Page "Guild" Paragraph 9

The early egalitarian communities called " guilds " ( for the gold deposited in their common funds ) were denounced by Catholic clergy for their " conjurations "— the binding oaths sworn among artisans to support one another in adversity and back one another in feuds or in business ventures.

The occasion for the drunken banquets at which these oaths were made was December 25, the pagan feast of Jul: Bishop Hincmar, in 858, sought vainly to Christianize them.