The Livery Companies of London

Extract

The mediaeval craft guild owing its origin to religion, and protected by the church, was a remarkable institution in its way, caring as it did, at least in its best days, for the well-being of its members while exacting from them a certain standard of workmanship. It is an arguable point that the worker of the Middle Ages, often engaged on creative tasks and deriving from his labor the satisfaction of his artistic instincts, was a happier man than the modern factory employee, whose work frequently consists in the continuous repetition of one monotonous operation.