2ºESO Social Science
READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON MEDIEVAL GUILDS TO PREPARE FOR A
FORCED-CHOICE DEBATE.
THE DEBATE STATEMENT IS: GUILDS WERE BENEFICIAL TO THEIR MEMBERS
AND TO SOCIETY AS A WHOLE. YOU MUST DEFEND OR REJECT THE STATEMENT AND
USE THE INFORMATION BELOW TO SUPPORT YOUR ARGUMENT.
For example, you might DEFEND the statement, saying “Guilds made important contributions to
non-religious education. They helped society learn to read and write, which, up
until that point, was only done by the church.” Or you might REJECT the
statement, saying, “All members of a
trade were forced to belong to the guild.
This might have prevented many capable people from making a better life
for themselves by learning a trade just because they didn´t belong to the guild.”
Medieval Guilds
The guilds were an important
part of city and town life. Guilds were:
- exclusive, regimented organizations;
- created in part to preserve the rights and privileges
of their members
- separate and distinct from the civic governments,
but often overlapped with it, especially since many well-to-do guildsmen
were prominent in civic government.
Two kinds of guilds were
especially important to civic life--merchant guilds and craft guilds.
Merchant Guilds
The merchant guilds were
probably the first to appear. As early as the 10th c. merchants formed organizations for mutual protection
of their horses, wagons, and goods when travelling.
- Often a merchant guild would found a town by
obtaining a charter (fuero).
Craft Guilds
The craft guilds came about by increased specialization of
industry.
- A group of artisans engaged in the same
occupation, e.g., bakers, cobblers, stone masons, carpenters, etc.
would associate themselves together for protection and mutual aid.
- As these craft associations became more important
than the older merchant guilds, their leaders began to demand a share in
civic leadership.
- Soon no one within a town could practice a craft
without belonging to the appropriate guild associations.
- The purpose of the guilds
was to maintain a monopoly of a particular craft especially against
outsiders. For example, the
harness makers would get together and figure out what the owners of
business needed from that trade then allow as many masters to set up shop
as the business could support.
Consumer and
Worker Protection
In protecting its own members,
the guilds protected the consumer as well.
- Many craft regulations prevented poor
workmanship. Each article had to be examined by a board of the guild and
stamped as approved.
- Because of lack of artificial light, work at
night was prohibited.
- To regulate competition between members the guild
forbade advertising.
- All prices were regulated
- Craftsmen could take work outside where it could
be seen.
- Price-cutting was strictly forbidden.
- To preserve its monopoly a guild forbade the sale
of foreign artisans' work within a city.
- The most important processes used in
manufacturing were secret. In Florence a worker who possessed any
essential trade secrets and for some reason fled to a foreign territory
had to be tracked down and killed in case he divulged the information.
- Monopoly existed within individual guilds through
the limitation of the number of masters.
- No member was ever allowed to corner the market
by purchasing a large supply of a product or commodity so as to be able to
fix the price.
Services Performed
by Guilds
Guilds performed other
services for their members as well. They
- provided funeral expenses for poorer members and
aid to survivors;
- provided dowries for poor girls;
- covered members with a type of health insurance
and provisions for care of the sick;
- built chapels;
- donated windows to local churches or cathedrals;
- frequently helped in the actual construction of
the churches;
- watched over the morals of the members who
indulged in gambling
- were important for their contribution to
emergence of Western lay (non-religious) education. In earlier times, the
only schools in existence had been the monastic or cathedral schools.
Guilds and
Community Interrelationships
The members of the guild were
called confraternities, brothers helping one another. As a collective
unit, the guild might be a vassal to a bishop, lord or king, as in Paris. The
extent of vassalage depended on the degree of independence of the town where it
was located.
There was a close connection
between the guild and the city authorities:
- The City Council could intervene in event of
trouble between guilds.
- Council could establish the hours of work, fix
prices, establish weights and measures
- Guild officials were frequently appointed to
serve in civic government because guilds usually voted as a unit, raised
troops for the civic militia, and paid taxes as a group.
- Each guild was required to perform public
services. They took turns policing the streets and constructed public
buildings and walls to defend the town or city.
A higher social status could
be achieved through guild membership.
By the 13th c. to become a guild man one had to
go through 3 stages:
- lowest was apprentice,
- next was journeyman, and
- top-ranking stage was
master.
The same structure is present
in labor unions and colleges today.
1.Apprentice -- usually a male teenager who went to live with a
master and his family; his parents paid to have him taken on.
He probably occupied the attic of their 3 story home:
The apprentice was subject to the master. During his
apprenticeship he was not allowed to marry. This learning period might vary
from 2-7 years depending on the craft. His training included the rudiments of the trade. The
apprentice then progressed to journeyman.
2.Journeyman or day
worker -- entitled to earn a salary.The
next hurdle was to produce a masterpiece that would satisfy the master of the
guild so that he could assume the title of master craftsmen and would thus get
membership in the guild. This was not easy to accomplish because:
- The journeyman had to work on his own time to produce this masterpiece -- Sunday
was the only day he did not work sun-up to sun-down.
- He must use his own tools
and raw materials which required him to spend money that he might not have
been able to save up as a wage earner.
- Then if he did produce
the required work, the state of the
economy guided the vote of acceptance -- it was not desriable to have too
many masters in a guild and when the economy was not strong. The
masters often would not admit anyone to their ranks to strain the economy.
3.Master--Once the masterpiece was completed and the guild
voted to accept the journeyman as a master, he could become one.
source: Gloria G. Betcher of Iowa State University www.public.iastate.edu/~gbetcher/373/guilds.htm
