Merchants And Craft Guilds

The towns and cities of Europe undertook a rise of economic growth and urbanization during the medieval ages, but how could they go from the dark ages to a period of prosperity and improvement? Merchants and Craft Guilds played a colossal role in initiating and carrying out the economic growth. The Merchants and Craft guilds contributed to economic development by contributing to the government, setting up guilds where townspeople could learn trades and crafts, regulating production, setting laws, having a process to become a master artisan, acting as a social support system, and overall increasing trade substantially.
Merchants played a pivotal role in gaining towns’ independence from feudal lords. In addition to this, they had a major influence
For example, some towns started to be known for their prestigious arms, armor, fabric, silver work, gold work, and the list goes on. Producers of these goods and trades realized that organizing just like the merchant guilds would be beneficial. This led to many cities and towns to form craft guilds. Craft Guilds are “A group of tradesmen or craftsmen engaged in the same occupation joined together.”Craft guilds regulated a majority of the aspects in production. These regulations included the quality standard for the specific product, the fixed size of workshops, and the conduct the members of these craft guilds had to follow. In many cities, certain craft guilds achieved monopoly in a certain area of production. Monopoly is “the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.” An example of this would be a certain chain of blacksmiths gaining full control of the smithing market. This would be like McDonalds taking monopoly on the fast food market. That would mean the only fast food chain that is common would be McDonalds! Places like Wendys and Burger King wouldn’t be common at all because they wouldn’t get as much share in the market to be all across the nation / world. These craft guilds outlawed nonmembers from working. Craft guilds also set up inspectors to act as a court to hear disputes between members. Although, the city court was the arbiter in the
The main goal of the training was to become a master so they could open up their own shop. To become a master, they first had to spend four to seven years as an apprentice. The young, soon to be apprentice, was sent off by their parent or guardian to shadow an artisan of the trade they are going to learn. This was made official by a contract. A contract usually asked the master artisan to promise the follow ; their kid could live at their house during their apprenticeship, to work with them for four to seven years, to take care of the kid, make sure he/she does their work, he will be trustworthy and faithful in the things he does, he will not steal, and he will not flee or depart until completion of apprenticeship. After they completed this, they became a journeyman. As a journeyman, they spent several years working in the shop of a master artisan. At the journeyman stage, they were entitled to a salary. After this was accomplished, they made their “masterpiece”. This would be an example of the skill they learned and would have to be at the standard of a master artisan. A long piece of cloth is an example of a masterpiece for a weaver. If the other masters judged this long piece of cloth to meet the standard, two things could happen. If the guild concludes that the market in their town is large enough to support this new weaver(or whatever trade they decide to