Guilds in the Middle Ages by Georges Renard

Author:Georges Renard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

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CHAPTER V THE MERITS AND DEFECTS OF THE GUILD SYSTEM

WE ARE NOW IN a position to estimate the merits and defects of the guilds before they fell into decadence and decrepitude.

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 resemblances. Let us see, then, how each acted on production and sale, and on producers and sellers.

The guild system in the “small” crafts was at once a guarantee of, and a check on, production and sale. It endeavoured to insure and guard the consumer against adulteration, falsification, and dishonesty; to stamp goods with the character of finish, solidity, and relative perfection, thus giving to them something personal and therefore artistic; to keep within reasonable limits the profits of the manufacturer, who was also the merchant. On the other hand, the manufacturer only dealt with small quantities, was content with a very restricted clientèle, and aimed at nothing beyond the local market without much chance of either making a fortune or being ruined. Production thus had but little vigour, and what was more serious still, its plasticity was interfered with. The statutes which regulated it resembled feudal castles, which protected but imprisoned those whom they sheltered. The manufacturer, hampered by the restrictions which surrounded him, could make no progress. Industry, bound down by directions which were too precise, too detailed, too authoritative, could not adapt itself to the many caprices of fashion or to the changes of taste which are the very life of human civilizations; its forms were set, its methods petrified. Invention could not have free play; it was accused of outraging healthy tradition; it was considered dangerous to set out to create anything new. In Florence in 1286 a cooper complained of being boycotted by his guild because in making his barrels he bent his staves by means of water, which was, he said, an advantage to all who bought them. At Paris it was forbidden to mould seals with letters engraved on them; apparently the counterfeiting of seals and coins was feared. Who knows, however, whether this prohibition did not retard by a hundred years the invention of printing, to which—when a method of making them movable had been discovered—these engraved letters gave birth?

With regard to producers and sellers, we may go back to the simile of the strong castle. An instrument of defence for those who were within the guild easily degenerated into one of tyranny for those who were without. It was the centre of an ardent and exclusive corporate spirit. It resolved all the individual egoisms of its members into a great collective egoism. It is only necessary to recall the quarrels with neighbouring guilds, and the hostility shown towards workers who were not enrolled. To the masters of which it was composed it ensured at least a modest and honest livelihood, the just remuneration of labour, or, one might almost say, to use a modern formula, the whole product of labour.

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