The Problems of Gild History

The occupational gilds of the west are one of the best-known forms of medieval association, familiar both on account of their long post-medieval career, and because they had early lent themselves to the ordering of economic and political life in urban society. Their traditions of corporate charity and piety further attest that they were once genuine communities within the larger community, with a social and religious character transcending mere economic interest and struggle for power. The economic historian has to study every aspect of the gilds, but always with an eye to the central problem of their influence on the economy. Did the various means by which they sought to secure their members' interests, as these were conceived at the time, retard or stimulate economic growth? Did gilds hinder or promote the flow of trade? Did they try to expand the market for manufactured goods? Had they any general policies regarding innovation? Did they affect at all the amount of saving or the direction of investment?

If we plot our earliest information as to the organization of gilds on a map, dating their appearance in each local industry, we immediately narrow the scope of these inquiries in two ways. In the first place, it becomes apparent that, so far as artisans were concerned, the craft gilds were of little account before the thirteenth century. In the great economic expansion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, artisan gilds were too few and too scattered to have exercised any effective influence either as help or as hindrance. It was not until the latter part of the thirteenth century, when the expansion was slowing down, that they became at all widespread. They multiplied most rapidly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, often in circumstances of population decline, trade recession and fiscal crisis. In the second place, certain types of town were clearly more favourable to a gild movement than others.