GUILD
. Economic association of traders or artisans. No direct continuity between Roman
collegia and French medieval guilds can be established. Frankish drinking associations
and Carolingian caritates (confraternal organizations) provide a chronological
intermediary without demonstrated links to the high-medieval guilds. The medieval guild
had a primary economic function, often with a religious or confraternal dimension.
Separate spiritual confraternities also existed alongside guilds. The oldest French records
survive for the caritet of Valenciennes (ca. 1050) and the gilda mercatoria of Saint-Omer
(late 11th c.).
The guild was essentially an association of tradespeople or merchants grouped to
supervise production and guarantee quality of merchandise. Close parallels with the
northern European hansas, groups of traveling merchants who banded together for
mutual protection, can be noted.
In the course of the 13th century, trade guilds multiplied in French towns.
Associations of bakers, barbers, drapers, spice merchants, moneyers, silversmiths, and
other occupations often were incorporated with statutes and a governing hierarchy in the
late 13th and 14th centuries. They might impose entry fees. Strict regulations for
promotion from apprentice to journeyman and finally to master developed, and in some
artisanal occupations the production of a chef-d’œuvre became the criterion for master
status. Training and expertise were jealously guarded in some trades, with the passage of
skills from father to son, inspiring the criticism of monopolistic practices and hereditary
membership by the end of the Middle Ages.
The guilds in France often had a role in urban government. The merchant guilds of
northern France contributed to the earliest movements of urban communal autonomy. In
Languedoc, representation from merchant and artisanal corporations formed the basis of
some consulates. By the end of the medieval era, however, royal influence over guilds
and town governments was considerable.
Kathryn L.Reyerson
Coornaert, Émile. “Les ghildes médiévales.” Revue historique 199(1948):22–55.
Gouron, André. La réglementation des métiers en Languedoc au moyen âge. Geneva: Droz, 1958.
Thrupp, Sylvia L. “The Gilds.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Europe. 7 vols. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1965, Vol. 3: Economic Organization and Policies in the Middle
Ages, pp. 230–280.
GUILHEM IX
(William IX, 1071–1126). The first troubadour was also the seventh count of Poitiers,
ninth duke of Aquitaine, and grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine. One of the few who
returned to France after the First Crusade (1096–99), he successfully led a crusading
army to Spain in 1120. Contemporary anecdotes recall him entertaining crowds with
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