The Foundation of Medieval Guilds

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 merchants, 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.

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.

My name is M. Laser and stick around for history.