The silent revolution: A new perspective on the emergence of commons, guilds, and other forms of corporate collective action in Western Europe

International Review of Social History

Volumn 53, Issue SUPPL. 16, 2008, Pages 179-212

  De Moor, Tine ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 56749091955     PISSN: 00208590     EISSN: 1469512X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0020859008003660     Document Type: Article

References (135)

1. In Blickle's view Kommunalismus expresses "the mutual dependency of independent labor organizations of burghers and peasants on the one hand, and communes with state functions on the other (the commune imposed itself as a horizontal principle within the sociopolitical system from the thirteenth century). These two complementary factors challenged and altered the wider political regime by means of representation and resistance, establishing 'communalism' as a fundamental organizational principle between medieval and modern times." See Peter Blickle, From the Communal Reformation to the Revolution of the Common Man (Leiden [etc.], 1998), p. 12.
2. Avner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons From Medieval Trade (Cambridge [etc.], 2006).
3. See Avner Greif, Paul Milgrom, and Barry R. Weingast, "Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild", The Journal of Political Economy, 102 (1994), pp. 745-776, on merchant guilds.
4. On craft guilds, see Sheilagh Ogilvie, "Guilds, Efficiency, and Social Capital: Evidence from German Proto-Industry", Economic History Review, 57 (2004), pp. 286-333.
5. Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900-1300 (Oxford, 1997).
6. Ibid., p. 332.
7. Arguments similar to those made by Reynolds but relating to the development of merchant guilds can be found in Meir Kohn's forthcoming book, The Origins of Western Economic Success: Commerce, Finance, and Government in Preindustrial Europe, http://www.dartmouth.edu/ ∼ mkohn/orgins.html [last accessed on 19 June 2008]. See ch. 16 on merchant associations in preindustrial Europe.
8. On the economic motivations of the physiocrats, see E. Fox-Genovese, The Origins of Physiocracy: Economic Revolution and Social Order in Eighteenth-Century France (London, 1976).
9. On the discussion of the abolition of the commons in western Europe, see the European chapters in Marie-Danielle Deméelas and Nadine Vivier (eds), Les propriétés collectives face aux attaques libérales (1750-1914). Europe occidentale et Amérique latine (Rennes, 2003).
10. On Belgium, see Martina De Moor, "Les terres communes en Belgique", in Deméelas and Vivier, Les propriétés collectives face aux attaques libérales. On the new ideas about property, linked to the abolition of common property, see Rosa Congost and José Miguel Lana (eds), Campos Cerrados, Debates Abiertos. Análisis Histórico y Propriedad de la Tierra en Europa (Siglos XVI-XIX) (Pamplona, 2007).
11. On the abolition of the guilds in the Low Countries, see Bert De Munck, Piet Lourens, and Jan Lucassen, "The Establishment and Distribution of Craft Guilds in the Low Countries 1000-1800", in Maarten Prak et al. (eds), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries: Work, Power and Representation (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 61-64.
12. Following, of course, the studies carried out within the field of New Institutional Economics.
13. See also Greif, Milgrom, and Weingast, "Coordination, Commitment, and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild". Greif also looks beyond the guilds: "although the late medieval European institutions differ in form from those that followed, many of the elements and features of modern, welfare-enhancing Western-style institutions were already present or in the process of emerging during the late medieval period: individualism, man-made formal law, corporatism, self-governance, and rules reflecting a legitimate institutionalized process in which those who were subject to them had a voice and influence. To the extent that the Rise of the West is due to its underpinning institutions, [...] the roots of this rise may have begun to take hold as early as the late medieval period"; Avner Greif, Institutions: Theory and History (Book-in-Progress) (Stanford, CA, 2005), p. 1 of part 5, concluding comments.
14. See S.R. Epstein, "Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Preindustrial Europe", The Journal of Economic History, 58 (1998), pp. 684-713;
15. Maarten Prak, "Guilds and the Development of the Art Market during the Dutch Golden Age", Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 30 (2003), pp. 236-251.
16. Maarten Prak, "Corporate Politics in the Low Countries: Guilds as Institutions, 14th to 18th Centuries", in Prak, Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries, pp. 74-106.
17. Robert C. Allen, Enclosure and the Yeoman: The Agricultural Development of the South Midlands, 1450-1850 (Oxford, 1992).
18. Donald N. McCloskey, "The Enclosure of Open Fields: Preface to a Study of Its Impact on the Efficiency of English Agriculture in the Eighteenth Century", The Journal of Economic History, 32:1 (1972), pp. 15-35.
19. See also idem, "The Economics of Enclosure: A Market Analysis", in William N. Parker and E.L. Jones, European Peasants and Their Markets : Essays in Agrarian Economic History (Princeton, NJ, 1975), pp. 123-160;
20. idem, "The Open Fields of England: Rent, Risk and the Rate of Interest, 1300-1815", in David W Galenson, Markets in History: Economic Studies of the Past (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 5-51;
21. Michael Turner, "Agricultural Productivity in England in the Eighteenth Century: Evidence from Crop Yields", Economic History Review, 35 (1982), pp. 489-510;
22. idem, "English Open Fields and Enclosures: Retardation or Productivity Improvements", Journal of Economic History, 46 (1986), pp. 669-692;
23. J.A. Yelling, Common Field and Enclosure in England, 1450-1859 (Hamden, CT, 1977);
24. Carl Johan Dahlman, The Open Field System and Beyond: A Property Rights Analysis of an Economic Institution (Cambridge, 1980).
25. Congost and Lana, Campos Cerrados, Debates Abiertos; José Miguel Lana, "From Equilibrium to Equity: The Survival of the Commons in the Ebro Basin: Navarra from the 15th to the 20th Centuries", International journal of the Commons, 2 (2008), pp. 162-191;
26. and Tine De Moor, "Avoiding Tragedies: A Flemish Common and its Commoners under the Pressure of Social and Economic Change during the Eighteenth Century", Economic History Review, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2008. 00426.x.
27. I have dealt with the motives behind the beguinage movement that emerged in the same period as that in which guilds and commons developed (from around the early twelfth century onwards) in another article. See the working article by Tine De Moor and Jan Luiten van Zanden, "GIRLPOWER: The European Marriage Pattern (EMP) and Labour Markets in the North Sea Region in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period", http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/papers/demoor- vanzanden.pdf [last accessed 20 June 2008], and also Tine De Moor and Jan Luiten van Zanden, Vrouwen en de geboorte van het kapitalisme in West-Europa (Amsterdam, 2006).
28. Like guilds and commons, beguinages were able to develop in western Europe because of loose family ties, the European Marriage Pattern, and because of changes in the labour market, which allowed women - including single women - to secure their own incomes. In principle, one can compare beguinages with guilds: some of the women who became beguines did so because the "dowry" that had to be paid to a normal convent had become too expensive. In that sense they managed to stay out of the religious "market", but by demanding official recognition from the church they managed to stay within the religious community.
29. See for example Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200-1565 (Philadelphia, PA, 2001), p. xi.
30. Collective action is, of course, not the only change that took place in that region during the period. Elsewhere, I have described the changes in family structure and their consequences for the labour and capital markets. See De Moor and van Zanden, "GIRLPOWER".
31. Further details of this typology of the commons can be found in Martina De Moor et al., "Comparing the Historical Commons of North West Europe: An Introduction ", in idem (eds), The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, c.1500-1850 (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 15-22, and the explanatory glossary on p. 61.
32. See Martina De Moor, Tot proffijt van de ghemeensaemheijt. Gebruik, gebruikers en beheer van gemene gronden in Zandig Vlaanderen, 18de en 19de eeuw (Ghent, 2003).
33. J. Gilissen, Historische inleiding tot het recht. Overzicht van de wereldgeschiedenis van het recht. De bronnen van het recht in de Belgische gewesten sedert de 13 de eeuw. Geschiedenis van het privaatrecht (Antwerp, 1981), pp. 595-601.
34. E. De Laveleye, De La Propriété' Et Ses Formes Primitives (Paris, 1894). An English translation by G.R.L. Marriott of an earlier edition appeared in 1878 as Primitive Property (London, 1878).
35. See here ch. 1, "The Gradual and Universally Similar Evolution of Property in Land".
36. For many examples of such commons see the chapters on southern Europe and Latin America in Deméelas and Vivier, Les propriétés collectives face aux attaques libérales (1750-1914).
37. Similar to the expansion of common property rights over land is the growth of guilds - in the form of the foundation of new guilds - long after the Middle Ages. In the Dutch republic, for example, the number of guilds was about 564 around 1560. By the end of the seventeenth century this number had grown to c.1,300; Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly (eds), Werelden van verschil. Ambachtsgilden in de Lage Landen (Brussels, 1997), p. 52.
38. B.H. Slicher van Bath, Bijdragen tot de agrarische geschiedenis (Antwerp, 1978).
39. J. Heringa, De buurschap en haar marke (Assen, 1982).
40. P. Hoppenbrouwers, "The Use and Management of Commons in the Netherlands: An Overview", in De Moor, The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, p. 93.
41. P. Godding, Le droit prive' dans les pays-bas méridionaux du 12e au 18e siecle (Brussels, 1987), pp. 203-204, and Slicher van Bath, Bijdragen tot de agrarische geschiedenis.
42. In a similar fashion, Blickle considers the introduction of more complex agricultural methods for improving output as having promoted collective decision-making: "The thirteenth century [...] witnessed a remarkable change in agricultural production [...] economic activities underwent considerable change: more and more crops were planted, using a field rotation system, arable land was separated more clearly from pasture, and neighbouring villages defined their respective territories much more explicitly. All this provides clear evidence for a more intensive use of rural resources in the face of rising population. [...] the comparatively complicated new rotation system ruled out individual choices of crops and demanded a process of collective decision-making involving all peasants. To settle the inevitable disputes, some form of local conflict resolution had to be found, while rules and regulations were necessary to keep the peace among neighbours who now lived in much closer proximity. The result was the emergence of village autonomy, village jurisdiction, and village legislation as autogenous rights of the inhabitants"; Blickle, From the Communal Reformation to the Revolution of the Common Man, pp. 2-3.
43. Such as the increasing application of three-course rotation from the eleventh century onward in north-western Europe. See Slicher van Bath, Bijdragen tot de agrarische geschiedenis, p. 99.
44. See, inter alia, Donald N. McCloskey, "The Prudent Peasant: New Findings on Open Fields", Journal of Economic History, 51 (1991), pp. 343-355, and Allen, Enclosure and the Yeoman.
45. Translation of the definition of craft guilds given in Lis and Soly, Werelden van verschil, pp. 43-44.
46. For a more detailed description of the rural guild, see Ehmer's article in the present volume, pp. 143-158.
47. See also Karl Gunnar Persson, Pre-Industrial Economic Growth: Social Organization and Technological Progress in Europe (Oxford, 1988), pp. 50-54.
48. Lis and Soly, Werelden van verschil.
49. For the evolution of the number of guilds in the Low Countries, see also De Munck, Lourens, and Lucassen, "The Establishment and Distribution of Craft Guilds in the Low Countries 1000-1800",
50. On the evolution of guilds in Byzantium see the article by Yildirim in the present volume, pp. 73-93.
51. See George C. Maniatis, "The Domain of Private Guilds in the Byzantine Economy, Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 55 (2001), pp. 342 and 368.
52. Charles R. Hickson and Earl Thompson, "A New Theory of Guilds and European Economic Development", Explorations in Economic History, 28 (1991), pp. 137-138.
53. S.R. Epstein, Wage Labor & Guilds in Medieval Europe (Chapel Hill, NC [etc.], 1991), p. 40.
54. Tiel is a small Dutch town situated between the rivers Waal and Linge, south-west of Arnhem. Tiel took over Dorestad's position as the region's leading commercial town. Dorestad had been repeatedly plundered and burned down by the Vikings, and after the dykes along the Rhine were reinforced trade moved to nearby Utrecht, Deventer, and also Tiel. During the tenth to the twelfth centuries Tiel was an important international port and trading centre, where the river and maritime trade converged. To some extent, Tiel's prosperity during that period can be explained by the privileges granted to the town, as a consequence of being visited frequently by the German emperors. The writings of that period refer to a merchant guild set up by the mercatores Tielenses, as they were referred to by the monk Alpertus van Metz. The merchants managed to obtain an unusually powerful position, supported by a close relationship with the emperor. Alpertus mentioning that they had obtained a degree of legal autonomy, that they had yearly festivities, and that they had their own moral code, one that reflected the way of life of the merchants, has been considered sufficient evidence that the organization found in Tiel was, de facto, a merchant guild. See J.B. Akkerman, "Het koopmansgilde omstreeks het jaar 1000", Tijdschrift voor rechtsgeschiedenis, 30 (1962), pp. 414-417,
55. and De Munck, Lourens, and Lucassen, "The Establishment and Distribution of Craft Guilds in the Low Countries 1000-1800", pp. 34-35.
56. Ibid. mentions the following figures: c.25 craft guilds in Leuven by 1267, 52 in Bruges around the same time, 52 by the beginning of the fifteenth century in leper, and at least 25 before 1400 in Ghent. Also, relatively small towns such as Sint-Truiden and Lier already had organizations of textile workers by the thirteenth century, which clearly indicates that the presence of textile manufacturing was often one reason why guilds were established.
57. For the period 1400-1559, De Munck, Lourens, and Lucassen recorded 478 guilds (or 35 per cent of the total number of guilds in the period 1100-1784) and for the period 1560-1669, no fewer than 561. See ibid., pp. 37, and 44-51 for the regional overview contained therein.
58. See, for example, Shaw-Taylor on southern England: L. Shaw-Taylor, "The Management of Common Land in the Lowlands of Southern England circa 1500 to circa 1850", in De Moor, The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, p. 63, Shaw-Taylor notes that the number of surviving by-laws increased over the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries but that the most complete and informative by-laws appeared especially after 1500.
59. Slicher van Bath, Bijdragen tot de agrarische geschiedenis, p. 242.
60. For England, see inter alia Bruce M.S. Campbell, "Population Change and the Genesis of Common Fields on a Norfolk Manor", The Economic History Review, 33 (1980), pp. 174-192.
61. Slicher van Bath, Bijdragen tot de agrarische geschiedenis, p. 243.
62. 106 of the 140 beguinages listed by Simons dated from the thirteenth century, 23 from the fourteenth century, 9 from the fifteenth century, and 1 from sixteenth century. See Simons, Cities of Ladies, pp. 252-259.
63. See Lodewijk Jozef Maria Philippen, De Begijnhoven. Oorsprong, geschiedenis, inrichting (Antwerp, 1918).
64. See Jan Luiten van Zanden, "Economic Growth in a Period of Political Fragmentation, Western Europe 900-1300", http://www.iisg.nl/research/jvz- economic_growth.pdf [last accessed 19 June 2008], for an analysis of the context that permitted the spectacular development of that "bottom-up" movement.
65. On the role of guilds in local politics, see Prak, "Corporate Politics in the Low Countries". On the Battle of the Spurs, see R.C. Van Caenegem (ed.), 1302: Feiten en myhen van de Guldensporenslag (Antwerp, 2002).
66. Louise A. Tilly and Charles Tilly, Class Conflict and Collective Action (London [etc.], 1981), p. 19.
67. The evolution of the collective-action debate engendered by Tilly and Tilly should not surprise us: in their research they have always emphasized forms of expression among the collectivities they studied, and it was exactly those forms of expression that concerned the authorities. Charles Tilly does consider the guilds, but only as an organization that had forms of collective expression: "Its [collective action's] most dramatic recurrent forms were the food riots, concerted resistance to conscription, organized invasions of fields and forests, and rebellion against tax-collectors. Less visible, but in some ways more influential, were established public festivals and rituals during which ordinary people voiced their demands or complaints, and stated assemblies of corporate groups - communities, guilds, religious congregations, and the like - which produced petitions, lawsuits, condemnations, and occasionally even deliberated acts of rebellion"; Charles Tilly, "Introduction", in Tilly and Tilly, Class Conflict and Collective Action, p. 20.
68. See, for example, the work by McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly: Doug McAdam et al., Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge, 2001). In 1996 a new journal, Mobilization: An International Quarterly, was founded to offer a forum to the debate on contentious politics.
69. Maarten Prak, " Ambachtsgilden vroeger en nu", Neha-Jaarboek voor economische, bedrijfsen techniekgeschiedenis, 58 (1994), p. 22. Those revolts were concentrated especially in German areas and in the southern Netherlands; they appeared only sporadically in the northern Netherlands and not at all in England and France. Prak argues that these differences cannot be explained by the degree of urbanization.
70. The word "commoner" is used in this article to refer to a person with rights of use to a common, and not to the "common folk".
71. See, for example, the article by Wayne Te Brake on protests at the enclosure of commons in the eastern Netherlands: Wayne Te Brake, "Revolution and the rural community in the Eastern Netherlands", in Tilly and Tilly, Class Conflict and Collective Action, pp. 59-66.
72. H.J, Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge, MA, 1983), p. 393. Berman describes a corporation (universitas) as a "body of people sharing common legal functions and acting as a legal entity"; for a further discussion of the importance of the idea of universitas for economic development, see van Zanden, "Economic Growth in a Period of Political Fragmentation", pp. 12ff.
73. De Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim, Tonnies, and Weber adduced many causes of collective resistance and rebellion, including inequality, government reform, class conflict, social disintegration, conflicting religious values, and relative deprivation.
74. Jager considers identifiability as one of the group factors that positively influence behaviour in a dilemma. See Wander Jager, Modelling Consumer Behaviour (Veenendaal, 2000), p. 16.
75. Ibid., pp. 16-18.
76. In the sociological literature this has also been referred to as a "temporal dilemma", or the choice between investing in today's personal advantage or safeguarding the survival of future generations. See ibid., p. 12.
77. "Identifiability of the behaviour. Jorgerson and Papciak (1981) found that cooperative behaviour is promoted if the other people can observe one's personal choice behaviour. This effect only occurs when there is no communication. This suggests that identifiability has about the same effect as communication, namely the promotion of 'social control' to exercise personal restraint. This 'social control' mechanism may be responsible for the fact that people are more willing to work hard under conditions of high visibility than in more anonymous settings. Group size also plays a role in the identifiability of behaviour: the larger the group, the more anonymous one is"; ibid., p. 16.
78. M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA, 1965), p. 2.
79. For an overview of guild regulations, see for example JPh de Monté VerLoren, Hoofdlijnen uit de Ontwikkeling der rechterlijke organisatie in de Noordelijke Nederlanden tot de Bataafse Omwenteling (zevende herziene druk, bewerkt door JE Spruit) (Deventer, 2000), pp. 212-214.
80. For an overview of regulations on access to commons, see De Moor, "Avoiding Tragedies", p. 75.
81. Joost Van Genabeek, "De afschaffing van de gilden en de voortzetting van hun functies", Neha-Jaarboek voor economische, bedrijfs- en techniekgeschiedenis, 58 (1994), p. 78.
82. For an example of such practice see De Moor, "Avoiding Tragedies". On this particular common, situated east of Bruges, non-commoners were permitted to apply for temporary grazing rights at times of under-exploitation. This continued until the mid-eighteenth century, when population pressure was still relatively low. However, non-commoners were charged rather more for this privilege than commoners.
83. Lis and Soly, Werelden van verschil: Ambachtsgilden in de Lage Landen, pp. 53, 134-135.
84. Ibid., p. 135.
85. De Munck, Lourens, and Lucassen, "The Establishment and Distribution of Craft Guilds in the Low Countries 1000-1800", p. 37.
86. Jager, Modelling Consumer Behaviour.
87. For a critique of the claim that guilds were monopolistic, see Hickson and Thompson, "A New Theory of Guilds and European Economic Development", pp. 128-129.
88. Lis and Soly, Werelden van verschil, p. 79.
89. Bibi Panhuysen, Maatwerk: Kleermakers, naaisters, oudkleerkopers en de gilden (1500-1800) (Amsterdam , 2000), p. 276.
90. Although one might question whether, based on how they tried to regulate the market, guilds can be considered cartels. See Persson, Pre-Industrial Economic Growth, pp. 50-51.
91. Prak, "Ambachtsgilden vroeger en nu", p. 19.
92. See G. Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons", Science, 16 (1968), pp. 1243-1248.
93. Hoppenbrouwers, "The use and management of commons in the Netherlands".
94. For a similar argument concerning guilds, see Van Genabeek, "De afschaffing van de gilden en de voortzetting van hun functies", p. 72.
95. In some cases non-members could ask to be allowed temporarily to use grassland or woodland. See De Moor, Tot proffijt van de ghemeensaemheijt.
96. Ibid.
97. Prak, "Ambachtsgilden vroeger en nu", p. 21, and idem, '"Een verzekerd bestaan'. Ambachtslieden, winkeliers en hun gilden in Den Bosch (ca.1775)", in Boudien De Vries et al., De kracht der zwakken: Studies over arbeid en arbeidersbeweging in het verleden (Amsterdam, 1992), pp. 72-75.
98. Bo Gustaffson, Power and Economic Institutions: Reinterpretations in Economic History (Aldershot, 1991).
99. Idem, "The Rise and Economic Behaviour of Medieval Craft Guilds: An Economic-Theoretical Interpretation", The Scandinavian Economic History Review and Economy and History, 35 (1987), p.21.
100. Ibid.
101. Richardson continues: "If some slacked off, all would suffer. Guilds that wished to lower the costs of labor had to get all masters to reduce wages. Guilds that wished to raise the prices of products had to get all members to restrict output. Guilds that wished to develop respected reputations had to get all members to sell superior merchandise. The need for coordination was a common denominator"; Gary Richardson, "Craft Guilds and Christianity in Late Medieval England. A Rational-Choice Analysis", Rationality and Society, 17 (2005), p. 145.
102. Robert P. Merges, From Medieval Guilds to Open Source Software: Informal Norms, Appropriability Institutions, and Innovation., p. 8, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=661543 [last accessed 19 June 2008],
103. and Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520 (New Haven, CT [etc.], 2002), p. 315.
104. Richardson, "Craft Guilds and Christianity in Late Medieval England", pp. 143-144.
105. Ibid., p. 160.
106. See ibid. for examples.
107. Ibid., p. 161.
108. Ibid., p. 141.
109. Ibid., p. 164.
110. Patrick McCray, Glassmaking in Renaissance Venice: The Fragile Craft (Aldershot, 1999), p. 150.
111. S.R. Epstein, "Property Rights to Technological Knowledge in Premodern Europe, 1300-1800", The American Economic Review, 94 (2004), pp. 382-387.
112. Persson, Pre-Industrial Economic Growth, p. 54.
113. Taken from Prak, "Ambachtsgilden vroeger en nu", p. 18. Prak has the impression that this practice of bulk buying goods became less important during the early modern period.
114. See idem, "Moral Order in the World of Work: Social Control and the Guilds in Europe", in Herman Roodenburg and Petrus Cornelis Spierenburg, Social Control in Europe (Columbus, OH, 2004), p. 186.
115. Epstein also refers to advantages of scale in the use of knowledge: "Much premodern craft and engineering knowledge appears to have been shared or 'distributed' within industrial districts. [...] sharing was more likely in ship- and edifice-building, mining and metalworking, and in the production of clocks and scientific instruments, which displayed strong division of labor and advanced levels of coordination and where cooperation provided clear economies of scale and scope - sectors that are also notable for having played the most technologically innovative role in the Industrial Revolution"; Epstein, "Property Rights to Technical Knowledge in Premodern Europe", p. 383.
116. See for example De Moor, "Avoiding Tragedies".
117. De Munck, Lourens, and Lucassen, "The Establishment and Distribution of Craft Guilds in the Low Countries 1000-1800", p. 36.
118. However, over time guilds did subcontract to rural areas too. See C. Lis and H. Soly, "Corporatisme, onderaanneming en loonarbeid. Flexibilisering en deregulering van de arbeidsmarkt in Westeuropese steden (veertiende tot achttiende eeuw)", Tijdschrift voor sociale geschiedenis, 20 (1994), pp. 365-390.
119. Ghent, for example, had many more citizens than Bruges and leper, but hardly more craft guilds. See De Munck, Lourens, and Lucassen, "The Establishment and Distribution of Craft Guilds in the Low Countries 1000-1800", p. 35.
120. Herbert Francis Westlake, The Parish Guilds of Medieval England (London [etc.], 1919), p. 28.
121. Virginia R. Bainbridge, Guilds in the Medieval Countryside: Social and Religious Change in Cambridgeshire, c.1350-1558 (Woodbridge, 1996), p. 105.
122. Westlake, The Parish Guilds of Medieval England, p. 32.
123. Michael Mitterauer, Warum Europa? Mittelalterliche Grundlagen eines Sonderwegs (Munich, 2003).
124. A. Black, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present (Ithaca, NY, 1984).
125. A more explicit link between the development of new family relations within the emergence of the European Marriage Pattern and the emergence of institutions of collective action has been made in De Moor and van Zandcn, "GIRLPOWER",
126. Van Zanden, "Economic Growth in a Period of Political Fragmentation".
127. See also Blickle, From the Communal Reformation to the Revolution of the Common Man, p. 8.
128. Compare this with the condition set by Ostrom for the functioning of commons: Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge, 1990), p. 90.
129. Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West (Cambridge, 2003), p. 134.
130. Brian Tierney, Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, 1150-1650 (Cambridge [etc.], 1982), p.19;
131. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science, p. 133.
132. Ibid., Berman, Law and Revolution, p. 214.
133. Eric A. Posner, Law and Social Norms (Cambridge, MA [etc.], 2000).
134. At the moment a project to inventory the emergence of guilds, commons, beguinages, water boards, and journeymen's boxes (knechtsbussen) is being carried out by a group of researchers at the universities of Utrecht, Antwerp, and Milan, the University of California, Irvine, the International Institute of Social History, and the Technical University of Turkey (Ankara). Data on the emergence and other aspects of guilds are being collected for the period 1000 to 1900 for the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and China. For more information, contact the present author or visit the collaboratory website at https://collab.iisg.nl/web/Guilds/ [last accessed 19 June 2008].
135. In a brief footnote, Robert Putnam suggested in his renowned Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ, 1993) that guilds might have made the difference in the construction of civil society in northern Italy. See p. 229, n. 20.