Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/400

* GUILD. 352 GUILD. burden of ta.xation. Citizens of distant towns might be given the privileges of the guild. (See L.wv JIercha.nt. ) This was, however, less gen- erally the case on the Continent. In Continental countries the guild merchant never attained the influence that it attained in England. In many cities it remained practically a private institution parallel with the craft guilds. The Craft (Uild.s. With the growth of indus- try the members of different trades began to associate themselves for the defense of their own special interests. These associations were known as the craft guilds in England, as the corporations de metiers in France, and the Ziinfte or Innungen in Germany. In England we may regard them as the outgrowth of the guild merchant. Super- vision in the various trades, regulations as to membership, and like functions were consigned to these guilds. ^Members might still belong to the guild merchant. As one craft after another ■was organized, the guild merchant lost its func- tions as a regulator of trade, and finally lost its individuality, becoming an integral part of the municipal constitution. In their inception the craft guilds admitted to their ranks all who could exercise their trades with sufficient skill. They sought to insure good workmanship, and therefore required that each craftsman should have served an apprenticeship. Officials of the guilil supervised the entire process of production, to see that no deception was prac- ticed. Night work was for this reason forbidden, In so far, therefore, the interests of the consumer were protected. They sought to protect their own interests by preventing all competition, both from without and within. Non-members were not per- mitted to practice the trade within the towns; and the members were required to sell at the same rates, and to pay equal prices for raw materials. During the flourishing period of their existence (from'the twelfth to "the fifteenth century) the craft guilds did nnich to advance the standard of workmanship and to procure a satisfactory existence for their members. The membership of the guilds consisted in mas- ter-workmen, journeymen, and apprentices. The master worknum alone bought materials and sold the finished product ; the journe nen lived in the master's household, and received a fixed wage for their work. The apprentices also lived with the master, but as a rule they received for their labor nothing but their board and training. In the period of greatest prosperitj- each apprentice looked forward to becoming a journeyman, and each journeyman could become a master. In France and Germany, and less generally in Eng- land, it was the custom in some trades for each craftsman who had completed his apprenticeship to travel from place to place, learning new meth- ods of work. It was also customary to require from the journeyman who wished to become a master the performance of a piece of work as evi: dence of his capacity — a chef d'ceuvre. or master- piece. These customs obviously exerted a very beneficial inlluence upon mediteval industry. Prominent exam|des of the trade guild in Eng- land were the weavers' and goldsmiths' guilds. The weavers' guild was the earliest and most important of the craft guilds. Weaving was the first important industry to break away from the house system, hence the early development of the guild. In 11. '^0 we find mention of an influential weavers' guild in London, Lincoln, and O.xford. At the height of its powers the guild claimed full jurisdiction over its members in pleas of debt, contract, and petty agreements. It held a mo- nopoly of the cloth industry and regulated the qiuility and prices of the goods produced. Later it split into several branches, of which one, the drapers, became an association of great im- portance, developing into the merchant class which later won for England her commercial supremacy. In the fifteenth century the intluenee of the weavers' guild was broken by the introduction of the domestic system of industry in the cloth trade, under which the craftsman, originally an independent worker owning his own tools and purchasing his own materials, became a mere v, age-eai-ner. The guild continued to exist until the eighteenth century, but without vitality or influence. The earliest mention of a goldsmiths' guild dates from 1180. At that time the guild was 'adulterine.' i.e. imauthorized by the Crown. Later, however, the goldsmiths constituted one of the more powerful guilds of London, and are regularly mentioned near the head of the list of the 'twelve great companies.' By a statute of 1300 the guild received the office of establishing a standard of fineness for gold and silver ised in the arts. The standard was established in Lon- don, and officers of the guild were to visit other cities, establishing in each place the London standard. Throughout the ^liddle Ages the gold- smiths' guild seems to have played an important part in determining the standards adopted in the coinage. At the beginning of modern times we find the goldsmiths a wealthy and powerful body, who undertook, in addition to the work of their craft, the functions of deposit and lending of money. In England the craft guilds did not generally aim at political power. On the Continent, on the other hand, prolonged struggles were carried on between the guilds and the aristocracy. In some parts of Germany the contest for political power culminated in civil war. During a part of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the guilds succeeded in securing political supremacy in some of the cities of Germany. Journeyman Golds, Compagnonnage. The movement of population to the towns, which char- acterized the later Middle Ages, created in the guilds a tendency toward exclusiveness. The period of apjirenticeship was lengthened for those who were not the children of guild members, and certain classes were excluded from menibership altogether. The period of journeying from place to place was also lengthened, and the fees for admission to the guilds were increased. The 'masterpiece' became a very onerotis and costly piece of work, sometimes requiring several months of labor and heavy expenditures for materials. The chance of the journeyman's becoming a mas- ter workman was accordingly greatly reduced. A cleft appeared between the interests of the master and those of the journeymen. The latter associated themselves in the so-called journev- nian or yeoman guilds of England and the com- pafinonnnge of France. These organizations sought to secure better wages from the masters, and to assist members in distress. The coin- pofjiionnage in particular developed into a power- ful organization. Its members were bound by oaths to carry out the policies of the organiza- tion. The masters naturally opposed it in every