THE ROMAN COLLEGIA.
The conclusions
at
which
Mr
Coote arrives
are, indeed, to
39
some extent
at least, supported
Mr Toulmin Smith and Dr
of
Brentano, who have placed on record their
^
English gilds are of English origin,"
although it must be admitted that by
neither of these writers has the origin of guilds been traced to the Eomano-Britons.
Still,
by the authority
"
belief that
to believe that institutions so
it is difficult
closely resembling the later associations as did
the colleges of the empire, exercised no influence whatever upon the laws and civilisation
of our Saxon or English conquerors.^
From one point of view, indeed, it is immaterial whether if the guilds are a continuation
of the colleges, they came to us direct or were imported from Germany or Gaul.
By the
majority of translators or commentators we find the Eoman associations described as guilds
or companies, and the former appellation is nsed in marginal notes by both Sir F.
Palgrave
and Mr Spence in connection with disquisitions on the collegia appearing in the texts of
their respective works.-'*
Yet before passing from the
special to the general subject, a few remarks on the early
been argued that tlie laws, customs, and
institutions of this country, whose similarity with those of Rome prior to the Norman
and however much they had
Conquest has hardly been denied, were resemblances only
civilisation of Britain
appear necessary.
It has
;
Eoman mind
and painful
exercise, they were in this instance, and so far
as England is concerned, the philosophical outcome, the unaided development of a few
generations of outer barbarians, who, from the absolute non-intercourse between the empire
cost the
in a long
and themselves, could only have imported into Britain Germanic usages,
else to bring with tliem.*
This theory has derived
its
main support from the
for
they had nothing
belief (already referred to) that the
Eomano-Britons were entirely destroyed or exterminated by the bands of pirates which, in
the fifth and sixth centuries, came hither from the North Sea and the Baltic that all forms
;
of government, all laws and customs, all arts and civilisation, traceable in this country subsequently to these invasions, were the direct importation of the invaders, or were developed out
expected to debate the whole problem of the origin of
is nevertheless desirable, to further consider wliether this popular belief is one
Mr Coote tliinks that " the
should be justified in giving in our adhesion."
I shall hardly be
of sucli importation.^
guilds,
to
but
it
which we
populations of the eastern and middle parts of Britain were Teutonic at the epocli of the
imperial conquests, and tliat after the barbarian invasions, the public and private law,^ the
usages and civilisation of the lost empire, sheltered in the aik of the
vital
'
and active
cities,*
preserved their
forces."
English Gilds, p. 25 History and Development of Gilds, 1870 (additional notes), p. ix.
and J. M. Kenihle, The .Saxons in
B. Thorpe, Diplomatariuni Anglicum, 18G5