Guilds in the Middle Ages

1. The economic aim comes first in time and importance. The guild was first and foremost a fighting organization for the defence of the trade interests of those who belonged to...

A body of institutions, like a living body, begins by passing through a period of formation, growth, and consolidation, after which decay inevitably follows; it becomes feeble,...

1. _Their suppression in European Countries._--(_a_) The eighteenth century, the first half of which was an age of analysis, criticism, and social satire, was in its second half...

1. It is sometimes imagined that the guilds united all the merchants and all the craftsmen of one region. This is a mistake. At first those who lived in the country, with rare e...

1. Their suppression in the different countries of Europe. They become the victims of: (_a_) "great" commerce and "great" industry; (_b_) the law of the reduction of effort; (_c...

[3] A short study and a detailed bibliography of the origin of guilds will be found in M. Martin-Saint-Léon's _Histoire des corporations de métier_, book i., 2nd edition. We rec...

The guilds could only have been successful in their resistance to all these menaces if they had possessed plasticity, flexibility in adapting themselves, a desire for reformatio...

It is necessary to consider separately the two types of guilds which we have described; for although they had characteristics in common, they present more differences than resem...

The administration of the guilds was everywhere almost uniform. The guild was a voluntary association of men carrying on the same trade or allied trades and pledging themselves...

1. The origin of guilds has been the subject of a great deal of discussion, and two opposing theories have been advanced. According to the first theory they were the persistence...

1. Change in economic conditions. The extension of the markets and large-scale production; division of producers into classes; _compagnonnage_.--2. Change in intellectual condit...