Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T18:10:43.866Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gilding golden ages: perspectives from early modern Antwerp on the guild debate, c. 1450 – c. 1650

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

BERT DE MUNCK
BERT DE MUNCK*
Affiliation:
Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp, bert.demunck@ua.ac.be
Get access

Abstract

This article contributes to the debate about the early modern craft guilds’ rationale through the lens of apprenticeship. Based on a case study of the Antwerp manufacturing guilds, it argues that apprenticeship should be understood from the perspective of ‘distributional conflicts’. Fixed terms of service and masterpieces guarded the guilds’ labour market monopsony, enabling masters to distribute the available skilled and unskilled labour among members (among other ways, through the restriction of the number of apprentices per master). Although from the perspective of product quality, this may have enabled masters to prevent adverse selection, the introduction of standardized apprenticeship requirements was the result of social and rent-seeking concerns.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review of Economic History , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , August 2011 , pp. 221 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © European Historical Economics Society 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bimbenet-Privat, M. (1995). Goldsmiths’ apprenticeship during the first half of the seventeenth century: the situation in Paris. In Mitchell, D. (ed.), Goldsmiths, Silversmiths and Bankers: Innovation and the Transfer of Skill, 1500–1800. Stroud: Sutton, pp. 23–31.Google Scholar
Black, A. (1984). Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present. London and Ithaca, NY: Methuen and Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Blondé, B. and Limberger, M. (n.d.) De gebroken welvaart. In Geschiedenis van Brabant, van het hertogdom tot heden. Leuven, pp. 307–11.Google Scholar
Boldorf, M. (2009). Socio-economic institutions and transaction costs: merchant guilds and rural trade in eighteenth-century Lower Silesia. European Review of Economic History 13 (2), pp. 173–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callon, M., Méadel, C. and Rabeharisoa, V. (2002). The economy of qualities. Economy and Society 31 pp. 194–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dambruyne, J. (2002). Corporatieve middengroepen. Aspiraties, relaties en transformaties in de 16de-eeuwse Gentse ambachtswereld. Ghent: Academia Press.Google Scholar
Dambruyne, J. (2006). Corporative capital and social representation in the southern and northern Netherlands, 1500–1800. In Prak, M., Lis, C., Lucassen, J. and Soly, H. (eds.), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 194–223.Google Scholar
Davids, K. (2007). Apprenticeship and guild control in the Netherlands, c. 1450–1800. In De Munck, B., Kaplan, S. L. and Soly, H. (eds.), Learning on the Shop Floor: Historical Perspectives on Apprenticeship. London and New York: Berghahn, pp. 65–84.Google Scholar
Deceulaer, H. (2001). Pluriforme patronen en een verschillende snit. Sociaal-economische, institutionele en culturele transformaties in de kledingsector in Antwerpen, Brussel en Gent, 1585–1800. Amsterdam: IISG Studies.Google Scholar
De Meester, J. (2008). Arbeidsmigratie vanuit westelijk Noord-Brabant naar Antwerpen in de zestiende eeuw. De ghulden roos: jaarboek 68, pp. 138–76.Google Scholar
De Meester, J. (2009). Migratie naar het zestiende-eeuwse Antwerpen. Kettingmigratie en informatiestromen. Noord-Brabants Historisch Jaarboek, pp. 22–43.Google Scholar
De Munck, B. (2002). Leerpraktijken. Economische en sociaal-culturele aspecten van beroepsopleidingen in Antwerpse ambachtsgilden, 16de-18de eeuw. PhD thesis, University of Brussels.Google Scholar
De Munck, B. (2004). Meritocraten aan het werk. De regulering van de arbeidsmarkt bij de Antwerpse timmerlieden in de 18de eeuw. In Blondé, B., De Munck, B. and Vermeylen, F. (eds), Doodgewoon. Mensen en hun dagelijks leven in de geschiedenis. Liber Amicorum Alfons K. L. Thijs (Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis 3–4), Antwerp, pp. 87–106.Google Scholar
De Munck, B. (2007a). La qualité du corporatisme. Stratégies économiques et symboliques des corporations anversoises du XVe siècle à leur abolition. Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 54 (1), pp. 116–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Munck, B. (2007b). Construction and reproduction: the training and skills of Antwerp cabinetmakers in the 16th and 17th centuries. In B. Munck, De, Kaplan, S. L. and Soly, H. (eds.), Learning on the Shop Floor: Historical Perspectives on Apprenticeship. London and New York: Berghahn, pp. 85–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Munck, B. (2007c). Technologies of Learning: Apprenticeship in Antwerp from the 15th Century to the End of the Ancien Régime. Turnhout: Brepols.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Munck, B. (2008). Skills, trust and changing consumer preferences: the decline of Antwerp's craft guilds from the perspective of the product market, ca. 1500 – ca. 1800. International Review of Social History 53 (2), pp. 197–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Munck, B. (2009). Fiscalizing solidarity (from below): poor relief in Antwerp guilds between community building and public service. In Van Der Heijden, M. and Vermeesch, G. (eds.), Serving the Community: Public Facilities in Early Modern Towns of the Low Countries. Amsterdam: Aksant, pp. 168–93.Google Scholar
De Munck, B. (2010a). One counter and your own account: redefining illicit labour in early modern Antwerp. Urban History 37 (1), pp. 26–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Munck, B. (2010b). From brotherhood community to civil society? Apprentices between guild, household and the freedom of contract in early modern Antwerp. Social History 35 (1), pp 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Munck, B., Lourens, P. and Lucassen, J. (2006). The guilds in the northern and the southern Netherlands: a comparative perspective. In Prak, M., Lis, C., Lucassen, J. and Soly, H. (eds.), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 32–73.Google Scholar
Didier, Ph. (1976). Le contrat d'apprentissage en Bourgogne aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Revue historique de droit français et étranger 54, pp. 35–57.Google Scholar
Ehmer, J. (1997). Worlds of mobility: migration patterns of Viennese artisans in the eighteenth century. In Crossick, G. (ed.), The Artisan and the European Town, 1500–1900. Aldershot: Scolar Press, pp. 172–200.Google Scholar
Elbaum, B. (1989). Why apprenticeship persisted in Britain but not in the United States. Journal of Economic History 49 (2), pp. 337–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elkar, R. S. (1999). Lernen durch Wandern? Einige kritische Anmerkungen zum thema ‘Wissenstransfer durch Migration’. In Schulz, K. (ed.), Handwerk in Europa vom spätmittelalter bis zur Frühen Neuzeit. Munich: Oldenburg Verlag, pp. 213–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, S. R. (1998). Craft guilds, apprenticeship, and technological change in pre-industrial Europe. Journal of Economic History 58 (3), pp. 684–713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, S. R. (2008). Craft guilds in the pre-modern economy: a discussion. Economic History Review 61 (1), pp. 155–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, S. R. and Prak, M. (eds.) (2008). Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eymard-Duvernay, F. (1989). Conventions de qualité et formes de coordination. Revue Économique 40, pp. 329–59.Google Scholar
Eymard-Duvernay, F. (1994). Coordination des échanges par l'entreprise et qualité des biens. In Orléan, A., Analyse économique des conventions. Paris: PUF, pp. 331–58.Google Scholar
Farr, J. R. (2000). Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Génard, P. (1889). Notice sur la corporation des orfèvres d'Anvers. Annales de l'académie d'archéologie de Belgique, 45, 4th series, vol. 5, pp. 212–13.Google Scholar
Gomez, P.-Y. (1994). Qualité et économie des conventions. Paris: Economica.Google Scholar
Grieβinger, A. and Reith, R. (1986). Lehrlinge im deutschen Handwerk des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts. Arbeitsorganisation, Sozialbeziehungen und alltägliche Konflikte. Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 13, pp. 149–99.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, B. (1987). The rise and economic behaviour of medieval craft guilds. Scandinavian Economic History Review 35, pp. 1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphries, J. (2003). English apprenticeship: a neglected factor in the first industrial revolution. In David, P. A. and Thomas, M. (eds.), The Economic Future in Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 73–102.Google Scholar
Kaplan, S. L. (1993). L'apprentissage au XVIIIe siècle: le cas de Paris. Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 40 (3), special issue on Apprentissages, XVIe-XXe siècles, pp. 436–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krausman Ben-Amos, I. (1994). Adolescence and Youth in Early Modern England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landes-Mallet, A.-M. (1988). Travail et apprentissage en Rouergue médiévale. In Libertés locales et vie municipale en Rouergue, Languedoc et Roussillon, Actes du LXIXe Congrès de la Fédération historique du Languedoc méditerranéen et du Roussillon, Millau 19–20 June 1987. Montpellier, pp. 91–8.Google Scholar
Lesger, C. (2006). Migrantenstromen en economische ontwikkeling in vroegmoderne steden. Nieuwe burgers in Antwerpen en Amsterdam, 1541–1655. Stadsgeschiedenis 1 (2), pp. 97–121.Google Scholar
Lis, C. and Soly, H. (1997). Different paths of development: capitalism in the northern and southern Netherlands during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Review 20, pp. 211–42.Google Scholar
Lis, C. and Soly, H. (2002). Die Zünfte in den Österreichischen Niederlanden. In Haupt, H.-G. (ed.), Das Ende der Zünfte. Ein europäischer Vergleich. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 155–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lis, C. and Soly, H. (2006). Export industries, craft guilds and capitalist trajectories. In Prak, M., Lis, C., Lucassen, J. and Soly, H. (eds.), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 107–32.Google Scholar
Lis, C. and Soly, H. (2008). Subcontracting in guild-based export trades, thirteenth–eighteenth centuries. In Epstein, S. R. and Prak, M. (eds.), Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 81–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luu, L. B. (1995). Aliens and their impact on the goldsmiths’ craft in London in the sixteenth century. In Mitchell, D. (ed.), Goldsmiths, Silversmiths and Bankers: Innovation and the Transfer of Skills, 1550 to 1750. Stroud: Sutton, pp. 43–52.Google Scholar
Minard, Ph. (2003). Réputation, normes et qualité dans l'industrie textile française au XVIIIe siècle. In Stanziani, A. (ed.), La qualité des produits en France (XVIIIe-XXe siècles). Paris: Belin, pp. 69–89.Google Scholar
Mocarelli, L. (2009). Guilds reappraised: Italy in the early modern period. In Lucassen, J., De Moor, T. and van Zanden, J. (eds.), The Return of the Guilds (International Review of Social History, supplement 16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 159–78.Google Scholar
Munro, J. (1977). Industrial protectionism in medieval Flanders: urban or national? In Miskimin, H. A., Herlihy, D. and Udovitch, A. L. (eds.), The Medieval City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 229–67.Google Scholar
Munro, J. (1990). Urban regulation and monopolistic competition in the textile industries of the late-medieval low countries. In Aerts, E. and Munro, J. (eds.), Textiles of the Low Countries in European Economic History. Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 41–50.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (1997). State Corporatism and Proto-industry: The Württemberg Black Forest, 1580–1797. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2003). A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2004). Guilds, efficiency and social capital: evidence from German proto-industry. Economic History Review 57 (2), pp. 286–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2007). ‘Whatever is, is right?’ Economic institutions in pre-industrial Europe. Economic History Review 60 (4), pp. 649–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2008). Rehabilitating the guilds: a reply. Economic History Review 61 (1), pp. 175–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfister, U. (2008). Craft guilds, theory of the firm, and early modern proto-industry. In Epstein, S. R. and Prak, M. (eds.), Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 25–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prak, M., Lis, C., Lucassen, J. and Soly, H. (eds.) (2006). Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Prims, F. (1939). Geschiedenis van Antwerpen, vol. VII: Onder de eerste Habsburgers (1477–1555), book 2: Economische orde. Antwerp: N.V. Standaard Boekhandel.Google Scholar
Prims, F. (1942). Geschiedenis van Antwerpen, vol. VIII: Met Spanje (1555–1715), book 2: De economische orde. Antwerp: N.V. Standaard Boekhandel.Google Scholar
Rappaport, S. (1989). Worlds within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-Century London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reith, R. (1989). Zur beruflichen Sozialisation im Handwerk vom 18. Jahrhundert bis ins frühe 20. Jahrhundert. Umrisse einer Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Lehrlinge. Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 76, pp. 1–27.Google Scholar
Reith, R. (2008). Circulation of skilled labour in late medieval and early modern central Europe. In Epstein, S. R. and Prak, M. (eds.), Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 114–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyerson, K. L. (1992). The adolescent apprentice/worker in medieval Montpellier. Journal of Family History 17 (4), pp. 353–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, G. (2001). A tale of two theories: monopolies and guilds in medieval England and modern imagination. Journal of History of Economic Thoughts 23 (2), pp. 217–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, G. (2004). Guilds, laws, and markets for manufactured merchandise in late medieval England. Explorations in Economic History 41, pp. 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, G. (2008) Brand names before the industrial revolution. NBER Working paper series. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1119221 (accessed 1 January 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rushton, P. (1991). The matter in variance: adolescents and domestic conflict in the pre-industrial economy of Northeast England, 1600–1800. Journal of Social History 25 (1), pp. 89–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlugleit, D. (1935). Geschiedenis van het Antwerpsche diamantslijpersambacht. Antwerp: Jos. Gullaume.Google Scholar
Schlugleit, D. (1969). De Antwerpse goud- en zilversmeden in het corporatief stelsel (1382–1789). Wetteren: Uitgeverij Bracke.Google Scholar
Scholliers, E. (1956). Vrije en onvrije arbeiders, voornamelijk te Antwerpen in de 16de eeuw. Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 11, pp. 285–322.Google Scholar
Smits, W. and Stromback, Th. (2001). The Economics of the Apprenticeship System. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stabel, P. (2004). Guilds in late medieval Flanders: myths and realities of guild life in an export oriented environment. Journal of Medieval History 30, pp. 187–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanziani, A. (ed.) (2003). La qualité des produits en France (XVIIIe-XXe siècles). Paris: Belin.Google Scholar
Thijs, A. K. L. (1969). De zijdenijverheid te Antwerpen in de zeventiende eeuw. Brussels: Gemeentekrediet van België.Google Scholar
Thijs, A. K. L. (1987). Van ‘werkwinkel’ tot ‘fabriek’. De textielnijverheid te Antwerpen (einde 15de-begin 19de eeuw). Brussels: Gemeentekrediet van België.Google Scholar
Thijs, A. K. L. (1993). Antwerp's luxury industries: the pursuit of profit and artistic sensitivity. In Stock, J. Van Der (ed.), Antwerp: Story of a Metropolis, 16th-17th Century. Ghent: Snoeck-Ducaju, pp. 105–13.Google Scholar
Thijs, A. K. L. (1995). Minderheden te Antwerpen (16de/20ste eeuw). In Soly, H. and Thijs, A. K. L. (eds.), Minderheden in Westeuropese steden (16de-20ste eeuw). Brussels: Gemeentekrediet van België, pp. 17–42.Google Scholar
Thijs, A. (2006). Religion and social structure: religious rituals in pre-industrial trade associations in the Low Countries. In Prak, M., Lis, C., Lucassen, J. and Soly, H. (eds.), Craft Cuilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 157–73.Google Scholar
Van Damme, I. (2003). Het vertrek van Mercurius: historiografische en hypothetische verkenningen van het economisch wedervaren van Antwerpen in de tweede helft van de zeventiende eeuw. NEHA-Jaarboek voor economische, bedrijfs- en techniekgeschiedenis, pp. 6–39.Google Scholar
Van Der Wee, H. (1963). The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy (Fourteenth–Sixteenth Centuries), 2 vols. The Hague: Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Van Der Wee, H. (1988). Industrial dynamics and the process of urbanization and de-urbanization in the Low Countries from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. In Van Der Wee, H. (ed.), The Rise and Decline of Urban Industries in Italy and the Low Countries (Late Middle Ages – Early Modern Times). Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 307–81.Google Scholar
Van Deun, J. (1979). Het Antwerpse tinnegietersambacht in het Ancien Régime. In Keur van tin uit de havensteden Amsterdam, Antwerpen en Rotterdam. Amsterdam, etc.: Provinciaal Museum Sterckshof, pp. 35–62.Google Scholar
Verbeemen, J. (1965). Immigratie te Antwerpen. Mededelingen van de Geschied- en Oudheidkundige Kring voor Leuven en omgeving (lustrumuitgave De Brabantse stad), pp. 81–100.Google Scholar
Wallis, P. (2008). Apprenticeship and training in premodern England. Journal of Economic History 68 (3), pp. 832–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willems, B. (1999). Loon naar werken? Sociale mobiliteit in het Antwerpse kuipersambacht (1585–1793). Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis 82 (1–2), pp. 31–62.Google Scholar