GUILDS
70
GUILDS
guild as a body so as to prevent monopoly. Strict
regulations protected the rights of every one. There
was equahty between all the members with regard to
the sale of their productions. The protection of pur-
chasers and customers was assured bj' the city authori-
ties; the guild was held responsible for the quality and
quantity of the goods which it brought for sale to the
market. In Germany, as elsewhere, however, the
most striking feature of the guilds was the close con-
nexion they established between religion and daily
life. Labour was conceived by them as the comple-
ment of prayer, as the foundation of a well-regulated
life. AVe read in the book " A Cliristian Admonition " :
" Let the societies and brotherhoods so regulate their
lives according to Christian love in all things that
their work may be blessed. Let us work according to
God's law, and not for reward, else shall our labour be
without blessing and bring evil on our souls." Each
guild had its patron saint, who, according to tradition,
had practised its particular branch of industrj-, and
whose feast day was celebrated by attending church
and by processions; each had its banner, its altar, or
chapel in the church, and had Masses offered up for the
living and the dead members. The religious observ-
ance of Sunday and holy days was commanded by
most of the guilds. Whoever worked or made others
work on those days, or on Saturday after the vesper
bell, or neglected to fast on the days appointed by the
Church, incurred a penalty. This union of religion
and labour was a strong tie between the members of
the guilds, and it was of great assistance in settling
peacefully the differences arising between masters and
companions.
The guilds were also mutual and benevolent socie- ties; they helped the impoverished and sick members; they took care of the widows and orphans; they re- membered the poor outside the society. Many benev- olent institutions owed their foundation to some guild, as, for instance, St. Job's Hospital for smallpox pa- tients at Hamburg, which was founded in 150.5 by a guild of fishmongers, shopkeepers, and hucksters. "There were a large number of these benevolent as- sociations of tradesmen in the Middle Ages; at the close of the fifteenth century there were seventy at Liibeck, eighty at Cologne, and over one hundred at Hamburg.
In connexion with the guilds should be mentioned the workmen's clubs, which were very common at the end of the fifteenth century. So long as the German journejTnan remained at work in a city, he belonged to one of these clubs, which supplied for him the place of his family and covmtry. If he fell sick he was not left to public charity, liut taken into the family of some master or cared for by his brother members; wherever he went lie could make himself knowTi liy the society's liadge or password, and receive help and pro- tection from the local branch of the association to which he belonged. Thus the journeyman was, in the first place, associated with the family of his employer, in whose house he generally lodged and boarded; in the second place, he stood in close relation with his associates of the same age and trade, co-members with him of the society which protected and helped him; finally, he enjoyed special connexion with the Church, because he generally belonged to one of the sodalities which were ordinarily, but not necessarily, a part of the society's organization.
Side by side with the artisans' guilds, there were also merchants' guilds, organized on the same plan as the former, and having similar objects in view with respect to the communal life of their members and their moral and religious well-being. But they dif- fered in their attitude towards trade; for, while the chief object of the artisans' guilds was the protection and improvement of the different trades, the mer- chants' guilds aimed at securing commercial advan- tages for their members and obtaining the monopoly
of the trade of some coimtry or some particvilar class
of goods. Not alone in the German cities, but also in
all foreign countries where German commerce pre-
vailed, corporations of this sort, guilds, or Hansa (the
word Hansa has the same signification as guild),
had existed from an early date and had obtained
recognition, privileges, and rights from the foreign
rulers and communities. By degrees these Hansa in
foreign countries became banded together in one large
association forming an important and rival commer-
cial body in the midst of the native merchants and
traders. Such was the case in London, where the
merchants who had come from Cologne, Liibeck,
Hamburg, and other cities formed an association of
German merchants.
To further strengthen their position, the guilds be- longing to different foreign cities decided to join in one common association. In England, those of Bristol, York. Ipswich. Norwich. Hull, and other cities were affiliated with the London Hansa, and were each repre- sented there. On the same plan were organized the asso- ciations of Novgorod in Russia, of Wisby in the island of Gothland, and the so-called Komtoor of Bruges. The last-named was divided into three branches: one comprising with Liibeck the cities of the Slavonic country and of Saxony; the second, those of Prussia and Westphalia; and the third, those of Gothland, Livonia, and Sweden. This vast corporation, calling itself the Society of German Merchants of the Holy Roman Empire, was the foundation of the general German Han.«a, or Hanseatic League, which by de- grees embraced all the cities (at one time more than ninety) of Lower Germany, from Riga to the Flemish boundaries, and those in the South as far as the Thu- ringian forests. This league attained the summit of its power in the fifteenth century, and Dantzic was then universally acknowledged as its most important city; in the year 1481, more than 1100 ships had gone from its harbour to Holland. The ships were divided into flotillas of from thirty to forty craft, each flotilla hav- ing armed ships, called Orlogsrhiffe or Friedenskoggen, attached to it for its protection.
After a time, the Hanseatic League was broken up into separate sections whose centres were Liilieck for the Slavonic country. Cologne for the Rhenish, Bruns- wick for Saxony, and Dantzic for Prussia and Livonia. The Hansa lasted from the thirteenth to the seven- teenth century : its last meeting took place in 1669, and the cities of Liilieck, Bremen, Brunswick, Cologne, Hamburg, and Dantzic were the only ones that had sent representatives. The causes of the ruin of this once so powerful association were the growth of the commerce of Holland and England, the Wars of the League, against Denmark and Sweden in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the Thirty Years' War, which was so detrimental to German commerce and manu- factures. Liibeck, Bremen, and Hamburg are still called the Hanseatic cities.
The history of the (Serman guilds of artists is closely connected with that of the guilds of artisans. For a long time the artists were incorporated in the trade associations, and their organization into independent corporations took place only at the clo.sc of the Middle .\ges. The architects were probably the first to have their own organization.
In Germany, as in the other countries of Europe, the guilds were compulsory bodies, having the right to regulate trade, under the supervision of the civil au- thorities; but the system was not injurious in the Middle .\ges. It was so only at the close of the six- teenth century, when the guilds became narrowly exclusive with regard to the admission of new mem- bers, and were nothing but a mere benefit society for a small number of masters and their associates. The abuses of the (Jerman corporations were brought to the attention of the Imperial Government in the diets of 1548, 1577, and 1654, but it was only in the course
