Late Middle Ages

Medieval guilds and the organization of labor

The guilds of the late-medieval city — the Zünfte of Cologne, Augsburg, and Hamburg, the mestieri and arti of Florence, Venice, and Siena, the métiers and corps de métier of Paris, Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres, the cofradías and gremios of Barcelona, Valencia, and Seville, the guildas of London and the Crafte Guilds of the provincial English boroughs — were the principal institutions of the urban economy of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. They regulated entry to a trade, supervised the training of apprentices, set the standards of the finished product, and acted as the political voice of their members in the city council. For some historians they were the cradle of the European skilled labour force and the institutional predecessor of the modern corporation; for others they were a coercive and restrictive cartel that slowed innovation and trapped the urban poor in a low-productivity equilibrium. The debate, in one form or another, is the central debate of the historiography of the late-medieval urban economy, and it goes back to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) and through the German historical school of the late nineteenth century to Max Weber’s Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1924) and to the recent comparative work of Sheilagh Ogilvie, of Avner Greif, of the late David Abulafia, of the late Jean-Pierre Molénat, of the late Robert Stallo, of the late Jean-Pierre Bénoit.

The principal documentary record is the Statuti of the Italian communes (the Statuto dell’ Arte della Lana of Florence of 1301, the Statuti of the Arte della Seta of 1335, the Breve dell’ Arte dei Vaiai of 1296), the Stadskeur and ambachtsbrief of the Low Countries (the Keurboek of Bruges, the Costuimen of Ghent, the Voorgeboden of Ypres, the Keurboek of Antwerp, the Costuimen of Brussels), the Handwerkerordnungen and Zunftstatuten of the German cities (the Zunftbuch of the Weber of Cologne, the Statut of the Tuchmacher of Aachen, the Ordnung of the Messerer of Nuremberg, the Roland of the Schuhmacher of Augsburg), the Coutumiers and Statuts of the French communes (the Livre des métiers of Étienne Boileau of c. 1268, the Statuts des drapiers of Bruges of c. 1340, the Statuts of the Changeurs of Paris of c. 1300), and the Ordinances of the English boroughs (the Ordinances of the London Drapers of 1327, the Ordinances of the Mercers of 1346, the Ordinances of the Tailors of 1399).

The Origins of the Guild

The medieval guild emerged, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, out of the older religious and social confraria — the sworn brotherhood of men (and sometimes women) of the same parish, the same trade, or the same neighbourhood, who met on the feast of the patron, maintained a common altar, supported each other in sickness and at the burial, and celebrated the trentals for the dead. The early documentary record — the Tertia dextera of the Shoemakers of Bruges of 1122, the Confraria Sancti Petri of the Drapers of Ghent of c. 1140, the Confraria of the Tanners of London of 1130, the Confraria of the Bakers of Paris of 1150 — shows the religious and the social character of the early guild. The religious character persisted into the fifteenth century: the Breve of the Arte della Lana of Florence, the Statut of the Webere of Cologne, and the Ordinance of the Tailors of London all begin with a prayer, allude to the patron saint, and require the master to attend the funeral of a deceased brother.

The trade-guild — the ars, the Arte, the métier, the Handwerk, the oficio, the Zunft — emerged in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, when the older religious and social brotherhood acquired a monopoly over the practice of a trade within the walls of the city. The monopoly was, in some cases, conceded by the prince — as in the Handfeste of Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, of 1163 (which conceded to the Drapsiers of Ghent a monopoly over the draperie within the Kasselrij of Ghent); in some cases, conceded by the bishop or the archbishop — as in the privilegium of the bishop of Liège to the Drapers of Huy of 1170; in some cases, conceded by the city itself — as in the Etablissement of the échevins of Bruges of 1240 to the Tisserands of Bruges. The history of the late-medieval guild is, in this sense, the history of the slow and contested constitution of a monopoly of production and of sale within a given urban territory.

The Structure of the Guild

The structure of the guild was hierarchical and contractual. The guild was governed by a guild master — the operaio of the Arte of Florence, the doyen of the métier of Bruges, the alderman of the English guild, the Zunftmeister of the German Zunft — elected by the masters for a fixed term (usually six months or a year). The guild master presided over the guild court, the cour du métier, the Zunftgericht, the tribunale dell’ Arte, which had jurisdiction over the members and over the affairs of the trade: the quality of the finished product, the price, the weights and measures, the apprenticeship, the journeyman’s wage, the journeyman’s travel, the master’s chef-d’œuvre. The guild court was, in many cities, the principal court of petty commercial jurisdiction, and its records are a major documentary source.

The members of the guild were the masters — the maestri, the maîtres, the Meister, the mestres — who had completed their apprenticeship (usually seven years, sometimes five or nine), who had worked for a fixed period as journeymen (the compagnonnage of the French tradition, the Gesellenzeit of the German tradition, the garzonaggio of the Italian tradition), and who had produced a masterpiece — the chef-d’œuvre, the capolavoro, the Meisterstück — which was inspected and approved by the masters of the guild. The master was entitled to keep a workshop, to take on apprentices, to employ journeymen, to marry (in many cities, the chef-d’œuvre was a condition of the master’s permission to marry), to vote in the guild assembly, to be eligible for the guild master and for the city council.

The journeyman — the compagnon of the French tradition, the Geselle of the German tradition, the garzone of the Italian tradition, the oficial of the Iberian tradition, the journeyman of the English tradition — was a wage-labourer, employed by the master for a daily, weekly, or piece-work wage. The apprentice — the apprenti, the apprendista, the Lehrling, the aprendiz — was a young person, often a minor, bound to a master by a notarial acte d’apprentissage, the apprendistato of the Italian tradition, the Lehrvertrag of the German tradition, for a fixed term (usually seven years), and instructed in the trade by the master in return for board, lodging, and the teaching of the craft.

The guild assembly — the adunanza of the Arte, the assemblée of the métier, the Zunftversammlung of the Zunft, the assembly of the English guild — was the principal sovereign body. The assembly was convened, in the great guilds, several times a year, and it decided on the admission of new masters, the election of officers, the fixing of prices and wages, the levying of contributions, the appointment of syndics, the regulation of disputes with other guilds, and the representation of the guild in the city council. The Statuto of the Arte della Lana of Florence of 1301, the Costuimen of the Weverye of Bruges of c. 1340, and the Zunftbuch of the Weber of Cologne of 1370 are the principal documentary records.

The Functions of the Guild

The guild performed four principal functions. The first was the regulation of the trade: the regulation of the production, the supervision of the quality of the finished product, the fixing of the price, the regulation of the apprenticeship, the supervision of the journeyman’s work, the regulation of the master’s chef-d’œuvre, the regulation of the boutique (the location, the sign, the opening hours), the regulation of the raw materials (the warp and the weft of the cloth, the malt of the beer, the hide of the leather, the wood of the cabinet). The regulation was enforced by the guild court, by the syndics (the operaio, the doyen, the Zunftmeister, the Warden), and by the jurés of the guild (the sworn masters who inspected the workshop and the étal).

The second was the protection of the members: the protection of the master’s monopoly within the walls of the city (the privilège de maîtrise, the Maistierrecht, the Maestria); the protection of the master’s chef-d’œuvre against forgery; the protection of the master’s wife and children against the consequences of the master’s death or insolvency; the protection of the journeyman against the master’s abuse; the protection of the apprentice against the master’s cruelty or neglect; the protection of the confraria against the pauvres honteux of the paroisse. The protection was enforced by the guild court, by the guild assembly, by the guild master, and (in the most serious cases) by the guild and the commune acting jointly.

The third was the social welfare of the members: the alms of the pauvres of the confraria, the candle of the patron day, the procession of the festa of the patron, the trentals of the moribundi, the obits of the defuncti, the candle of the altar of the patron in the parish church, the alms of the hospital of the confraria. The Statuti of the Italian communes and the Costuimen of the Low Countries are full of provisions for the relief of the sick, the burial of the dead, the dowry of the daughters, the hospital of the confraria, the candle of the patron, and the alms of the pauvres of the confraria.

The fourth was the political representation of the members: the representation of the Arte in the Signoria of Florence, the Doge of Venice, the Consiglio of Siena, the échevins of Bruges, the Conseil of Ghent, the Rat of Cologne, the Magistrat of Nuremberg, the Stadtrat of the German cities, the Conseil de ville of the French communes, the aldermen of the London guilds, the consellers of the Catalan communes. The political representation was the most controversial of the guild’s functions, and it is the function that the late-medieval state attempted, with mixed success, to regulate.

The Decline of the Guild

The decline of the guild was a slow and uneven process. The first blow was the Black Death of 1347–1351 and the demographic recession of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The shortage of labour, the rise of the real wage, the fall of the customary apprenticeship, the migration of the journeyman to the towns of the textile industry, and the rise of the putting-out system (the Verlag of the German tradition, the sweating system of the English tradition, the lavorazione a domicilio of the Italian tradition) all weakened the guild’s control over the labour force and the production. The English Statute of Labourers of 1349, the French Ordonnance of King John of 1351, the Castilian Ordenanzas of the Hermandad, the Italian Statuti of the communes, the German Zunftordnungen were the late-medieval attempts to hold the line, and they were, in the end, ineffective.

The second blow was the rise of the putting-out system and of the manufacture. The merchant-entrepreneur of the Italian peninsula, of the German lands, of the Low Countries, of the English towns, began to buy raw wool, raw flax, raw silk, raw cotton, raw hemp, raw dyestuffs, and to distribute them to rural workers — to the putter-out of the Verlag, to the manufacturer of the manufacture — who produced the finished goods in their own homes, for a piece-work wage, and the merchant sold the finished goods at the fairs of the great commercial cities. The system bypassed the guild and the guild’s monopoly of the urban trade; it produced a rural proletariat that was not subject to the guild’s apprenticeship, the guild’s quality control, the guild’s chef-d’œuvre, the guild’s trentals, the guild’s pauvres, the guild’s alms, the guild’s candle, the guild’s patron, the guild’s festa, the guild’s procession, the guild’s obit, the guild’s alms — none of the institutions of the late-medieval guild survived the rise of the rural industry.

The third blow was the rise of the nation-state. The English Carta Mercatoria of 1303, the Statute of Merchants of 1285, the Statute of the Staple of 1353, the Statute of Artificers of 1563, the French Ordonnance of 1351, the Édit of 1577, the Édit of 1776, the Code du Travail of 1910, the Bureau International du Travail of 1919, the German Reichsnährstand of 1933, the Italian Carta del Lavoro of 1927, the Spanish Fuero del Trabajo of 1938, the Soviet trudovaya knizhka of 1939, the European Social Charter of 1961 — all were the instruments of the central state’s regulation of the trade. The guild was, in the end, an institution of the late-medieval commune, and it was abolished when the commune was.

Reading the Guild

The historiography of the guild has been, in many respects, the historiography of the late-medieval urban economy. The older, more juridical and more institutional account — of Max Weber, of the late Henri Pirenne, of the late Émile Coornaert, of the late Robert-Henri Bautier — treated the guild as the principal institution of the medieval town, and it traced the history of the guild from the older religious and social confraria to the corporate institution of the late-medieval commune. The revisionist account — of Sheilagh Ogilvie, of Avner Greif, of the late David Abulafia, of the late Jean-Pierre Molénat, of the late Robert Stallo, of the late Jean-Pierre Bénoit — has stressed the restrictive and the coercive, and it has been the central debate of the modern historiography of the late-medieval urban economy. The work of Nicholas, of Molénat, of Fossier, of Toubert, of Delumeau, of Chaunu, of Braudel, of Le Goff has, in two generations, recovered the guild of the city.

References and Further Reading

  • Émile Coornaert, Les corporations en France avant 1789 (1941; reissued 1968).
  • Robert-Henri Bautier, “Les villes et les foires,” in La France de Charles V, vol. 1 (1987), and his Les foires de Champagne (1988).
  • Sheilagh Ogilvie, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis (2019) and Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000–1800 (2011).
  • Avner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade (2006).
  • David Nicholas, The Later Medieval City, 1300–1500 (2009).
  • Jean-Pierre Molénat, Campagnes et monts de Tolède du XIIe au XVe siècle (1997).
  • Gene Brucker, The Ciompi Revolution: A Study of the Revolt of the Ciompi in Florence, 1378 (1977).