A sample of guild requirements

[skip.knox]

I have been going through my old dissertation research notes and came across a bunch of guild regulations. Here's one for the joiners (they do fine wood work, in contrast to carpenters) of Strassburg from 1571. I offer it as indication of just how detailed could be the requirements for mastership.

1. The candidate shall make an armoire for clothes with two closets and four doors; with a base, center, crown, and drawers, according to the following proportions.

2. Total height shall be 9 ½ feet. This height shall be divided into 21 equal parts and three of these parts shall comprise the height of the base.

3. The lower portion of the body shall be seven units high and the Gurt (belt) shall be two parts high, so that the whole of the base, lower body and Gurt, shall be twelve units high.

4. The remaining nine parts are reserved for the upper body and the crown (cornice).

5. The armoire shall be in width 2/3 of its height.

6. The doors shall be ¼ width of the height and shall be well-made, so that each fits correctly.

7. For the assembly of the base and interior wall, it is necessary that the pillars and transverses be of tongue and groove construction so that the partition walls shall be level and shall not slide about.

8. All inner and outer faces shall conform to the square [Winckelhacken] (a metal device somewhat like a T-square)

9. The doors shall all have veneer, at least on the outside. On the inside, the junction of the cornices must be perfect.

10. The upper doors shall have a Welch (a particular renaissance style) window.

11. The door frames shall be one unit wide and 1/3 deep.

12. The base and Gurt shall be fitted with their cornices so precisely that the cornices could be reversed and would still fit exactly.

13. Whoever would be master here shall not only demonstrate according to the division in parts but also shall make a model representing the completed work and he shall conform to this model and the model shall conform expressly to the preceding description.

Each is free to spend as much work and use whatever costly woods he wishes, so long as he conforms to the divisions and rules.

 

[Mad Swede]

Ok, what you have described is the requirements for the so-called master piece, the piece of work which gave admittance to the guild. Apprentices would usually make different pieces of work during their apprenticeship, to show how their skills were developing. These are, at least in the UK, known as prentice pieces.

 

[skip.knox]

Practices varied by time and place. The place and time I know best, Augsburg in the 16th and 17th centuries, apprentices did not produce anything. They were youngsters (typically twelve to fifteen or so). I don't doubt at all that in other times and places the practice was as you described. I'd not heard of prentice pieces but it makes perfect sense, especially in England where apprentices seem to have been somewhat analogous to journeymen on the Continent.

Also, again for late medieval Germany at least (and in many Italian towns), there were many other requirements for admittance to mastership, including marriage and the type of work done during journeymanship, legal status of the applicant, any breaking of guild rules prior to admittance (as a journeyman) and, by 1600 or so at least, whether one was Catholic or Protestant.

 

[Devor]

For what it's worth, when I was in college, my economics courses talked about guilds, and emphasized that guilds were concerned with making it difficult to learn their trade so that they could protect the wealth and reputation of their existing masters - so apprentices often spent decades learning very little. The result being that they held back technological advancement and economic progress. I've no idea what regions or time periods they referred to though.

 

[skip.knox]

Not surprising. A central point of my dissertation was to refute this. Put briefly, that interpretation portrays history as a linear progression toward "modern" and views any deviation from that as indicating a problem or oppression or some sort of failure. This skews the picture and causes people to overlook interesting aspects. That criticism applies to much more than guilds, of course. It's a very 19thc interpretation.

 

[Devor]

Not surprising. A central point of my dissertation was to refute this. Put briefly, that interpretation portrays history as a linear progression toward "modern" and views any deviation from that as indicating a problem or oppression or some sort of failure. This skews the picture and causes people to overlook interesting aspects. That criticism applies to much more than guilds, of course. It's a very 19thc interpretation.

I'm sure that's fair. History is messy, and I mean, there are groups and labor unions today that still use the word guild, because it means different things to different people at different times and places. Still, insomuch as guilds may have been about keeping their techniques a secret, it would've held everything back in the long run. Patents expire for a reason.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Not surprising. A central point of my dissertation was to refute this. Put briefly, that interpretation portrays history as a linear progression toward "modern" and views any deviation from that as indicating a problem or oppression or some sort of failure. This skews the picture and causes people to overlook interesting aspects. That criticism applies to much more than guilds, of course. It's a very 19thc interpretation.

I'm sure that's fair. History is messy, and I mean, there are groups and labor unions today that still use the word guild, because it means different things to different people at different times and places. Still, insomuch as guilds may have been about keeping their techniques a secret, it would've held everything back in the long run. Patents expire for a reason.

Right... and the guilds would've needed enough new blood in the pipeline to be assured of their continued existence. If they were too exclusive, they wouldn't have had enough new masters coming along to replace those who died or retired. Or left--I understand that guild attrition was also known to happen.

I suppose the real challenge for a guild was to keep its numbers at replacement rate. If there were way too many prospective new members for that, then they could afford to be extra exclusive. But what if there weren't? It stands to reason that there might also have been cases of guilds struggling to gain and retain enough members to assure their survival.

 

[skip.knox]

Guild attrition did happen. So did membership in multiple guilds. So did changing careers. Or towns. And various combinations of these.

Speaking very broadly, there was more fluidity in earlier centuries than in later centuries. The usual interpretation is that tightening regulations *caused* various things, but another interpretation is that the tightening of regulations were in response to various economic and political pressures. And certain trades did indeed go into decline (e.g., bathhouse keepers).

None of that feels like much help to the writer, except that guilds can be more malleable than they are usually portrayed in fantasy fiction.

 

[skip.knox]

>guilds may have been about keeping their techniques a secret, it would've held everything back in the long run. Patents expire for a reason.

Not so much guilds as masters. We find people trying to keep a process or method secret even if they didn't belong to a guild (painters, for example). Guilds were more about controlling markets, which was done mainly as a way of ensuring quality, which meant reputation, which meant stable income for all members. That was the goal. Not like now when it's make as much money as you can as fast as you can even if it beggars your neighbor. It was that all members ought to have a decent income (by which was meant a level appropriate to one's social station) and a stable income (no big fluctuations).

It was a perpetual battle, for there were many forces at work, only some of which were under guild control or influence.