Guilds and Industry in Later Medieval Europe, 1200-1500

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Guilds and Industry in Later Medieval Europe,
1200-1500
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The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages
began with an explosion of distance trade in the
11th and 12th centuries.
Its culmination was the rise of manufacturing on
a large scale what economic historan R. Lopez
calls the pre-industrial rise of the later
Middle Ages.
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Medieval commerce spurred the creation of a
political corporation, the commune.
Commerce and industry produced a social and
economic corporation, the guild.
Guilds were fundamental to town and city life in
medieval and Renaissance Europe.
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Guilds were professional associations that tried
to monopolize a branch of trade and to promote
its interests. (Lopez)
Two types MERCHANT and CRAFT guilds
The merchant guild a society of entrepreneurs
bankers, traders, investors.
The craft guild an association of skilled
artisans or craftsmen.
Lopez defines the medieval craft guild a
federation of autonomous workshops. The members
of the guild were workshop owners recognized as
masters of the craft.
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How essential were guilds to medieval and
Renaissance town life?
In 1294, more than 36,000 of 50,000 inhabitants
of Bologna were members of a guild or relatives
of members, according to one statistical study.
Excluding 2000 university students and 1500
clergy, fewer than 10,000 people in Bologna
ranked too high in status or too low to be
included in Bolognas guild structure a
structure which covered lowly shopkeepers and
well-paid university-trained physicians.
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By the late Middle Ages, Cologne had 45 guilds
for a population of 45,000, including 122 master
goldsmiths.
Paris had 130 trades regulated by guilds in 1292.
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GUILD FUNCTIONS
-- standardizing the quality, size, price of its
products (the mark of a guild was a form of
advertising and a guarantee to wholesale buyers)
-- sponsoring religious ceremonies and
assistance to impoverished members (or widows and
their children) -- holding banquets and feasts
for its members -- lobbying government,
intervention in political conflict
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Another function was to regulate the training of
new workers.
To join a CRAFT guild, one had normally to be
male, and to pass through two stages --
1. as an APPRENTICE to a master craftsmen
typically in boyhood, for 7-14 years
2. as JOURNEYMAN or day worker (bachelor) for
a wage, learning advanced skills
A journey applied for status as a master by
submitting a MASTERPIECE for examination by guild
officials.
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Medieval Industry Textile Manufacturing
The most important manufactured product after
1200 CLOTH
LINEN, made from flax (a plant that grew in the
marshy regions of the Netherlands) was the first
fabric made fine enough for distance trade. Fine,
but expensive (underwear, table cloths, bed
sheets for the rich.
SILK, imported from China since Roman times, was
produced in Europe after 1200 in Lucca, Venice,
Florence, Bologna, and Milan. A greater luxury
than flax.
The humblest fabric brought the greatest profits,
the most sophisticated industrial development,
and the greatest power WOOL.
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Sheared from English and Spanish sheep, wool was
processed and refined in FLEMISH and ITALIAN
workshops.
The processing of wool into cloth involved a
complicated series of operations, each performed
by a different guild or unit of unorganized
workers
cleaning ? combing ? spinning ? weaving ? fulling
? dyeing ? finishing
The above list is grossly simplified. Lopez
counts 30 separate steps in the making of woolen
cloth mentioned in 13th-century sources.
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In most wool-producing cities, one guild
financed, supervised, and profited most from all
the stages of production the DRAPERS (Ital.
lanaioli)
Florence in the early 14th c. boasted 200
workshops belonging to lanaioli and producing
75,000 pieces of finished cloth per annum.
Milan had at least 363 lana workshops in the
later 14th c.
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The complexity of medieval wool production
anticipated the mass production techniques of
modern times.
These include the recent practice of outsourcing.
The stages of wool production were such that they
did not have to be brought expensively under
one roof.
Woolen material was simply put out as required
to the craftsmen or workers responsible for the
next stage of processing.
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Agents of the drapers guild -- in Florence, the
Calimala cloth finishers guild and its
competitor, the Lana wool importers guild
owned and controlled each stage of wool
production through agents.
wool WASHED in the Arno sent to the contado
(Florentine countryside) for spinning (by women ?
spinsters) brought to city pieceworkers for
WEAVING sent to vats for DYEING to fulling mills
on the Arno for FULLING Then to a CENTRAL FACTORY
for finishing and export
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The Second Major Medieval Industry MINING
Benedetto Zaccaria (d. 1307/8) merchant
adventurer and alum magnate
? alum a hardener in tanning leather, a color
fastener (mordant) in dyeing cloth ? produced by
a time consuming process of boiling and
crystallization in a vat (better crystals on top,
which are skimmed off)
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? fat profits in alum were made by processing the
mineral and shipping it in BULK ? requires
owning a large quarry, large vats, large ships,
controlling a large share of the market
? this ideal realized by the 13th-c. Genoese
merchant, B. Zaccaria a member of the merchant
social elite of the commune of Genoa
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BZs career was colorful and varied
-- earned money and fame as naval commander in
service to the BYZANTINE EMPIRE, to HIS OWN CITY,
and to the kings of CASTILE and FRANCE -- wrote
in French a plan for the blockade of England,
carried out delicate diplomatic missions for
Genoa and France -- at other moments in his life
he was a PIRATE in the Aegean sea, the GOVERNOR
of a seaport in the Arab-controlled south of
Spain (Andalusia), and RULER of a Greek island
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From the CRIMEA to FLANDERS there was scarcely a
port that ships of his personal fleet did not
visit routinely.
How did he become an alum magnate?
He was a young but experienced trader in wool
cloth and color dyes when he noticed a huge,
clean deposit of ALUMITE near PHOCAEA in ASIA
MINOR. In 1274, he took advantage of a mission
to the Byzantine court to obtain the land in
return for NAVAL SERVICE.
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BZ and his co-investors set up ALUM refineries
near PHOCAEA with enormous boiling vats. They
protected the refinery area with a FORTRESS on
the land side, BATTLE CRUISERS in the
sea. Italian technicians and artisans joined
crews of Greek laborers and a mining and
refining community of 3000 grew up near the old
seaport of Phocaea.
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BZs took turns transporting heavier and heavier
ALUM cargoes all around the Mediterranean on
board, they had armed men to withstand an attack.
They were also covered by MARITIME INSURANCE
CONTRACTS. BZs ships also plied the Atlantic
to bring ALUM to northern ports.
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In the 1290s, one of BZs sons was sending ALUM
ships to BRUGES in FLANDERS. At the same time
BZ himself was helping the King of France fight a
war against FLEMISH rebels! (He was in charge
of a fleet of his own ships contracted for
service to the French royal court.)
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During the campaign, BZ heard a rumor that a
group of men and women were going on a Crusade to
the Holy Land. He dropped everything to join
them. There was no Crusade in fact, and BZ died
disappointed in 1307 or 1308. His descendants
kept the ALUM industry and trade going -- by 1330
the PHOCEA mine was producing 700 TONS of refined
Alum per year. Annual profit 50,000 Genoese lire.