One important aspect of the transition to modernity is the survival of elements of the Old Regime beyond the French Revolution. It has been claimed that this can explain why in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries some Western countries adopted national corporatist structures while others transformed into liberal market economies. One of those elements is the persistence or absence of guild traditions. This is usually analyzed in a national context. This article aims to contribute to the debate by investigating the development of separate trades in Germany, the United Kingdom, and The Netherlands throughout the nineteenth century. We distinguish six scenarios of what might have happened to crafts and investigate how the prevalence of each of these scenarios in the three countries had an impact on the emerging national political economies. By focusing on trades, rather than on the Theor Soc (2018) 47:255-291 https://doi
One of the standard objections against guilds in the premodern world has been their exclusiveness. Guilds have been portrayed as providing unfair advantages to the children of established masters and locals, over immigrants and other outsiders. Privileged access to certain professions and industries is seen as a source of inequality and a disincentive for technological progress. In this paper, we examine this assumption by studying the composition of guild masters and apprentices from a large sample of European towns and cities from 1600 to 1800, focusing on the share who were children of masters or locals. These data offer an indirect measurement of the strength of guild barriers and, by implication, of their monopolies. We find very wide variation between guilds in practice, but most guild masters and apprentices were immigrants or unrelated locals: openness was much more common than closure, especially in larger centers. Our understanding of guild “monopolies” and exclusivity is in need of serious revision.
Citizenship was the main vehicle through which urban authorities granted political and economic rights to their communities. This article estimates the size of the citizenry and citizenship rates for over 30 European towns and cities between 1550 and 1849. While the extent of citizenship varied between European regions and by city size, our estimates show that citizenship was more accessible than previously thought.
Using a three-part structure focused on the major historical subjects of the Inquisition, the Reformation and witchcraft, Christopher Kissane examines the relationship between food and religion in early modern Europe.
Food, Religion and Communities in Early Modern Europe employs three key case studies in Castile, Zurich and Shetland to explore what food can reveal about the wider social and cultural history of early modern communities undergoing religious upheaval. Issues of identity, gender, cultural symbolism and community relations are analysed in a number of different contexts. The book also surveys the place of food in history and argues the need for historians not only to think more about food, but also with food in order to gain novel insights into historical issues.
This is an important study for food historians and anyone seeking to understand the significant issues and events in early modern Europe from a fresh perspective.
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