The Merchant Adventurers' Hall, York

People who were doing the same job joined together in guilds. There were over 50 in medieval York.

The Merchant Adventurers were mercers – cloth-merchants.

Members had more power as a group than they did as individuals. This meant they could:

• Make rules about how goods should be made and what price they should be sold for.
• Force people to pay fines if they tried to work without being members.
• Force members to pay fines for not following guild rules.