the mercy
of an elusive financial machine. It is to be observed that
this new economic development which carried the principle
of exploitation to its logical conclusion by divorcing posses-
sion from the control of industry was, like all previous
economic developments, preceded by acts of legislation.

Something approximating to limited liability existed
in the reign of Elizabeth. When in the year 1600 she
acceded to the request of the East India merchants for
a Charter of Incorporation, when they had urged that the
trade with the Indies was too remote to be capable of proper
management without a " joint and united stock," she
created ipso facto a limited liability company. For as the
Common Law then only recognized individuals and corpor-
ations as legal entities, the effect of the grant of a charter
to a trading company was to grant a species of limited

250

260 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

liability such as exists in the case of a company limited
by shares that are fully paid up, under the Acts now in
force ; though as the trade of the East India Company
was so profitable, no question of the liability for debts ever
arose. Hitherto merchants engaged in foreign trade had
been organized under " regulated " companies like the
Russia, the Turkey, and the Eastland Companies. They
were really Merchant Guilds whose members enjoyed a
monopoly of their specific trade in a given district, but
were originally in no sense financially associated or liable
for one another's engagements. The Charter of the East
India Company in acknowledging joint-stock introduced a
new principle of trade organization which was not by any
means popular with merchants generally. The merchants
of the " regulated " companies sneered at the incorporated
joint-stock East India Company because the latter were
unable to " breed-up " merchants, seeing that " any one
who is a master of money may purchase a share of their
trade and joint-stock."

On account of its unpopularity the joint-stock principle
made little headway. As late as the end of the seventeenth
century there were only three joint-stock companies in
existence — the East India, the Royal African, and the
Hudson Bay Companies. In the early eighteenth century
private joint-stock companies began to be formed whose
legal position was uncertain, for monopolies for foreign
trade had been abolished in the latter part of the reign
of James I. One of these, the South Sea Company, which
was organized to exploit the unknown wealth of South
America, managed by bribes to ministers and by promising
to reduce the national debt to secure in 1720 a Charter
of Incorporation. It was in vain that Walpole warned
the Ministry and the country against this dream of wealth.
Both went mad. A wave of reckless financial speculation
overwhelmed the country. Bubble company was followed
by bubble company until the inevitable crash came,
bringing a general ruin in its train. It was followed by
the Bubble Act, which forbade the formation of companies
without the sanction of Crown or Parliament as "a
mischievous delusion calculated to ensnare the unwary

On Limited Liability Companies 261

public." The Act appears to have remained largely a
dead letter, probably because after the South Sea Bubble,
in which many companies came to grief in addition to the
one bearing its name, political and mercantile opinion was
so averse to the formation of joint-stock companies that
few attempts at company promotion were made, and so
things remained until the early part of the nineteenth
century, when the Industrial Revolution, by opening out
new fields of industry with which it was impossible for
individual capitalists to cope, gradually introduced a change
in public opinion. In 1825 an Act was passed repealing
the Bubble Act, and encouragement was given to the
formation of companies. By this statute the Crown was
empowered to grant Charters of Incorporation, and at
the same time to declare that the persons incorporated
should be individually liable for the debts of the body
corporated. Public opinion in those days did not think
it desirable that the members of joint-stock companies
should be allowed to limit their liability to a specified
amount. In 1834 an Act was passed giving such companies
the privilege of bringing and defending actions and other
legal proceedings in the name of an officer of a company.
Hitherto, in order for a joint-stock company to be in-
corporated, it was necessary for it to obtain a charter from
the Crown or a special Act of Parliament, but in 1844 a
new departure was made enabling companies, with certain
exceptions, to obtain a Certificate of Incorporation from the
Registrar without having recourse to Crown or Parliament,
but still with unlimited liability. In 1855 the principle
of limited liability triumphed when power was given to
companies to obtain a Certificate of Incorporation with
limited liability. The change of opinion which made this
possible was due to the ruin which unlimited liability had
brought upon innocent men. At the period of the collapse
of the railway boom in 1845 many such men liable for calls
had to fly the country and to live abroad for many years
upon what remnants of their property they could manage
to save from the wreck. But it was not until a bank
failure in Glasgow, when the holder of a small share was
made liable for a thousand times its amount, that public

262 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

opinion was roused. The Act of 1855 which first acknow-
ledged the principle of limited liability was repealed and
replaced by one in 1856, which served in many respects
as a model for the Act of 1862 which forms the basis of
the existing code of Joint-Stock Company Law.

Before the passing of these Acts, joint-stock companies
were few and far between, but once the principle of limited
liability was admitted in law they rapidly grew in numbers.
They have invaded every branch of industry with the
exception of agriculture, though as these pages are being
written I read of the coming of a movement for applying
limited liability company methods to agriculture and an
announcement that a company is to be formed to exploit
an estate of 19,000 acres in Lincolnshire, the purchase
money for which amounts to over £2,000,000. The great
boom when private concerns were turned into limited
companies and new companies promoted came in the
nineties, when, in the eight years from 1892 to 1899, 30,061
new companies were registered in the United Kingdom
and 10,578 were wound up. In April, 1899, there were
27,969 registered joint-stock companies in the United
Kingdom with a share capital, having an aggregate paid-up
capital of £1,512,098,098. In April, 1914, the latest return
before the war broke upon us, the number of companies
had increased to 64,692 with a capital of £2,531,947,661.
The latest return, that of 1916, gives the number of com-
panies registered as 66,094 with a capital of £2,7i9,989,i29.1
These figures are all the more striking when it is remembered
that they do not include most of our great railway, gas,
water, canal and other similar companies which have
private Acts of Parliament of their own.

To such an extent have limited liability companies
got a grip of modern business that it is impossible to
separate the two. But that they are not an unmixed
blessing, from whatever point of view examined, no one
will be found to deny. There is no doubt whatsoever that
they have been the main factor in the creation of that flood
of commercial dishonesty and legalized fraud which in these

1 These figures are taken from the Board of Trade (Inspector-General's)
Reports.

On Limited Liability Companies 263

days carries all before it. Companies have been formed
simply in order to put money into the pockets of promoters,
to get rid of declining businesses so that the existing owners
may withdraw their capital to invest in something else
while leaving the shareholders with nothing but the debts
to pay. In other cases companies have been formed in
order to create a dummy behind which some sinister figure
might move. Such abuses are admitted. But to the
business man of to-day these disadvantages are more than
counterbalanced by the advantages they are supposed to
bring, in that they have rendered possible an enormous
number of undertakings which from the amount of capital
required could not have been carried out by an individual
capitalist or group of capitalists. This has been said so
often that people are inclined to accept the statement
without further examination. Yet it very much needs
examination, for the real question is not whether it has
rendered possible undertakings which otherwise could not
have been promoted, but whether it was in the public
interest that such undertakings should be entered upon
at all ; for remember, such enterprises as those ef railways,
water, gas, etc., rest on private Acts of Parliament and are
not to be confused with the general issue of limited liability.
Now it will clear the issue if we begin with the opinion
of Adam Smith, who in the Wealth of Nations probably
expressed the current view on the subject of joint-stock
companies when he said that the only trades a joint-stock
company not having a monopoly can carry on successfully
are those in which all the operations are capable of being
reduced to routine or of such a uniformity of method as
admits of little or no variation. Only four trades, in his
opinion, answer the test of suitability which he thus laid
down, namely, those of banking, of fire and marine insur-
ance, of making and maintaining canals, and of water supply.
Railways, tramways, gas and electric supply he would
doubtless have added as belonging to the same category
if such things had existed in his time. Manufacturing by
a joint-stock company, he considers, would not only be
unsuccessful as a business, but would be injurious to the
public welfare

264 A GuildsmarCs Interpretation of History

Now the question comes, Was Adam Smith right ?
Has modern experience controverted him or are appear-
ances only against him ? I do not hesitate to say that
he was absolutely right when he said that manufacturing
by joint-stock companies would be injurious to the public
interest, but experience has proved him to be wrong when he
said they would be unsuccessful. If success for them depended
upon efficiency as producers, they would certainly fail. But
success for limited liability companies does not depend upon
any such efficiency but upon an ability to corner the market
in some way. The usual ways are either to use their great
capital for keeping others out by advertising ; by manipu-
lating prices in such a way that a market is secured for
certain things at very enhanced prices while underselling
small men in others, thus preventing any one from competing
with them who is not on a similar scale of business ; or
by securing a tied market by judiciously distributing shares
among those who can be of service to the company in
recommending business. Each of these methods is cor-
rupting. I will not enlarge on the evils attendant upon
advertising and manipulated prices,1 since both of these
illegitimate methods of trade were pursued by private firms
before limited companies held the field, but will dwell upon
the third of these methods, because it is the one thing,
apart from its ease in getdng hold of capital, that gives
the limited company an illegitimate advantage over the
private firm, while it is the most corrupting of its corrupting
influences.

By distributing shares among those who can be of
service to it, the limited company corrupts the public by
obtaining business in an illicit way while at the same time
it closes the market to new men. Henceforward the com-
petent man who would set up in business is unable to do
so because the market is rigged against him. It is no longer
possible for a man, however competent he may be, to
come to any position in industry apart from the favour of
those already established, except he be possessed of large
capital or great influence, as the case might be, such as

1 The evil of manipulated prices is examined in my Old Worlds for New,
chap. xiv.

On Limited Liability Companies 265

would enable him to weather the -storm and difficulties of
getting established. These circumstances immediately pro-
duced a change in the psychology of industry. Hitherto,
success had come to the man of grit and competence. Such
qualities were the ones that made for success under the
system of competition. But men soon found that so far
from such qualities being an asset to them under a system
of limited liability companies, they were a positive hindrance ;
for success came not to men of an independent spirit, but
to men whose temperament was characterized by flexibility
and subservience, or, in other words, the qualities of master-
ship which told to advantage in the open market when
combined, it should be added, with some commercial instinct
were no longer in demand under a system of large organ-
izations and limited companies ; the demand being entirely
for men of secondary talents, not for men of initiative, but
for men of routine. Hence talent was discouraged and
mediocrity preferred. This tendency has gathered strength
ever since limited companies came to dominate the situation.
It has been well denned as " the principle of inverted
selection." Its application guaranteed company directors a
temporary tranquillity, but has so completely undermined
the morale of industry as to leave them entirely without
reliable counsellors when industry is required to adjust
itself to a new situation, as the present crisis bears witness.
The reason for these changed circumstances is easy
to understand. They came about because the joint-stock
principle in placing the final authority in shareholders
places it in the hands of amateurs. Amateurs, however,
are never allowed to see things as they really are, but only
what it is convenient for others to let them see. Hence
there is a tendency for reality and appearances to drift
ever farther apart. A man has not to work long inside
of a large organization before he discovers that doing good
work and securing promotion are two entirely separate
and distinct propositions, and that so far from good work
(except of the routine kind) helping him, it may actually
stand in his way by bringing him into collision with others
who have a vested interest in things remaining as they
are, and who therefore will do everything to defeat the ends

266 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

of the innovator. Promotion, on the contrary, goes- with
being a "good fellow"; with toadying to men in position ;
with maintaining an appearance of doing things but not with
actually doing them, since that is much more likely to lead
to trouble ; with managing things in such a way as to secure
the credit for things that are successful for oneself and to.
shuffle off responsibility for failure on to the shoulders of
others. This is not difficult in large organizations, for it
is generally impossible for any except those inside to know
exactly for what work any particular individual is responsible.
There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but then there
are exceptional circumstances, and an institution is to be
judged by its norm and not by its exceptions. No one
can deny that in large organizations success goes to the
bounder, to the man who studies the game rather than
the work. Certain cf these evils arise from the mere size
of such organizations, which by making every individual
dependent on his immediate superior tends to give priority
to personal considerations. These evils would probably
develop, however wise the heads might be, but they are
increased a hundredfold by the fact that in all such organ-
izations, whether they be limited liability companies or
Government departments, control is from without and
authority rests finally in the hands of amateurs.

Certain consequences follow from such an abnormal
condition of affairs. Finance having set out to exploit
the producer, finds itself nowadays in turn exploited by
sharks who prey upon the amateurs. These are the clever
men who take the world as they find it. Realizing the
stupidity of the men in control, they play upon their vanity
and carefully lay traps into which they may fall. In
exploiting the exploiters they afford a certain amount of
amusement for the exploited, while they perform a useful
function in bringing not only the commercial but our legal
system into discredit, for it so happens that they are able
to pursue their vocation because they are masters of the
law.

While on the one hand limited companies have given
rise to all manner of legalized fraud, on the other hand
they have created widespread disaffection among the

On Limited Liability Companies 267

workers. The mass of men nowadays do not want to do
any work, because they feel that not they but others are
going to profit by their labour. So long as competence
was rewarded and honour appreciated there was an incentive
for men to work. If they became efficient they might
get on to their own feet, and the presence of a number of
men with such ambitions in industry gave a certain moral
tone to it that reacted upon others. But when, owing
to the spread of limited companies, all such hopes
were definitely removed and the invention of automatic
machinery rendered work entirely monotonous, when tech-
nical ability, however great, went unrecognized and un-
rewarded, and proficiency in any department of industry
incurred the jealousy of " duds " in high places, demoral-
ization set in. All the old incentives were gone, and no one
was left to set a standard. The subconscious instincts of
men whose ambitions were thwarted turned into purely
destructive channels. Already before the war things had
taken this turn, but the wave of patriotism to which the
war gave rise led to hopes that a new spirit was to enter
industry. But when, through the rapacity of profiteers, it
became apparent that such hopes were doomed to dis-
appointment, destructive impulses returned with redoubled
energy. That is the secret of the labour unrest. The
profiteers have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.
It was because limited companies sought from the first
to secure their position by cornering the market rather
than by a regard for their own internal efficiency, that
they have for ever been seeking to establish themselves
on a larger and larger scale. Consideration of internal
efficiency would have urged upon them the advantages
of small organizations, which in the nature of things are
more manageable, but the policy to which they were com-
mitted of maintaining themselves by securing monopolies
of the market obliged them to seek to operate on an in-
creasingly larger scale in order that they could more success-
fully hold their own against competing companies. But
the larger the scale they operate upon, the greater becomes
their need of capital ; and the greater their need, the more
they tended to fall under the control of the banks which

268 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

monopolized credit. Major C. H. Douglas has given to
this new development which has supplanted capitalism
the name of Creditism.1 Capitalism was essentially private
and individual, and because of its private and individual
nature a natural boundary was placed to the dimensions
of an organization. But when in order to be successful
business had to be started on a big scale, the possibility of
the individual capitalist starting any new enterprise became
dependent in the vast majority of cases upon being able
to get the backing of some bank. Hence it has come about
that while it is an easy matter for a company already estab-
lished to secure additional capital to extend its business
operations, it has become almost impossible for a new man
to start ; for a new man is an unknown quantity and is
not to be trusted with extensive credit. It has been thus
that the arrival of limited companies has been followed
by a centripetal movement in finance which encourages
the organization of larger and larger concerns, not because
of the needs of efficiency, but because of the exigencies
of credit, which in turn still further widens the discrepancy
between appearances and reality, between control and
potential ability.

In Germany the attempt was made to counteract this
centripetal tendency of finance by the institution of credit
banks, which it was hoped would restore a distributed
initiative by inducing a centrifugal tendency. It was a
proverbial saying in Germany that with the aid of his
bank a man builds the first floor of his house by mortgaging
the ground floor ; his second by mortgaging the first ; and
puts on the roof by the aid of a mortgage upon his second
floor. This is no exaggeration, for the banks were accus-
tomed to advance money to the extent of 90 per cent,
to men who desired to set up in business, on a purely
speculative goodwill, and to accept as security for the
remaining 10 per cent, a valuation of such things as house-
hold furniture. But it all availed nothing. The wide-
spread distribution of credit increased the efficiency of the
industrial machine to such an extent that in fifteen years
Germany quadrupled her output, and this led to such an

1 Economic Democracy, by C. H. Douglas (New Age, 1919).

On Limited Liability Companies 269

intensification of the pace of competition and profits were
so reduced that in the years before the war the great mass
of German industries were rapidly approaching bankruptcy.
The stress of such circumstances doubtless precipitated
the war. I have little doubt that England owed her com-
parative immunity from such trying conditions to her
comparative inefficiency.

The failure of limited liability companies as a system
of industrial control suggests a comparison with the
Mediaeval Guild system ; for the difference between them
is the difference between the Mediaeval and modern worlds.
Under the modern system finance plays the all-important
part. It comes first and every other consideration plays
a quite secondary and unimportant part. As the system
develops, technical skill is less and less appreciated, and
what naturally follows from it sinks into a lower and lower
status. On this side limited companies are living on capital.
Their influence tends to undermine all such skill, and as
the final test of an organization from the point of view of
the public is not the profits it makes but what kind of goods
it produces, the limited liability system of control from
without stands condemned as the worst system under
which industry has ever been organized. The Mediaeval
Guild system was the exact reverse of this. The technical
man or craftsman, who under the limited liability company
system is reckoned a man of no account, was in control
and he arranged things very differently. Instead of organ-
izing industry for the purpose of extracting profits, he
organized it with the aim of producing good work. With
this aim in view finance was reduced to the bare minimum
by the simple device of fixing prices. In large building
works a bookkeeper was employed, but apart from this
finance appears to have been entirely absent in production.
The financial man confined his attention entirely to dis-
tribution, and distribution in those days was a very secondary
form of activity. It did not bulk in anything like the
proportion it does to-day. The change which has taken
the control of industry out of the hands of the technical
man and allowed the financier to spread his tentacles over
it is due finally to the revival of Roman Law, which broke

270 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

down barrier after barrier that placed a boundary to
financial operations. It began by transforming the Feudal
system, based upon the principle of function, into land-
lordism. This enabled capitalism to get a foothold in
rural areas, to develop domestic industry and undermine
the position of the Guilds. But the two things that made
the great change were, first, the Industrial Revolution, which
undermined the position of the craftsman and gave great
opportunities to the financier, and second, the legalization of
limited liability, which handed over technical trades entirely
to commercial exploitation by divorcing ownership from
control and technical ability.

CHAPTER XIX
THE WAR AND THE AFTERMATH

"Commercial intercourse between nations, it was supposed some fifty years
ago, would inaugurate an era of peace ; and there appear to be many among
you who still cling to this belief. But never was belief more plainly contra-
dicted by the facts. The competition for markets bids fair to be a more
fruitful cause of war than was ever in the past the ambition of princes or the
bigotry of priests. The peoples of Europe fling themselves, like hungry
beasts of prey, on every yet unexploited quarter of the globe. Hitherto they
have confined their acts of spoliation to those whom they regard as out-
side their own pale. But always, while they divide the spoil, they watch
one another with a jealous eye ; and sooner or later, when there is nothing
left to divide, they will fall upon one another. That is the real meaning of
your armaments ; you must devour or be devoured. And it is precisely those
trade relations, which it was thought would knit you in the bonds of peace,
which, by making every one of you cut-throat rivals of the rest, have brought
you within reasonable distance of a general war of extermination " (Letters
from John Chinaman, by G. LOWES DICKINSON).

IN August, 1914, this prophecy, made some twenty years
ago, was fulfilled. The German army entered Belgium,
and the long-predicted war broke over Europe. Until the
day of its arrival large numbers of people in this country
were sceptical as to the reality of the menace. They
had been warned too often to believe it. Certain definite
actions certainly pointed to the coming of war. But on
the other hand certain general considerations weighed
heavily against it. The industrial system was a highly
complex affair. It could only be maintained by a high
degree of reciprocity between the nations. In consequence
a European war between nations who had adopted con-
scription would be a life-and-death struggle which would
probably end in the destruction of modern civilization — in a
catastrophe in which the victorious as well as the van-
quished would be involved. It was difficult to believe
that Germany would be oblivious to this fact. There

271

272 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

might be Jingoes bent on war in Germany, but then there
were Jingoes in England, and it did not necessarily follow
that they would get their own way. What reason was
there to suppose that difficulties could not be arranged by
compromise and moderate opinion prevail ?

In some such way as this the mass of moderately minded
people reasoned before the war. That they so entirely
misjudged the situation is perhaps finally to be accounted
for by the fact that its true inwardness was never written
about until after the war had broken out. We were told
about the vast preparations that Germany was making
for war ; about the growth of armaments in which other
European nations followed suit. But we were never told
why Germany was making such preparations. She had
nothing to fear from France — La revanche was dead —
nor had she anything to fear from England. Why
was she arming ? This at the time was an enigma to
thinking people who were not carried off their feet by
chauvinism. The trade of Germany was advancing by
leaps and bounds. To all appearances her prosperity was
increasing. Why then did she exhibit this querulous
spirit ? No satisfactory answer was forthcoming. Per-
haps after all it was only bluff intended to further the
ends of her diplomacy. The hazards of a general European
war were so incalculable that it was to be supposed that
even Germany would not lightly embark upon such an
enterprise.

And indeed it is true to say that Germany did not embark
lightly on war. That she did eventually declare war was
due to the fact that her position had become desperate,
and there can be little doubt that a consciousness that it
was only a matter of time before such a situation would
arise was the motive that all along prompted her to arm.
The exhaustion of markets, foreseen by all who ever reflected
on the trend of industrialism, had come about at last, and
Germany was finding herself in difficulties. The growth of
the pressure of competition had indicated for some time
that other industrialized nations were beginning to feel
the pinch. But they had greater reserves, and their posi-
tion was far from desperate. England, for example, had a

The War and the Aftermath 273

great reserve of wealth in raw materials and colonies which
provided an outlet for surplus population and a market for
surplus goods. Moreover, there was India, which provided
not only a market for goods, but posts for civil servants.
But Germany was not so fortunately placed. She was
poor in raw materials and had no first-class colonies and
no dependencies. So it came about that Germany became
accustomed to compare her own position with the more
favourable position of England, and to imagine that if
only she had colonies and dependencies her economic con-
dition would be different ; the pressure of competition
would be relieved and her people would be in a position to
pursue their aims unaccompanied by those financial worries
which since the opening of the present century had been
a constant source of anxiety. This feeling was shared
by the whole nation, from capitalists who were eager for
concessions to the students of the universities. " Any one,"
says Mr. de Maeztu, " who has lived in German university
circles during the last few years will be able to confirm
my statement, that the greatest enthusiasts of colonial
expansion in Germany were not the manufacturers, but
the students. Their admiration and envy of British power
in India were not aroused by commercial prospects, but by
the possibility of posts for military and civil bureaucrats.
In the future colonial empire of Germany the student dimly
discerned billets and pensions for hundreds of thousands
of German university graduates." x It was the vision
of such prospects that induced them to favour a policy of
aggression.

The part played by bureaucracies in fomenting racial
and international troubles should not be overlooked. The
desire of their bureaucracies for expansion was the one
bond of common interest between Germany and Austria,
offering us some clue as to why the Austrian declaration
of war on Serbia was so popular in Vienna. Writing of
the Austrian bureaucracy before the war, Mr. Wickham
Steed says " the ' race struggle ' in Austria, of which so
much has been written, is largely a struggle for bureau-
cratic appointments. Germans and Czechs have striven for

1 Authority, Liberty and Function, by Raniro de Maeztu, p. 99.

18

274 A Guildsniari's Interpretation of History

years to increase on the one hand and defend on the other
their patrimony of official positions. The essence of the
language struggle is that it is a struggle for bureaucratic
influence. Similarly, the demand for new Universities
or High Schools put forward by Czechs, Ruthenes, Slovenes
and Italians but resisted by the Germans, Poles and other
nations, as the case may be, are demands for the creation
of new machines to turn out potential officials whom the
political influence of Parliamentary parties may then be
trusted to hoist into bureaucratic appointments. In the
Austrian Parliament the Government, which consists mainly
of officials, sometimes purchases the support of political
leaders by giving State appointments to their kindred or
Proteges, or by promoting protege's already appointed. One
hand washes the other, and service is rendered for service.
On occasion the votes of a whole party can be bought by
the appointment of one of- its prominent members to a
permanent Under-Secretaryship in a Department of State.
Once appointed, he is able to facilitate the appointment of
other officials of his own race or party. Each position
thus conquered forms part of the political patrimony of
the race and party by whom it has been secured, and is
stoutly defended against attack. Appointments are thus
multiplied exceedingly — to the cost of the taxpayer and
the complication of public business." *

Of course this kind of thing has its limits. A point is
reached when the burden of officials becomes so great to
the taxpayer and so inimical to the commercial interest
of a country that the desire for further expansion on the
part of a bureaucracy can only be satisfied by extending
their powers over the inhabitants of other countries, and
it must be understood that the desire for expansion is in-
herent in bureaucracies, for expansion provides opportuni-
ties for promotion. In a stationary bureaucracy promotion
is slow — a matter of waiting for dead men's shoes. " For
other classes the national idea of a sovereign State is a dis-
interested, sentimental, and romantic ideal. For the officials,

» The Hapsburg Monarchy, by H. Wickham Steed, pp. 77-8. I need
scarcely remind my readers that bureaucracies are the consequence of the
ideal of the centralized state of Roman Law.

The War and the Aftermath 275

on the other hand, the State is not only an ideal but a
source of income. It has been said — by Mr. Norman Angell,
I believe — that when the Germans annexed Alsace-Lorraine
the rich of Alsace-Lorraine went on being rich, the poor
continued to be poor, labourers were still labourers, and
that the war had been useless from an economic point of
view. And it is quite possible that war may be useless from
the point of view of labourers, workmen and masters. But
the two thousand French professors in both provinces were
replaced by two thousand Germans ; and the same thing
happened with the aimy officers, the judges, the officials
of the public health boards, and so on. From the point
of view of the bureaucratic interests the war was not merely
useless, but positively disastrous for French officialdom
and beneficial to the German. A change of flag may not
substantially alter the economic regime of a specified dis-
trict ; but what does undoubtedly change is the bureau-
cratic personnel. The official follows the flag. The official
is therefore the permanent soldier of the flag." l

Though bureaucracies have an immediate interest in
wars of conquest, they are yet not sufficiently powerful
to make wars on their own account. Before a war can
be successfully launched the nation as a whole must be
brought into line. The terrible financial strain to which
Germany had been subjected in the two or three years
preceding the war had induced a frame of mind favourable
to the war party, and it is conceivable that the war was as
much caused by the desire for relief from such trying cir-
cumstances as by the warlike proclivities of the German
ruling class. Germany was committed to a policy of in-
definite industrial expansion, and signs were not wanting
that expansion had reached its limit, for the enormous
competition in the production of goods had reduced profits
to such an extent that it became evident that the German
financial system, built upon an inverted pyramid of credit,
could not for long bear the strain of such adverse conditions
So long as peace continued there was no hope of relief,
for the ratio of production due to never slackening energy,
technique and scientific development was outstripping the

1 Maeztu, p. 93.

276 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

ratio of demand. " In the fifteen years before the war
Germany had quadrupled her output, and in consequence
a day came when all the world that would take German-
made goods was choked to the lips. Economic difficulties
began to make themselves felt, and then the Prussian
doctrine of force spread with alarming rapidity. War was
decided upon for the purpose of relieving the pressure of
competition by forcing goods upon other markets." J Hence
the demand for colonial expansion, the destruction of the
towns and industries of Belgium and Northern France and
the wholesale destruction of shipping by the submarine
campaign. They had all one object in view — to relieve
the pressure of competition, to get more elbow-room for
German industries. The idea of relieving the pressure of
competition by such commercial sabotage was not a new
one. It had been, as I have pointed out, employed by the
Romans, who destroyed Carthage and the vineyards and
olive-groves of Gaul in order to avoid a damaging com-
petition, but it was a crazy one all the same, for it
embarked Germany upon a policy from which there was
no turning back, and left her no option but to conquer
the world or be annihilated in case of failure. There
was no third alternative, for such action removed the
possibility of a peace by compromise.

It was finally because every other nation in Western
Europe and America was moving into a similar cul-de-sac
that the desperate remedy sought by Germany was no
remedy at all. The reason why all were beginning to find
themselves in difficulties was because each of them had
embarked upor a policy of indefinite economic expansion
on a basis of eccnomic injustice. Each of them had denied
economic justice to the workers and Nemesis was over-
taking them all. It is only necessary to reflect on the
general economic situation to realize this. Greed had
blinded them all to the simple economic fact that it is
impossible in the long run to increase production except
on the assumption that consumption be correspondingly
increased. Such an increase of consumption, it is apparent,
could only be permanently secured on an assumption that the

» The Coming Trade War, by Thomas Farrow and Walter Crotch.

The War and the Aftermath 277

workers were allowed to have a proportionate share of the
increased wealth which they assisted to produce. But the
policy of capitalists all over the world being to secure all
the advantages of increased production for themselves, had
created great inequalities of wealth, and so it came about
that as the people only earned a bare subsistence an increased
productivity could only be disposed of finally in two ways :
by the increase of luxuries for the wealthy on the one hand —
for the increase of consumption had to come entirely from
the rich — or by disposing of surplus goods in foreign markets.
But such a policy had well-defined limits. No nation
could afford to be the consumer of machine-produced goods
indefinitely, as in that case the suction would drain its
economic resources, and so one nation after another was
drawn into the whirlpool of industrial production, until
a time came at last when there were no new markets left
to exploit. When that point was reached, the fundamental
falsity of the whole system revealed itself in the economic
paradox that drove Germany into war.

The declaration of war gave the German economic system
a new lease of life by the enormous demand it created for
munitions, which were sold to the Government at prices
which enabled loans and other financial obligations to be
met. The money for the payment of these munitions was
raised by loans which it was the intention of the German
Government to liquidate by means of the huge indemnities
which they hoped to get from the Entente. As a measure
of temporary economic expediency the war for Germany
doubtless served its immediate purpose of setting the financial
machine in motion again, but even if Germany had been
successful it could not have solved her economic problem
when peace returned, because a policy of indefinite industrial
expansion, by producing goods in greater quantities than
the market could absorb, was bound before long to land
her in the same position in which she found herself in 1914.
In the event of her being victorious, the most optimistic
forecast of her future would place her in the same position
as England finds herself in to-day, which is anything but
rosy.

The outbreak of war caught England unprepared,

278 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

and seriously dislocated the old economic order. Accus-
tomed supplies vanished and exceptional demands immedi-
ately sprang up. Into a market of producers competing
with each other for a still greater number of consumers,
which had kept prices comparatively stationary, though
the tendency for prices to rise had been continuous for
the twenty previous years, there came an enormous demand
for war material of one kind and another, and for this there
was only one buyer — the Government, acting at first through
the War Office and later through it and the Ministry of
Munitions and other Government departments. In the
first few months of the war a wave of patriotism passed
over the country which apparently was so genuine that
it led the Yorkshire woollen manufacturers to offer to
supply the Government with khaki at a fixed price, but this
offer, which would probably have been followed by other
manufacturers, was refused by the War Office, who preferred
to continue the system of competitive contracts. The
result was disastrous, for it so happened that the needs of
the Government were soon to become so great that the
large firms found themselves in a position to hold up the
State for ransom, and as the patriotic offer of the York-
shire manufacturers had been refused, they did not scruple
to take the fullest advantage of the situation. The un-
employed problem to which the war immediately gave rise
did not last for long, but was speedily followed by a great
demand for labour which in turn was followed by a rise in
wages, and from then onwards prices and wages engaged in a
neck-and-neck race. Meanwhile, in one way or another, the
vast majority of people, either directly or indirectly, were
working in the public service, and all this enormous arti-
ficial activity was kept in motion and stimulated from
above by means of State loans and the wholesale issue of
paper money which depreciated the currency to such an
extent as still further to inflate the already inflated prices.
It was thus that during the war nearly the whole nation
came to be living upon borrowed money, and it still continues
to do so.

Since the coming of peace the problem has been how to
return to the normal. At the close of other wars the

The War and the Aftermath 279

Government have usually disbanded the troops for which
they had no further use, exploited the loyalty of the soldiers
and then turned them adrift to starve or to make shift as
best they could. In spite of public professions, there is
no reason to suppose that the Government would not have
acted any differently this time, if it had dared to do so.
But the scale of the present war made it dangerous for
the Government to play the old confidence trick with im-
punity. The fact that nearly every worker was during
the war either directly or indirectly in the public service
and the fact that the workers are strongly organized made
such a policy unthinkable, and so unemployed allowances
are made and the unemployed draw pay until such time
as industry can pick itself up again. But a suspicion
gains ground that it is no easy matter to get the wheels
of industry in motion again. It appears that the problem
of reorganizing for peace is going to be a much more difficult
matter than organization for war. Consider for a moment
what has been taking place. Speculative finance, the
motive force of industrialism, has for over four years
orientated itself around war production. With peace all
this activity has come to an end. Can the old motive and
driving force of speculative finance become again operative
in the industries it has forsaken ? It is questionable.
It was an easy matter to transfer the labour of the community
from peace production to war production because it was
a movement that was in accord with the centrifugal move-
ment in finance. All that was necessary was for ttye Govern-
ment to borrow money, place orders for munitions right
and left, and the thing was accomplished. To reverse
the process will not be such a simple matter, because it
involves a centrifugal movement in finance, and this is
contrary to the normal trend of things in these days, for
whereas the centripetal movement was easy because it
could be accomplished by a centralized initiative, a centri-
fugal movement demands a distributed one, and while our
society responds readily to the touch of a centralized initia-
tive, the organs necessary to the exercise of a distributed
initiative were in the interests of commercial exploitation
destroyed in the past.

280 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

It will make the position clearer to say that a distributed
initiative exists in any society just to the extent that a
man can employ himself. The peasant State enjoys a
distributed initiative because, when every man owns his
own plot of land or shares in a communal holding, he can
set himself to work. This is the reason why peasant nations
recuperate so quickly after wars, even under modern con-
ditions. When a war is over, every man can go back to
his own plot of land and work away just as he did before
the war broke out. But with highly complex industrial
communities, whose activities are based upon a highly
complex system of finance and which produce largely for
distant markets, it is different, because only a small per-
centage of the activities of such communities have a basis
in real human and fundamental needs. Production in
such communities comes to depend upon all manner of
things, while most members of such communities are de-
pendent upon some one else for employment — ultimately
upon the possessors of capital who in such communities
monopolize all initiative. Hence it is that so long as
present conditions of wealth distribution obtain, if a revival
of trade is to take place it must proceed from the initiative
of the small group at the top who control the financial situa-
tion, and this places a responsibility upon their shoulders
heavier than they can bear. Hitherto industrial initiative
proceeded from below and was exploited by financiers
from above. But now the position is entirely reversed.
The short-sighted policy of financiers has gradually taken
away initiative from the man below. In seeking to con-
centrate all wealth in his own hands, the financier has,
unfortunately for his own peace of mind, saddled himself
with the responsibility of industrial initiative, and I doubt
not it will prove to be a burden too heavy for him to sup-
port. The man below, so long as he enjoyed autonomy,
could exercise initiative, since the range of conditions he
had to comprehend was limited and familiar. But as a
result of centralization the whole complex economic phe-
nomenon of our society would have to be comprehended
intellectually if an initiative such as would set the machinery
in motion again is to be exercised, and as the experience

The War and the Aftermath 281

of every man is limited, this becomes an impossible pro-
position. Industry can no longer be kept going by the
momentum it inherited from the past, and if trade is to
revive it must be galvanized into activity from above, and
that is a different story.

Though I am persuaded that there is finally no escape
from the economic cul-de-sac apart from a return to Mediae-
val conditions, involving a redistribution of wealth and
initiative, it is yet possible that the crisis may be postponed
a few years by means of financial jugglery. A glimmer
of light comes from America, which, having become the
financial centre of the world, holds the key to the position.
It is proposed that the United States should raise an enor-
mous loan for Europe to enable the War Powers to restore
their industry and credit. The principal means to this
end will be a loan and bond issue such as has never before
been seen, of a nature to secure the necessary funds for
these Powers to buy all they require and to extend their
credit as long as may be necessary — ten, twenty, or thirty
years if requisite, until the time comes when the European
countries no longer need assistance. This proposal is not
a purely philanthropic one. In making it the United
States is just as anxious to solve her own economic problem
as that of the European Powers, for America finds herself
in a position the exact reverse to that in which Germany
found herself before the war. Germany found herself
in financial difficulties because her industries made too
little profit. America is in financial difficulties because
during the war she has made too much profit. The con-
sequence is that while her banks are choked with money
for which investments cannot be found, her industries
are producing a plethora of goods for which markets must
be found. In these difficult circumstances America has
hit upon the cunning device of lending money to the Euro-
pean Powers in order that they may find themselves in
a position to buy the goods which America must produce,
for production in America, as in Germany before the war,
is no longer controlled by demand but by plant. It is a
Gilbertian situation the sequel of which promises to be
interesting. America lends money to the European Powers

282 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

in order that they may find themselves in a position to
buy American goods. The European Powers lend money to
their manufacturers in order that they may be in a position
to produce still more goods. But the manufacturers being
persuaded that their salvation is to be found in keeping
wages down, find that while production increases consump-
tion will not. Hence unemployment and hence unemployed
pay, the amount of which is increased from time to time
in order that people shall be in a position to buy the goods
that must be produced until a point is reached at which
a man may be well off if he won't work but only earns a
bare subsistence if he does. The period for the repayment
of loans is extended from thirty to fifty years, from fifty
to a hundred, from a hundred to a thousand years. It is
an enchanting prospect to which it is difficult to see the
end, for as the tendency of finance is increasingly centri-
petal it can only be saved from collapse by a centrifugal
movement which redistributes the wealth produced. If
progress is to be along these lines, a time will come when
all Europe will be living upon borrowed money and can
keep on borrowing because America fears the collapse of
her economic system if she refuses to lend.

Of course things won't work out exactly like that.
Human nature would soon come in to upset such a purely
economic calculation. But it is as logical and as probable
as the deduction from any other economic theory which
disregards the moral issue. The really interesting thing
about the present situation is that it brings the modern
world right up against the problem of wealth distribu-
tion. The immediate cause of the war I showed was due to
over-production in Germany in the sense that by allowing
machinery to proceed unregulated production had got
ahead of demand and more goods were produced than the
markets would absorb. Ignoring the fact that the war
was precipitated because the industrial system before the
war had reached its limit of expansion, the Government
publicists and others nevertheless advocate a policy of
maximum production as the path of economic salvation.
They propose, in fact, to reproduce in an intensified form
the very conditions that brought the war about.

The War and the Aftermath 288

Meanwhile the manifest fallacy of such a policy becomes
apparent from the fact that owing to the flood of profiteering
that the war let loose the workers have rebelled. They
are refusing to produce merely to make profits for others,
and under these changed circumstances a colour is given
to the cry for increased production. But it is a false issue,
since, low as production has fallen, we produce ten, probably
fifty, times as much as is necessary for our needs, considered
quantitatively. The present system is not maintained
because an enormous output is necessary for our needs,
but to effect distribution. We employ people in un-
necessary production in order that they may have the
money to buy the necessary things of which we produce
too little. If any one doubts this, let him answer the
question how it came about that in the Middle Ages, when
there were no machines, the town worker earned an equi-
valent of three or four pounds a week and the agricultural
worker two-thirds of that amount, taking the value of moriey
as it existed before the war.1 Of course it cannot be
answered. The paradoxical situation in which we find
ourselves is due entirely to the fact that since capitalists
got the upper hand they have consistently refused to face
the problem of distribution. But truth will be out. Nemesis
seems to say to the financiers : " If ye will not distribute
wealth, neither shall ye distribute goods ; and if ye do not
distribute goods, neither shall ye distribute dividends."
It is not Socialists who have created this problem, but the
financiers themselves. The problem is their own making,
due to the avaricious dog-in-the-manger spirit in which
they have pursued the accumulation of wealth. While
they exerted all their energies towards increasing the volume
of production, they entirely lost sight of the fact that a

1 " The wages of the artisan during the period to which I refer (the
fifteenth century) were generally, and through the year, about 6d. per day.
Those of the agricultural labourer were about 4d. I am referring to ordinary
artisans and ordinary workers. ... It is plain the day was one of eight
hours. . . . Sometimes the labourer is paid for every day in the year, though
it is certain he did not work on Sundays and principal holidays. Very often
the labourer is fed. In this case, the cost of maintenance is put down
at from 6d. to 8d. a week. . . . Food was so abundant and cheap that it
was. no great matter to throw it in with the wages " (Six Centuries of Work
and Wages, by J. E. Thorold Rogers, pp. 327-8).

284 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

day would come when their position would become perilous
unless such increase of production was accompanied by
a corresponding increase in consumption. So blind were
they to this fact that so far from seeking to increase con-
sumption their constant thought has been how to decrease
it by reducing wages. We are up against the logical ending
of the Mercantile and Manchester School theory of economics
— that the wealth of nations is best secured by increasing
production and decreasing consumption. The Nemesis of
such a false philosophy has overtaken the world at last.

It is an open question whether a way can be found out
of the present impasse and a financial crash such as might
precipitate revolution averted. For it is to be feared
that the pace at which the crisis is developing is much
faster than any possible counter-measures that could be
put into operation. But if anything at all can be done
it is the wealthy alone who can do it. If they could be
induced to face the facts, to realize that the problem is
the inevitable consequence of their policy of for ever
investing and reinvesting surplus wealth for the purposes of
further increase they might be led to see that the spending
of their surplus wealth in unremunerative ways would ease
the situation if it could not forestall catastrophe. The
present impasse could have been predicted by any one who
had reflected on the famous arithmetical calculation that
shows that a halfpenny put out to 5 per cent, compound
interest on the first day of the Christain era would by now
amount to more money than the earth could contain. This
calculation clearly demonstrates a limit to the possibilities
of compound interest, yet it is to such a principle that what
we call "sound finance" is committed.

CHAPTER XX
BOLSHEVISM AND THE CLASS WAR

To the average Englishman Bolshevism came like a bolt
from the blue. He was sympathetic with the Russian Revo-
lution of March, 1917. He had heard of the Russian bureau-
cracy, of the secret police, of the transportations to Siberia,
etc., and he welcomed the overthrow of the Tsarist regime
as the overthrow of an intolerable tyranny. But the Revolu-
tion that put the Bolsheviks in power he neither understood
nor sympathized with, and why the doctrine of the Class
War should have spread with such lightning rapidity over
Europe and America he was entirely incapable of com-
prehending. The Press, to all appearances, found itself in
the same dilemma as himself. German gold, Russian gold,
Hungarian gold, have in turn been offered as explanations
for its conquests, or it is represented as a summer madness
incapable of rational explanation.

Yet such is not the case. The rise to power of the
Bolsheviks and the subsequent spread of their creed is capable
of a perfectly intelligible explanation which would have
found its way into all the papers had it been convenient to
the Government to admit it. It may be true that the
Bolsheviks were at the beginning supplied with German
gold. I do not know whether it is true or not. If it were
offered them I do not suppose they would have refused it
any more than they and other Russian revolutionary anti-war
exiles in Switzerland refused to travel through Germany
in the train that the Kaiser so kindly placed at their disposal ;
and the German Government has proved itself so blind where
psychological issues were concerned that it is quite possible
it did in the first instance supply the Bolsheviks with the
wherewithal to carry on their propaganda. But whether

285

286 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

they did or not does not account for the rise of Bolshevism
or the spread of it in other countries, which is finally to be
accounted for by the fact that capitalists all over the world
have refused for so long to face the facts of modern civilization,
that a point was reached at length when the " evil day," as
it is called, could no longer be postponed. Immediately,
however, it was otherwise. The Bolsheviks rose to power
in Russia because, owing to the incapacity of Kerensky and
his colleagues and the political immaturity of the Russian
people, things had reached such a pass that Russia became
entirely incapable of carrying on the war successfully and
was soon obliged to accept peace on any terms. At the begin-
ning of 1917 Russia had an army which, though no doubt
better equipped than in the first years of the war, was still far
too big. The towns were full of idle soldiery ; the railways
were in imminent peril of breaking down. Some of the
Tsar's ministers came to the conclusion that the best thing
to do was to negotiate a separate peace, but the Tsar, desirous
of honouring his agreement with the Allies, objected, and so
an impasse was reached. These ministers then sought to
force the hand of the Tsar by the provocation of a sham
revolution which they believed they could easily suppress,
but which they could use as an excuse for bringing the war
to an end. But things worked out differently from what
they had expected. The disorder they had provoked turned
against them ; instead of a mock revolution, it proved
a real one. The Provisional Government which came into
power decided to stand by the Allies. At the same time,
however, Soviets of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies,
formed after the model of the St. Petersburg Workmen's
Soviet which was in being in the unsuccessful Revolution
of 1905, sprang up in the towns under the leadership and
control of doctrinaire Socialists who, relegating the issue
of the war to a minor position, whole-heartedly set about to
promote the progress of the Revolution. The notorious
" Ordre No. I " of the Petrograd Soviet ruined irretrievably
the discipline of the army. In consequence the great effort
of national regeneration which, many people hoped, might
spring out of the Revolution and pull the country together,
became more and more remote as the first patriotic enthusiasm

Bolshevism and the Class War 287

of the Revolution died down. Instead, the military and
economic muddle gradually increased, until the demand of
the anti-war elements for peace negotiations began to be
supported on the plea of necessity. The growing unpopularity
of Kerensky with all classes led to his downfall in November
1917, and the Bolsheviks, who knew what they wanted and
had the energy and the armed backing to force their will
on tfce country, came into power.

Now it is necessary to understand that the Bolsheviks
were not supported by the garrisons and the discontented
elements generally throughout the country because of any
widespread belief in the theories of Marx,1 but because of
the failure of the other political parties to consolidate their
authority and pursue an energetic and coherent policy.
The Bolsheviks were easily able to paralyse the feeble efforts
of the Provisional Government. At the same time they
promised to save Russia by making peace with the enemy
and declaring an international war upon capitalism. It was
natural that their promises of peace, bread and wealth should
appeal to large sections of the Russian people at such a
time. The people in the towns were hungry. This fact should
not be lost sight of. There was plenty of food in Russia,
but the peasants refused to part with it for money, because
money would not buy any of the things they wanted. It
had become impossible, for example, to buy a spade in Russia.
Bolshevism gathered strength in the towns because it was
only by joining the Bolshevist army that men could get food.
These are the root facts of the Russian situation upon which
everything else hinges. The later history of the Revolution
has been, as might have been expected, a record of ever
greater and greater distress ; opinions differ as to the relative
blame of the old regime, the Provisional Government and the
Bolsheviks for the present chaos in Russia, but this is not
a point we need enter into here. Such success as Bolshevism
has had in Germany and Austria-Hungary bears an analogy
to the success in Russia to the extent that in each case it
was due to the combined influence of military defeat, blockade,

* " Bolshevik " means " majoritaire," and refers to an old split in the
Russian Social-Democratic Party in 1903. The " Mensheviks " were the
minority on the occasion in question. Both parties accepted the theories
of Marx.

288 A Guildsmari's Interpretation of History

hunger in the towns and the intellectual and spiritual bank-
ruptcy of other parties in the State. Whether it will be
finally victorious remains to be seen. But it is important
to recognize that Bolshevism enters to fill a vacuum. It will
come here, as to every other country, if ever our bankruptcy
of policy becomes complete. I do not think we shall suffer
from it, because it so happens that while the governing class
are clearly bankrupt of ideas there are in England other
forces of a constructive nature which gather strength daily.
Now this general bankruptcy of policy and the menace
of Bolshevism are alike due to the fact that the governing
classes in this as of all industrialized nations have consistently
refused to recognize the growth of the social problem. This
refusal has been a matter of deliberate choice, for they have
been repeatedly warned of the risks they were running,
but they have turned deaf ears to all such counsel. It
might be urged in extenuation of them that the demand for
reform has invariably been associated with attacks on their
position. But this cannot be said of Ruskin, who made an
appeal to the governing class which leaves them no possible
excuse. He warned them in unmistakable language that
industrial civilization was shooting the rapids.

Still nothing was done. The governing and commercial
class comforted themselves with the assurance that what
Ruskin said might be true but it was not practical. But
Nemesis has waited upon them. They refused to listen to
Ruskin ; they are having to listen to Marx. If Ruskin chas-
tised them with whips, Marx chastises them with scorpions.
It cannot be said that Ruskin has failed, for he has inspired
an enormous number of people, and I firmly believe that he
will be left standing when all the intellectually superior
people who disregard him are dead and forgotten. For
Ruskin has said more things that are fundamentally and
finally true in economics than any one else. But Marx was
a realist in a sense that Ruskin was not, and to that extent
was more immediately available for political purposes.
Ruskin appealed to the compassion of the governing class ;
Marx realized they hadn't got any, but that while they
were not to be moved by an appeal to their better nature
they could be moved by fear. He based his calculations

Bolshevism and the Class War 289

therefore, upon that assumption. Hence his doctrine of
the Class War, by which he hoped to transfer power from
the hands of the capitalists to those of the proletariat. While
I am of the opinion that as a policy it is finally mistaken,
for the result of preaching it has not been to create working-
class solidarity but discord everywhere,1 and while it distorts
history to prove that class warfare has always existed, it
nevertheless rests on a fact that is undeniably true, namely,
that under the existing economic system the interests of
capital and labour are irreconcilably opposed — a fact which
Ruskin himself admitted when he said, " The art of making
yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's sense,
is equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour
poor." But while Marx interpreted this fact in the terms
of persons as a warfare between classes, Ruskin, on the
contrary, saw this conflict of interests as the inevitable
accompaniment of a materialist ideal of life which rejects
religion and art and their sweetening and refining influences —
an interpretation which I am persuaded is the true one.
For you can construct on Ruskin's interpretation, but not
upon that of Marx, for his materialism and class warfare
end finally in producing anarchy and bitterness. They
destroy confidence and goodwill, and so finally defeat their
own ends. And so it happens that while Marx, by creating
a driving force, has forced the issue of social reconstruction
to the front, experience will prove that Ruskin laid the
foundation that can be built upon, and I am persuaded he
will come into favour when reconstruction is taken seriously.
For Ruskin by keeping himself clear of class considerations
provides a common ground on which all may meet.

It was because the Bolsheviks declared the war to be a
capitalist war that their gospel spread so rapidly over Europe.
In the immediate sense this charge was untrue except in
the case of Germany, who definitely undertook the war to
relieve the pressure of competition by forcing German goods
on foreign markets. But ultimately it is true, since but
for the struggle for markets and concessions that capitalism
brought with it there would have been no war. Hence it
was the Bolsheviks in declaring war on the capitalists of

1 See chapter on " The Class War " in my Guilds and the Social Crisis.

19

290 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

all nations did challenge the reality that lay behind the
war, and it was because of this that their propaganda has been
followed by such success in other countries. The Bolsheviks
touched a subconscious chord of the workers of Europe.
Their gospel found a ready response in the democracies of
all countries, and would certainly have carried all before
it but for the excesses (which there is no reason to doubt)
of the Bolshevik regime in Russia. The attempts of the
governing class to prevent the spread of its doctrines are
the last word in ineptitude, and are more calculated to further
them than to destroy them. Instead of asking themselves
why Bolshevism has arisen in the world and seeking to remove
the evils that are responsible for its outbreak, they still
pursue their stupid old policy of sitting on the safety-valve
and can think of nothing but repression. Now in the face of
any serious social danger, repression of extremists is absolutely
necessary in order to gain time to do the things that require
to be done, and the sincerest reformer might be driven to
employ repression at times, but there is finally no other
excuse for its use. Unless repression is accompanied by
real reform, it only aggravates the danger. He is a fool
who imagines that a menace of world-wide significance such
as Bolshevism is can be stamped out merely by repression.
It can certainly be eradicated, but only by removing its
cause, which is finally to be found in the gross injustices of
our social system. Partly as a result of the Socialist agitation,
and partly as the result of external causes, of increasing
economic pressure, of motor-cars and luxury which were
flaunted in the eyes of the people before the war, the people
were becoming conscious of the fact that they were the
victims of exploitation, while the outbreak of shameless
profiteering during the war converted what had hitherto
been a special grievance of the working classes into a general
grievance affecting every class of the community ; for
everybody except the few profiteers are affected by the
decreasing purchasing power of their earnings. No single
thing has so entirely destroyed the confidence of the people
in the good faith of the governing class as the way they
allowed this abuse to grow up. It has been the last straw
that breaks the camel's back. During the last ten years

Bolshevism and the Class War 291

the governing class have entirely bartered away their credit,
and it can only be restored by the exercise of a measure
of magnanimity equal to their former short-sightedness.
There is no reason to suppose that such magnanimity will
be exercised. Avarice and stupidity got them into difficulties,
and pride prevents them getting out of them. In desperation,
they misrepresent and heap abuse on the working man in
the hope that public opinion will rally to their support.
But such folly only makes matters worse. It goes down
less and less with the general public and increases the bitter-
ness of the working class, who have been patient and long-
suffering. If they had not been, things could never have
reached such a pass. The governing class, to retain power,
would need to be born again in order that they might put
public interests before private interests. But they are
past praying for. There is a Turkish saying that " a herring
rots from the head." It is worth remembering when con-
sidering the chaotic state of this country. The governing
class are responsible, for with them power finally resides.
Reform must come not merely because nothing less will
satisfy the workers, but because our economic system is
rapidly reaching a deadlock. The old political game can't
be played much longer.

I said that repression was no remedy for Bolshevism. As
a matter of fact it is in one sense the fruit of repression. The
foundations of Bolshevism were laid in Russia before the war
by the repressive policy of the old regime. Had the Russian
Government permitted freedom of discussion on political
questions, the country would not, when the Revolution
came, have found itself so completely at the mercy of political
extremists, for the psychological factor that allowed things
in Russia so rapidly to assume an extreme form was that
as political discussion was forbidden by the old regime,
both the Government and the people lost all sense of political
realities, and the overthrow of the old regime was followed
by a Babel of political opinion fatal to reasonable judgment.
If in England a more conservative spirit prevails, it is entirely
due to the fact that on the whole we have enjoyed freedom
of discussion. It is insufficiently recognized that such
freedom tends towards constitutional methods. On the

292 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

other hand, while we have enjoyed freedom of speech there
have always been reactionary (I use the word in the accepted
sense) elements in English life which have been plotting against
the people, and it is owing to the gross stupidity of these
people that Bolshevism has any foothold at all among us,
since apart from their activities the extremists would not
have been listened to. I cannot say I am altogether sorry
there are a few such stupid people among us, since indirectly
they have been the means of waking things up. A Bolshevik
government is a thing to be feared as the worst of all tyrannies
but it is questionable whether anything at all would get
done were the fear of Bolshevism entirely removed. A
short account of the rise of Bolshevism in England will make
it clear that the " labour unrest " has been deliberately
provoked.

" In the summer of 1900 a strike broke out in South
Wales on the Taff Vale Railway, in the course of which
the Company, naturally enough, suffered a certain amount
of injury. They applied to the High Court for an injunction
not only against alleged individual wrongdoers, but against
the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants itself, whose
agents these wrongdoers were. They also commenced a civil
suit for damages against the Union in its corporate capacity.
To the surprise of all who were familiar with Trade Union
law and practice, and to the consternation of the Labour
world, the A.S.R.S. was mulcted, in costs and damages,
to the tune of £42,000, and it was decided that a Trade Union
could be sued in its collective capacity, and its corporate
funds made liable for a tortious act committed by any of
its officials or members who could be deemed to be its agents."1

It was this judgment which was subsequently upheld
by the House of Lords that created the Labour Party.
Hitherto it had never occurred to any one to sue a Trade
Union for loss of profits in the case of a strike. It was
supposed that the Trade Union Act of 1871 afforded
absolute protection to Union funds. But this judgment
struck a blow at the very existence of Trade Unionism
and immediately led to the return of forty Labour members
to the House of Commons in 1906, which was speedily

1 Trmde Unionism, by C. M. Lloyd, p. 38.

Bolshevism and the Class War 298

followed by the passing of the Trades Disputes Acts that
reversed the decision of the Courts.

It would have been well for the governing class if they
could have let matters rest there. Once the Trades Disputes
Act was passed the Labour Party rapidly declined in influence,
and so things might have remained but for another decision
of the Courts. Hitherto the Labour Party had been
financed by a levy on the members of affiliated societies,
of which the great majority were Trade Unionists. But
this did not suit a minority who held other political views.
" Mr. W. V. Osborne, the secretary of one of the branches
of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, strenuously
opposed the right of his Union to levy its members or con-
tribute from its funds in support of the Labour Party. An
action in the Chancery Court in 1908 went in favour of the
Society ; but the judges of the Court of Appeal reversed this
decision, and their judgment was finally upheld by the
House of Lords." T The effect of this decision was doubtless,
like the Taff Vale Judgment, very different from what the
Lords of Appeal had intended. While on the one hand the
Liberal Government found it necessary to come to the rescue
of the Labour members by introducing payment of members,
on the other it took power out of the hands of the moderate
men in the Labour Movement and put it into the hands
of extremists by destroying faith in constitutional reform.
The Labour Party had secured the support of the Trade
Unions by preaching the doctrine that the ends of Labour
cduld be better secured through Labour representation
in Parliament than by means of strikes. But after the
Osborne Judgment this idea became discredited. It became
clear that if Labour devoted its energies to reform by con-
stitutional means it could never be sure of its position and
any victories it might win could be snatched from it by
decisions of the Courts. Hence the advocates of direct
action, who hitherto had scarcely been listened to, became
very influential. In less than a twelvemonth after the
Osborne Judgment had been upheld in the House of Lords,
and as a direct consequence of it, there came in 1911 the
great strikes of the dockers, the transport workers and

1 Trade Unionism, by C. M. Lloyd, p. 40.

294 A Guilds man's Interpretation of History

the rail way men, to be followed after a few months by the
miners. Thus was inaugurated the strike movement which
continued until the outbreak of war, when strikes were
suspended only to be revived by another piece of stupidity
on the part of the powers that be — the Munitions Act, which
by penalizing official Trade Unions in the event of a strike
led to the unofficial movement known as the Shop Stewards
Movement.

Now the effect of these things — the Taff Vale Judgment,
the Osborne Judgment and the Munitions Act, combined with
the evasive and unsatisfactory policy of the Government in
Labour disputes — instead of crushing the Labour Movement,
has been to turn what was a comparatively sleepy, lethargic
movement into an active fighting force by firmly planting
in the mind of Labour the conviction that a conspiracy is
abroad to defeat their demands for justice. As one interested
in the cause of Labour, I cannot express too highly my appre-
ciation of the services rendered to the Labour Movement by
the Courts, since in a few years, through their folly, they have
accomplished more in the way of vitalizing the movement
than a century of agitators. But the question is now whether
the pursuit of such folly can any longer serve a useful purpose,
for a suspicion gains ground that if ever confidence is to be
restored, action will have to be taken against the lawyers.
It is not only through the decisions of the Courts that they
create bad blood, but through more direct industrial activity.
Since the spread of limited liability companies they have
become more closely associated with the administration of
industry than was the case before, and they have created
endless trouble by pursuing everything in a purely legal
spirit. Wherever they make their appearance, good faith
can no longer be taken for granted. If an agreement is
made with Labour, they do not interpret it in the spirit
in which it was intended, but according to the letter. They
take their stand on what is written, and set about to discover
loopholes, and there are always lawyers ready to place their
services at the disposal of any capitalist who wants to evade
things. And the Courts back them up in this kind of thing.
They do not take their stand on the broad principle, but upon
what some phrase can be twisted to mean. No wonder

Bolshevism and the Class War 295

Labour is suspicious. It has every reason to be. It under-
stands straightforward dealing and can respect an enemy
who is open in his dealings, but this kind of twisting and
twining is a constant source of irritation and distrust,
provocative of trouble. When the Government intervenes
in any Labour trouble, it too finds itself at the mercy of
these legal influences in the bureaucracy, which, affected
only by documents, appears to be mentally incapable
of sensing a situation. If the law is being brought into
contempt, it is the lawyers who are to blame.

To suspect the lawyers as the agents provocateurs of
Labour unrest is not unreasonable, for history teaches us that,
directly or indirectly, the lawyers have been at the bottom
of every rising since Roman Law was revived. Considering
that Roman Law corrupted every Mediaeval institution and
changed government from being an instrument of protection
into an instrument of exploitation, it is to be maintained that
the growth of class hatred in the deeper and more funda-
mental sense is finally to be laid to its charge. Mediaeval
society was organized on a basis of reciprocal rights and
duties — a man sacrificed his rights who did not perform
his duties. But Roman Law changed all this. It made
rights absolute which had been conditional, while it made
duties optional. It became the friend of property and the
enemy of the people. There are many .reasons to suppose
that Roman Law as it existed under the Roman Empire
was animated by an entirely different spirit from that which
animated the lawyers of the revival. Roman Law was not
promoted in Rome to further exploitation, but came into
existence to hold together a corrupt society which had been
rendered unstable by capitalism, and as such its spirit was
opportunist. There are strong reasons for supposing that
it was in this spirit that the Roman jurists gave legal sanction
to private property as the easiest way of avoiding conflict
between neighbours, for they did not, like the Mediaeval
lawyers, seek to enslave the people by the destruction of
communal rights. On the contrary, while one of the first
measures taken by the Emperors was to place restrictions
on the formation of voluntary organizations because under
the Republic they had been used as a basis of conspiracy,

296 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

no obstacle was placed in the path of the formation of such
organizations when the danger had passed away. As early
as the reign of Antoninus Pius the Collegia which undertook
public functions were incorporated by Imperial charter,
and the custom of incorporating them was followed by later
Emperors. The same thing happened with respect to the
treatment of slaves. While the Mediaeval jurists were
devising means for the reintroduction of slavery, the Roman
jurists did their best to humanize the institution. Under
the Republic and early Empire, the right of the owner over
the slave was absolute, but after the Antonines restrictions
were placed on the rights of owners, and provisions made
which facilitated the manumission of slaves.

It was not from the spirit of the Roman jurists that
the trouble appears to have arisen, but from the fact
that the revival of Roman Law was in the first place a
revival of the Justinian Code, which rested, on a theory
of absolute individual ownership of property. It was
this that brought it into collision with the Mediaeval usage
under which community of ownership, or at any rate com-
munity of use, was the prevalent custom. It was because
of this that the Roman Law of the revival became indi-
vidualistic, provocative and corrupt, was promoted as an
instrument of oppression and has been used as such ever
since. It is the central canker in our society — the active
promoter of class hatred, as decisions of the Courts have
shown.

This is no idle theory. There is no book that enjoys
to-day a greater popularity among the workers than Mr
Paul's book The State,1 the whole purpose of which is to
show that State Socialists have failed to understand the
nature and function of the State, inasmuch as from the
earliest times it has been an instrument of capitalist ex-
ploitation and cannot therefore be used for the purposes
of reconstruction. Though the theory he maintains suffers
from exaggeration, it is important to recognize that* the
central idea of the book has the support of at least one Lord
Chancellor, for when Sir Thomas More asked the question,

» The State : its Origin and Function, by William Paul (Socialist
Labour Press).

Bolshevism and the Class War 297

" What is Government ? " and answered it by saying that
it is " a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own
commodities under the name and title of the Common
Wealth," he said precisely the same thing as our Bolsheviks
are saying to-day. If I differ from them, it is not in respect
to what exists, but as to the remedy to be applied. It is
true, as our Bolsheviks maintain, that the State from a very
early date has existed as an instrument of exploitation.
But it does not follow from this that the evils consequent
upon such exploitation are to be remedied by seeking the
destruction of the State, for that would be merely to pre-
cipitate chaos. Moreover, the State cannot be destroyed, as
the Bolsheviks in Russia have found, for in spite of all the
abuse of power associated with it, it does perform a function
which at all times is indispensable, the function of protec-
tion, of maintaining order. Recognizing that to-day this
function is exercised in the interests of the wealthy, the
problem that presents itself is how the State may be so
transformed that it protects the workers against the
exploiters instead of, as is the case to-day, the exploiters
against the workers. This, I contend, is possible by seeking
the abolition of Roman Law, since it was the means of cor-
rupting the State, and replacing it by Mediaeval Communal
Law. In proportion as this could be done, the spirit of the
State would be changed. Instead of usurping all functions,
it would delegate them to communal groups of workers
organized into Guilds. Instead of being the overwhelming
and dominating power it is to-day, it would, stripped of
its illegitimate functions, become as it was in the Middle
Ages, one power among a plurality of powers. Such a
policy, I contend, is more in harmony with the historical
law formulated by Marx, " that every new social system
develops its embryo within the womb of the old system,"
than that advocated by his followers. For whereas such
a policy would effect a complete transformation of society
by action from within, their policy seeks only destruction
from without.

CHAPTER XXI
THE PATH TO THE GUILDS

IT is a commonplace of modern thought to say that
" we cannot put the clock back." But if recorded history
has any one single lesson to teach us more than another,
it is precisely, as Mr. Chesterton has said, that we can.
Twice in European history has it been done. The first
time was when Christianity restored the communal basis
of society after it had been destroyed by the capitalism
of Greece and Rome, and the second was when this com-
munal basis of Mediaeval society in turn was destroyed
and capitalism re-established by the revival of Roman
Law.1 The recent admission of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, that ministers are so overwhelmed with the
details of administration that they have no time to think,
suggests to the student of history that before long the clock
will need to be put back again. For it is manifest that
the process of centralization that has been continuous since
the reign of Henry II has at last reached a point beyond
which it can proceed no farther, since the Government is
confessedly at the mercy of forces it cannot control. In
these circumstances there is but one thing to be done — to
substitute control from without by control from within ;
or, in other words, to restore the communal basis of society
that Roman Law destroyed.

It would be fortunate for us if this simple truth could
become acknowledged, as no single thing would be wrought
with such far-reaching consequences and prevent so much
human suffering. A frank acceptance of the principle of

1 This fact is hidden from the modern world by current theories of
social evolution which, ignoring the legal origin of economic phenomena,
present the change from feudalism to landlordism and capitalism as the con-
sequence of impersonal economic forces instead of to definite acts of the
human will.

The Path to the Guilds 299

reversion would enable us to arrive at the new social order
by means of orderly progression, and would prevent the
bloodshed that is the inevitable consequence of a refusal
to face the facts. The danger that confronts us is precisely
the same as confronted France on the eve of the Revolution.
It is the danger that a popular though unconscious move-
ment back to Mediaevalism may be frustrated by intellectuals
whose eyes are turned in the opposite direction, and re-
volution be precipitated by the fact that the instinctive
impulses of the people, instead of being guided into their
proper channels where they would bear fruit a thousandfold,
will be brought into collision with doctrinaire idealists who
believe in economic evolution as it is not. The average
man to-day in his conscious intelligence will subscribe to
modernism in some degree, but his instinctive actions are
always in the direction of a return to Mediaevalism. This
fact is illustrated by the arrival of the Trade Union Move-
ment, which was well described by Mr. Chesterton as " a
return to the past by men ignorant of the past, like the
subconscious action of some man who has lost his memory."
The circumstance that the Guild propaganda finds such
ready support among Trade Unionists is not due to the
economic theories associated with it. Such could not be
the case, for not one person in a thousand understands
economics. The Guild idea is successful because it is in
harmony with the popular psychology. It attacks the
wage system and directs attention to the danger of the
Servile State — evils with which every working man is
familiar — while it presents him with a vision of a new social
order in which he may take pleasure in his work. These
are the things that have promoted the success of the Guild
idea. Approving of such aims, the majority are willing to
take its economics for granted as things beyond their under-
standing. They swallow them without tasting them ; just
as a previous generation swallowed Collectivist theories
without tasting them because Socialists held out promises
of a co-operative commonwealth. Those who deny this
contention must explain why, if such was not the case,
Socialists rebelled against Collectivism when they discovered
where it was leading them. If they had understood its

300 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

economic theories they would have known its destination
all along, and would no more have thought about rebelling
against it than does Mr. Sidney Webb. Mr. Webb does not
rebel against it, because he understands it. I am inclined
to think he is the only man who understands Collectivism
and believes in it. At any rate he is the only Collectivist
I ever met who was prepared to accept the deductions from
his premises.

While on the one hand we have in the Trade Union
Movement evidence of an instinctive effort by men to return
to Mediaevalism in their capacity as producers, we have in
the present outcry against profiteering and the demand
for a fixed and Just Price evidence of an instinctive effort
of men to return to Mediaevalism in their capacity as con-
sumers. It is important that this should be recognized,
for the Trade Union Movement and the movement against
profiteering are the upper and nether millstones between
which capitalism is going to be ground and the Guilds
restored. The movement against profiteering, again, is not
due to any leanings towards Mediaeval economics. On
the contrary, it is purely instinctive. Just as the Trade
Union Movement owes its origin to the instinct of seli-
preservation of producers, so the demand for the Just Price
owes its origin to the instinct of self-preservation of con-
sumers. Yet both are movements back to Mediaevalism.
And so in respect to all of our other ideas of reform : they
all imply reversion to the past. What is democracy but
a form of government that existed among all primitive
peoples ? What is the proposal to nationalize the land
but a reversion to the oldest known form of land tenure ?
What is the demand for a more equitable distribution of
wealth but a reversion to pre-capitalist conditions of society ?
What does the substitution of production for use for pro-
duction for profit and the abolition of poverty imply but
the reversion to a state of things that existed before such
evils came into existence ? They are all borrowed from
the past, and imply the creation of a social order the exact
antithesis of our present one. But our reformers will not
have it. They do not take the trouble to cany their ideas
to their logical conclusion, and so continue to imagine that

The Path to the Guilds 801

all such ideas may be grafted upon modern industrialism
and finance which is built upon their denial and is finally
antipathetic to them. The result is as might be expected.
Modern attempts at reform invariably produce the opposite
effect to that intended, or if they remedy one evil, it is but
to create another. Instead of being stepping-stones to
the millennium, they prove to be the paved way to the
Servile State. The discovery of this leads the workers to
rebel ; they become suspicious of intellectual leadership,
and generally speaking the suspicion is justified, for the
intellectuals have misled them. Their prejudice against
the past is the root of the whole trouble. If we could get
rid of this prejudice it would be easy to bridge the gulf
between the workers and intellectuals. They would pull
together, and we should get real leadership because we
should get understanding. It is easy to understand the
modern world if you visualize it from the Medievalist
standpoint, but impossible from the modernist, as the con-
stant change of intellectual fashions clearly demonstrates.
Yet though the modernist can find certainty nowhere, he
still clings tenaciously to the belief that modernism cannot
be entirely wrong.

But even when the modernist is convinced of the truth
of Mediaeval principles he hesitates to give them his
adherence because he experiences a difficulty in basing any
practical activity upon them. But that is only a temporary
difficulty, and would disappear if Mediaeval principles were
more generally accepted. Still that is not the issue for
which we are immediately contending. The vital issue
is not finally whether Mediaeval principles can be applied
in detail, but that the neglect of them leads modernists
to put their trust in measures that are foredoomed to
failure, while it blinds them to the significance of move-
ments of popular origin because of false a priori ideas. It
would be just as unreasonable for an engineer to ignore the
laws oi physics because he found it difficult to apply them
with mathematical precision in a complex structure as it
is for Socialists to ignore Mediaeval economics because they
cannot always be immediately applied. For just as a
knowledge of the laws of physics keeps the engineer straight

302 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

within certain limits by telling him what can and what
cannot be done, so a knowledge of Mediaeval economics
would keep Socialists straight within certain limits, and
by relating all their schemes to a central and co-ordinating
philosophy prevent them from making fundamental errors.
It is precisely because men who become immersed in the
details of politics are apt to lose sight of first principles
that it is so necessary to keep insisting upon them. Above
all, a familiarity with the Mediaeval philosophy and point
of view would give them some insight into the psychology
of the people, who, in spite of all appearances to the con-
trary, are Mediaevalists still.

It is because I feel so much the desirability of a
rapprochement between intellectuals and the workers that
I so strongly urge the importance of Mediaeval ideas.
The tragedy of the situation is that we live in an age that
cries out for leadership and no leaders are forthcoming,
nor are there likely to be any so long as the modernist
philosophy prevails, since it erects an insurmountable
barrier between the workers and their rightful leaders.
Here I would observe that my comments are just as true
of working-class intellectuals as of those of the middle class,
for the working class that reads has been fed on the self-
same false philosophies. In so far as working-class culture
differs from middle-class culture, it is apt to be harder and
narrower ; this is where the real danger lies. When I say
that the danger confronting us is precisely the same as
that which confronted France on the eve of the Revolution
— in that chaos may be precipitated by the fact that the
workers and the intellectuals are pulling different ways —
it is to working-class rather than middle-class intellectuals
that I refer, since the neo-Marxian intellectuals are the
only modernists sufficiently convinced of the truth of their
creed to be capable of determined action in the event of
a crisis. The leadership must fall into their hands, unless
in the meantime the Mediaevalist position can secure wide
acceptance, since apart from such acceptance reformers
generally will remain blind to the significance of present-
day developments that are finally the result of their teach-
ing, but which do not receive recognition because they

The Path to the Guilds 303

come in unexpected forms from unexpected quarters. We
look to things coming to us from the east and they come to
us from the west. And so the very things which might
remove impossible barriers from our path are treated with
suspicion and rejected.

The Profiteering Act is a case in point. Owing to the
fact that the minds of Socialists are filled with the a priori
theory of social evolution, which teaches them that industry
is to get into fewer and fewer hands until a time comes at
length when it will be taken over by the State, they have
entirely missed the significance of this Act, which points
to a very different conclusion. From the point of view
of the average Socialist it is nothing more than a measure
of temporary expediency advocated by the Northclifie
Press and adopted by the Government as a means of satis-
fying popular clamour and of postponing the day of sub-
stantial reform. But to the Guildsman it wears a different
aspect. While he is not prepared to dispute that such
motives led to its enactment, he sees in the effort to fix
prices a revival of the central economic idea of the Middle
Ages. History teaches him it is an idea with great poten-
tialities and may, if advantage is taken of it by reformers,
lead to results very different from those intended. The control
of prices, he is persuaded, is a precedent condition of success
in any effort to secure economic reform, inasmuch as until
prices are fixed it is impossible to plan or arrange anything
that may not be subsequently upset by fluctuations of the
markets. It is a necessary preliminary to secure the un-
earned increment for the community, since until prices
are fixed it will always be possible for the rich to resist
attempts to reduce them by transferring any taxation
imposed upon them to the shoulders of other members of
the community. Moreover, as the Profiteering Act seeks
the co-operation of local authorities, it should operate to
promote a revival of local life. Where local authorities
have fallen into the hands of shopkeepers, the shopkeepers
will be compelled to act in the public interest or be cleared
out. Thus the moral issue will become one of paramount
importance, and this will pave the way for the arrival of
the Just Price, for the people will never be satisfied with

304 A Guildsmarfs Interpretation of History

a fixed price that is not finally a Just Price. As in the
Middle Ages the Guilds owed their existence as economic
organizations to the desire for a Just Price, it is reasonable
to suppose that once the Government is committed to a
policy of regulating prices the restoration of the Guilds
can only be a matter of time. Apart from Guilds, it may
be possible to fix the prices of a few staple articles of general
use, but experience must prove that this is as far as things
will go, for there is a limit to the successful application
of the principle of control from without. The fixing of
prices throughout industry necessitates control from within,
and this involves a return to the Guilds.

But the Profiteering Act has other implications. It
raises the questions of agriculture, landlordism and Roman
Law. It is evident that any fixing of prices throughout
industry depends ultimately upon our capacity to fix the
price of food, and this must remain impossible so long as
we are dependent upon foreign supplies of food. Hence
the attempt to fix prices leads to the revival of agriculture.
The question as to whether with our large population we
shall or shall not ever be able to be entirely independent
of such supplies is not the issue. We should aim at being
as independent as possible, since the nearer we approach
to such a condition, the more stable our economic arrange-
ments will become. The movement towards such a revival
should be reinforced by* the national urgency of correcting
the discrepancy between imports and exports. Before the
war, the excess of imports was a matter of no concern, as
it represented the returns on our foreign investments and
the earnings of our mercantile marine, but nowadays, when
our foreign investments have been sold to pay for munitions
and our mercantile marine reduced, it is a different matter.
It means we are living on capital, that the country is being
drained of its economic resources, and that this discrepancy
must be corrected if we are to avoid national bankruptcy.
The politician and industrialist, looking at this problem,
cry aloud for increased production, meaning thereby an
increase in the production of industrial wares. But this,
as I have shown, is no solution, for the markets of the world
cannot absorb an increased production. Yet there is a

The Path to the Guilds 305

sense in which they are right. We do not want an increase
of secondary production such as they urge upon us, but
we do need an increase of primary production. We need
an increase of agricultural produce. This is the one direction
in which an increase of output is immediately practicable,-
and it would react to our economic advantage. For not
only would it, by decreasing our imports of food, tend to
correct the balance between imports and exports, but it
would provide an increased home market for our industrial
wares. It would increase our national independence and
lay for us a firm economic base on which we could proceed
to build. We could then begin to fix prices with some
assurance that what we did would not be upset by the
action of some Food Trust beyond the seas. The fleeting
nature of the prosperity built upon foreign trade is in these
days being brought home to us. The experience of Carthage
and Athens, of Venice and Genoa, of Hanseatic Germany
and of the Dutch, is becoming our experience. A time
came in the life of these States when they found themselves
at the mercy of forces they were powerless to control,
and so it is with us. There is no way out of the impasse
in which we find ourselves but to restore to society the base
that was destroyed by the tyranny of landlordism on the one
hand and the shibboleth of Free Trade on the other. If
a revival of agriculture is to be of real benefit to society,
life in the country must be made attractive again and the
agricultural worker be properly paid, and I would add he
should not be paid less than the equivalent of what he was
able to earn in the Middle Ages, which at the pre-war value
of money would not be less than three pounds a week. No
doubt this will appear entirely impracticable to our
" practical " reformers whose habit of mind it is to put
expediency before principle. But I am assured that the
great increase of demand in the home market created by
such well-paid workers would speedily react to the advan-
tage of the community by relieving the pressure of com-
petition in the towns. We should soon find that a prosperous
peasantry was our greatest economic asset. Raising the
wages of agricultural workers would, moreover, by putting
the labourers on their feet, pave the way for the, organization

20

806 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

of agriculture on a Guild basis. As an intermediate step,
however, it would perhaps be necessary to work for small
holdings and restored common lands, a combination of
which would not unlikely prove to be the most satisfactory
form of land-holding. But in no case should ownership
of land be absolute. On the contrary, land should be held
conditionally upon its cultivation and owned by the local
authorities, an arrangement I suggest as an alternative
to land nationalization because it avoids the evils of
bureaucracy.

So self-evident may appear the policy I recommend
that the question naturally arises, Why is it not adopted ?
The answer is because the revival of agriculture raises the
land question, and that touches the governing class in a
very tender place. The outcry that any proposal to tax
the land immediately raises is not due to the fact that it
touches the wealthy in their economic stronghold, for
the money power is in these days infinitely more powerful
than the land power, but because it attacks the honour
of the governing class. All the great landowners are in
possession of stolen property, and it is said that a great
part of such lands have no proper title-deeds. When Mr.
Smillie raised this question at the recent Coal Commission
he raised a very pertinent one. But he neglected a stronger
line of attack. Instead of asking whether the lands held
by the dukes had proper title-deeds, he ought to have asked
how it came about that any land possessed title-deeds ;
whether it was in the interests of the community for men
to enjoy privileges without corresponding responsibilities ;
and how it came about that landlords found themselves
in this irresponsible position to-day. These questions would
have raised the really fundamental issues ; for no men
were in this position before the revival of Roman Law.

It has been the misfortune of the land question that
its fundamental importance has been disregarded because
it has been associated with moribund solutions of its problems.
Every one with a practical knowledge of the circumstances
of agriculture and building knew very well that the taxation
of land values, though theoretically justifiable, would be
followed by consequences very different from those intended.

The Path to the Guilds 307

We are paying in the housing shortage to-day for the Land
Campaign of 1909 — a fact that has been obscured by the
circumstance that the war has rendered cottage-building
an uneconomic proposition. If land reformers had been
as keen on reviving agriculture, for which they professed
concern, as they were for securing the unearned increment
of city sites, they would never have fallen into the economic
fallacies they did, for in that case they would have begun
by enquiring into the circumstances of agriculture, and
have made its revival their primary concern. But it has
unfortunately happened that while agricultural reformers
have shirked the land question, those who have attacked
it have had their eyes fixed upon urban values. So land
reform has fallen between two stools, and will remain so
until the reformers wake up to the fact that the land
question is fundamental to all their schemes.

It is a paradox, but I believe it is nevertheless true,
that it is this tradition of reformers approaching the problem
of reconstruction from the point of view of unearned incre-
ment, or surplus value, to use Marxian terminology, that
in the past has been their undoing. With their eyes for ever
fixed on the money that goes into the pockets of others
who have no moral right to it, they incline to approach
problems in a ruthless mechanical way that entirely dis-
regards circumstances. These circumstances in turn have
a way of defeating them, for problems are to be attacked
along the line of their growth ^and finally in no other way.
The root fallacy that leads reformers to be thus for ever
attacking problems in the wrong way is that they have
fallen into the error of making economics rather than law
and morals the starting-point of their enquiries. It is
this that has led them to the Collectivist way of thinking,
that supposes the solution of the social problem to be
nothing more than a matter of detailed arrangements — a
way of thinking that has survived the formal rejection of
Collectivist theories, and which is still believed in by the
neo-Marxians. For their quarrel with the Fabians, as
with us, is immediately a quarrel about time. Without
any conception of the organic nature of society, they demand
an immediate solution of its problems They want the

808 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

millennium at once, and have no patience with us because
we do not believe it possible to improvise a new social
system the day after the revolution. Though they profess
to take their stand upon history, they are strangely oblivious
to its lessons. For if there is one lesson more than another
that it teaches, it is that organic changes are not brought
about in a catastrophic way. On the contrary, catastrophes,
in which history abounds, are invariably followed by long
periods of social disorder and chaos, and only indirectly
can be said to lead to any kind of good, in that experience
proves that men will often listen to the voice of truth in
suffering that they scorned in their days of prosperity.
Yet the neo-Marxians are so eager for the millennium that
they seek catastrophe as a means of realizing it.

There is another lesson that history teaches that the
Marxians do not so much ignore as deny — that evils are
never conquered before they are understood and faced in
the right spirit. The history of Greece and Rome abounds
in revolutions, but the revolutionaries were unable to abolish
the evils consequent upon an unregulated currency, because
they did not understand how to suppress them. Plato
might realize that the technical remedy was to be found
in a system of fixed prices, but the moral atmosphere neces-
sary to reduce such an idea to practice was absent in Greek
society, and so his suggestion was ignored. It was not
until Christianity had entirely transformed the spirit of
society by replacing the individualistic temper of Pagan
society by the spirit of human brotherhood that a solution
was found in the institution of the Just Price as maintained
by the Guilds. Similarly the transition from Mediaeval
to modern society, from communism to individualism, did
not come about owing to some inexorable law of social
evolution, but because the moral sanction of Mediaeval
society was gradually undermined by the lawyers and
their Roman Law. They undermined the communal spirit
that sustained the Guilds by affirming the right of every
man to buy in the cheapest market and to sell in the dearest,
while they transformed Feudalism into landlordism by
denying the Mediaeval theory of reciprocal rights and duties,
and exalting the rights of the individual at the expense

The Path to the Guilds 309

of those of the community. What Marxians call social
evolution is nothing more or less than the social and
economic consequences of such teaching — a truth which
even they instinctively recognize, for they are not content
to leave the coming of the millennium to the blind workings
of the historic process about which they are so eloquent,
but seek to promote it by inculcating the doctrines of class-
consciousness into the minds of the workers. There is
nothing inevitable about social changes. The direction can
at any time be changed where there is the will and the
understanding. But for the revival of Roman Law and
the immoral teachings associated with it, European society
would have continued to develop on Mediaeval lines to this
day as indeed it continued to develop in Asia and remained
until European capitalism began to undermine it.

Recognizing, then, that all societies are finally the
expression or materialization of their dominant philosophy,
and that when in the Middle Ages communal relationships
obtained they were sustained by the teachings of Chris-
tianity, the question may reasonably be asked whether the
policy we advocate does not imply a return to Christianity ;
must not reformers return to the churches ? The answer
is that this would be the case if the churches taught
Christianity as it was understood by the Early Christians.
But such is not the case. The churches in the past made
terms with the mammon of unrighteousness, and though
it is true that they are changing, we have to recognize that
they are changing in response to the rebellion against
capitalism from without rather than from any movement
from within — at any rate in so far as their attitude towards
social questions is concerned. If the churches had taken
the lead in attacking capitalism, there would be a case
for joining them, but considering that they did not, and
are so much bound up with the existing order, to advocate
such a policy would not only lead to endless misunder-
standing, but would hamper us in the immediate work
that requires to be done. Hitherto Guildsmen have ap-
proached the problem from one particular angle. They
have sought to transform the Trade Unions into Guilds
by urging upon the latter a policy of encroaching control

310 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

This policy is good as far as it goes. But it is not the only
thing that requires to be done. It is not only necessary
to approach the problem of establishing Guilds from the
point of view of the producer ; it is equally necessary
to approach it from the point of view of the consumer.
For this reason I would urge that we should not neglect
the new weapon that the Profiteering Act has placed in
our hands. Let us recognize the significance of this Act
as giving legal sanction to the central economic idea of the
Middle Ages. Let us study its implications and make
the working of the Act the basis of activities that will lead
step by step on the one hand to the revival of agriculture
and the abolition of landlordism, and on the other to the
return of the Guilds. For if the public can be persuaded
of the desirability of Guilds from the point of view of con-
sumers, half our battle would be won. The movement
from above would join hands with the movement from
below and Guilds arise naturally from the union.

Meanwhile those whom personal bias leads to a con-
sideration of the more fundamental propositions underlying
the problem of reconstruction should be urged to concentrate
their energies upon the abolition of Roman Law. Such an
attack would tend to create the kind of intellectual back-
ground of which the Reform Movement stands so much in
need. It would in the first place prevent the Guild Move-
ment from getting side-tracked by counteracting the per-
nicious influence of the Marxian interpretation of history.
In the next it would impress upon the minds of people the
idea that social and economic changes are preceded by
changes in ideas. Then it would demonstrate the primacy
of law over economics ; and lastly it would bring Mediaeval
ideas into a direct relationship with the modern thought,
because it so happens that it is impossible to attack Roman
Law without at the same time affirming Mediaeval principles.1

1 In Authority, Liberty and Function, by Ramiro de Maeztu (Allen &
Unwin) the antithesis between Roman and Mediaeval Law is carried further
by showing that whereas Roman Law is subjective in conception, Mediaeval
Law is objective, and the issue is widened by showing that all our ideas
from Renaissance times onward have become increasingly subjective. It
is a book which I cannot too strongly recommend to ray readers, as it is one
to which I feel I owe much.

The Path to the Guilds 311

Law is the link between morals and economics as it is
between philosophy and politics and between industrialism
and militarism. To attack Roman Law is therefore to
attack the modern system at a very vital and strategic
point. It would create a force that would restore the
communal spirit of the Middle Ages. For after all there
are only two types of society that have existed since currency
was introduced — the capitalist civilizations of Greece and
Rome and of modern Europe and America that did not
control currency, and the communal societies of Mediaeval
Europe and Asia that did. There is, finally, no third type
of society, inasmuch as all societies conform to one or other
of these types, differing only to the extent that in different
societies emphasis is given to different aspects of them.
Hence it is reasonable to suppose that as the capitalist
civilization of Rome was followed by the communal civil-
ization of Medievalism, the reaction against capitalism
to-day will carry us along to a future where the promise
of the Middle Ages will be fulfilled.

PRINCIPAL BOOKS CONSULTED

CHAPTER I

FOWLER, W. WARDE
JONES, H. STUART .
LIDDELL, HENRY S.
NITTI, FRANCESCO S.

SCHMITZ, LEONHARD
ZIMMBRN, ALFRED E.

Rome

The Roman Empire

History of Rome

Catholic Socialism

History of Greece

The Greek Commonwealth

ASHLEY, W. J.

BRENTANO, L. .
LAMBERT, J. M. .
LIPSON, E.

NOEL, CONRAD .

CHAPTER II

An Introduction to English Economic History

and Theory

History and Development of Gilds
Two Thousand Years of Guild Life
An Introduction to the Economic History of

England
Socialism in Church History

ASHLEY, W. J. . .

GIERKE, OTTO . .
JANSSEN, JOHANNES E.

O'NEILL, H. C. . .

CHAPTER III

An Introduction to English Economic History

and Theory

Political Theories of the Middle Ages
History of the German People at the Close

of the Middle Ages

New Things and Old in St. Thomas Aquinas
Cambridge Modern History

JANSSEN, JOHANNES E.

JBNKS, EDWARD
MAEZTU, RAMIRO DE
MAINE, SIR HENRY
MAITLAND, F. W. . .

RASHDALL, HASTINGS .

VlNOGRADOFF, SlR PAUL

CHAPTER IV

History of the German People at the Close

of the Middle Ages
Law and Politics in the Middle Ages
Authority, liberty and Function
Ancient Law
Introduction to Gierke's Political Theories of

the Middle Ages

The Universities of Europe in the Middle Age*
Roman Law in Mediaeval Europe
•ft

Books Consulted

813

ASHLEY. W. J. . . .
GOOCH, G. P. ...

GREEN, J. R. . . .
JARRETT, BSDB .

VlNOGRADOFF, SlR PAUL

CHAPTER V

An Introduction to English Economic History

and Theory
Political Thought in England from Bacon to

Halifax

History of the English People
Mediaeval Socialism
Roman Law in Mediaeval Europe

BUSSELL, F. W.

GIBBON, EDWARD
NITTI, FRANCESCO S.
PAULI, REINHOLD .

CHAPTER VI

Religious Thought and Heresy in the Middle

Ages

The Cambridge Mediaeval History
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Catholic Socialism
Pictures of Old England

JANSSEN, JOHANNES E.

PAULI, REINHOLD .
RASHDALL, HASTINGS
WALSH. J. J. , .

CHAPTER VII

History of the German People at the Close

of the Middle Ages
Pictures of Old England
The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages
The Popes and Science

LETHABY, W. R.
MORRIS, WILLIAM

RUSKIN, JOHN .

CHAPTER VIII

Mediaeval Art

Gothic Architecture

Architecture, Industry and Wealth

The Stones of Venice

Seven Lamps of Architecture

ANDERSON, W. J.
BLOMFIELD, R. T.

GOTCH, J. A.
PATER, WALTER
RUSKIN, JOHN
SABATIER, PAUL
SYMONDS, J. A.

CHAPTER IX

The Architecture of the Renaissance in Italy
A History of Renaissance Architecture in

England

The Cambridge Modern History, vol. i.
Early Renaissance Architecture in England
The Renaissance
Stones of Venice
Life of St. Francis of Assisi
Renaissance in Italy

314 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

AGATE, LEONARD D.
JANSSHN, JOHANNES £. .

CHAPTER X

Luther and the Reformation
The Cambridge Modern History
History of the German People at the Close
of the Middle Ages

COBBETT, WILLIAM
CUNNINGHAM, W.

LINGARD, JOHN .
TAWNEY, R. H. .

CHAPTERS XI AND XII

. A History of the Protestant Reformation
. The Growth of English Industry and Com-
merce
. . The History of England

. The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth

Century
The Cambridge Modern History

KROPOTKIN, P. A.

BELLOC, HILAIRE

BON, GUSTAVE LE
MlGNET, F. A. .

THIERS, L. A. .
TOZER, HENRY J.

CHAPTER XIII

The Great French Revolution
The French Revolution
Psychology of Revolution
The Cambridge Modern History
History of the French Revolution
The History of the French Revolution
Translation of Rousseau's Social Contract,
with Introduction

ASHLEY, W. J. .

BRENTANO, L.
CUNNINGHAM, W.

CHAPTER XIV

An Introduction to English Economic History

and Theory

History and Development of Gilds
The Growth of English Industry and Cora-

CUNNINGHAM, W.

GOOCH, G. P. ...

HAMMOND, J. L. and B.
PRICE, L. L. ...

CHAPTER XV

The Growth of English Industry and Com-
merce

Political Thought in England from Bacon to
Halifax

The Town Labourer, 1760-1832

The Cambridge Modern History, vol. U.

A Short History of Political Economy in
England

Books Consulted

315

CUNNINGHAM, W. . .

HAMMOND, J. L. and B.
PBRRIS. G. H. . . .

CHAPTER XVI

The Growth of English Industry and Com-
merce

The Town Labourer. 1760-1832
The Industrial History of Modern England

CARLYLE, THOMAS . .

CHESTERTON, G. K.
COBBETT, WILLIAM .
HAMMOND, J. L. and B.
MORLEY, JOHN .
SEIGNOBOS, CHARLES
WBBB, S. and B. . .

CHAPTER XVII

Past and Present
Latter Day Pamphlets
The Victorian Age in Literature
Rural Rides, etc.
The Town Labourer, 1760-1832
Life of Richard Cobden
'A Political History of Europe since 1814
History of Trade Unionism

NAPIER, T. B. .
POWELL, ELLIS T.

CHAPTER XVIII

Essay in " A Century of Law Reform
The Evolution of the Money Market

CHESTERTON, CECIL
FARROW, T., and CROTCH,
HUEFFER, F. M. . .
MAEZTU, RAMIRO DE

W.

LAUGHLIN, J. L.
STEED, WICKHAM
TAYLOR, G. R. S.

CHAPTER XIX

The Prussian hath Said in his Heart

The Coming Trade War

When Blood was their Argument

Authority, Liberty and Function in the Light

of the War

The Credit of the Nations
The Hapsburg Monarchy
Psychology of the Great War

CHAPTER XX

ANET, CLAUDE .... La Revolution Russ6 (vol. i. translated into

English)

KEELING, H. V. ... Bolshevism

KERENSKY, A. F. . . . The Prelude to Bolshevism

LLOYD, C. M Trade Unionism

PAUL, W The State : its Origin and Function

RANSOME, ARTHUR . . . Six Weeks in Russia in 1919

SACKS, A. J The Dawn of the Russian Revolution

STARR. MARK .... A Worker Looks at History

TROTSKY. LEON . . . The Russian Revolution

INDEX

Aachen, 118

Abbas, 1 06

Abbasid dynasty, 106

Act of Six Articles, 171

Advancement of Learning, 116

JEneid, the, 27, 130

Agriculture : rural depopulation, 19,
21, 168, 255 ; Guilds of, 51, 79 ;
evictions, 70, 77, 174, 175 ; sheep-
farming, 78, 173, 174, 215; under
Canon Law, 224; encouragement of
by Cecil, 227 ; destruction of by
Free Trade, 255 ; limited liability
company in, 262; need of revival of,
306, 307, 310. See also Land-
holding

Agrippa, 29

Aix-la-Chapelle, 118

Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria, 52

Albert us Magnus, 109, ill, 1 1 2,

131

Albigenses, 96-8
Alchemy, 103, 108
Alcuin of York, 93
Alexander the Great, 18
Alexander, the Nuncio, 143
Alexander III, Pope, 65
Alexander VI, Pope, 133
Alexandria, 87
Ali, 106
Almansur, 106
Alsace-Lorraine, 8, 275
America, 228, 240, 281, 311
Angell, Norman, 275
Anti-Corn Law League, 254
Antoninus Pius, Emperor of Rome,

31, 296.
Antony, 29
Apprenticeship, under Guilds, 40,

123 ; Act of Henry IV, 215 ;

Statute of, 219, 226 ; repeal of.

200
Apulia, 24

Aquinas. See St. Thomas Aquinas

Arabic, 106

Architecture, 92, 109, 112, 134, 246;
Greek, 119-121 ; Roman, 118-121,
133. I35. 136 ; Byzantine, 89, 90 ;
Gothic, 102, 117 seq., 113, 165 ;
French Gothic, 125 ; English
Gothic, 125 ; Norman, 123 ; Tudor,
124 ; Italian Gothic, 125, 134 ;
Flemish Gothic, 125 ; Renaissance.
112, 125, 134 seq. ; Vernacular
Renaissance, Elizabethan , J acobean.
Queen Anne, Georgian, 135

Armada, Spanish, 227

Armaments, 272

Armies : of Rome, 28 ; mercenary,
176 ; of French Revolution, 204,
208

Aristocracy, Revival of, 187

Aristotle. 5, 15, 37, 105 seq., 128,
130, 131, 153, 156, 230, 256

Arthur, Prince, 160

Arts of the Middle Ages, 117 seq.

Asceticism, 107

Ashley, W. J., quoted, 74, 77, 155,
218, 219

Ash ton, 241

Asia, 309, 311

Astrology, 108

Athens, 16, 18, 19, 305

Attica, 1 6

Augustus, 28-32, 211

Austria, 273, 287

Authority, 122, 172, 187

Averroes, 106, 107, 113

Azo, 76

Bacon, Lord, 80, 83, 114
Bacon, Roger, in
Baedeker's Guides, 125
Bagdad, 106
Bankers, 22, 154
Barbarians, 25, 89

31T

818 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Basle, no. Ste Universities

Bavaria. 151.

Beauvais, Synod of, 96

Bede, 92

Belgium, 24, 271, 276

Belloc, Hilaire, quoted, 170

Benedict XIV, Pope, 104

Benedictines, 92, 129, 130

Berg, 67

Bible, 34, 35, 113, 114, 184

Billaud-Varennes, 206

BUI of Rights, 82

Black Death, 78

Bohemia, 129

Boleyn, Anne, 159

Bologna, 61, 105, 109. Set Universities

Bolsheviks, Bolshevism, 285 seq. See
also Marx, Class War, and Material-
ist Conception of History

Bon, Gustave le, quoted, 209

Boniface VIII, Pope, 65, 104

Borgia, Caesar, 133

Boritzer, Matthew, 135

Bracton, 73, 75, 76

Brentano, L., quoted, 37. 38, 220,

221

Britain, 88. 91

Bruges, the belfry at, 125

Bruno, 113

Brutus, 88

Bubble Act, 260 ; repeal of, 261

Buddhism, 35, 36

Bulgaria, 86

Bullion, 228-30

Bureaucracy, 28, 86, 21 1, 212, 273,

274, 275, 295
Bussell, F. W., quoted, 107

Cabul, 18

Caesar, 28, 118, 130

Caliphate, 106

Calvin, Calvinism, 155, 171, 182, 192

Cambridge, King's College Chapel,
124; Trinity College, 135

Cambridge Modern History, quoted,
130, 131, 143, 168, 177

Canon Law, 59, 62, 63, 65, 67, 224

Capitalism follows introduction of
currency and growth of foreign
trade in Greece, 13 seq. ; follows
militarism in Rome, 19 seq. ; joint-
stock companies in Rome, 21, 22 ;
destruction of rivals by Romans, 24;

creates social disorders, 23 ; paralyses
government, 27 ; Augustus curbs
power of capitalists, 29 ; Roman
Law a product of capitalism, 32 ;
suppressed in Middle Ages, 39 ;
reappears after revival of Roman
Law, 70, 83 ; in Germany in Middle
Ages, 147; in England, 215 ; capi-
talists invest in land, 173 ; promote
sheep-farming, 173 ; exploit" domes-
tic industry," 215 ; undermine
the Guilds, 215-18; triumphs with
Reformation, 156 ; prosperity re-
stored by capitalists after suppres-
sion of monasteries, 226 ; growth
of belief in, 228 ; mercantilism, 229
seq. ; Manchester School, 233 srq. ;
Industrial Revolution, 237 seq. ;
Free Trade, 255-6 ; Limited lia-
bility Companies, 259 seq. ; a cause
of the war, 275 ; the economic
cul-de-sac, 281 ; leads to Bol-
shevism, 286

Carpenter, E., quoted, 115

Carrier, 206

Carthage, 24, 85, 276, 305

Catastrophism. 249, 308

Catharists, 96, 100

Cathedrals of Amiens, Bourges, Char-
tres, Paris, Rheims, Rouen, Milan,
Orvieto, 125

Catherine of Arragon, 158

Catholics, 171 seq.

Cecil, W., Lord Burghley, 227

Chambers of Commerce, 219

Chantries Bill, 219

Charlemagne, Emperor, 55, 56, 118

Charles I, 184, 185, 239, 240

Charles IV, Emperor, 67

Charles V, Emperor, 151, 160

Chartists, 252-4

Chaucer, 129

Chemistry, 102, 103, in

Chesterton, G. K., quoted, 45, 83,
125. 189, 298, 299

Chivalry, 49, 71

Christian Admonition, 224

Christian Fathers, 29, 88, 129, 130

Christianity, communal basis of, 34,
35. 298 ; introduces a new moral
principle, 35 ; sustained the com-
munal spirit of Middle Ages, 36 ;
and the Guilds, 37 ; made possible

Index

819

the Just Price. 39 ; Greek philo-
sophy incorporated in Christian
dogmas, 88 ; need of dogmas, 88 ;
Gothic architecture, expression of,
1 20-1 ; Renaissance not originally
a reaction against Christianity, but
against FrantiscanGospel of Poverty,
127 seq. ; Reformation an attempt
to return to discipline of Early
Church, 152 ; Puritanism a per-
version of Christianity, 139-40,
l84*5. 308-9

Church and State, 54 seq., 65 seq.,
98, 160, 171. 178, 193, 244. See also.
Holy Roman Empire

Church, Eastern, 89, 91, 106

Church of England, 174

Church, Western or Roman : civilized
the barbarians, 91 ; preserved learn-
ing through the Dark Ages, 92, 130 ;
opposed to heresy, 94 seq. ; encour-
aged science, 105 seq. • attempted to
suppress revival of Roman Law,
65 ; Unam Sanctum, 66 ; estab-
lished the Inquisition, 98 ; corrupted
by Renaissance, 57, 133, 142-3 ;
wealth of, 27, 37, 60, 92, 166, 170 ;
attitude towards property, 27, 156 ;
towards usury, 153 ; reason for
post- Reformation policy, 177-8

Cicero, 24, 88, 120

Cistercians, 98, 129

Civil War, the, 186, 240

Class War, 18, 19, 24, 84, 150, 174-5,
236, 246, 285 seq.

Clement V, Pope, 99

Clement VII. Pope, 159

Cleopatra, 29

Coal Commission, 306

Cobbett, Wm., quoted, 86, 102, 162,
163. 183, 184, 250. 251

Coke, Edward, 82

Collectivism, 299, 307

Collegia, Roman, 30, 31, 38

Combination Laws, 222 ; repeal of,
222.

Commentators, 64, 98

Committee of Public Safety, 207

Communal art, 119, 137 ; culture,
137 ; law, see Mediaeval Law ;
property, see Land-holding ; basis
of Christianity, see Christianity

Conrad II, Emperor, 60

Conservatives, 299
Constantino the Great, 31, 96
Constantinople, 89, 91, 107, 131 ;

Council of, 36
Constituent Assembly, 204. See French

Revolution
Convention, the, 205. See French

Revolution

Coomaraswamy, A. K., quoted, 242
Corinth, 24, 85, 276
Corn Laws, 254, 255
Cortes, 163

Coutances, Bishop of, 66
Coventry, 221
Cowley, E., quoted, 248
Craft culture, 112, 137
Credit, Creditism, 268, 275
Cromwell, Oliver, 83 ; Thomas, 161

**?•

Crown, the, 158, 260, 261
Cuba. 50
Cunningham, E., quoted, 166, 167,

170, 215
Currency, 13 seq., 19, 20, 22, 32, 34,

51. 79. 199. 200, 2OI, 208, 213,

214, 217, 230, 278, 308
Czechs, 273

Dante, 130

Danton, 206

Dark Ages, 89, 91, 92, 93. See also

Learning

Davanent, Chas., 232
Decretum, the, 65
Defender of the Faith. 158
Deloume, A., quoted, 88
Depopulation. See Agriculture
Dickinson, J. Lowes, 271
Diocletian, Emperor of Rome, 31
Directory, the, 208-10. See French

Revolution

Disraeli, Benjamin, 250, 257
Disraeli, Isaac, quoted, 186
Discourses on the Commonweal, 175
Dissection, 102, 103, 104
Divina Commedia, 130
Divine Right of Kings, 51, 64, 81, 82,

195
Division of Labour.- See Industrial

Revolution
Dogmas, 88, 122
Domesday Book, 49
Dominicans, 109, in, 1X7, 126

320 A Gmldsman's Interpretation of History

Douglas, C. H., 268
Dover, 184
Dutch, the, 229, 305
Dutch War, the, 229

Early Christians, 35, 36, 96, 152
Early Church, 34, 87, 88, 96, 142,

152-3

East India Company, 232, 259
Economic cul-de-sac, 276, 281
Education system, 169
Edward VI, 164, 171 seq., 219, 226,

239

Elective priesthood, 145, 153
Elizabeth, Queen, 80, 165, 181 seq.,

226, 239, 259
Empire, Eastern, 89, 118; Western,

89, 13°

Enclosures, 77, 174, 175. See Land-
holding and Agriculture

England, 65, 126, 158 seq., 272, 291

Entente, the 277

Epicureanism, 132

Epitadeus, Ephor, 16

Equality, 195-7 $ee French Revolu-
tion

Erasmus, 145, 146

Etruria, 25

Eupatrid, 14

Evictions. See Agriculture

Fabians, 45, 307

Factory Acts, 241 , system, see

Industrial Revolution
Farrow, Thos., and Crotch, W.. quoted,

276

Fawkes, Guy, 183
Feudalism, Feudal System, 25, 48-51,

74. 75. 77. 78. 84. 148, 173, 192,

202, 214

Ficino, Marsiho, 131
Finance, after-war problems of,

279 seq.

Fire Insurance Co.'s of London, 220
Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester,

1 60

Flanders, Hotels de Ville of, 124
Flemings, 41
Florence, 105, 154
Foreign Trade, 18, 19, 127, 147, 226,

230, 231, 239, 271, 272, 277, 305
Fouche, 206
Fowler, W. Warde. quoted, 25, 30

France, 65, 96, 97, 126, 189 seq., 272,
299, 302

France, Northern, 24, 276

Franciscans, 93, 109, m, 112, 117,
126, 128, 129, 132, 154, 161

Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor, 65,
98

Frederick II, Emperor, 98, 99

Free Trade, Free Traders, 229, 232,
233. 254-6

French Revolution, 33, 189 seq., 247 ;
inspired by Rousseau, 191 ; a
frustrated movement back to Medi-
aevalism, 190 ; a consequence of the
policy of Louis XVI, 190 ; limi-
tations of Rousseau, 191 ; the Social
Contract, explanation of, 193 seq. ;
not understood by his followers.
203 ; the Constituent Assembly,
204 ; the Girondins, 205 ; the Con-
vention, 205 ; the Jacobins, 205 ;
the Terror, 206 ; Robespierre, 206 ;
Committee of Public Safety, 207 ;
corruption of the Assemblies, 207 ;
the counter-Revolution, 208 ; the
Directory, 208 ; the Catholic revival,
208 ; the coup d'etat of Napoleon,
209; his policy, 210; why the
Revolution failed, 211

French Revolution oi 1848, 252

Froude, 190

Fuero Juzgo, 32

Galileo, 113

Gaul, 24, 85

Gelasius, Pope, 56

General Will, 202. See Social Con-
tract

Geneva, 192

German Empire. 64, 72, 03

Germans, 23, 24, 85, 273-5

Germany, 19, 64, 67, 68. 70, 96, 97,
126, 139 seq., 158, 161, 191. 268,
270, 271, 273, 275, 276, 287

Gierke, Otto, quoted, 53

Girondins, 205, 210. See also French
Revolution

Gladstone, 257

Glasgow, 261

Glossators, 62, 64

Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of, 164

Gnostics, 97

Gooch, G. P., quoted, 81. 232

Index

321

Gothic architecture, 118 seq.

Gothic Revivalists, 102

Gracchi, the, 20, 26-8

Gracchus, Tiberius, 25-27 ; Cains, 26

Gratian. 59, 65

Great Schism, 57, 143

Greece, 13 seq., 192, 198, 199, 298,
308, 311

Greece, City States of, 198. See
Social Contract

Greek culture. See Learning

Gregory the Great, Pope, 91

Gregory VII, Pope, 60

Gregory IX, Pope, 65, 98, 99, 100,
107

Guild idea, the, 299, 300

Guilds, the Guild System, 15, 30, 31,
37, 38 seq., 47, 79, 84, 86, 122, 123,
147. 199, 200, 214 seq., 222, 224,
229, 238, 240, 250, 269, 270, 304,
308, 310 ; rise of, 37 ; religious
Guilds, 37 ; Frith Guilds, 38 ;
economic Guilds, 39 ; communist
spirit of, 37, 39 ; to enforce Just
Price, 39, 40 ; Guilds Merchant,
40-2, 44, 146-7, 260 ; Craft Guilds,
41-3, 123 ; Merchant Adventurers,
42 ; Journeymen Fraternities, 42 ;
taxation of, 215 ; decline of, 215
seq.; tyranny of, 44-5, 216; at-
tempted reorganization of, 217 ;
defeat of, 218; confiscation of
property of, 219 ; survival of, 219 ;
fixed prices leads to a revival of,
304-8, 310

Guildsman, 303, 309

Gunpowder Plot, 183

Haingerichte, 150

Hales, John, 175

Hanseatic League, 147, 305 ; steel-
yard in London, 147

Hammond, J. L. and B., quoted, 238

Hampden, John, 186

Heine, 32, 33

Henry I, 74

Henry II, 74, 160, 298

Henry IV, Emperor, 61

Henry VII, 217

Henry VIII, 158 seq., 171, 174, 175,
217, 224, 228

Heresy. 93 seq., 103, 107, 108, 109,
112, 113, 171, 248; Manichean, 66,

95. 96, 97. 132 ; Arian, 95 ; Nes-
torian, 95

Heretics, 95, 100, 171, 183
History of the Reformation, 251
Hohenstaufen family, 65, 98
Holy Roman Empire, theory of, 54 ;
centre of European life, 55 ; quarrel
over Right of Investiture, 56, 60 ;
undermined by revival of Roman
Law, 6 1 seq. ; impotence of, in
fifteen century, 71 ; destruction of
by armies of Napoleon, 55
Honprius III, Pope, 65
Horace, 1 30

House of Commons. See Parliament
House of Lords, 292-3
Housing shortage, 307
Hudson Bay Company, 260
Hugh of St. Victor, 66
Hungary, 65

Humanists, 129 seq., 131, 132, 146
Huss, Hussite movement, 129, 158
Huxley, J. H., quoted, 113

India, 273

Indulgences, 141 seq.

Industrial movement, 258

Industrial Revolution, years of dra-
matic change, 237 ; invention of
machinery made possible by divi-
sion of labour, 238 ; workers dis-
like of, 238 ; built upon a slave
class, 239 ; opposition of Tudors
and Stuarts to mechanical invention,
239-40 ; dominated by Puritan spirit,
240-1 ; cruelty of the system, 241 ;
in Germany, America and India,
241-2 ; has industrialism come to
stay, 242 ; reared on a base of
social injustice, 242 ; imminence of
economic breakdown, 243 ; every
popular demand incompatible with
industrialism, 243 ; workers seek its
destruction, 244 ; division of labour
must be challenged, 245 ; only-
small machines permitted in the
future, 245

Industry, domestic system of, 215

Innocent III, Pope, 66, 98

Innocent IV, Pope, 65

Inquisition, 98 seq.

Investiture, Right of. 57, 60

Ireland, 239

21

322 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Irnerius, 61, 62
Isocrates, 18

Italy, 29, 68, 89, 96, 126 seq., 146,
161

Jacks, L. P., quoted, 123
Jacobins, 194, 201, 203-6, 210
James I, 51, 81, 165, 183, 230, 239,

260

Janiculum, 20
Jansscn, Johannes, quoted, 47, 52,

56, 70, 72. no, 135, 145, 146, 147,

M9, 225

Jarrett, Bede, quoted, 128, 154
Jerome, 158
Jews, 100

John of Gaunt, 78, 140, 156
John of Salisbury, 53
John XXII, Pope, 103, no
Joint- Stock Companies, in Rome, 21,

22 ; in England, 260 seq. See also

Limited Liability Companies
Jones, H. Stuart, quoted, 31
Joshua, 114
Julick, 67
Junkerdom, 85
Jurists, Roman, 59, 199, 295, 296 ;

Mediaeval, 61 seq., 73, 75, 76, 295,

296
Justinian Code, 61, 64-5, 75, 80, 89,

218, 296

Kepler, 113

Kerensky, 286, 287

Knights, robber, 48 ; chivalrous, 49

Knox, John, 182

Kropotkit), P., quoted, 190

Labour Party, 258, 292, 293

Lacher, Lawrence, 135

Laissez-faire, 233-4

Lancashire, 239, 241

Land-holding, communal system of
land-holding, broken up by currency
and private property established, in
Greece, 13 seq. ; in Rome, 19 seq. ;
Christianity preserves communal
land system of barbarian tribes, 37 ;
Church property, 37, 60, 92, 166 ;
land under feudal system, 50 ;
revival of Roman Law transforms
feudalism into landlordism, 76-7 ;
provokes Peasants' Revolt of 1381,

78-9 ; provokes Peasants' War in
Germany, 150 ; suppression of mon-
asteries results in land-grabbing,
161 seq. • Reformation a victory for
landlordism, 156, 170, 182 ; changed
attitude towards property of new
landlords, 173 ; Peasants' Revolt of
1549, 173 seq. ; the Civil War a
triumph of landlordism, 185-6 ;
relations of property and currency,
208 ; French Revolution creates
new landlords, 208 ; suggested sys-
tem of land-holding, 305-6 ; land
and title deeds, 306. Seg also
Agriculture

Langenstein, Heinrich von, 47
Lambert, J. M., 31
Lateran Council (1179), 98
Law Courts, 292, 293, 294, 296
Lawyers, 66, 67, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76,
78, So, 82, 153, 156, 167, 173, 204,
210, 226, 294, 295, 308. See also
Roman Law

League of Nations, 55

Learning, traditions of, preserved
through the Dark Ages at Constan-
tinople, 89 ; knowledge of Greek
faded from the West, 130; Latin
Classics preserved by the Bene-
dictines, 92, 93, 130 ; re-discovery
of Aristotle, 106-7 • emigration of
Greek scholars to Italy after fall
of Constantinople, 89, 131 ; Re-
vival of Learning, 130 seq., 168. See
also Heresy, Science and Renais-
sance

Legislator, the, 196. Sf.e Social Con-
tract

Leith, 182

Leitzkau, 144

Leo III, Pope, 55

Leo X, Pope, 141

Lethaby, W. R., quoted, 90, 119, 123

Letters of John Chinaman, 271

Levant, 68, 146

Liberals, 45, 205, 252

Libraries, destruction of at Reforma-
tion, 164

Licinian Law, 25

Limited Liability Companies, 259 seq. ',
Acts of, 1855, 1856 and 1862, 261-2 ;
Board of Trade returns of, 262 ;
corrupting influence of, 262 seq. ;

Index

323

create labour troubles, 294. See
also Joint-Stock Companies

Lingard, John, quoted, 171

Lipson, E., quoted, 38, 40, 42, 43

Lloyd, C. M., quoted, 292, 293

Lodge, Sir Oliver, 115

Lollards, 158

Lombards, 56, 118

Ix>ndon, 136, 171, 186, 219

Louis XIV, 190

Louis XVI, 191

Louis XVIII, 209

Lowell, 1 20

Lucian, 130

Ludovici, A. M., 186-7

Luther, 114, 141 seq., 151, 156, 158

Lutherans, 152, 171

Lycurgus, 15, 16, 17

Macaulay, 114

Macclesfield, 221

Machiavelli, 133, 161

Machinery, hypnotic influence of, 247,
248, 250, 256. See Industrial Re-
volution

Maeztu, Ramiro de, quoted, 45, 187,
203, 273, 275, 277, 310

Magic, 97, 108

Mahomet, 105

Maine. Sir Henry, quoted, 22

Maitland, F. \V., quoted, 65

Malynes, Gerard, 230

Manchester School, 233 seq., 252,
259, 260, 284

Manegold, of Lautenbach, 53

Manichean Heresy. Set Heresy

Marat, 201

Marcus Aurelius, 94

Marius, 27, 28

Markets, exhaustion of, 271, 272, 275,
277

Marston, Chas., quoted, 36

Martial, 130

Marx, Marxians, 8, 9, 10, 4.5, 46,
86, 87, 88, 155, 174, 175, 194,

212, 235, 287, 288, 289, 297, 3O2,

307, 308, 309, 310. See also Bol-
shevists, Class War, Materialist
Conception of History

Mary, Queen of England, 179 seq.

Mary, Queen of Sects, 182

Materialist conception of history, 8,
9, 10

Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, 61

Maximilian, Emperor, 143

Maximum Production, 275, 277, 281,
282

Mediaeval law, communal law, cus-
tomary law, 32, 51, 58, 68, 69, 73,
75. 192, 194. 297

Mediae valist position, 298 seq.

Medical schools in the Middle Ages,
105

Medici, Giovanni de, 132

Medici, Giuliano de, 133

Medici, Lorenzo de, 132

Mediterranean, 13, 105

Melanchthon, 114, 156

Mercantilism, 229 seq., 232

Mercenaries, 176

Merchant?, middlemen, 14, 18, 22,
41, 147, 214, 225, 255, 256, 260

Merton, Statute of, 77

Metric System, 211

Mexico, 50

Michelangelo, 133, 134

Mill, John Stuart, 235

Milman, quoted, 66

Mirandola, Picodella, 131

Mivart, Professor, 113

Modernism, 248

Monarchy, 51, 52, 53, 80, 81, 84, 195

Monasteries, 86, 130 ; suppression of,
152, 157, 158 seq.

Monastic arts, 168

Monastic orders, 91, 92, 93, 108 seq.

Monies Pietatis, 154

Montford, Simon de, 98

More, Sir Thomas, 160, 174, 236

Mountain, the, 205. See French Re-
volution

Mun, Thomas, 230-3

Munitions Act, 294

Munitions, Ministry of, 278

Music, 92, 94, 109

Napoleon, 55, 189, 209 seq.
Napoleonic Wars, 246, 249, 254
Navigation Act, 229, 230
Neo-Platonism, 87-88
Nero, 21

Nestorians, 95, 105
Netherlands, 173, IQI, 227
Nevers, Bishop of, 60
Newton, 113
Nineteenth Century. 246 seq.

324 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Noel, Conrad, quoted, 36
Norman Conquest, 49
North Dudley, 232
Northcliffe Press, 303
Northumberland, Duke of, 1 76
Novum Organum, 114
Nuneaton, 221
Nuremberg, 67, 151

Oligarchy, 18, 29, 246

O'Neill, H. C, quoted, 52, 53

Ommiades, 106

Orleans, 70

Osborne Judgment, 293-4

Otto II, Emperor, 60

Ovid, 130

Oxford. See Universities

Paganism, 29, 34, 35, 36, 87, 88, 122,
126, 131, 132, 146, 192, 193

Painting, 109, 134, 135

Pantheism, 107, 117

Papacy, 56, 57, 59, 65, 66, 91, 98 stq.,
102 seq., 128, 132, 133, 141-3, 159.
1 80

Papal Medical School, 105

Paris : Church of St. Denis, 124 ;
Treaty of (1229), 98. See Uni-
versities

Paris, commune of, 204, 205, 206 ;
Council of, 107

Parliament, 80, 82, 83, 98, 161, 171,
175, 180, 185, 186, 220, 221, 250,
257, 260

Party System, 257

Patricians (Patrons), 19, 20, 22

Paul, W., quoted, 244, 296

Pauli, Reinhold, quoted, 92, 93, in,

'47

Payment of members, 293
Peasants' Revolt (1381), 43, 79, 80,

156, 217

Peasants' Revolt (1549), 173-6
Peasants' War in Germany, 150-1
Peel, Sir Robert, 254
Peloponnesian War, 15-18
Peru, Conquest of, 163
Petrarch, 130
Petronius, 132
Philip of Spain, 182
Pisistratus, 17
Pitt, William, 221
Pius II, Pope, 1 10

Pizarro, 163

Place, Francis, 232

Plain, the, 205. See French Revolu-
tion

Plato, 15, 88, 93, 94, 131, 308

Pliny, 21

Poland, 68, 146

Pole, Cardinal, 180

Poles, the, 274

Poor Law, Elizabethan, 167, 168

Popanilla, 257

Poverty, Gospel of, 127, 128

Price, Just or Fixed, 15, 39, 40, 45, 47,
79, 190, 193, 199, 200, 201, 212, 218,
233, 30°. 303. 304- See also Guilds

Printing, 142, 145, 168, 171

Profiteering, 15, 18, 39, 147, 177, 201,
207, 212, 218, 267, 278, 282, 283,
290

Profiteering Act, 303, 310

Property. See Land-holding

Protection, 255

Protestantism, 81, 82, no, 114, 139
seq., 158 seq., 170 seq.

Publicani, 22, 88

Punic Wars, 20, 21

Puritans, 82, 140, 184, 185, 186, 240,
241

Quick, O. C., quoted. 88, 97
Quintessence of Ibsenism, 248
Ouintilian, 130

Radicals, 247, 250, 251, 252, 257

Railway boom, collapse of, 261

Railway Servants, Amalgamated So-
ciety of, 292, 293

Railways, building of, 189, 249, 255

Rashdall, Hastings, quoted, 62, 106,
107, no

Rationalism, 107, 117, 138

Ratisbon, Council of, 147

Ravenna, 61

Reform Bill (1832), 252

Reformation, 57, 114, 139 seq., 158
seq., 170 seq.

Regulated companies, 260

Reichskammergericht, 67

Reims, Synod of, 60

Renaissance, the, 112, 126 seq., 139,
146, 161, 192 ; a reaction against
Franciscan Gospel of Poverty, 126-
131 ; attempts at reconciliation of

Index

325

Plato with Christianity, 131 ; Pagan-
ism of later Renaissance, 131 ;
corruption which followed Pagan
ideal 132 ; its reaction on the
Papacy, 133 ; destroyed the arts,
133-136 ; bad influence of Michel- I
angelo, 134 ; destroyed communal
culture, 137 ; led to Reformation,
139 ; and French Revolution, 192

Renaissance Popes, 57, 133, 142, 143

Repgow, Eike von, 69

Resurrection of the Body, 97, 103, 132

Kicardo, 235

Richard II, 158

Richmond, Duke of, 159

Robespienre, 206-7

Rogers, Thorold, quoted, 220, 283

Roman Law. 26, 32-3, 37, 51, 56, 58,
seq., 72 seq.. 89,98, 101, 144, 146, 148, j
150, 156, 170, 175, 177, 190. 192. 194,

199, 2IO, 214, 222, 251, 269, 274,

295-8, 304. 306, 310, 311 ; origins of,
32 ; Heine on, 32-3 ; after decline
of Empire, 58 ; Visigothic compila-
tion, 59 ; superseded by Canon law,
59 ; revival follows quarrel over
Investiture, 60 ; Irnerius revives
Justinian Code, 61 ; Glossators in-
fatuated by it, 62 ; how it differs
from Mediaeval law, 63 ; adopted by
Emperors, 64; sows discord between
Church and State, 66 ; reception
in Germany, 67-68 ; supersedes
customary law, 69 ; Sir Paul Vino-
gradoff on reasons for reception,
69 ; breaks up the Mediaeval Em-
pire, 71; English law. Roman in
principle, 73 ; Henry II and Royal
Courts of Justice, 74; attempt to
transform feudalism into slavery,
75 ; trans-forms feudalism into land-
lordism, 77 ; Statute of Merton, 77 ;
lawyers become stewards of feudal
lords, 77 ; provokes Peasants' Revolt
of 1381, 78-9; lawyers capture
Parliament, 80 ; undermine the
Monarchy, 81 ; paralyses govern-
ment, 83 ; lawyers transform odium
to Mediaeval institutions, 84 ; need
of its abolition, 310-11. See also
Lawyers

Rome, 17 seq., 101, 105, 132, 192,
J99i 295, 298, 308, 311 ; under the

Republic, 52, 88, 296 ; under the
Empire, 27 seq., 38, 48, 58, 88, 211,
296 ; generals, 27, 28 ; bureaucracy,
28, 86 ; proletariat, 27 ; taxation,
22, 29; unemployed, 21, 30; gov-
ernors of provinces, 23

Rome, St Peter's at, 141

Roper, Sir Anthony, 186

Rousseau, 189, 191 seq. See Social
Contract and French Revolution

Royalists, French, 209-10. See also
French Revolution

Royal African Company, 260

Royal Courts of Justice, 74, 76

Kuskin, John, 102, 234-5, 251, 257,
288. 289

Russell, Lord, 176

Russia, 68, 146, 286, 291

Russian Revolution, 201, 285 seq

Ruthenes, 274

St. Antonino, 128, 154, 155

St. Augustine, 91, 130

St. Bernard, 66

St. Dominic, 108, 109

St. Francis, 93, 108, 126, 127, 128, 129,

133, 134

St. Thomas Aquinas, 37, 51, 53, 66,
109, in, 112, 128, 131, 156, 218,

225

Sachenspeigel, the, 67, 69
Sallust, 130
Salvation Army, 108
Saracens, 86, 105, 107, 118
Savonarola, 131
Saxony, Courts of, 69
Scandinavian North, 68, 146
Scholars at Oxford and Cambridge,

1 68

Science, 92, 102 seq., 118
Scipio, 28

Scotland, 65, 182, 183
Scott, Sir Walter, 102
Scottish Revolt, 182
Scriptures, interpretation of, 113, 140,

»45. 'S3. i?1. Ig6
Sculpture, 134, 135
Senate, Roman, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28 ;

Senators, 24 ; Senatorial families,

21, 23
Seneca, 88
Serbia, 273
Serfs, 48, 49, 50

326 A Guildsman's Interpretation of History

Serlio, 134

Servile State, 8, 30, 299, 301

Seutonius, 130

Sevcrus Alexander, Emperor of Rome,

3i

Seymour, Jane, 159, 160

Shaw, G. Bernard, 248

Sheep-farming. See Agriculture

Sheffield, 223

Shop Stewards' Movement, 294

Sixtus IV, Pope, 100, 133

Slave Wars, 25, 121

Slavery, 16, 17, 24, 25, 75, 121, 190,
241, 296

Slovenes, 274

Smiles, Samuel, 241

Smillie, R., 306

Smith, Adam, 229, 232-5, 247, 251,
252, 263.

Social Contract, 193 ; key to, 193 ;
Church and State, 193 ; morality
and law, 194 ; republicanism and
monarchy, 195 ; doctrine of equality,

195 ; the problem of the legislator,

196 ; advocacy of small states and
small property, 197 ; City States of
Greece as model, 198 ; influence
of Roman Law, 199 ; relationship of
property and currency, 200 ; the
doctrine of the General Will, 202 ;
Rousseau's reservations disregarded,
203. See also French Revolution

Socialism, Socialists, 33, 106, 178, 198,

212, 213, 299, 301, 303
Socrates, 93
Soissons, Bishop of, 96
Solon, 15-18

Somerset, Duke of, 171 seq.
South Sea Bubble, 261
South Sea Company, 260
Soviets, 286
Spain, 65, 96, 97, 99, 100, 106, 118,

178

Sparta, 15, 16, 18
Spartacus, 25
Spitalfields Acts, 221
Starr, Mark, 87
Statius, 130

Steed, Wickham, quoted, 273-4
Stoic philosophy, 25
Stuarts, the, 82, 183-187, 239, 240
Succession Act, 159
Sulla, 28

Sumptuary Laws, 17, 148, 231
Sunday Observance Laws, 185
Switzerland 285
Sybil, 257

Taff Vale Judgment, 292, 293, 294

Tallien, 206

Tawney, R. H., quoted, 173-4

Taxation of land Values, 306

Terence, 130

Terror, the, 206. See also French
Revolution

Theory of Moral Sentiments, 234

Theot, Catherine, 206

Toleration, 171-2

Tories, 252

Torquemada, 99

Torture, 99

Trade Routes, change of, 228

Trade Unions, 222, 252, 292, 293,
294 ; Act of, 1871, 222, 292 ; func-
tions of, 223 ; a basis for restored
Guilds, 223, 299, 300, 309

Trades Disputes Act, 293

Tribune, 25, 26

Trinity, Doctrine of, 88

Trithemius, 225

Tsar, the, 286

Tudor Monarchy, 74 ; 159 seq., 215,
217-9, 224 seq., 239

Turks, 143

Unam Sanctum, 66

Unemployment, 18, 21, 30, 210, 227,

240, 278

Uniformity, Acts of, 179
Universities, Mediaeval, 1 10, 1 1 1; Basle,

1 10 ; Bologna, 109 ; Cambridge,

168 ; Paris, 106-9 ; Oxford, 109,

164. 168 ; German, 67
Unto this Last, 235
Usury, 17, 20, 70, 88, 150, 153-5
Utopia, 174

Vendee, 205

Venice, 89, 105, 305

Verres, 88

Vienna, 273

Villains, 49, 75, 76

Vincent of Beauvais, in

Vinogradoff, Sir Paul, quoted, 59,

67. 69. 75. 76
Virgil, 29, 130

Index

327

Vitruvius, 134
Voltaire, 198

Wage system, 299

Wages, assessment of, 219,220; in
fifteenth century, 283 ; iron law of,

235

Walpole, Sir Robert, 260

Walsh, J. J., quoted, 103, 104

War, the Great European, 271 stq.

War Office, 278

Wars of the Roses, 150, 160

Warwick, Earl of, 176

Wealth, concentration of, 246, 249 ;

problem of distribution of, 282 ;

Gospel of, 226, 228, 229
\\iecdth of Nations, 231, 248, 263
Webb, Sidney, 300
Welfare Work, 29
Westminster Abbey, 124

Wharton, Thos., quoted, 164
William I, 49
William II, 60
William of Malmesbury, 90
Wimpheling, 149
Witchcraft, 97, 108
Wittenberg Castle, 141
Wolsey, Cardinal, 161, 174
Wool, export of, 173
Worms, Diet of (1122), '61 ;

M5

Wren, Sir Christopher, 135
Wycliffe. 139-141, 156, 158

York, 184

Yorkshire Woollen Manufacturers,
278

Zimmern, Alt., quoted, 14, 15, 18
Xwinglians, 171

BOOKS RELATING TO NATIONAL GUILDS

NATIONAL GUILDS, by S. G. Hobson, edited by A. R. Orage (Bell & Sons. 6s.)
AN ALPHABET OF ECONOMICS, by A. R. Orage (T. Fisher Unwin, 43. 6d.)
GUILD PRINCIPLES IN PEACE AND WAR, by S. G. Hobson (Bell, 23. 6d.)

These books approach the subject primarily from the point
of view of the Wage System

THE WORLD OF LABOUR, by G. D. H. Cole (Bell, 43. 6d.)
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY, by G. D. H. Cole (Bell, 43. 6d.)
LABOUR IN THE COMMONWEALTH, by G. D. H. Cole (Headley, 53. 6d.)
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(Palmer & Hayward, 73. 6d.)

These books approach the subject primarily from the point
of view of Trade Unionism

AUTHORITY, LIBERTY AND FUNCTION, by Ramiro de Maeztu (Allen & Unwin,
4s. 6d.)

This book, which I referred to in a footnote (page 310 and
elsewhere), is concerned with the philosophy underlying a
Guild revival. It approaches the subject from a mediavalist
standpoint

THE RESTORATION OF THE GUILD SYSTEM, by A. J. Penty (out of print)
OLD WORLDS FOR NEW, by A. J. Penty (Allen & Unwin, 33. 6d.)
GUILDS AND THE SOCIAL CRISIS, by A. J. Penty (Allen & Unwin, 23. 6d.)
THE GUILD STATE, by G. R. S. Taylor (Allen & Unwin, 33. 6d.)

These books approach the subject from the point of view of
mediaeval economics

Date Due

4964-

!964

JUN 8

1979

Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137

3 1210 00178 7223