2. They comprised also among their number many tradesmen waiting to be made burgesses. We learn this distinctly from an ordinance of the corporation of Leicester passed in the year 1467, to the effect that every person opening a shop in the town should pay yearly 3/4 _till he enter into the Chapman Gild_. (Nichols, _County of Leicester_, I. 376.) There were several causes which would account for the existence of this class. The towns grew increasingly jealous of extending their privileges, as these became valuable. The Gildsmen would also desire to learn somewhat of the character of the new-comer before admitting him to full membership with themselves; while on the other hand the latter would wish to see whether the trade of the town were sufficiently prosperous to warrant him settling in the borough permanently. This cause would specially operate in the case of the Welsh boroughs which grew up after Edward I.'s conquest of the principality.
The townsmen however did not approve of the growth of a wealthy class of traders, sharing almost equal commercial privileges with themselves and at the same time not liable to the burdens which were the necessary accompaniment of those privileges. They therefore made it incumbent upon every tenser who evidently was sufficiently satisfied with the trade of the town to make the borough his permanent home, and who had attained to a fair competency, that he should throw in his lot fully and completely with them. He must become in fact a full burgess. This is carefully explained in the _Ordinances of the City of Worcester_--regulations concerning the trade of the town dating from the reign of Edward IV. No. XLVII. says "Also, that euery Tensure be sett a resonable fyne, aft{ r} the discression of the Aldermen, and that euery tensure that hath ben w{ t}yn the cyte a yere or more dwellynge, and hath sufficiaunt to the valo{ r} of XL_s._ or more, be warned to be made citezen, by resonable tyme to hym lymitted, and iff he refuse that, that he shalle yerly pay to the comyn cofre XL_d._, ouer that summe that he shalle yerly pay to the Baillies or any other officers; and so yerly to contynue tylle he be made citezen" (_English Gilds_, p. 394).