ABSTRACT
The mercantile guild is not a specifically German institution. In form the guild is either an organization of foreign traders for the purpose of legal protection against those of the locality, or it is an organization of native merchants. One who wished to remain in the guild must renounce craft activity. The separation of the wholesale traders from the retail was not yet complete in the 16th century, although at that time the first guild of foreign traders, the Merchant Adventurers, was founded by a concession. It is true that English legislation endeavored to restrict the guilds along craft lines, permitting their members to trade only in one type of goods. One cannot speak of a systematic trading policy on the part of the towns dominated by guilds, and especially of the town leagues, in the middle ages.
