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Medieval Gilds Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Sylvia L. Thrupp
Sylvia L. Thrupp
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Extract

Present-day economic historians display an uneasy feeling that medieval gilds have enjoyed much more attention than they deserve. Professor Heckscher compares them unfavorably with later gilds, Professor Gras grudges them credit for anything save the keeping of records to mislead historians, and the authors of a recent textbook almost apologize for pausing to describe them. In general, this reaction from former attitudes reflects a shift of interest from the interpretation of economic policy to other problems that now appear more fundamental. We have a quantity of information about gild policies, but it leaves us uncertain whether or not the gilds were of any real importance in the history of economic development.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , November 1942 , pp. 164 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1942

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References

1 Heckscher, Eli F., Mercantilism (1935), I, 142–143. See also hisGoogle Scholar“The Aspects of Economic History,” Economic Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassel (1933), 709Google Scholar.

2 Gras, N. S. B., Business and Capitalism (1939), 31–32. The further remark here that gilds have been studied “almost to the neglect of the real business of the men who established them” is a tacit admission of the fact that the influence of gilds in medieval business is still largely an open questionGoogle Scholar.

3 Clough, S. B. and Cole, C. W., Economic History of Europe (1941)Google Scholar.

4 “On the History and Development of Gilds,” Smith, Toulmin, ed., English Gilds, Early English Text Society, Original Series, 40 (1870), xlix–cxcixGoogle Scholar.

5 Gross, C., The Gild Merchant (1890), I, 20–22Google Scholar.

6 Possibly invented by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, when he was assisting Brentano in the translation of his essay. See English Gilds, lv. Furnivall, like Carlyle, was fond of compounding eccentric terms of his own; he described himself as the “foolometer” of the Early English Text Society. Early English Meals and Manners, Early English Text Society, Original Series, 32 (1868), lxvii. Carlyle, as the Oxford English Dictionary notes, had coined the term “craftbrother.”Google Scholar

7 Lipson, E., The Economic History of England (5th ed.. 1929), I, 374. But see p. 295, where it is stated that “the craftsman usually [italics mine] worked on materials supplied by his customer.” The only examples given (pp. 295n., 298) are from the trades of tailors, skinners, and dyers; the customers of the last may frequently have been merchantsGoogle Scholar.

8 For a London example see Unwin, G., The Gilds and Companies of London (2d ed., 1925), 74Google Scholar. The custom need not, as Unwin assumed, have been new in the late thirteenth century. The sale of town goods at fairs unless monopolized by the richer craftsmen who could afford to travel to the fairs in person, would early have necessitated the rise of a class of middlemen.

9 For bibliography and brief summary of different schools of conjecture as to gild origins, see Kulischer, J., Allgemeine Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1928), I, 165, 181–192Google Scholar.

10 Consitt, F., The London Weavers' Company (1933), I, 7 ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Unwin, 47-49.

12 Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, III, Inquisition No. 189.

13 F. Consitt, I, 6-7. On the whole subject see Carus-Wilson, E. M., “An Industrial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century,” Economic History Review, XI (1941), 39–60Google Scholar.

14 Consitt, I, 21; Thomas, A. H., ed., Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London, 1323–1364, 153Google Scholar.

15 Riley, T., ed., Memorials of London and London Life (1868), 400–404Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., 529-530, 558-559, 667-668; Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls, 1364–1381. 230Google Scholar; Calendar of Letter Books of the City of London, I, 176–177, K, 220Google Scholar; Journals of the Court of Common Council of the City of London, 7, f. 73v. The ordinances of the fullers, when examined in 1488, provided for official inspection of cloth on its way to the mills, Calendar of Letter Books. L, 262. Lipson gives the impression that opposition to the fulling of cloth continued in London for two hundred odd years,Google ScholarEconomic History of England, I, 426Google Scholar.

17 As in the trades using wire, in London and Coventry. See Calendar of the Letter Books of the City of London, 42–43Google Scholar, and The Coventry Leet Book, Early English Text Society, Original Series, 134, pp. 115. 181-183, 185. The specialization enjoined was less extreme in Coventry than in LondonGoogle Scholar.

18 Lipson, I, 310; Meyer, E. F., “English Craft Gilds and Borough Governments of the Later Middle Ages,” University of Colorado Studies, XVI (1929), 356–357Google Scholar.

19 Saint-Leon, E. Martin, Histoire des Corporations dc Métiers (1922), 57, 98.Google Scholar, Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvricres et de Vindustric en France avant 1789 (1900), I, 330, 345–347. In London tanners' selds were carefully bequeathed by willGoogle Scholar.

20 Arnold, T., ed., Select English Works of John Wyclif (1869–1871), III, 332–334Google Scholar.

21 For interesting data in this connection see Jones, P. E., The Worshipful Company of Poulters (1939), 102–109. The record of London fishmongers, as Unwin showed, Gilds and Companies of London, 38-39, was not good. Yet see Levasseur's impression that food was relatively cheaper, and shoes and clothing dearer, than in his own time,Google ScholarHistoire des classes ouvrières, I, 420Google Scholar.

22 See Kingdon, J. A., ed.. Facsimile of First Volume of MS. Archives of the Worshipful Company of Grocers of the City of London, A.D. 1345-1463 (1886), passim. Fines ran up to ten poundsGoogle Scholar.

23 Pirenne, , Histoire de Belgique (1909), II, 320.Google Scholar

24 See account of friction between weavers and cloth merchants over destruction of looms and other attempts to limit output, Consitt, 8-25.

25 Levasseur, I, 307-308.

26 Welch, C., History of the Pewterers' Company (1902), I, records of 1456-1457, and p. IIIGoogle Scholar.

27 Ordinances of this kind were enforced. See threat of a fine of ten pounds in a case of “ousting” a man from premises in Eastcheap, Kingdon, 93. The London butchers sought to keep down the rent of pastures, Calendar of Letter Books of the City of London, L, 216.

28 See notices of the Trinity Gild of Lynn, Historical Manuscripts Commission, Eleventh Report, Appendix, Pt. Ill, 228-230; also my study of “The Grocers of London,” English Trade in the Fifteenth Century, Power, Eileen and Postan, M., eds. (1933), 253Google Scholar.

29 See the summary of extensive research, Wege, Erich, “Die Ziinfte als Trager wirt-schaftlicher Kollektivmassnahmen,” Vierteljahrschrift fur Social- und Wirtschaftgeschichte, Beihejt 20 (1930)Google Scholar.

30 “The Old Generation of Economists and the New,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, XI, 120.Google Scholar

31 Smith, Toulmin, ed., English Gilds, 31, 38Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., 269-270.

33 Ibid., xl.