Guilds reappraised: Italy in the early modern period

International Review of Social History

Volumn 53, Issue SUPPL. 16, 2008, Pages 159-178

  Mocarelli, Luca ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 56549112757     PISSN: 00208590     EISSN: 1469512X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0020859008003659     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. An excellent synthesis is to be found in Philippe Minard, "Le Corporazioni e il mondo del lavoro", in Valerio Castronovo (ed.), Storia dell'economia mondiale, II, Dalle scoperte geografiche alla crescita degli scambi (Rome, 1997), pp. 399-411.
2. This new approach to guilds is particularly evident in S.R. Epstein et al. (eds), Guilds, Economy and Society (Madrid, 1998), which contains the proceedings of Session B1 of the XIIth World Economic History Congress.
3. Among the most recent works the following should be mentioned: James R. Farr, Artisans in Europe, 1300-1914 (Cambridge, 2000);
4. Steven Laurence Kaplan, La fin des corporations (Paris, 2001);
5. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (ed.), Das Ende der Zünfte. Ein europäischer Vergleich (Gottingen, 2002);
6. Suraiya Faroqhi and Randi Deguilhem (eds), Crafts and Craftsmen of the Middle East: Fashioning the Individual in the Muslim Mediterranean (London [etc.], 2005);
7. Maarten Prak et al. (eds), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation (Aldershot, 2006).
8. An example of this is in Carlo Poni, "Norms and Disputes: The Shoemakers' Guild in Eighteenth-Century Bologna", Past & Present, 38 (1989), pp. 80-108.
9. But see also Harald Deceulaer, "Guilds and Litigation: Conflict Settlement in Antwerp (1585-1796)", in Marc Boone and Maarten Prak (eds), Statuts individuels, statuts corporatifs et statuts judiciaires dans les villes européennes (Ghent, 1995), pp. 171-208,
10. and Lars Edgren, "The Brotherhood of the Guild? Conflicts within the Swedish Guild System in the 18th Century", in Epstein, Guilds, Economy and Society, pp. 153-165.
11. For the situation in Italy, see the recent work of Rosalba Ragosta Portioli, "Conflicts and Norms in the Silkmakers' Guild in Naples in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries", in Alberto Guenzi, Paola Massa, and Angelo Moioli (eds), Guilds, Markets and Work Regulations in Italy, 16th-19th Centuries (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 211-226,
12. and Renzo Sabbatini, "Between Corporative Conflicts and 'Social Ecology': The Silk Industry in Lucca in the Early Eighteenth Century", in ibid., pp. 227-245;
13. a good example for Milan is Elisabetta Merlo's "La lavorazione delle pelli a Milano fra Sei e Settecento. Conflitti, strategie, dinamiche", Quaderni Storici, 27 (1992), pp. 369-397.
14. For a recent and stimulating work on this subject compare Giorgio Gottardi, "Introduzione. Le corporazioni premoderne come fonti di cultura tecnologica", in Giorgio Petroni, Leadership e tecnologica. La matrice organizzativa delle grandi innovazioni industriali (Milan, 2000), pp. 13-30,
15. with S.R. Epstein,"Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Preindustrial Europe", The Journal of Economic History, 58 (1998), pp. 684-713.
16. On this subject, the comments of Mantua's political commissioner in his report of 22 March 1787 seem extremely clear (State Archive of Milan [hereafter, SAMi], Commercio, p.a., c. 9), especially where he observes that one of the fundamental functions of guild regulations was to guarantee "the safety of buyers and the trustworthiness of negotiations".
17. See Carlo M. Cipolla, "The Decline of Italy: The Case of a Fully Matured Economy", Economic History Review, 5 (1952), pp. 178-187.
18. A much revised and expanded version was subsequently published as "Il declino economico dell'Italia", in Storia dell'economia italiana (Turin, 1959), and translated by Janet Pullan for republication as "The Economic Decline of Italy", in both Brian Pullan (ed.), Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1968), pp. 127-145,
19. and Carlo Maria Cipolla (ed.), The Economic Decline of Empires (London, 1970), pp. 196-214.
20. The work carried out has produced two important collaborative volumes: Guenzi, Massa, and Moioli, Guilds, Markets and Work Regulations in Italy, 16th-19th Centuries, and Paola Massa and Angelo Moioli (eds), Dalla corporazione al mutuo soccorso. Organizzazione e tutela del lavoro tra XVI e XX secolo (Milan, 2004).
21. Markus Cerman, "Forme di organizzazione protoindustriale: i casi dell'Austria e della Boemia", Società e Storia, 17 (1994), pp. 161-188, 174, had already convincingly pointed out that "the theory that claims that the move towards the countryside of preindustrial production is a result of the restrictions imposed by the city guilds in the first part of the modern age is a generalization that can in many instances be dismissed".
22. See Paolo Malanima, "Italian Cities 1300-1800: A Quantitative Approach", Rivista di storia economica, 14 (1998), pp. 91-126.
23. Data on the Netherlands and Belgium can be found in Jan Lucassen, Piet Lourens, and Bert De Munck, "The Distribution of Guilds in the Low Countries, 1000-1800", in Massa and Moioli, Dalla corporazione al mutuo soccorso, pp. 53-56.
24. The differences in population trends between Italy and the Low Countries during the early modern period are shown in Jan de Vries, European Urbanization, 1500-1800 (London, 1984), pp. 154-165.
25. See Lucassen, Lourens, and De Munck, "The Distribution of Guilds in the Low Countries, 1000-1800", p. 56.
26. See Giuseppe De Luca, "Mercanti imprenditori, élite artigiane e organizzazioni produttive: la definizione del sistema corporativo milanese (1568-1627)", in Alberto Guenzi, Paola Massa, and Angelo Moioli (eds), Corporazioni e gruppi professionals nell'Italia Moderns (Milan, 1999), pp. 79-116, especially pp. 79-80.
27. Ibid., pp. 83-85.
28. Ibid., pp. 85-90.
29. See the "Rappresentazione a sua Maestà Ces.a Catt.ca per lo ristabilimento del mercimonio nello Stato di Milano" dated 10 August 1713, in the Historical Civil Archive of Milan [hereafter, HCAMi], Materie, c. 273.
30. What made it possible is the fact that in Milan there was no obligation relating to the concentration of looms with individual masters. This is confirmed by the rejection of an appeal drawn up on 8 July 1698 (HCAMi, c. 876) by a number of weavers demanding that no more than six looms should be used per master.
31. The evidence for this is that in 1739, in a proposal to lay down regulations for the sector, merchants were invited to give payment "in cash" without assuming any need for the weavers, dyers, or labourers to give goods in payment from their shops, nor food, wood, nor anything else (see the attachment marked E, Council of the Giunta del Mercimonio, 18 September 1739, in SAMi, Commercio, p.a., c. 2).
32. It was the same weavers' chamber which noted in 1749 that outside the city are made "cloths with less than the correct weight and width prescribed in the said statute" (see 1749, "Sommario delle risposte fatte dalle Università nel particolare del ristabilimento del mercimonio", in HCAMi, Materie, c. 273).
33. Already in 1766 the royal councillor, De La Tour, had noted how only two masters managed to work completely on their own, while the others worked for the merchants (see Carlo Antonio Vianello, Relazioni sull'industria, il commercio e l'agricoltura lombardi del'700 (Milan, 1941), pp. 25-29). By 1790 the process had become even more advanced as, although the number of workers reached 126, thanks to a favourable economic situation, only two were completely independent, despite owning the standard equipment of a minimum number of looms (three in all) and only two could still manage to work their own looms as well as those of the merchants. This information can be inferred from the "Elenco generale delle fabbriche esistenti nella città di Milano di drappi d'oro, argento e seta, vele e garze di di seta, galoni e lavorini, manifatture di lana, lino e cotone [...] giusta la visita stata fatta dalli commissari periti della Camera di Commercio nel corrente anno 1790", in Milan Archive, Chamber of Commerce, Register 405.
34. See his comments of October 1773, in SAMi, Commercio, p.a., c. 259.
35. There were exactly 335 workers and 367 boys (see the relevant note in SAMi, Commercio, p.a., cart. 240).
36. It was the abbot of the weavers who pointed it out in a note dated 7 June 1784, in SAMi, Commercio, p.a., c. 230.
37. See Marcello Delia Valentina, "The Silk Industry in Venice: Guilds and Labour Relations in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries", in Paola Lanaro (ed.), At the Centre of the Old World: Trade and Manufacturing in Venice and the Venetian Mainland, 1400-1800 (Toronto, 2006), pp. 109-143.
38. See Hilario Casado Alonso, "Guilds, Technical Progress and Economic Development in Preindustrial Spain", in Massa and Moioli, Dalla corporazione al mutuo soccorso, pp. 309-327, 317.
39. Ibid., p. 317.
40. See Ulrich Pfister, "Craft Guilds and Industrial Development in Early Modern Europe", in Massa and Moioli, Dalla corporazione al mutuo soccorso, pp. 287-308, 294.
41. Gottardi's comments are extremely interesting here since he considers the technological heritage of guilds from a long-term perspective; see Giorgio Gottardi, "Innovation and the Creation of Knowledge in Italian Industrial Districts: A System Model", in F. Belussi and G. Gottardi (eds), Evolutionary Patterns of Local Industrial System (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 27-39.
42. See Sheilagh Ogilvie, "Guilds, Efficiency, and Social Capital: Evidence from German Protoindustry", Economic History Review, 57 (2004), pp. 286-333.
43. This information was obtained from the database compiled by the Italian working group and is taken from index cards nos 1255 (silk weavers in Venice) and 1272 (silk dyers in Genoa).
44. See, in particular, Epstein, "Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Preindustrial Europe".
45. This process is clearly demonstrated in Paola Curatolo, "Apprendistato e organizzazione del lavoro nell'industria auroserica milanese (XVI-XVII secolo)", in Elena Brambilla and Giovanni Muto (eds), La Lombardia spagnola. Nuovi indirizzi di ricerca (Milan, 1997), pp. 91-109.
46. See Giacomina Caligaris, "Trade Guilds, Manufacturing and Economic Privilege in the Kingdom of Sardinia during the Eighteenth Century", in Guenzi, Massa, and Moioli, Guilds, Markets and Work Regulations in Italy, 16th-19th Centuries, pp. 56-81.
47. See Alonso, "Guilds, Technical Progress and Economic Development in Preindustrial Spain", pp. 323 and 326.
48. For the importance of the links between cities and the international market, see the comments of Paul Bairoch, De Jéricho à Mexico: villes et écomies dans l'histoire (Paris, 1985), pp. 232-254; trans. Christopher Braider as Cities and Economic Development: From the Dawn of History to the Present (London, 1988). Competition between urban centres was in fact inevitable since, as Braudel has noted, on the urban markets we see the exchange between city and country, but also between city and city;
49. see Fernand Braudel, L'identità della Francia, Spazio e storia (Milan, 1986), p. 168 (a translation by Siân Reynolds from the French appeared as The Identity of France (London, 1988)).
50. I have dealt with these aspects in Luca Mocarelli, "Le attività manifatturiere a Milano tra continuità dell'apparato corporativo e il suo superamento (1713-1787)", in Guenzi, Massa, and Moioli, Corporazioni e gruppi professionali nell'Italia Moderna, pp. 131-170, especially pp. 160-170.