Many worthy citizens joined the nobility, either through marriage or by a royal concession, and were admitted to municipal government. The merchants, for their part, controlled trade that was declining. The guilds of craftsmen saw their privileges increase; women worked in many crafts, even though the guilds restricted this. Most of the population lived in and off the countryside. Wealthy farmers who owned their land built themselves large farmhouses, while the large mass of horsemen, poor peasants and immigrants from Occitania eked out a precarious living as tenant farmers, hired labourers and harvesters.