shipmen's-gild

Updated: May 21, 2025

Even in Æthelstan's day every London merchant who had made three long voyages on his own account ranked as a Thegn. Its "lithsmen," or shipmen's-gild, were of sufficient importance under Harthacnut to figure in the election of a king, and its principal street still tells of the rapid growth of trade in its name of "Cheap-side" or the bargaining place.

John Richard Green - History of the English People, Volume I : Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216