CRAFT GUILD

also called Mystery (from Latin ministerium, occupation), a European medieval occupational association, usually comprising all the artisansand often the suppliers, retailers, and wholesale merchantsconcerned with a specific branch of industry or commerce. A weavers' guild is recorded at Mainz as early as 1099 and in London and other cities of England during the reign of Henry I (110035); but the greatest period of guild expansion occurred after rather than before 1250. The general characteristics of the medieval craft guild are well known and were in general remarkably alike throughout Europe. Assemblies of all members enjoyed some legislative powers, but the control of guild policy lay in the hands of a few officials (from two to four wardens in the case of most English crafts) and a council of advisers or assistants. From an early stage in its development, the typical mystery tended to be an extremely hierarchical body, divided into the three categories of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. In the largest and wealthiest trades the master craftsmen formed a select inner circle, open only to those apprentices and journeymen who could provide proof not only of their technical competence (the masterpiece) but also of their wealth and social eligibility. The primary economic objective of most craft guilds was the establishment of a complete monopoly over all who were associated together in the pursuit of a common profession, but the ability of the craft guilds actually to exercise their authority was subject to serious practical limitations. Many of the innumerable extant craft-guild regulations can never have been applied continuously, and guild monopoly power was usually too weak to take the blame (as it once did) for the economic difficulties of late medieval Europe. Despite frequent attempts at price-fixing, it seems unlikely that many guilds were able to exert permanent influence on local selling prices and wage rates. The very multiplicity of crafts within a given city tended to prevent any one mystery from pursuing its monopolistic ambitions to extremes, as the perennial conflicts throughout Europe between weavers and fullers or between the victualing and nonvictualing guilds fully demonstrate. Moreover, municipal supervision and interference in matters of craft policy was common at all stages of guild history and, from the 15th century onward, was increasingly supplemented by the intervention of national governments, which began regulating apprenticeship and demanding articles of incorporation. The decline of the medieval craft guilds was a slow and tortuous process. New fraternities were still being founded throughout Europe in the 17th century; nevertheless the 16th century can be said to have marked a decisive turn in the fortunes of most mysteries. Apart from the disruptive effects of the Protestant Reformation and the growth of governmental power, the craft guilds were seriously weakened by the appearance of new markets and greater capital resources. The drift of industrial activity away from the towns into the countryside, very evident in the case of English and Flemish cloth production, left the guilds increasingly isolated from the main currents of economic power, as did the emergence of regulated companies and other associations of wealthy merchant-capitalists. By the time of the decrees and acts abolishing craft associations in France (1791), Rome (1807), Spain (1840), England (1835), Austria and Germany (185960), and Italy (1864), the bases of their authority had been long eroded.