The craftsmen

All towns had weekly markets, and villagers would come in on foot to sell butter, cheese, and eggs. They bought what they could not make for themselves, such as cloth, boots, pots and pans. Towns were where these things were made. Skilled craftsmen made shoes, hats, barrels, and horses' harness. Dozens of trades were carried on in every town. There were 60 different kinds of tradesmen in Leicester in 1500, and 90 in York.

In the Middle Ages, each trade was organised in a guild. The shoemakers' guild said how shoes should be made. They fixed the prices. They made rules about what apprentices had to learn. Craftsmen who did not belong to the guild could not make and sell shoes. And the guild looked after its members – it paid them money when they were ill, and it paid pensions to widows when members died.

Between 1500 and 1750, most of the guilds disappeared. In 1700, fifty towns still had some guilds, but new, go-ahead places like Birmingham had none. Without guilds, tradesmen could make their goods in new ways and use different tools, or even machines.

Walter Robson: Crown, Parliament and People; Oxford University Press, 1992/2002, page 11