rich merchants and clothiers, who met therein to transact their common
business. The guild hall was the centre of the trade of the town and
of its social and commercial life. An amazing amount of business was
transacted therein. If you study the records of any ancient borough
you will discover that the pulse of life beat fast in the old guild
hall. There the merchants met to talk over their affairs and "drink
their guild." There the Mayor came with the Recorder or "Stiward" to
hold his courts and to issue all "processes as attachementes, summons,
distresses, precepts, warantes, subsideas, recognissaunces, etc." The
guild hall was like a living thing. It held property, had a treasury,
received the payments of freemen, levied fines on "foreigners" who
were "not of the guild," administered justice, settled quarrels
between the brethren of the guild, made loans to merchants, heard the
complaints of the aggrieved, held feasts, promoted loyalty to the
sovereign, and insisted strongly on every burgess that he should do
his best to promote the "comyn weele and prophite of ye saide gylde."
It required loyalty and secrecy from the members of the common council
assembled within its walls, and no one was allowed to disclose to the
public its decisions and decrees. This guild hall was a living thing.
Like the Brook it sang:--

"Men may come and men may go,
But I flow on for ever."

Mayor succeeded mayor, and burgess followed burgess, but the old guild
hall lived on, the central mainspring of the borough's life. Therein
were stored the archives of the town, the charters won, bargained for,
and granted by kings and queens, which gave them privileges of trade,
authority to hold fairs and markets, liberty to convey and sell their
goods in other towns. Therein were preserved the civic plate, the