Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T21:20:33.993Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rewinding Civil Society: Conceptual Lessons from the Early Modern Guilds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Bert De Munck
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Traditionally it is assumed that “modern” civil society originated in the associations, clubs, and public sphere of the eighteenth century as a result of the “liberation” of the individual from the “shackles” of absolutism, religious intolerance, and the patriarchal family. However, recent research goes further back in time. Scholars such as Robert Putnam (sociologist), Antony Black (political scientist), and Katherine Lynch (historian) associate the origins of civil society with the heyday of confraternities and guilds in the late Middle Ages. This has serious consequences for our understanding of the characteristics and functions of civil society. Given that confraternities were permeated by religious devotion and crafts were inextricably bound to the (often undemocratic) political establishment, fundamental questions arise about the importance of religion in civil society and the role of associations in the political participation of individuals. This article suggests that several long-term trends can be observed when broaching civil society from the perspective of guilds (or brotherhoods). In early modern guilds, the fraternal ideals related to mutual aid and equality appear to have gradually disappeared. Craft guilds stopped being “brotherhoods” and “substitute families” and transformed into formal and bureaucratic juridical institutions, while retreating into a sphere separate from household and family.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 41 , Special Issue 1: European Civil Society , Spring 2017 , pp. 83 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association, 2017 

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

Archival Sources

City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4001.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4002.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4017.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4028.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4060.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4101.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4112.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4124/bis.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4264.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4267.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4273.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4334.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4335.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4341.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4356.Google Scholar
City Archive Antwerp, Guilds and Crafts 4488.Google Scholar

References

Black, A. (1984) Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Black, A. (2001) “Concepts of civil society in pre-modern Europe,” in Kaviraj, S. and Khilnani, S. (ed.), Civil Society: History and Possibilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 33–38.Google Scholar
Black, A. (2003) Guilds and State, European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Black, C. F. (2003) Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Blickle, P. (1986) “Kommunalismus, Parlamentarismus, Republikanismus.” Historische Zeitschrift 242: 529–56.Google Scholar
Blickle, P. (1991) “Kommunalismus. Begriffsbildung in heuristischer Absicht,” in Blickle, P. (ed.), Landgemeinde und Stadtgemeinde. Ein struktureller Vergleich, München, Historische Zeitschrift, Beihefte, Vol. 13.Google Scholar
Blockmans, W. (1994) “Voracious states and obstructing cities: State formation in preindustrial Europe,” in Blockmans, W. and Tilly, C. (eds.), Cities and the Rise of States in Europe, A.D. 100 to 1800. Boulder, CO: Westview Press: 218–50.Google Scholar
Blockmans, W. (1999) “Regionale Vielfalt im Zunftwesen in den Niederlanden vom 13. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert,” in Schulz, K. (ed.), Handwerk in Europa. Vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Frühen Neuzeit, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien. Vol. 41. Munich: Oldenbourg Wissensch: 51–63.Google Scholar
Blondé, B., and Limberger, M. (2004) “De gebroken welvaart,” in Geschiedenis van Brabant, van het hertogdom tot heden. Zwolle: Waanders: 307–9.Google Scholar
Boone, M., and Prak, M. (1995) “Rulers, patricians and burghers: The great and the little traditions of urban revolt in the Low Countries,” in Davids, K. and Lucassen, J. (eds.), A Miracle Mirrored: The Dutch Republic in European Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 99–134.Google Scholar
Bos, S. (2006) “A tradition of giving and receiving: Mutual aid within the guild system,” in Lis, C., Lucassen, J., Prak, M., and Soly, H. (eds.), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. London: Duke University Press: 174–93.Google Scholar
Brooks, C. W. (1994) “Apprenticeship, Social Mobility and the Middling Sort, 1550–1800,” in Barry, J. and Brooks, C. W. (eds.), The Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society and Politics in England, 1550–1800. London: St. Martin's Press: 52–83.Google Scholar
Clark, P. (2000) British Clubs and Societies, 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dambruyne, J. (2002) Corporatieve middengroepen. Aspiraties, relaties en transformaties in de 16de-eeuwse Gentse ambachtswereld. Ghent: Academia Press.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.Google Scholar
De Kerf, R., and De Munck, B. (2009) “How learning worked: Early modern apprenticeship and the commercialization of technical knowledge among the gold and silversmiths in Antwerp.” Paper at the session Apprenticeship, Human Capital and the Social Order in the Pre-industrial World at the XVth World Economic History Conference in Utrecht, August 2–7.Google Scholar
De Moor, T. (2008) “The silent revolution: A new perspective on the emergence of commons, guilds, and other forms of corporate collective action in Western Europe.” International Review of Social History (Suppl. 16, special issue on guilds) 53: 175–208.Google Scholar
De Moor, T., and van Zanden, J. L., eds. (2009) The Return of the Guilds. International Review of Social History Supplements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De Munck, B. (2007a) “Construction and reproduction: The training and skills of Antwerp cabinetmakers in the 16th and 17th Centuries,” 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 Books: 85–110.Google Scholar
De Munck, B. (2007b) “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): 116–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Munck, B. (2007c) Technologies of Learning: Apprenticeship in Antwerp from the Fifteenth Century to the End of the Ancien Regime. 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): 197–233.Google 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: Amsterdam University Press: 168–93.Google Scholar
De Munck, B. (2010a) “From brotherhood community to civil society? Apprentices between guild, household and the freedom of contract in early modern Antwerp.” Social History 35 (1): 1–20.Google Scholar
De Munck, B. (2010b) “One counter and your own account: Redefining illicit labor in early modern Antwerp.” Urban History 37 (1): 26–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Munck, B. (2011) “Gilding golden ages: Perspectives from early modern Antwerp on the guild-debate, c. 1450–c. 1650.” European Review of Economic History 15: 221–53.Google Scholar
De Munck, B., Lourens, P., and Lucassen, J. (2006) “The establishment and distribution of craft guilds in the Low Countries, 1000–1800,” in Lis, C., Lucassen, J., Prak, M., and Soly, H. (eds.), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. London: Ashgate: 32–73.Google Scholar
Donnelly, J. P., and Maher, M. W., eds. (1999) Confraternities and Catholic Reform in Italy, France, and Spain. Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press.Google Scholar
Dumolyn, J. (2014) “‘I thought of it at work, in Ostend’: The language of late medieval artisans in the Low Countries.” Paper presented at the Tenth European Social Science History Conference in Vienna, April 23–26, 2014.Google Scholar
Dumolyn, J., and Haemers, J. (2005) “Patterns of urban rebellion in medieval Flanders.” Journal of Medieval History 31: 369–93.Google Scholar
Epstein, S. R. (1998) “Craft guilds, apprenticeship, and technological change in pre-industrial Europe.” The Journal of Economic History 58 (3): 684–713.Google Scholar
Epstein, S. R. (2008) “Craft guilds in the pre-modern economy: A discussion.” Economic History Review 61 (1): 155–74.Google Scholar
Epstein, S. R., and Prak, M., eds. (2008) Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Farr, J. R. (2000) Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gellner, E. (1995) “The importance of being modular,” in Hall, J. A. (ed.), Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 32–55.Google Scholar
Gustafsson, B. (1987) “The rise and economic behaviour of medieval craft guilds.” Scandinavian Economic History Review 35: 1–40.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. (1962) Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Neuwied: Luchterhand.Google Scholar
Hall, J. A. (1995) “In search of civil society,” in Hall, J. A. (ed.), Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1–31.Google Scholar
Huys, Emiel (1926), Duizend jaar mutualiteit bij de Vlaamsche gilden, Kortrijk: Jos Vermaut, Annexe I, pp. 39–40 (January 8, 1557), pp. 55–56 (September 28, 1581), p. 75 (May 22, 1557), pp. 94–95, 100.Google Scholar
Ilmonen, K. (2000) “Social capital: The concept and its problems,” in Kajanoja, L. and Simpura, J. (eds.), Social Capital: Global and Local Perspectives. Helsinki: Government Institute for Economic Research: 141–66.Google Scholar
Jacobs, M. (2000) “De ambachten in Brabant en Mechelen (12de eeuw-1795),” in Van Uytven, R. et al. (eds.), De gewestelijke en lokale overheidsinstellingen in Brabant en Mechelen tot 1795. Vol. 2. Brussels: Kultuur: 558–624.Google Scholar
Khilnani, S. (2001) “The development of civil society,” in Kaviraj, S. and Khilnani, S. (eds.), Civil Society: History and Possibilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 11–32.Google Scholar
Lis, C. and Soly, H. (1994) ‘“An Irresistible Phalanx”: Journeymen Associations in Western Europe, 1300–1800’, in: Lis, C., Lucassen, J., and Soly, H. (eds.), Before the Unions. Wage Earners and Collective Action in Europe, 1300–1850. International Review of Social History, Supplement 39, pp. 11–52.Google Scholar
Lis, C. and Soly, H. (1997) “Ambachtsgilden in vergelijkend perspectief: de Noordelijke en de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 15de-18de eeuw,” in Lis, C. and Soly, H. (eds.), Ambachtsgilden in vergelijkend perspectief: de Noordelijke en de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 15de-18de eeuw. Brussels: VUB Press: 11–42.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: 81–113.Google Scholar
Lis, C., Lucassen, J., Prak, M., and Soly, H., eds. (2006) Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Lynch, K. A. (2003) Individuals, Families, and Communities in Europe, 1200–1800: The Urban Foundation of Western Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, K. A. (2004) “Behavioral regulation in the city: Families, religious associations, and the role of poor relief,” in Roodenburg, H. and Spierenburg, P. (eds.), Social Control in Europe: Volume 1, 1500–1800. Columbus: Ohio State University Press: 200–19.Google Scholar
MacKenney, R. (1990) Tradesmen and Traders: The World of the Guilds in Venice and Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Macpherson, C. B. (1962) The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Morris, R. J. (1983) “Voluntary societies and British urban elites 1750–1850: An analysis,” Historical Journal 26: 95–118.Google Scholar
Morris, R. J. (2006) “Introduction: Civil society, associations and urban places. Class, nation and culture in nineteenth-century Europe,” in Morton, G., de Vries, B., and Morris, R. J. (eds.) Civil Society, Associations and Urban Places: Class, Nation and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate: 1–16.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2007) “‘Whatever is, is right?’ Economic institutions in pre-industrial Europe.” Economic History Review 60 (4): 649–84.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2008) “Rehabilitating the guilds: A reply.” Economic History Review 61 (1): 175–82.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A. (1975) The Machiavellian Moment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Prak, M. (1996) “Individual, corporation and society: The rhetoric of Dutch guilds (18th c.),” in Boone, M. and Prak, M. (eds.), Statuts individuels, statuts corporatifs et statuts judiciaires dans les villes européennes (moyen âge et temps modernes). Individual, Corporate and Judicial Status in European Cities (Middle Ages and Early Modern Period). Leuven, Belgium: Garant: 255–80.Google Scholar
Prak, M. (1997) “‘Individu, corporatie en samenleving. De retoriek van de Amsterdamse gilden in de 18de eeuw,” in Lis, C. and Soly, H. (eds.), Werelden van verschil. Ambachtsgilden in de lage landen. Brussels: VUB Press: 293–319.Google Scholar
Prak, M. (2004) “Moral order in the world of work: Social control and the guilds in Europe,” in Roodenburg, H. and Spierenburg, P. (eds.), Social Control in Europe, Volume 1, 1500–1800. Columbus: Ohio State University Press: 176–99.Google Scholar
Prak, M. (2006) “Corporate politics in the Low Countries: Guilds as institutions, 14th to 18th,” in Lis, C., Lucassen, J., Prak, M., and Soly, H., Hugo (eds.), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation. London: Ashgate: 74–106.Google Scholar
Prims, F. (1940) Geschiedenis van Antwerpen, VII. Onder de eerste Habsburgers (1477–1555). Vol 2. Antwerp: De economische orde.Google Scholar
Prims, F. (1942) Geschiedenis van Antwerpen, VIII. Met Spanje (1555–1715). Vol 2. Antwerp: De economische orde.Google Scholar
Pullan, B. (1971) Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State, to 1620. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, R. (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Rosser, G. (2015) The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England, 1250–1550. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schilling, H. (1988) “Gab es im späten Mittelalter und zu Beginn der Neuzeit in Deutschland einen städtischen ‘Republikanismus’? Zur politischen Kultur des alteuropäischen Stadtbürgertums,” in Koenigsberger, H. G. (ed.), Republiken und Republikanismus im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs. Vol. 11. Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag: 101–68.Google Scholar
Schulz, K. (1992) Denn sie lieben die Freiheit so Sehr. . .: Kommunale Aufstände und Entstehung des europaïschen Bürgertums im Hochmittelalter. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Skinner, Q. (1998) Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smaele, De, H. (2005) “Eclectisch en toch nieuw. De uitvinding van het Belgisch parlement in 1830–1831.” Bijdragen en mededelingen betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden 120 (3): 409–16.Google Scholar
Smith, S. R. (1981) “The ideal and the reality: Apprentice-master relationships in seventeenth-century London.” History of Education Quarterly 21: 449–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stedman Jones, G. (2001) “Hegel and the economics of civil society,” in Kaviraj, S. and Sunil, S. Khilnani (eds.), Civil Society: History and Possibilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 105–30.Google Scholar
Terpstra, N. (1995) Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Terpstra, N., ed. (2000) The Politics of Ritual Kinship, Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thijs, A. K. L. (1987) Van “werkwinkel” tot “fabriek.” De textielnijverheid te Antwerpen (einde 15de-begin 19de eeuw). Brussels: Gemeentekrediet.Google Scholar
Trentmann, F. (2000) “Introduction: Paradoxes of civil society,” in Trentmann, F. (ed.), Paradoxes of Civil Society: New Perspectives on Modern German and British History. New York: Berghahn Books: 3–46.Google Scholar
Van Gelderen, M., and Skinner, Q., eds. (2002) Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, M. (2012) “Guilds and Middle-Class Welfare 1550–1800: Provisions for Burial, Sickness, Old Age, and Widowhood.” Economic History Review 65 (1): 61–90.Google Scholar
Verleysen, F. (2005) Het hemelse festijn. Religieuze cultuur, sociabiliteit en sociale relaties in de corporatieve wereld van Antwerpen, Brussel en Gent (ca. 1585–ca 1795). PhD diss., VUB, Brussel.Google Scholar
Weisman, R. F. E. (1982) Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence. New York and London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wyffels, C. (1951) De oorsprong der ambachten in Vlaanderen en Brabant. Brussels: Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België.Google Scholar
Zanden, van, J. L. (2009) The Long Road to the Industrial Revolution: The European Economy in a Global Perspective. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill: ch. 2.Google Scholar