Secular Brotherhoods: The Germanic and Anglo-Saxon Guilds 57The GuildsThe guild constituted a legal form of association that allowed manual
laborers to form the kinds of autonomous groups that had been impos-
sible to maintain in the West since the annihilation of the collegia.
Origins of the Guild
The etymology of the word guild has provided fuel for much debate.
The term appears to derive either from the German verb gelten (to be
worth) or the Anglo-Saxon gylsa (worship, sacrifice).
The institution seems to have a tie to one of the most ancient of
German customs, that of convivium.^2 Tacitus had made note of the dis-
tinctive custom of the Germans to handle their most serious affairs at
the table, during a time marked by the drinking of repeated toasts. Born
amidst the clamor of blows and the sound of song were fraternities
whose membership was made up of warriors who had drunk together
from the cup (Minne) of friendship. A passage from the Icelandic Gisla
Saga maintains that it is a duty to avenge fellow drinkers as if they were
brothers. Also notable in this regard are texts in which colleagues
(Bruderschaft) unite by blending their blood and drinking together. In
the custom of convivium observed in the Roman collegia we find these
same religious and sacred elements of meals eaten together.
It remains to be seen how and at what time the ideas connected to
the convivium became more specific and eventually led to the formation
of legitimately constituted societies. Various theories have been offered
on the subject of the origin of guilds. For some, the guild owes its ori-
gin to the influence of Christian ideas and fraternity. For others, the
guild was once the Roman collegia, specifically the kind imported by
the apostles of the Christian faith into southern lands, where it was sub-
sequently transformed. It is quite possible that these two hypotheses
can be reconciled by the acceptance of a third factor: pagan traditions.
The coincidence of the first manifestations of the guild and the con-
quests of Christianity are especially notable in England. Christianity,
which had been preached anew by Saint Augustine of Canterbury start-
ing in 596, triumphed definitively in 655 with the victory of Bretwada
Oswin, king of Northumbria, over the last pagan king of Mercia. By the
beginning of the eighth century all of Great Britain was Christian. It just