You have probably heard of the high to late medieval guilds that existed
all across Europe. If you have not, then I made a video about that.
However, the complicated structure of the high and late medieval period occupation guilds like
merchant guilds, or craft guilds, evolved from a much more simpler style of guild that
emerged in the early medieval period. Due to this simpler structure of, oftentimes,
non-occupation-centric guilds of the early medieval period
some historians call these early guilds ‘gilds’ as to differentiate the two.
A gild is an organization of multiple members often, but not always, with a founding charter
or a formal agreement and a swearing of oaths, that was set up in a horizontal structure with
certain goals in mind. These goals could be anything from a simple drinking club
to trying to lower the crime rate in a city by policing it. These gilds,
in pursuing their founding goals, could act in collaboration with the state
and or the church, or be independent from them, or even act against them.
How these early medieval gilds formed is hard to say as there are limited sources on them,
and the interpretation of those sources usually depends on how a
historian views the migration period and the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
To explain, there are two major historical interpretations of the migration period and its
outcome. These two interpretations are described by Halsall as ‘Movers’ and ‘Shakers’. To quote
“Movers believe that the changes of late antiquity may be ascribed to the movement
into the Roman Empire of largely Germanic barbarians; the barbarians, viewed as numerically
significant migrating ‘peoples', are at least the catalyst for change. Shakers, on the other hand,
believe that tensions and changes within the Roman Empire were already shaking it to its core,
and the barbarians, usually seen as small, elite warrior groups were but a symptom,
if perhaps a focus, of these changes.“ Of course not all historians fall neatly into these two
categories and there's much more nuance to it but all you need to know for this video is that there
are these two interpretations of the migration period and the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
So with that said, historians who prefer the ‘shakers’ interpretation largely see
the early medieval gilds as stemming from, if not directly connected to,
the late Roman collegia. The collegia were Roman institutions closely resembling, in structure,
the well known occupation guilds of the high to late middle ages. They functioned as social clubs,
religious collectives, trade unions, and even sometimes as lobbying bodies. They were basically
collective institutions that could act as legal entities which could hold property or sue other
people/institutions. They often sprang up in urban centres and could in reality be doing anything;
there were collegia of grave diggers and marchants, as well as of cultists
and religious institutions. These collegia also survived well into the Middle ages,
in a bit of a different form, in the Eastern Roman Empire or, in other words, the Byzantine Empire,
but I won't mention them as I am talking about the west in this video.
The proponents of the ‘movers’ interpretation talk about the early medieval gilds as either
stemming from older Germanic practices or being independently created within the
newly formed early medieval Germanic kingdoms after the Roman tradition of collegia died out.
Hence the early medieval gilds have no connection to the Roman collegia.
Neither of these two theories on the origins of the early medieval gilds can be proven
at the moment as not much research has been done into the topic and no
source has been discovered that would outright prove or disprove one or the other.
With that said, early medieval gilds still existed so let's look at what they were and
what they did. The early medieval gilds, unlike their later counterparts, weren’t centered around
an occupation. Meaning the gilds that were formed in the early medieval Germanic kingdoms weren’t
guilds of solely merchants, or cobblers, or blacksmiths, etc. These gilds, rather than
occupation, had largely geographical separations. Meaning anyone within the geographical area of the
gilds operation could, in theory, join the gild if they wanted to, no matter what their occupation
was; and I do mean anyone. Early medieval gilds, even though largely consisting of a free urban
class, also included surfs, clergymen, lower level aristocrats, and even women which is unusual given
the nature of later medieval guilds which often outright banned women in any participation.
Firstly, I’ll mention what I call protection or military gilds but are also called ‘peace
gilds’. The goal of some early medieval gilds involved some kind of mutual protection,
sometimes with a fairly militaristic character. The most famous of these
protection gilds were London's Frith Gilds of the 10th century. They were established by “a
group of like minded individuals who kept law and order within the community instead of relying
solely on the support of the local sheriff or alderman.” London wasn’t the only place where
these kinds of gilds were established nor were these kinds of gilds unique to urban centres,
similar gilds were established across the Frankish lands in rural areas. These gilds
were a form of people’s organized law and order enforcement, often in places where the state,
in other words the king, was unable to provide sufficient enough protection.
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Going back to protection gilds, some kings embraced these gilds,
like, for example, the London ones which got officially recognized by King Aethelstan,
but other protection gilds weren’t as lucky and got cracked down upon,
sometimes very harshly. This was because they were often viewed by kings as a form of
unsanctioned vigilantism and or threats to royal authority within the area of their operation.
For example, when the peasants of the Loire valley established a protection gild in the
9th century against Viking raids from which king Odo of France was unable to protect them,
they were quote ‘massacred’ by the king for daring to establish an institution that was
unsanctioned by him and, according to him, competed with his authority in the area.
Lastly the most militaristic example of these protection gilds were the Saxon ‘companion’ gilds.
This kind of gild emerged in the Duchy of Saxony after it was incorporated into
the Frankish Empire in 804. It was a sort of military institution of free-man and peasants
that preceded the ‘men at arms’ of the high middle ages. They acted as a protection force,
as a raiding force, as a policing force, and also as a military political force. For example,
the Saxon ‘companion’ gilds helped emperor Lothar 1st in a war against his brother Luis the German.
To some these military gilds may seem more like roaming bands of soldiers than actual
gilds but despite their militaristic and often bandit nature, the ‘companion’ gilds were still
institutions that resembled gilds in almost every way. They held meetings, collected fees, elected
officials, and had set goals in mind, plus their militaristic nature was by far not unique as even
later medieval guilds like the Hansa could and did go to war, sometimes against entire kingdoms.
Next I’ll talk about the most common type of gilds in the early middle ages, religious gilds.
These gilds were divided between ones formed by clergymen and ones by common people, of course
an overlap between the two existed. The religious gilds created by clergymen were formed as sort of
discussion clubs where clergymen could meet for meals in either gild halls or other predetermined
meeting places, discuss their ministry, theology, and get help preparing sermons. On the other hand,
the religious gilds formed by common people were sort of prayer groups largely connected with a
parish church, and often established by wealthy individuals like Barons or Bishops. The goal of
these ‘lay’ religious gilds for the participants was to become more connected to the church and
become more attuned with god but their duty was also to pray for the lives of their founder/patron
and his family. This was not unusual in the middle ages. Many wealthy people established or funded
hospitals, abbies, monasteries, collegies, and religious gilds in order that they have people
praying for them and their family. It was a sort of religious investment or insurance to make
sure that even if you did something sinful you balanced it out with your investments.
On the other side of the spectrum from the religious gilds you had social gilds
or drinking gilds. These pretty much acted as what we would today call fraternities or eating
clubs. Members would contribute to a common fund, officers would be chosen to govern the proceedings
and manage assets, wealthier gilds would use their assets to buy/build gild halls for their events,
and some swearing of oaths, and or rituals, and or hazing of new members could have been conducted.
These kinds of early social gilds also often acted as insurance cooperatives where members
of the gilds swore to pay for each other's legal proceedings when they got in trouble,
or compensate each other in case of a house fire, or pay for each other's funerals when
a gild member died, etc. Social/drinking gilds weren’t liked by the church much because as one
clergyman the Alcuin of York wrote complaining to the Archbishop of canterbury in the 8th century
“[these] curious meetings, which they are accustomed to have and call
gilds … were seducing people away from prayer in church, and leading them instead
to drunken parties in surrounding hills, thereby undermining epsicopal authority”.
Naturally the descriptions of the different types of gilds I gave in this video are simplifications
of a much more complicated reality. All early medieval gilds were unique with often
ever changing goals and members and therefore my general overview of these gilds will not always
100% apply to any specific individual gild. On top of that, the main three gild types I talked about
could and often did have large overlaps; protection gilds had a fairly large social
character to them, while social/drinking gilds often had a very religious aspect to them with
members being required to conduct frequent prayers, and some religious gilds could have
fairly wild social events. According to one source “Priests [in gilds] had been attending raucous
parties, either alone or with laymen, where they drank to the saints or to their own souls,
got into fights and told stories to rowdy applause; others indulged in entertainments
involving bears and dancing girls, or even demonic masks.“ Take this quote with a pinch
of salt however. This source comes from an archbishop who was arguing against the
existence of religious gilds and therefore his account is an over-exaggeration, but it does go
to show that the events of religious gilds could have possibly gotten quite debaucherous sometimes.
From these early medieval gilds of Western Europe evolved the later, and much more well known,
occupation guilds. For example, the job of the London peace gilds eventually got taken over by
London Livery companies, which were essentially occupation guilds. The specific social gilds that
acted more like insurance cooperatives evolved into merchant or craft guilds which,
on top of other things, still insured members assets and still kept a very strong social dynamic
reminiscent of the early social gilds, just watch my Life of a Hansa Merchant video to see just how
strong these social aspects of the later medieval guilds were. With that said, just like with the
early medieval gilds and collegia it is actually still debated whether the later occupation guilds
did develop from these earlier simpler gilds. However, considering that some of these early
medieval gilds existed until the 11th and 12th century, which is the same time when the first
occupation guilds started to form, I think it is safe to say that even if not directly connected,
the early medieval gilds created a social institution which formed the bases upon which
the later more economically focused and powerful occupation guilds, like the Hansa, were created.
Before I say anything thank you to NordVPN for sponsoring this video. Ehh, so far it has been
a rough 2021 for me, hence the lack of videos but hopefully that will change now. I know I said that
before but like I am trying, it doesn’t always work out sometimes. However, my next video is
a banger. I have worked on it for almost a year now, so look forward to that. Other than that I
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who’s financial support has been extremely helpful this year, thank you so much. Ehmm
other than that, my name is M. Laser and stick around for history.