Excerpt from The English Craft Gilds and Government: An Examination of the Accepted Theory Regarding the Decay of the Craft Gilds Dr. Stubbs has doubtless testified for all time to the value and great interest which the history of institutions has for those who, as he puts it, have courage to work upon it. I Of no institution, perhaps, can this be more truly affirmed than of English craft gilds. In its broad est conception a study of those organizations involves the entire social history of England. In a stricter sense it narrows itself into a survey of the development of burghal interests and ambitions after the Norman Con quest, since it was in its boroughs that England's com mercial and industrial life centered. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.