Guillaume le Maréchal 319essentially reworked the anonymous Gesta Francorum
and FULCHER OF CHARTRES’s work by adding material
gathered from actual participants he happened to meet.
He met PETER THEHERMITbut knew few or none of the
Byzantine participants, including ALEXIOSI KOMNENOS,
whom he constantly denounced for perfidy. Besides ser-
mons and treatises on saints and relics, he wrote an
almost unique autobiography that has been used for
psychological insights into the mind of an unusual
12th-century cleric and for information on moral cor-
ruption and the mores of French knightly society. In it
he also described popular religiosity, the cult of RELICS,
and civil conflicts in the town of Laon. He probably died
between 1121 and 1125.
Further reading:Guibert of Nogent, A Monk’s Confes-
sion: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent,trans. Paul J.
Archambault (University Park: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1996); Guibert of Nogent, Self and Soci-
ety in Medieval France: The Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of
Nogent (1064–c. 1125),trans. John F. Benton (New York:
Harper & Row, 1970).
guilds During the Middle Ages guilds were mutual aid
and sometimes religious associations based on trade or
occupation. Their economic organization and success in
the 11th century were important factors in the expansion
of towns and urban society. HINCMARof Rheims in 852
mentioned unregulated groups independent of public and
clerical authority that were already based on a mutual
oath and given to drinking sessions, works of piety, and
support of one another. However, all of these activities
were suspect to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities
because of their potential for religious dissent and politi-
cal rebellion. Anglo-Saxon laws at about the same time
discussed a number of similar guilds.
By the 12th century, civil powers in their role as
preservers of public peace tried to restrict the guilds to
their social and religious functions. However, they were
soon rivaled by other, more specialized organizations
for fraternal charity such as the new and often more cleri-
cally controlled religious CONFRATERNITIES. At the same
time professional solidarity created trade and artisan
communities or guilds that ultimately acted as political
pressure groups. In numerous boroughs in England, a
gilda mercatoriawas a community of urban dwellers led
by aldermen who had united to preserve royal, fiscal, and
commercial privileges. In the 12th and 13th centuries,
these older organizations were contested economically
by the appearance of other lower-class artisans’ organiza-
tions and the development of more elaborate and cleri-
cally controlled confraternities. By the 14th century, these
guilds and similar municipal organizations became more
integrated into urban politics and even began to control
the regime in power, in FLORENCE, but also in numerous
other towns in France and Germany.
BYZANTINE GUILDS
In Byzantium guilds were state-controlled corporations of
traders and artisans. The Book of the Eparchillustrated the
extensiveness and importance of the guild system in
CONSTANTINOPLEin the 10th century. These state-con-
trolled organizations for goods and services, including
quality and price, were primarily concerned with the
proper and adequate provisioning of the capital city itself.
Besides this mission they were concerned with such
diverse trades and professions as soap merchants, butch-
ers, SILKtraders, GOLDmerchants, and NOTARIES. Their
regulatory oversight was handled by an imperial official,
the eparch of the city.
See alsoCIOMPI REVOLT.
Further reading:Antony Black, Guilds and Civil Soci-
ety in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to
the Present(London: Methuen, 1984); Steven A. Epstein,
Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe(Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1991); Richard
MacKenney, Tradesmen and Traders: The World of the Guilds
in Venice and Europe, c. 1250–c. 1650(London: Croom
Helm, 1987); Sylvia L. Thrupp, “The Gilds” in The Cam-
bridge Economic History of Europe,Vol. 3, Economic Organi-
zation and Policies in the Middle Ages,eds. M. M. Postan, E.
E. Rich and Edward Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1965), 230–280); George Unwin, The Gilds
and Companies of London,4th ed. (London: F. Cass, 1963).Guillaume de Lorris See ROMAN DE LAROSE.Guillaume de Machaut SeeMACHAUT,GUILLAUME DE.Guillaume d’Orange cycle This work was an EPIC
poem composed in northern FRANCEin the 11th century;
it was one of the most popular CHANSONS DE GESTE, as the
origin story of a whole cycle of 24 anonymous poems ded-
icated to a hero, Guillaume, and his supposed family in
the 13th century. The poem’s hero was Guillaume or
William, the marquis of Gothia and Toulouse, who, under
the nominal authority of Louis the German (r. 840–876),
third son of CHARLEMAGNE, king of AQUITAINE and
ungrateful future emperor, led campaigns in CATALONIA
and founded the march of SPAIN. The poet represented
him as a brave and ideally devoted knight, a hero of the
wars against ISLAMand the protector of the monarchy.
Further reading:Joan M. Ferrante, Guillaume d’Or-
ange: Four Twelfth Century Epics(New York: Columbia
University Press, 1974); David P. Schenck, The Myth of
Guillaume: Poetic Consciousness in the Guillaume d’Orange
Cycle(Birmingham: Summa Publications, 1988).Guillaume le Maréchal SeeWILLIAM THEMARSHAL,
EARL OFPEMBROKE.