Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T16:47:04.068Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Preindustrial Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

S. R. Epstein
Affiliation:
Reader in Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE.

Abstract

This article argues that medieval craft guilds emerged in order to provide transferable skills through apprenticeship. They prospered for more than half a millennium because they sustained interregional specialized labor markets and contributed to technological invention by stimulating technical diffusion through migrant labor and by providing inventors with temporary monopoly rents. They played a leading role in preindustrial manufacture because their main competitor, rural putting out, was a net consumer rather than producer of technological innovation. They finally disappeared not through adaptive failure but because national states abolished them by decree.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1998

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

REFERENCES

Ashtor, Eliahu. “The Factors of Technological and Industrial Progress in the Later Middle Ages. ” Journal of European Economic History 18, no.1 (1989): 736.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S.The Theory of Human Capital. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Beonio, Brocchieri, Vittono, H. “‘Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo’: Structures économiques et familiales dans les campagnes de la Lombardie entre 16eet 17e siÈcle.” 2 vols. Ph.D. diss., école des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1995.Google Scholar
Berg, Maxine. “On the Origins of Capitalist Hierarchy.” In Power and Economic Institutions, edited by Gustafsson, Bo, 173–94. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1991.Google Scholar
Berlin, Michael. ‘“Broken All in Pieces’: Artisans and the Regulation of Workmanship in Early Modern London.” In The Artisan and the European Town, 1500–1900, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey, 7591. Aldershot-Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Blacandk, Antony. Guilds Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present. London: Methuen, 1984.Google Scholar
Bloch, Maurice. “Language, Anthropology and Cognitive Science.” Man 26, no.2 (1991): 183–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bossenga, Gail. “Protecting Merchants: Guilds and Commercial Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France.” French Historical Studies 15 (1989): 693703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power. War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Cahn, Walter. Masterpieces. Chapters on the History of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Cavaciocchi, Simonetta, ed. Le migrazioni in Europa secc.XIII–XVIII. Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F.Datini,” Prato. Atti delle “Settimane di Studi,” vol. 25. Florence: Le Monnier, 1994.Google Scholar
Chicco, Giuseppe. “L'innovazione tecnologica nella lavorazione della seta in Piemonte a metà Seicento.” Studi storici 33, no.2 (1992): 195215.Google Scholar
Cipolla, Carlo M. “The Decline of Italy: The Case of a Fully Matured Economy.” In Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, edited by Pullan, Brian, 127–45. London: Methuen, 1968.Google Scholar
Cipolla, Carlo M.Before the Industrial Revolution. European Society and Economy, 1000–1700, 3rd ed. New York and London: Routledge, 1993.Google Scholar
Coleman, Donald C. “Textile Growth.” In Textile History and Economic History, edited by Harte, N. B. and Ponting, K. G., 112. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Coulet, , Noël. “Les confréries de métierà Aix au bas Moyen Âge.” In Les métiers au Moyen Âge. Aspects économiques et sociaux, edited by Lambrechts, P. and Sosson, J.-P., 5473. Publications de l'Institut d'Etudes Médiévales, vol. 15. Louvain-la-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain, 1994.Google Scholar
Davids, Karel. “Technological Change and the Economic Expansion of the Dutch Republic, 1580–1680. ” In The Dutch Economy in the Golden Age. Nine Studies, edited by Davids, Karel and Noordegraaf, Leo, 79104. Amsterdam: Nederlands Economisch-Historisch Archief, 1973.Google Scholar
Davids, Karel. “Beginning Entrepreneurs and Municipal Govenunents in Holland at the Time of the Dutch Republic.” In Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship in Early Modern Times. Merchants and Industrialists Within the Orbit of the Dutch Staple Market, edited by Lesger, Clé and Noordegraaf, Leo, 167–83. The Hague: Stichting Hollandse Historische Reeks, 1995.Google Scholar
Davids, Karel. “Openness or Secrecy? Industrial Espionage in the Dutch Republic.” Journal of European Economic History 24, no.2(1995): 333–48.Google Scholar
Davids, Karel. “Shifts of Technological Leadership in Early Modem Europe.” In A Miracle Mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European Perspective, edited by Davids, Karel and Lucassen, Jan, 338–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Davidson, Nicholas. “Northern Italy in the 1590s.” In The European Crisis of the 1590s, edited by Clark, Peter, 157–76. London: Allen and Unwin, 1985.Google Scholar
Davis, Robert C.Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal. Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Deceulaer, Harald. “Guilds and Litigation: Conflict Settlement in Antwerp (1585–1796).” In Individual, Corporate and Judicial Status in European Cities, edited by Boone, Marc and Prak, Maarten, 171207. Leuven-Apeldoorn: Garant, 1996.Google Scholar
Degrassi, Donata. L'economia artigiana nell'Italia medievale. Rome: Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1996.Google Scholar
Della Valentina, Marcello. “Da artigiani a mercanti: carriere e conflitti nell'Arte della Seta a Venezia tra '600 e ';700.” In Corporazioni e sviluppo economico nell'Italia di antico regime (secoliXVl–XJX). Milan: F.Angeli, 1998.Google Scholar
Demsetz, Harold. “The Theory of the Firm Revisited.” In The Nature of the Firm, edited by Williamson, Oliver E. and Winter, Sidney G., 158–78. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Dennet, Daniel C.Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meanings of Life. London and New York: Allen Lane, 1995.Google Scholar
Ehmer, Josef. “Worlds of Mobility: Migration Patterns of Viennese Artisans in the 18th Century.” In The Artisan and the European Town, 1500–1900, edited by Crossick, Geoffrey, 172–99. Aldershot-Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Endrei, Walter. “Changements dans la productivité de I'industrie lainiÈre au Moyen Age.” In Produzione commercio e consumo dei panni di lana (nei secoli XII–XVIII), edited by Spallanzarn, Marco, 625–32. Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F.Datini,” Prato. Atti delle “Settimane di Studi,” vol. 2. Florence: Le Monnier, 1976.Google Scholar
Endrei, Walter. “Rouet italien et metier de Flandre à tisser au large.” InTecnica e società nell'Italia del secoli XII–XVI, 7181. Pistoia: Centro Italiano di Studi di Storia e d'Arte, 1987.Google Scholar
Epstein, Steven. Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Epstein, S. R.Cities, Regions and the Late Medieval Crisis: Sicily and Tuscany Compared.” Past and Present 130 (1991): 350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, S. R.Regional Fairs, Institutional Innovation and Economic Growth in Late Medieval Europe.” Economic History Review 2d. ser. 47, no. 3 (1994): 459–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esser, Raingard. “Germans in Early Modern Britain.” In Germans in Britain Since 1500, edited by Panayi, P., 1727. London: Hambledon, 1996.Google Scholar
Farr, James R.Hands of Honor. Artisans and Their World in Dijon, 1550–1650. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Farr, James R.On the Shop Floor: Guilds, Artisans, and the European Market Economy,1350–1750.” Journal of Early Modern History 1, no. 1 (1997): 2454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fennell Mazzaoui, Maureen. “Artisan Migration and Technology in the Italian Textile Industry in the Late Middle Ages (1100–1500).” In Strutture familiari epidemie migrazioni nell'Italia medievale, edited by Comba, Rinaldo, Piccinni, Gabriella and Pinto, Giuliano, 519–34. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1984.Google Scholar
Friedrichs, Christopher R.The Early Modern City 1450–1750. London: Longmans, 1995.Google Scholar
Gay, Davies M.The Enforcement of English Apprenticeship 1563–1642. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956.Google Scholar
Griffiths, T.,Hunt, P. A., and O'Brien, P. K.. “Inventive Activity in the British Textile Industry, 1700–1800.” this JOURNAL 52, no. 4 (1992): 881906.Google Scholar
Gullickson, Gay L.Agriculture and Cottage Industry. Redefining the Causes of Protoindustrialization.” this JOURNAL 43, no. 4 (1983): 831–50.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, Bo. “The Rise and Economic Behaviour of Medieval Craft Guilds.” In Power and Economic Institutions, edited by Gustafsson, Bo, 69106. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1991.Google Scholar
Hafter, Daryl M. “The Programmed Brocade Loom and the ‘Decline of the Drawgirl’.” In Dynamos and Virgins Revisited: Women and Technological Change in History, edited by Trescott, M. M., 4966. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Hafler, Daryl M., ed. European Women and Preindustrial Craft. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Harriss, John. “The First British Measures Against Industrial Espionage.” In Industry and Finance in Early Modern History, edited by Blanchard, I., Goodman, A. and Newman, J., 205–26. Stuttgart: F.Steiner, 1992.Google Scholar
Hatcher, John, and Barker, T. C., A History of British Pewter. London: Longman, 1974.Google Scholar
Heller, Henry. Labour, Science and Technology in France, 1500–1620. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Hickson, C. R., and Thompson, E. A.. “A New Theory of Guilds and European Economic Development.” Explorations in Economic History 28, no. 1 (1991): 127–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirshler, E. E.Medieval Economic Competition.” this JOURNAL 14, no. 1 (1954): 5258.Google Scholar
Howell, Martha C. “Achieving the Guild Effect Without Guilds: Crafts and Craftsmen in Late Medieval Douai.” In Les métiers au Moyen Âge, edited by Lambrechts, P. and Sosson, J.-P., 109–28. Publications de l'Institut d'Etudes Médiévales, vol. 15. Louvain-la-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain, 1994.Google Scholar
Hudson, Pat. The Genesis of Industrial Capital. A Study of the West Riding Wool Textile Industry c. 1750–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, edited, with an introduction, by Bell, Martin. London: Penguin, 1990.Google Scholar
Irigoin, J.Les origines de la fabrication du papier en Italie.” Papiergeschichte 13 (1963): 6267.Google Scholar
Jones, S. R. H.The Organization of Work. A Historical Dimension.” Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization 3 (1982): 117–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Steven L.La lutte pour le contrôle du marché du travail à Paris au XVIIIe.” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 36, no. 3 (1989): 361412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kula, Witold. An Economic Theory of the Feudal System, trans. Garner, L.. London: New Left Books, 1976.Google Scholar
Lanaro, Paola. “Gli statuti delle arti in età moderna tra norma e pratica.” In Corporazioni e sviluppo economico nell'Italia di antico regime (secoli XVI–XIX). Milan: F. Angeli, 1998.Google Scholar
Lane, Frederic C.Venice: A Maritime Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeson, R. A.Travelling Brothers. The Six Centuries' Road From Craft Fellowship to Trade Unionism. London: Allen and Unwin, 1979.Google Scholar
Lipson, E.The Economic History of England, III. The Age of Mercantilism, 5th. ed. 3 vols. London: A. & C.Black, 1945–48.Google Scholar
Lis, Catharina, and Soly, Hugo. ‘“An Irresistible Phalanx ’: Journeymen Associations in Western Europe, 1300 –1800.” International Review of Social History 39, Supplement (1994): 1152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lis, Catharina, and Soly, Hugo. “Different Paths of Development. Capitalism in the Northern and Southern Netherlands during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.” Review 20, no. 2 (1997): 211–42.Google Scholar
Liu, Tessie P.The Weaver 's Knot. The Contradictions of Class Struggle and Family Solidarity in Western France, 1750 –1914. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, P. O.Invention, Authorship, ‘Intellectual Property, ’ and the Origin of Patents: Notes Towards a Conceptual History.” Technology and Culture 32 (1991): 846–84.Google Scholar
MacLeod, Christine. Inventing the Industrial Revolution. The English Patent System, 1660 –1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLeod, Christine. “The Paradoxes of Patenting: Invention and Its Diffusion, 18th and 19th –Century Britain, France, and North America.” Technology and Culture 32 (1991): 885910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magnusson, L. “From Verlag to Factory: The Contest for Efficient Property Rights.” In Power and Economic Institutions, edited by Gustafsson, Bo, 195223. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1991.Google Scholar
Mainoni, Patrizia. Economia e politica nella Lombardia medievale. Cavallermaggiore: Gribaudo, 1994.Google Scholar
Malanima, Paolo. La decadenza di un 'economia cittadina. L 'industria di Firenze nei secoli XVI –XVIII. Bologna: Mulino, 1982.Google Scholar
Malanima, Paolo. I piedi di legno. Una macchina alle origini dell 'industria medievale. Milan: F.Angeli, 1988.Google Scholar
Marshall, T. H.Capitalism and the Decline of the English Guilds.” Cambridge Historical Journal 3 (19281931): 2333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, Otto. Authority, Liberty and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mickwitz, G.Die Kartellfunktionen der Z ünfte und ihre Bedeutung bei der Entstehung des Zunftwesens. Helsinki, 1936.Google Scholar
Millward, Robert. “The Emergence of Wage Labor in Early Modern England.” Explorations in Economic History 18, no. 1 (1981): 2139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. The Lever of Riches. Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. The New Economic History and the Industrial Revolution.” In The British Industrial Revolution. An Economic Perspective, edited by Mokyr, Joel, 1131. Oxford and Boulder: Westview Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. “Urbanization, Technological Progress, and Economic History.” In Urban Agglomeration and Economic Growth, edited by Giersch, H., 334. Berlin and New York: Springer, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. “Innovation and Its Enemies: The Economic and Political Roots of Technological Inertia.” Mimeo. Northwestern University, 1997.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh C.State Corporatism and Proto-Industry. The Württemberg Black Forest, 1580 –1797. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh C., and Cerman, Marcus, eds. European Proto-Industrialization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur JrThe Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pagano, Ugo. “Property Rights, Asset Specificity, and the Division of Labor Under Alternative Capitalist Relations.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 15 (1991): 315–42.Google Scholar
Persson, Karl Gunnar. Pre-Industrial Economic Growth. Social Organization and Technological Progress in Europe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.Google Scholar
Petty, William, A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions. London, 1679.Google Scholar
Pfister, Ulrich. “Craft Guilds and Proto-Industrialization in Europe, 16th to 18th Centuries.” In Guilds, Economy and Society, edited by Epstein, S. R., Haupt, H. G., Carlo, Poni, and Hugo, Soly. International Economic History Conference, Madrid, 1998.Google Scholar
Poni, Carlo. “Per la storia del distretto industriale serico di Bologna (secoli XVI –XIX).Quaderni storici 25, no. 1 (1990): 93167.Google Scholar
Randall, Adrian J.Before the Luddites. Custom, Community and Machinery in the English Woollen Industry, 1776 –1809. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Rapp, Richard T.Industry and Economic Decline in Seventeenth-Century Venice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Steve. Worlds within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-Century London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rappaport, Steve. “Reconsidering Apprenticeship in Sixteenth-Century London.” Mimeo, New York University, 1991.Google Scholar
Reed, C. G.Transactions Costs and Differential Growth in Seventeenth Century Western Europe.” this JOURNAL 33, no. 1 (1973): 177–90.Google Scholar
Reith, Reinhold. “Arbeitsmigration und Technologietransfer in der Habsburgermonarchie in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts. Die Gesellenwanderung aus der Sicht der Kommerzienkonsesse.” Blätter für Technikgeschichte 56 (1994): 933.Google Scholar
Richardson, Gary. “Brand Names Before the Industrial Revolution.” Mimeo, Berkeley, 1997.Google Scholar
Rothschild, Emma. “Adam Smith, Apprenticeship and Insecurity.” Centre for History and Economics Working Paper, King 's College, Cambridge, 07 1994.Google Scholar
Rule, John. “The Property of Skill in the Age of Manufacture.” In The Historical Meanings of Work, edited by Joyce, Patrick, 99118. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Sabel, Charles, and Zeitlin, Jonathan. “Historical Alternatives to Mass Production: Politics, Markets and Technology in Nineteenth-Century Industrialization.” Past and Present 108 (1985): 133–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Safley, T. M. “Production, Transaction, and Proletarianization: The Textile Industry in Upper Swabia, 1580 –1660.” In The Workplace Before the Factory. Artisans and Proletarians 1500 –1800, edited by Safley, T. M. and Rosenband, L. N., 118–45. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schilling, Heinz. “Innovation Through Migration: The Settlement of the Calvinistic Netherlanders in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Central and Western Europe.” Histoire sociale 16 (1983): 733.Google Scholar
Scoville, Warren C.The Huguenots and the Diffusion of Technology.” Journal of Political Economy 60 (1952): 294311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scoville, Warren C.The Persecution of Huguenots and French Economic Development 1680 –1720. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Sella, Domenico. Italy in the Seventeenth Century. London and New York: Longman, 1997.Google Scholar
Sewell, William R. JrWork and Revolution in France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, Christian. “Labor Relations at Manufactures in the Eighteenth Century: The Calico Printers in Europe.” International Review of Social History 39, Supplement (1994): 115–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1774 ], edited by Cannan, E.. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Smith, Steven R.The London Apprentices as Seventeenth-Century Adolescents.” Past and Present 61 (1973): 149–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snell, K. D. M.Annals of the Laboring Poor. Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660 –1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sokoloff, Kenneth L., and Dollar, David. “Agricultural Seasonality and the Organization of Manufacturing in Early Industrial Economies: The Contrast Between England and the United States.” this JOURNAL 57, no. 2 (1997): 288321.Google Scholar
Sonenscher, Michael. The Hatters of Eighteenth-Century France. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Sonenscher, Michael. Work and Wages. Natural Law, Politics and the Eighteenth-Century French Trades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Steinfeld, Robert J.The Invention of Free Labor. The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture, 1350–1870. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Stevens, Margaret. “A Theoretical Model of On-the-Job Training with Imperfect Competition.” Oxford Economic Papers 46, no. 4 (1994): 537–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swanson, Heather. Medieval Artisans. An Urban Class in Late Medieval England. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.Google Scholar
Thompson, James K.J.Clermont-de-Lodève 1633–1789. Fluctuations in the Prosperity of a Languedocian Cloth-Making Town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, James K. J. “Variations in Industrial Structure in Pre-Industrial Languedoc.” In Manufacture in Town and Country Before the Factory, edited by Hudson, Maxine Berg Pat and Sonenscher, Michael, 6191. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thrupp, Sylvia L. “The Gilds.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Europe. Vol. 3. Economic Organization and Policies in the Middle Ages, edited by Postan, M. M., Rich, E. E. and Miller, E., 230–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963.Google Scholar
Trivellato, Francesca. “Was Technology Determinant? The Case of Venetian Glass Manufacture, Late 17th Century – Late 18th Century.” Mimeo, University of Venice, 1996.Google Scholar
Truant, Cynthia M.The Rites of Labor. Brotherhoods of Compagnonnage in Old and New Regime France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Turnau, I.The Organization of the European Textile Industry from the Thirteenth to the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of European Economic History 17, no. 3 (1988): 583602.Google Scholar
Unger, Richard W.Dutch Shipbuilding before 1800. Ships and Guilds. Assen and Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1978.Google Scholar
Unger, Richard W.The Ship in the Medieval Economy 600–1600. London and Montreal: Croom Helm, 1980.Google Scholar
Vergani, R., and Ludwig, K. H.. “Mobilità e migrazioni dei minatori (XIll–XVII secolo)” In Le migrazioni in Europa secc.XIII–XVIII, edited by Simonetta, Cavaciocchi, 593622. Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “F.Datini,” Prato. Atti delle “Settimane di Studi,” vol. 25. Florence: Le Monnier, 1994.Google Scholar
Vigo, Giovanni. Uno stato nell'impero. La difficile transizione al moderno nella Milano di età spagnola. Milan: Guerini, 1994.Google Scholar
de, Vries Jan, and van der Woude, Ad. The First Modern Economy. Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Walker, Mack. German Home Towns. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Walton, J. K.Lancashire: A Social History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Ward, Joseph P.Metropolitan Communities. Trade Guilds, Identity, and Change in Early Modern London. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Williamson, Oliver E.Economic Organization. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1975.Google Scholar
Zemon, Davis Natalie. “A Trade Union in Sixteenth-Century France.” Economic History Review 2d. ser. 19, no. 1 (1966): 4869.Google Scholar