HIST-338 Lecture 19: Artisanal guilds
21 Nov 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Individual craftsmen like blacksmiths, coopers (barrel makers), carpenters, tailors, stonemasons, or glassblowers would take on apprentices to whom they taught their crafts. This education commonly took seven years: having completed his apprenticeship, a young worker then moved on to journeyman status. Movement across class lines was therefore possible, a former serf could rise, if he was very lucky, through the rank of journeyman to master craftsman. Few people of low origin, however, were able to break into the merchant ranks: women and girls were indirect beneficiaries of the apprenticeship system. Since most town dwellers lived and kept shop in the same building, an artisan"s wife, sisters, daughters, or nieces who lived with him could learn his techniques just by watching him teach his apprentices. Women generally did not have the legal power to go off and start their own businesses they could inherit them.
