A Brief History of Guilds in the High Middle Ages

As towns and cities grew, they became very complicated social organisms that wanted to assert their dependence from the powerful regional nobility. So guilds became a crucial central, a organizing nexus in these new urban societies. They were called guilds because they would have a communal fund or an account of gold which they could use for expenses like travel or feasting. And then pay out as compensation payments when their members committed some sort of offence or crime against some one outside the group. These guilds continued, it seems, in some form, into the dark age and the high middle ages. There might be a guild attached to a certain parish or a certain manor, and the people in that immediate area