AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES IN URBAN HISTORY – NO. 3
Arie van Steensel
Guild Solidarity and Charity in Florence, Ghent and
London, c. 1300-1550
Amsterdam Centre for Urban History
Website: acuh.uva.nl/working-papers
© Arie van Steensel ([email protected])
January 2016
The ACUH Working Paper Series in Urban History is published online by the Amsterdam
Centre of Urban History. Working papers are pre-publication versions of academic articles and
book chapters written by members of ACUH. Copyright is held by the author(s), and papers
may not be cited or reproduced without prior permission of the copyright holder. Upon official
publication the working paper will be replaced by a link to the final version.
Editors
Dr Maartje van Gelder
Dr Arie van Steensel
Address
Amsterdam Centre for Urban History
University of Amsterdam
Spuistraat 134
1012 VB Amsterdam
Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Website: acuh.uva.nl
About
The Amsterdam Centre for Urban History represents the largest research group in the
Netherlands for the study of urban history. We explore the history of urban societies from a
long-term and broad geographic perspective: from Antiquity to the modern era, from Europe to
Africa and from the Middle East to the Americas. Scholars at the Centre focus on a wide range
of themes: from urban governance, economy, class and gender relations, and institutions, to
religion, ethnic identity, crime, health, housing, planning, leisure, space and representation.
ACUH offers a lively environment for the study of urban history for both researchers and
students: with regular seminars, workshops, conferences and courses.
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
Guild Solidarity and Charity in Florence, Ghent and London, c. 1300-1550∗
Arie van Steensel
Please cite this manuscript only after consulting with the author
Abstract
Medieval guilds are often portrayed as flexible institutions that could take up multiple roles.
This article examines these assumed institutional features by exploring the development of the
social responsibilities of occupational guilds and their interrelatedness with other urban
institutions. Firstly, the various forms of social assistance provided by guilds in late-medieval
Florence, Ghent and London are analysed. Secondly, assuming that these cities constituted a
more or less coherent institutional whole, this article discusses to what extent the interactions
between the institutions shaped guild solidarity and charity. As a result, new comparative
insights into the practices and organisation of corporate solidarity and charity in a number of
major cities are gained, which are also relevant to understanding the prevalence and
longevity of guilds in medieval Europe.
Keywords
Guilds, solidarity, mutual aid, charity, institutions
Introduction
Social provision for the poor and needy was a communal effort in medieval and early modern
European cities and towns, one to which secular authorities, religious organisations, voluntary
associations and citizens contributed in varying degrees. Guilds are a good example of
associations that provided assistance to members and occasionally took up broader charitable
responsibilities. 1 On the one hand, the social activities of occupational associations seem to
corroborate the view of guilds as flexible economic institutions that could take on multiple
tasks; an institutional feature that would partly explain their wide prevalence in medieval and
early modern Europe. On the other, the charitable deeds of guilds are sometimes dismissed as
negligible. Mutual aid also imposed hierarchical boundaries as much as it strengthened
corporate solidarity. In this view, guilds served the narrow interests of political and corporate
elites, which would also explain why they existed for centuries. 2 But, since little systematic
1
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
comparative research has actually been done on the scope of guild charity and solidarity and
its significance for both guild members and the wider urban community in medieval and early
modern times, the question remains open which interpretation is more convincing.
In order to answer this question, this article starts with an analysis of the scope and
organisation of guild charity and solidarity in late-medieval Florence, Ghent and London.
What types of social assistance were provided by occupational organisations in these cities, to
whom, and on which grounds? How did trade and craft guilds administer and finance charity
and mutual aid? The social involvement of guilds in the three case studies, as will become
clear, varied in terms of scope and function. Following this analysis, the second part of the
article addresses the question as to how this variation in corporate charity and solidarity
emerged. By determining the guilds’ political and economic functions in late-medieval
Florence, Ghent and London, their internal organisation and their role within the wider urban
system of poor relief, the different paths of development are explained in a comparative way.
The final section examines in more detail the urban institutional environments of which the
guilds were part in order to gain insight into the co-evolution of corporate solidarity and
charity with other collective and private social arrangements that existed in medieval urban
communities.
This article attempts to demonstrate how craft and trade guilds were part of an intricate
institutional environment, and to explain how the interactions with other institutions shaped
their functioning and organisation. More specifically, it is argued that guilds created
interdependencies across different domains through their various economic, political and
social activities, which, in turn, moulded the scope and nature of corporate charity and
solidarity. The comparisons drawn between late-medieval Florence, Ghent and London do not
result in generalised conclusions; on the contrary, the comparisons show how guild charity
and solidarity developed along different paths in the three cities. Two important explanatory
factors are: the way in which guilds fitted into the wider urban environment, and the way in
which they mediated the interests of government, corporate elites and ordinary guild
members.
Florence, Ghent and London were exceptionally large and complex urban centres in
the later Middle Ages; their experiences were not typical for cities and towns of this period.
Yet, the three cities provide good comparative case studies for determining the contextual and
institutional factors that shaped the trade and craft guilds’ social activities and responsibilities,
thanks to their different political and social-economic characteristics. The comparisons made
between the different social arrangements highlight the distinct trajectories of institutional
2
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
development, thereby explaining the diversity in guild solidarity. Finally, since historians
disagree about the historical circumstances in which guilds were beneficial to long-term
economic growth, technological innovation and human capital development, it is worth
reconsidering social explanations of their prevalence in pre-modern Europe. A comparative
study of guild charity and solidarity that captures the diversity of the arrangements and the
underlying strategies made by guildsmen for dealing with adversity reveals to what extent
occupational associations were not merely instruments of economic or political organisation,
but, in a broader sense, also pillars of medieval and early modern civic communities.
Corporate Social Arrangements
The support of members in distress offered by urban occupational associations took a variety
of forms in the later Middle Ages. For example, the ‘social-welfare activities’ of the guilds in
medieval Florence have been described as ‘limited’, whereas in London, ‘the distribution of
charity became increasingly important in the self-representation of the livery companies
during the early modern period’. 3 These contrasting trajectories were not just the result of the
different political and economic contexts in which guilds functioned, nor of differences in
their organisational structures. It requires further analysis of corporate social assistance in
relation to other forms of relief available to guild members to explain the variations in the
scope and organisation of corporate social assistance, since the social responsibilities of guilds
co-evolved with those of other secular and religious urban institutions, resulting in
complementary institutional arrangements for social support. But, before turning to this point,
the involvement of the guilds in Florence, Ghent and London in social activities during the
later Middle Ages is analysed.
Sharp boundaries did not exist between formal and informal corporate relief; however,
more structured forms of social support, in contrast to occasional payments or donations in
kind, are generally better documented in the guilds’ statutes and account books. The more
formalised systems of assistance were most common among the larger guilds, which could
dispose of sufficient resources to support members in need. A distinction can also be made
between arrangements to which members specifically contributed (as a type of insurance
against unemployment and burial), and those which were paid from the guilds’ general
income from properties, rents and fees. 4 Furthermore, several trade and craft guilds had a
religious confraternity at their heart, which then executed the association’s devotional and
social responsibilities; the membership of the confraternities sometimes included brothers and
sisters not belonging to the guild itself. 5 Finally, guilds managed endowed charitable trusts,
3
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
whose benefactors often determined to whom and how the charity was to be distributed. This
means that guilds not only organised mutual aid among their members – reciprocal exchange
as an expression of brotherly solidarity – but could also provide charity to a larger targeted
public of non-members for a variety of reasons, some practical, some ideological.
Hospitals and almshouses
A familiar example of a charitable foundation managed by a London guild was the almshouse
for the poor, non-liveried members of the mercers’ guild set up in 1424, established under the
will of Richard Whittington (d. 1423), a former mayor of the city and master of the same
company. 6 Other mercers were involved in the supervision of the hospital of St Thomas of
Acon, long before their guild or company acquired the hospital from the Crown in 1542. 7 In
the same vein, the Florentine Ospedale degli Innocenti was founded by a legacy of 1,000
florins by a merchant from Prato, the well-known Francesco Datini (d. 1410), who had
entrusted the building of this orphanage for abandoned children to the hands of the hospital of
Santa Maria Nuova. In 1419, the executors of Datini assigned the management of the project
to the consuls of the Arte della Seta, the silk guild, who engaged Francesco Brunelleschi to
design the hospital, which was completed in 1445. 8 These examples are typical in that the
majority of the foundations administered by guilds were founded by individuals who engaged
these associations to safeguard the longevity of the pious works for their souls. Besides,
testators may have assumed that the guild masters were better at executing their charitable
intentions than other relatives or acquaintances.
These charitable foundations, like medieval hospitals and almshouses in general,
fulfilled a variety of functions, ranging from offering short-term shelter to pilgrims, to
permanent residency to the poor, infirm and elderly. 9 In the course of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, hospitals and almshouses became more specialised with regard to the type
of charity or (medical) care provided, as well as to whom the aid was distributed, because, at
the same time, the growing pressure on the resources of these institutions and urban
communities resulted in increasingly discriminatory poor relief policies and new conceptions
of poverty which carefully distinguished between the respected or shamefaced poor, who
deserved support, and the unworthy poor, being the vagabonds and healthy beggars. 10
Historians have also stressed both the limited capacity of medieval foundations and the fact
that the distributed poor relief provided was barely enough for the beneficiaries to support
themselves. 11 These observations should be kept in mind while analysing late-medieval
corporate solidarity and charity.
4
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
Table 1: Hospitals and almshouses in Florence, Ghent and London, c. 1300-1550 12
Number
of Corporate
Other
Total
foundations
foundations
foundations
Florence 21
15
55
68
Ghent
58
7
17
24
London
c. 110
14
30
45
guilds
number
of
As a start, Table 1 shows the number of hospitals and almshouses that were founded,
financed or managed by guilds in the later Middle Ages in relation to the total number of
urban foundations. At first sight, there seem to be few differences, apart from the fact that the
ambachten in Ghent (29 per cent of the total foundations) and the companies in London (32
per cent) were slightly more involved than the Florentine arti (22 per cent). A closer look,
however, reveals a more significant difference between Florence and the two other cities. All
seven arti maggiori in Florence, except for the Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai (the furriers and
skinners) acted as overseers of charitable institutions in the later Middle Ages. The guild of
cloth importers and finishers, the Arte di Calimala, for example, held supervision over the
leper house of San Jacopo a Sant’Eusebio (1192), the hospital of Bonifazio (1389) and the
hospital of San Giuliano (1508), amongst a few other smaller hospices and religious houses in
and around Florence. 13 These charitable foundations were often founded on the initiative of
guild members and transferred to the hands of the guilds, and they were typically intended to
serve a wider (urban) community. 14 In fact, only three of the fifteen hospitals attached to
Florentine guilds were exclusively reserved for sick or elderly guild members: the hospitals of
San Giovanni decollato dei norcini (porters from Norcia), Sant’Onofrio dei tintori (dyers) and
Santa Trinita dei calzolai (cobblers). 15 All three were lesser occupational associations, and
only the shoemakers belonged to the constitutionally recognised guilds as one of the arti
minori of the Tuscan city. 16
The primary objective of these smaller associations was to create a safety net for
members, whereas the involvement of the major guilds in the administration and funding of
charitable institutions exceeded the level of small-scale efforts of solidarity. Indeed, the
guilds’ patronage of hospitals and other civic charitable enterprises allowed them to control
sizeable endowments and contribute to the maintenance of public order in the city by
supporting poor artisans and lavoranti (workers); perhaps as importantly, patronage enhanced
their public prestige. 17 It was for this reason that the major guilds also willingly invested in
5
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
the edifices of the hospitals, to which the existence of the Ospedale degli Innocenti still
attests.
In contrast, the hospitals and almshouses administered by the guilds in Ghent and
London were oriented towards supporting guild members, and none of them targeted a wider
public or offered more specialised (medical) care. In the Flemish city, four occupational
associations founded a hospital in the fourteenth century. The hospital of the weavers,
founded before 1336, for example, was intended for sick, poor and elderly members, but the
capacity of this foundation was limited – it accommodated only 21-24 prebendaries at the end
of the fifteenth century – and beds were reserved for the guild’s impoverished masters, who
surrendered their property in return for lodging and board. 18 The almshouses of the fullers,
bargees, smiths, tick weavers and butchers could only accommodate 2-24 elderly guildsmen
in the early sixteenth century. The almshouses of the weavers and the fullers – the largest
guilds with relatively poorer masters among their members – had not only greatest capacity
but were also the most endowed. 19 By founding and managing a hospital, these guilds
distinguished themselves from the other guilds, not only because of their large membership
and economic importance, but also through their display of social and material prestige. None
of the Ghent guilds, however, was involved in the running of civic public charitable
foundations, which were founded on the initiative of the city’s two abbeys, the city council,
lay confraternities and citizens. 20
Almost all of the fourteen guild almshouses in London were set up during the fifteenth
century. By the time of the dissolution of the religious houses and chantries (1534-1548),
London’s incorporated companies were the most popular institutions among citizens for
administering trust funds. The tailors’ company was the first to build an almshouse, which it
did for seven men near their hall in 1414-1416, after the guild’s confraternity of St John the
Baptist received a bequest from a prominent member, the grocer and alderman John
Churchman. 21 Bequests of prominent liverymen, such as the earlier mentioned mercer
Richard Whittington in 1423 and the vintner Guy Shuldham in 1446, gave other companies
cause to establish their own hospitals for poor, sick and elderly guildsmen and women.
Similar to the Ghent guild almshouses, the charitable foundations of the London companies
offered a place for impoverished but respectable guild members and their widows. 22 This
form of social assistance was not extended to the urban community at large, but the running of
almshouses was only one of the charitable works for which the livery companies were
entrusted with endowments by late-medieval Londoners. The patronage of the hospital of St
Thomas of Acon on Cheapside in London by the mercers, who also met in the hospital and
6
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
had a chapel there, is an example of the guilds’ broader civic responsibilities. The same
company administered estates for the running of three schools in and outside London in the
first half of the sixteenth century. 23
Mutual aid arrangements
The provision of shelter and care for ill and elderly guild members was an exception rather
than a rule in late-medieval Florence, while only a minority of the associations in Ghent and
London ran hospices, often with a limited capacity, to which only the most fortunate senior
guildsmen were admitted as pensioners. There were other ways of providing assistance
though. For example, some guilds disbursed outdoor relief to aged and infirm members on a
regular basis, while others supported impoverished members through incidental distributions
in money or kind. 24 However, the contributions that guild members were commonly expected
to make to each other’s burials were a way of honouring the deceased, more than social
assistance in the strict sense of the word.
Guild statutes are the first sources in which references to corporate solidarity can be
found. The statutes (1349) of the Florentine Arte dei Medici, Speziali e Merciai, for example,
contain the general instruction that the guild’s consuls should financially assist members who
fell into need or poverty. 25 Yet, social arrangements varied among the Florentine guilds, and
far from all of the preserved guild statutes mention regulation in this regard. 26 The
pizzicagnoli (grocers) and oliandoli (oil vendors) appointed three officials in 1337 with the
responsibility of visiting ill brethren and assisting the poor members, to which end a common
fund was created, financed by means of a payroll tax, enrolment fees, fines and annual
contributions. 27 These measures were adopted in the light of the exceptional hardship
experienced by guildsmen due to various ill-fated events (‘diversos eventus fortune’), and it is
not certain if they became permanent arrangements.
Other Florentine guilds that considered it necessary to make provisions for their poor
members in the first half of the fourteenth century were those of the legnaioli (woodworkers)
in 1301, the chiavaiuoli (locksmiths and toolmakers) in 1329, the corregiai (girdlemakers) in
1338, and the medici, speziali e merciai (doctors, spice merchants, apothecaries and
shopkeepers) in 1349. 28 The calzolai (cobblers) established their own confraternity, named
after St John and their patron saints Crispin and Crispinian, in the late fourteenth century,
through which they supported the ‘poveri huomini artefici’ with medical care and weekly
stipends. Regular collections were held to finance these laudable works, and the masters and
workers of the guild were obliged to pay a weekly tax of ‘un quattrino bianco’. 29
7
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
Unfortunately, the available sources do not permit us to check whether and how these
prescriptive measures were executed by the guild officials in practice, or if they were adjusted
over time.
The charitable activities performed by the larger guilds in Florence, especially those
involved in the textile industries, were born more out of the necessity to aid poor guildsmen
and unguilded labourers than out of solidarity. Typically, they were done so indirectly, with
the guilds funding public charitable institutions or confraternities. 30 The Arte della Seta was
an exception, since it directly supported the indigent guildsmen in the silk industry at least as
early as 1422. At the request of the subordinate membra of the guild (the compagnia of the
‘tessitori di drappi, filatoiai und torcitori di seta’), the guild’s officials decided in 1446 that
two-thirds of the revenues coming from a payroll tax should be directed to the relief for the
poor weavers and spinners and their families, while the other third was to be given as a
subsidy to the Ospedale degli Innocenti as general civic charity. 31 Although these measures
were stipulated to stay in place perpetually for the honour of God and the city and for the
benefit of the guild, it is not possible to find out for how long these arrangements were
actually maintained. Apart from the silk guild, none of the major guilds directly supported
indigent members; but they were actively involved in civic charitable enterprises, which
increasingly came under control of the Florentine magistracy from the late fourteenth century
onwards.
The ambachten in medieval Ghent felt no strong urge to develop formalised mutual
aid schemes or to set up collective arrangements to support members in distress. Until the
second quarter of the sixteenth century, the guild records give few indications of corporate
solidarity. The guilds’ ordinances and account books bear little evidence of formal social
assistance; only occasional references to members receiving alms have been found. 32 One
exception to this apparent rule was the smiths’ guild, of which each member who became a
master – according to their fifteenth-century ordinances – had to pay two pounds gros
tournois to the almoners of the guild, who were entrusted with this fund to support the guild’s
house and poor. 33 The income raised in this way cannot have sustained payments to many
indigent members, but the fact that the ordinances mention the office of almoner suggests a
certain degree of institutionalisation of this charitable practice.
After confiscating the properties of the guilds in 1540 as a punishment for their
involvement in the uprising of Ghent, Emperor Charles V ordered some of the money rents to
be returned to the corporations a year later for the maintenance of their devotional and
charitable responsibilities. 34 He also granted them new privileges, which in almost all cases
8
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
stipulated that a third of all fees levied by the guilds should be earmarked for the poor. 35 The
association (gilde) of the basket makers was an exception; they obtained the privilege to
provide five provenden (prebends) annually to the poor, who were to be selected by the sworn
men of the guild to their likening, irrespective of whether or not the recipients were guild
members. 36 The question is whether or not the new statutes of the other guilds merely
formalised the pre-existing informal charitable practices of the ambachten. This could be
argued in the case of the goldsmiths’ guild, which instructed in 1495 that the poor, living on
‘the alms of the same guild’, should receive three meals a year, for example on the two feast
days of St Eligius. Furthermore, it was ruled in 1534 that certain fines levied by the guild
were destined for the poor. 37 Yet, convincing evidence of regular payments to poor guild
members first appear in the guild’s accounts running from 1543 to 1545, 38 suggesting that this
was a result of the rents that were transferred back to the guild by the authorities for charitable
purposes.
As far as is known, the butchers’ guild was the only corporation to provide a sick pay
arrangement for its members. From 1478, regular payments to guild members who were
unable to work due to illness are registered in the guild’s account book. For example, a certain
Augustijn Seysoens received benefits for 130 days in 1498-1499, an exceptionally long
period. Beneficiaries were paid a groot per day, typically for periods ranging from a few days
to a few weeks. 39 These payments were covered by the general income of the guild, as no
payments were specifically made by members towards a common (poor) box. 40 Thus,
solidarity was certainly absent among the guildsmen in medieval Ghent, but mutual aid
remained largely informally organised. It was not an insurance system based on regular
contributions, nor a tax system, examples of which can be found in Florence and London. The
paucity of regular corporate mutual aid schemes in medieval Ghent (at least till the end of the
fifteenth century) is even more remarkable, since a growing number of guilds in the nearby
major Brabantine towns established poor boxes from the second half of the fifteenth century
onwards. 41 A possible explanation for this divergent development will be discussed later on.
The records of the livery companies in late-medieval London bear more traces of
mutual aid among the guild members, although the evidence for the fourteenth century is also
scanty. 42 All major guilds had a system of paying pensions to respectable members who had
fallen into poverty due to sickness, old age or other misfortune. The recipients received
weekly stipends that were enough to survive on, but hardly generous. The statutes (1418) of
the drapers’ guild, for example, stipulated that freemen who had been members of the
company for seven years and ‘hath been of good name and fame’ were entitled to assistance
9
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
(13s. 4d. annually) if they fell into ‘poverty, impotency or sickness’, while former wardens
would receive 14 d. weekly. 43 The assistance provided by the company was drawn from the
common box, to which rents, quarterages, fees for entry into freedom and livery, fees for
apprenticeship and fines were paid. The confraternity of the tailors’ company, in contrast,
collected alms from their members (a shilling per annum), which generated most of the
revenue for assisting the needy members of the confraternity, who were virtually all members
of the craft as well. 44 This arrangement might well be characterised as a corporate insurance
scheme.
Fig. 1: Annual average of London guildsmen receiving alms per decade 45
16
Number
14
12
10
Bakers
8
Drapers
6
Mercers
4
Pewterers
2
Tailors
0
Year
It still has to be determined which of the London companies organised mutual aid
schemes. The records of smaller companies, such as the guilds of the pinners and wiresellers,
which merged in 1497 and then amalgamated with the girdlers in 1511, show no traces of
similar arrangements. 46 A second issue relates to the evolution of the number of guildsmen
who received assistance. Based on the data of the tailors’ confraternity, it has been assumed
that the number of recipients decreased in the second half of the fifteenth century. However,
as can be derived from Figure 1, this observation cannot be generalised for other companies,
even though, unfortunately, not all accounts of the companies have been preserved, especially
for the second half of the fifteenth century, and not all accounts specify the number of
recipients of aid. Yet, the annual average number of pensioners per decade gives a more
reliable impression of the scope of this welfare system than calculating the expenses on
10
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
mutual aid as a relative part of the total expenses of the guilds, because those expenses
fluctuated and are not in all cases given. 47 Anyhow, compared to what is known about the
guilds in Florence and Ghent, the medieval London companies provided more extensive
assistance to their freemen, a system which continued to function into the early modern
period. 48
Civic charity
Apart from the corporate social arrangements targeted at guild members, to what extent were
the guilds’ charitable activities integrated into the wider system of urban poor relief? In the
case of Florence, the major guilds were actively involved in civic charity in the thirteenth
century by financially supporting religious and charitable institutions or by managing their
affairs. But both the urban voluntary and involuntary poor could count on more practical aid
from the guilds. The Calimala guild, for example, held the patronage rights over the baptistery
and the hospital of San Eusebio, through which they annually distributed a significant amount
of grain, according to their statutes of 1332. 49 The guild not only assisted the public poor, but
also distributed grain among a number of individuals and families who are described as poveri
vergognosi, or the ashamed poor guild members, in the years between 1332 and 1336. 50
Secondly, the guilds financially supported a number of confraternities devoted to
relieving the urban poor, among whom were craftsmen and shopkeepers belonging to the
guilds. In the first half of the fourteenth century, the confraternity of Orsanmichele became
the most prominent charitable organisation in Florence, and its building, the city’s grainoratory, became a locus of patronage and representation for the guilds in the fourteenth
century. 51 A second example is the charitable confraternity of the Buonomini di San Martino,
founded in 1442, which served the needs of the shame-faced poor who were carefully selected
by the officials. The Arte dei Mercanti di Calimala and the Arte della Lana supported the
confraternity with grain and financial aid, and the recipients of this charitable foundation were
mainly minor craftsmen (artigiani minori) and, to a lesser extent, labourers (lavoranti) in the
cloth industries, who generally received bread and only occasionally financial assistance. 52
Two developments characterised the involvement of the Florentine guilds in civic charity
from the late fourteenth-century onwards: their activities came under stricter control of the
city’s authorities and they showed an increasing interest in building programmes for
charitable foundations rather than charity as such. 53
In comparison, the guilds in Ghent and London were hardly directly involved by the
urban authorities in the provision of civic charity. Although they sometimes supported or even
11
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
managed religious and charitable institutions, it is less certain that these activities benefitted
the urban community at large. 54 Sometimes guilds distributed aid as the executors of bequests
of members; for example, by providing dowries for poor maidens or by adopting poor
apprentices. Incidentally, guilds looked beyond their own membership: the Mercers of
London, for example, distributed three loads of coal among three parishes in 1521, while the
Ghent carpenters who were fined for not finishing a job properly owed the urban poor
(ghemeenen aermen) twenty groats, according to their privileges from 1541. 55 Nonetheless,
corporate charity in Ghent and London was clearly limited to guild members and their direct
associates.
Guilds in medieval Florence, Ghent, and London
These differences in social responsibilities were ultimately determined by the urban political
and economic contexts in which the guilds functioned. They had progressively developed into
complex organisations from the late-thirteenth century onwards. In Florence and Ghent, this
process of institutionalisation was, above all, driven by the guilds’ involvement in urban
politics, as a result of which they were inscribed into the cities’ constitutional order. The guild
federation that was created in the Tuscan city in 1293 eventually included 21 corporations,
and no other occupational groupings succeeded in achieving permanent recognition in the
later Middle Ages. 56 Similarly, a fixed number of 58 guilds were part of Ghent’s political
order from the early 1360s onwards, excluding the fullers and other associations from
political participation. 57 London’s livery companies’ role in the election of the city’s mayor
was recognised in 1467; the freedom of occupational self-organisation was not restricted
before then. About 50 guilds were organised enough during the later Middle Ages to
participate in civic elections, and political rivalry and economic competition forced a number
of guilds to amalgamate into more sizeable and secure associations from the second half of
the fifteenth century. A formally recognised hierarchy emerged among the London guilds in
the first quarter of the sixteenth century. 58
The restriction placed on the number of formally recognised corporations in Florence
and Ghent resulted in the formation of guild conglomerates, in which several professional
groups were united, either as full or as second-tier members. Consequently, only a small
minority of the 21 Florentine guilds had a homogeneous membership, while, for example, the
Arte di Medici e Speziali comprised more than ten occupations. 59 The 53 lesser guilds in
Ghent, on their part, represented guildsmen from a hundred different occupations. About a
third of these guilds had a mixed membership; the guild of smiths even counted artisans from
12
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
twelve different professions. 60 A further consequence of the guilds’ political involvement was
that the urban authorities extended their control over the internal organisation of the
corporations, particularly in Florence, where the guilds lost most of their autonomy during the
fourteenth century. 61 Hence, the urban guild ‘system’, as well as the internal organisation of
the guilds, was largely determined by political rather than economic factors.
Secondly, the large size of some guilds in medieval Florence, Ghent and London
resulted in internally rather hierarchical organisations, making it hard to describe them as
proper voluntary associations. In late-thirteenth-century Florence, the guilds together counted
around 8,000 matriculated members, while there were an estimated 14,267 guild masters and
journeymen in Ghent in 1358-1359. Estimates for London put the number of guildsmen at
3,000 masters around 1400. 62 Assuming an active population of 48,5 per cent, it can be
estimated that the masters of the guilds alone constituted 16,5 per cent of the labour force in
Florence around 1300; 15,5 per cent in London in 1450; and 19,6 per cent in early sixteenthcentury Ghent. 63 Obviously, membership varied considerably among the guilds. The seven
arti maggiori accounted for 40 per cent of the total guild membership in Florence in 1293,
underlining their prominence. 64 Approximately 67 per cent of the 14,267 guildsmen in Ghent
in 1358-1359 were members of the textile guilds, while a minority of the artisans belonged to
the 53 lesser guilds. 65 Less precise data are available for medieval London, but Thrupp’s
estimates show the preponderant position of the city’s merchant guilds, which counted about
1,200 freemen (liverymen and yeomen) in 1501-1502. 66
These numbers, even though they are scattered snapshots, illustrate the sheer size of
some of the guilds, which was an important factor in the emergence of an internal hierarchy
that separated the governors of each guild from the ordinary masters, and the masters from the
journeymen and apprentices. The formation of consular elites within each Florentine guild
was reinforced by the efforts of the city’s ruling elite from the early fourteenth century to
control the internal elections of the major guilds for political reasons. The election of the guild
consuls of the minor guilds, meanwhile, fell into the hands of the five major guilds unified in
the Mercanzia, which was the merchants’ court that oversaw all of the guilds. 67 The Ghent
guilds remained autonomous with regard to the election of their wardens, and the formation of
guild elites was comparatively less pronounced, due to the participation of the journeymen in
the elections, for example, of the deans of the weavers’ guild. 68 In the course of the fourteenth
century, socio-economic distinctions also emerged among the larger London guilds; in the
following century, a clear hierarchy of liverymen, ordinary freemen, and yeomen was
established. The yeomen sometimes organised themselves into confraternities, some of which
13
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
were suppressed, whereas others, such as the confraternity of the yeomanry of the tailors
established by 1437, were eventually incorporated into the company. 69
Urban guild systems were never static in the Middle Ages, since the guilds’ fortunes
were not entirely determined by political factors, but also depended on the economic
environment of which they were part. The economies of Florence, Ghent and London were
structured differently from one another. The English capital became the most important
gateway to the continent in the fifteenth century, especially with regard to the export of cloth.
Still, domestic trade, manufacturing and the service industry were all significant economic
sectors in the city’s economy. 70 Ghent and Florence had a stronger industrial character.
Drapery was the backbone of medieval Ghent’s growth and prosperity, but the industry
experienced major challenges in the late-medieval period due to changing patterns of demand
and disruptions to the supply of wool. After the mid-fourteenth century, the grain staple
enjoyed by the Flemish city on the Leie and Scheldt rivers became an increasing source of
profit, in particular for the shippers. 71 Whereas the basis of Ghent’s growth was
predominantly the manufacture of wool cloth, the economic base of Florence was broader
than its wool and, later, silk industries. The economic growth of the Tuscan city was driven by
the initiative of local merchants to sell artisanal products abroad, resulting in the formation of
international trading and banking networks. 72 As a consequence, the sources of guild power in
the three cities differed: in Ghent, it rested mainly upon industrial interests, in contrast to the
stronger commercial basis of the guilds in Florence and London. 73
Institutional diversity and complementarity
How, then, did the different political and socio-economic contexts shape corporate solidarity
and charity in Florence, Ghent and London? In the first place, the dynamic urban environment
of which guilds were part defined the social needs to which they responded, as well as the
means that were available for them to do so. The diversity in corporate social arrangements
stemmed, on the one hand, from the institutional interlinkages that guilds created through
their activities across the political, economic and social domains; on the other, institutional
complementarities emerged within the social domain, strengthening the local trajectories in
the development of guild solidarity and charity, as their social activities complemented other
forms of urban poor relief.
Although solidarity was one of the core principles of medieval guilds, as associations
for mutual support guilds provided different types of social arrangements per association,
place and time. Firstly, trades and craftsmen could not always organise themselves freely to
14
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
the same degree, which had an impact on the autonomy and organisation of guilds. As the
result of political considerations, the urban authorities in Florence and Ghent blocked the
formation of new occupational associations. Consequently, associations that were integrated
into larger guild amalgamations lost their voluntary and homogeneous character, and ordinary
guild members had little say over guild policies. Some smaller occupational groupings
organised themselves into religious confraternities, if this was condoned by the urban
authorities and dominant guilds. In Florence, for example, various artisanal groups were
attached to twenty religious confraternities, of which several disbursed alms among their
members, and at least eight founded almshouses during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. 74 The activities of the formally recognised guilds, however, were exposed to and
even became vehicles of the (political) interests of different power groups within the cities.
Besides political factors, differences in urban economic structures also produced
institutional diversity and hierarchy between guilds. The most influential guilds evidently
controlled the most important urban economic sectors, while many lesser guilds played no
significant political or economic role in wider urban society. However, a sizeable and
heterogeneous membership, especially characteristic of the larger textile guilds, led to
growing socio-economic inequalities between merchant or master-entrepreneurs and ordinary
workers, as well as a lack of cohesive identity among guild members. The Calimala and Por
Santa Maria guilds in Florence, for instance, had to provide charity for their poor members in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but this form of social assistance has to be distinguished
from the mutual aid schemes developed by the London guildsmen in the same period to
support indigent colleagues and their families so that they could keep up their honour.
The larger and more affluent corporations were able to generate sufficient revenues to
bear the expense of regular stipends given to indigent members, or the distribution of aid in
kind. These guilds also felt an urge to formalise their social activities at an early stage, which
were covered by income coming from properties, rents, taxes, fees and fines. Moreover,
mutual aid schemes required careful administration so as to mitigate problems of cooperation.
The hospitals and almshouses managed by the guilds in Florence, Ghent and London were
generally funded from testamentary bequests and donations by individual members, who
increasingly showed preference for guild consuls and wardens to oversee their charitable
legacies.
In late-medieval Florence, Ghent and London, corporate social arrangements
developed side-by-side with other collective and individual forms of mutual aid and poor
relief. This meant that guild members had access to alternative resources for arranging
15
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
support or seeking assistance in times of hardship, as a result of which incentives were
sometimes lacking for guild members to develop more elaborate or inclusive forms of mutual
aid. The various demands for social assistance can also explain the different patterns of timing
with regard to the formalisation of mutual aid or the foundation of charitable institutions.
Some guilds in London had already established mutual aid schemes in the fourteenth century,
whereas their first almshouses were founded in the early fifteenth century. In Ghent, in
contrast, the foundation of hospitals preceded the institution of mutual aid schemes. These
different trajectories were the result of the fact that guilds emerged and functioned within the
context of existing institutions, and their social functions were complementary to those of
other institutions.75
The Florentine guilds were less appropriate institutions for providing mutual aid, as
they became subject to the authority of the commune over the course of the fourteenth
century. Nevertheless, their broader devotional and charitable activities became a matter of
strong rivalry and civic prestige. The guilds were instruments of the communal authorities for
organising public charity – particularly for the poveri vergognosi and lavoranti – and
controlling urban space. 76 In this way, guilds played a significant role in the organisation and
distribution of urban poor relief, together with the urban authorities, the Church and, above
all, the numerous religious confraternities. The smaller confraternities, as well as the
numerous hospitals, and the informal support of kin, friends and neighbours, were often
entwined with the patronage networks that characterised the city.
This scale of civic involvement was not to be found among the corporations in Ghent
and London, where the guilds’ charitable activities were generally confined to their own
membership. A ‘mixed economy’ of collective social arrangements and private charity existed
in medieval Ghent too, as poor guild members could appeal to several religious and lay
charitable institutions, of which the so-called Holy Ghost Tables were the most important.
These parish-based institutions were founded from the twelfth century onwards, and
functioned under the governance of lay wardens elected by the city council. The Tables
distributed food, fuel, shoes and sometimes cash on a regular basis to deserving parishioners
who had fallen into poverty. 77 Senior guild members were often on the boards of the Table,
which may have helped to streamline the assistance provided with that of the corporations.
However, when the authorities embarked on a reform of the urban poor relief system in 1535,
the ambachten were not involved in the creation of the city’s central common purse
(armenkamer), which supervised urban poor relief. 78
16
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
Mutual aid was a core task of the guilds in London from their earliest days, probably
because guildsmen could not easily resort to other collective social arrangements. Poor relief
only became more centralised in the English capital during the fifteenth century. Before then,
the provision of charity and medical care was in the hands of religious institutions, lay
confraternities and individual Londoners. However, the urban authorities, as well as the livery
companies, gradually assumed more responsibilities regarding the provision of charitable
assistance: witness the foundation of hospitals and almshouses in this period. 79 The
confiscation of religious properties in 1534 and 1548, accompanied by the introduction of
parish-based poor relief by Edward IV and his successors, caused a major reorganisation of
London’s poor relief system, but the livery companies maintained their charitable
responsibilities vis-à-vis the parishes. 80
Notwithstanding the various ways in which trade and craft guilds in medieval
Florence, Ghent and London took on social responsibilities, their various activities created
interlinkages across the economic, political and social domains. As a consequence, guild
solidarity and charity were shaped by the dynamics of urban politics and economic
circumstances, as well as by their interactions with other institutions that provided poor relief.
Whether, and to what extent, guilds developed relatively regularised forms of mutual aid and
charity depended on their members’ needs, as well as the freedom and capacity they enjoyed
to adapt to changes in the urban environment.
Conclusions
Charity and mutual aid among the living guild members, as well as memorial services for
their departed brothers and sisters, are often portrayed as the ultimate embodiment of the
medieval ideal of brotherhood. 81 More practically, they also reduced some of the insecurities
medieval guildsmen faced, and as such also strengthened their loyalty to the guilds’ common
interests. Notwithstanding the integrative effects of these social activities on both guilds and
the wider urban community, corporate solidarity and charity were at the same socially
differentiated, reinforcing the socio-economic hierarchy within guilds. The analysis of guild
solidarity and charity in late-medieval Florence, Ghent and London further shows that far
from all occupational associations ran charitable institutions or relief schemes for their
members, let alone for non-members. Of the multiple functions fulfilled by trade and craft
associations, the provision of more or less formalised forms of social assistance was not a
general practice.
17
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
The development of corporate social assistance in Florence, Ghent and London can
obviously not be generalised for other medieval cities and towns; the guilds’ political and
economic roles in these three large cities were certainly not typical for this period. But by
comparing the different case studies, the context-specific factors explaining the diversity in
guild solidarity and charity have been identified. Furthermore, this analysis has demonstrated
how the guilds’ social activities co-evolved with (collective) social arrangements provided by
other institutions in the later Middle Ages. The guilds’ social responsibilities developed along
different trajectories in Florence, Ghent and London because, by adapting to the urban
institutional environment of which they were part, guildsmen found different solutions to
solve similar problems of social and economic insecurity.
Several other important factors contributed to the dynamics of the urban institutional
environment, which deserve more attention elsewhere. Growing municipal coordination of
poor relief, the play of market forces, changing religious beliefs about and collective attitudes
towards poverty, 82 and shifting preferences of individuals may all have affected the ways in
which guilds responded to the needs of their members. For some guilds, poor relief was a
means of implementing their power to regulate membership and harmonise tensions; for
others, it gave expression to the corporative discourse of solidarity and charity. But the variety
of corporate social arrangements refutes the idea of a linear development from small-scale
mutual aid inspired by a medieval guild ethos towards collective insurance schemes based on
individual self-interest – they were two sides of the same coin after all. Finally, the
entanglement of trade and craft guilds with other urban institutions – not only in economic or
political terms, but also in the social domain – is an important factor in explaining the
involvement of guilds in poor relief, as well as their long survival into the early modern
world.
∗
This article is based on the results of a research project, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
Research (NWO). Earlier drafts were presented at the ESSHC, Vienna, April 2014, and a workshop at Columbia
University, New York, November 2014. I thank the organisers and participants for helpful comments, and I am
particularly grateful to Marc Boone and Maarten Prak.
1
K.A. Lynch, ‘Social provisions and the life of civil society in Europe. Rethinking public and private’, Journal
of Urban History, 36 (2010), 285–99; S.A. Epstein, Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe (Chapel Hill,
1991), 158; J.R. Farr, Artisans in Europe, 1300-1914 (Cambridge and New York, 2000), 230–1.
2
The debate whether guilds were effective institutions or not focusses almost exclusively on their core economic
functions; see: S.R. Epstein, ‘Craft guilds in the pre-modern economy: a discussion’, The Economic History
Review, 61 (2008) 155–74; S. Ogilvie, ‘Rehabilitating the guilds: a reply’, The Economic History Review, 61
(2008), 175–82.
3
R.A. Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore, 2009), 345; I.W. Archer, ‘The livery
companies and charity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in I.A. Gadd and P. Wallis (eds.), Guilds,
Society and Economy in London 1450-1800 (London, 2002), 17.
18
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
4
M.H.D. van Leeuwen, ‘Guilds and middle-class welfare, 1550–1800. Provisions for burial, sickness, old age,
and widowhood’, The Economic History Review, 65 (2012), 79.
5
C. Lis and H. Soly, Worthy Efforts. Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe (Leiden and
Boston, 2012), pp. 323–5, 459.
6
J. Imray, The Charity of Richard Whittington. A history of the Trust Administered by the Mercers’ Company
1424-1966 (London, 1968).
7
A.F. Sutton, The Mercery of London. Trade, Goods and People, 1130-1578 (Aldershot, 2005), 161–3, 360–5,
369–73.
8
P. Gavitt, Charity and children in Renaissance Florence: the Ospedale degli Innocenti, 1410-1536 (Ann Arbor,
1990), 33–59. From 1294, the same guild of Por Santa Maria was already administering the Ospedale di San
Gallo, a foundling hospital that eventually merged with the Ospedale degli Innocenti in 1463.
9
See, e.g. N. Goose and H. Looijesteijn, ‘Almshouses in England and the Dutch Republic circa 1350–1800. A
comparative perspective’, Journal of Social History, 45 (2012), 1049–73; M.K. McIntosh, Poor Relief in
England, 1350-1600 (Cambridge, 2012), 59–94; L. Sandri, ‘Aspetti dell’assistenza ospedaliera a Firenze nel XV
secolo’, in Città e servizi sociali nell’Italia dei secoli XII-XV (Pistoia, 1990), 237–57.
10
R. Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1994), 145–6.
11
W.P. Blockmans and W. Prevenier, ‘Poverty in Flanders and Brabant from the fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth
century: sources and problems’, Acta historiae Neerlandica, 10 (1978) 20–57. Giovanni Villani mentions the
existence of thirty hospitals in Florence providing about 3,000 beds in 1338; meanwhile, London’s five main
hospitals provided 350-400 beds for the sick in the early sixteenth century; G. Pinto, Il lavoro, la povertà,
l’assistenza: ricerche sulla società medievale (Rome, 2008), 171; C.M. Barron, London in the Later Middle
Ages. Government and People, 1200-1500 (Oxford, 2004), 293.
12
J. Henderson, The Renaissance Hospital. Healing the Body and Healing the Soul (New Haven, 2006); C.
Rawcliffe, ‘The hospitals of later medieval London’, Medical History, 28 (1984), 1–21; M. Boone, Gent en de
Bourgondische hertogen, ca. 1384-ca. 1453. Een sociaal-politieke studie van een staatsvormingsproces
(Brussels, 1990), 141–56; D.M. Nicholas, The Metamorphosis of a Medieval City. Ghent in the Age of the
Arteveldes, 1302-1390 (Leiden, 1987), 43–4, 58–65; F. Rexroth, Deviance and Power in Late Medieval London
(Cambridge, 2007), 236–7; C.M. Barron, ‘Introduction’, in C.M. Barron and M.P. Davies (eds.), The Religious
Houses of London and Middlesex (London, 1997), 13–5.
13
G. Filippi, L’Arte dei mercanti di Calimala in Firenze ed il suo più antico Statuto (Turin, 1889), 75–6. See, for
the annual financial support of convents and 21 hospitals by the wool guild: Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF),
Arte della Lana, no. 9, rubric XXXII (1428).
14
See, for example, the hospital of Sant’Antonio in the vicinity of Lastra a Signa, along the road from Florence
to Pisa, completed by the Arte della Seta in 1422, as executors of the will of Francesco di Lencio. The hospital
for the poor and pilgrims counted eight beds for men and seven for women; ASF, Arte della Seta o Por Santa
Maria, no. 220, f. 3v-4v.
15
L. Sandri, ‘La gestione dell’assistenza a Firenze nel XV secolo’, in La Toscana al tempo di Lorenzo il
Magnifico, 3 (1996), 1369–74; Henderson, The Renaissance Hospital, 15, 52, 188. The cobblers were also
organised as a charitable confraternity; the hospital is not mentioned in the sources of the guild and confraternity;
ASF, Arte dei Calzolai, no. 1, f. 15r-16r; Capitoli delle Compagnie Religiose Soppresse da Pietro Leopoldo
(CSR), no. 850, f. 4r.
16
See, for the failed project of the Arte dei Maestri di Pietra e Legname to build a hospital in the square of San
Marco in the second half of the fifteenth century: R.A. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence. An
Economic and Social History (Baltimore, 1980), 268. The guild had difficulties in financing the hospital, but its
consuls decided not to ‘aggravate the purses of the artisans’. The hospital is last mentioned in the guild’s sources
on 10 May 1395; ASF, Arte dei Maestri di Pietra e Legname, no. 3, f. 2r (1466) and f. 60r (1495).
17
A. Spicciani, ‘Solidarietà, previdenza e assistenza per gli artigiani nell’Italia medioevale (secoli XII-XV)’, in
Artigiani e salariati. Il mondo del lavoro nell’Italia dei secoli XII-XV (Bologna, 1984), 327; Sandri, ‘La gestione
dell’assistenza’, 1373–80; P. Gavitt, ‘Corporate beneficence and historical narratives of communal well-being’,
in R.J. Crum and J.T. Paoletti (eds.), Renaissance Florence. A Social History (Cambridge, 2006), 138–40.
18
A.M. de Vocht, ‘Het Gentse antwoord op de armoede: de sociale instellingen van wevers en volders te Gent in
de late middeleeuwen’, Annalen van de Belgische vereniging voor hospitaalgeschiedenis, 19 (1981), 15–22.
Among the archives of the hospitals of the weavers and the fullers are accounts from the second half of the
fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth century; Stadsarchief Gent (SAG), Reeks LIV, no. 454; and Reeks LV, no.
11. Between 1498 and 1550, at least 38 beneficiaries donated their properties to the weavers’ almshouse in return
for a prebend (provende).
19
J. Dambruyne, Corporatieve middengroepen: aspiraties, relaties en transformaties in de 16e-eeuwse Gentse
ambachtswereld (Ghent, 2002), 99–100, 107. Four of the seven hospitals were attached to the guilds’ halls, and
these were confiscated by Emperor Charles V in 1540, after a failed uprising of the city against the prince; SAG,
19
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
Reek 94bis/1. This account also gives the percentage of rents that were returned by to the guilds in 1541 for
devotional and charitable purposes.
20
A. van Steensel, ‘Variations in urban social assistance. Some examples from late-medieval England and the
Low Countries’, in F. Ammannati (ed.), Assistenza e solidarietà in Europa, secc. XIII-XVIII (Florence, 2013),
140–1.
21
M.P. Davies, ‘The tailors of London. Corporate charity in the late medieval town’, in R.E. Archer (ed.),
Crown, Government and People in the Fifteenth Century (Stroud, 1995), 182–6. The confraternity drew a
significant number of its members from other companies.
22
Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages, 225, 299.
23
Sutton, The Mercery of London, pp. 366–7.
24
The Italian sources make a distinction between caritas – help based on personal relationships between equals
or patrons and clients – and misericordia – assistance to poor members of the community in general; N. Terpstra,
Cultures of Charity. Women, Politics, and the Reform of Poor Relief in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, MA,
2013), 41–2.
25
R. Ciasca (ed.), Statuti dell’Arte dei medici e speziali (Florence, 1922), 144.
26
A.J. Doren, Studien aus der Florentiner Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Vol. 2: Das Florentiner Zunftwesen vom
vierzehnten bis zum sechszehnten Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1908), 381–2; Spicciani, ‘Solidarietà, previdenza e
assistenza’, 321.
27
F. Morandini, Statuti delle Arti degli oliandoli e pizzicagnoli e dei beccai di Firenze (1318-1346) (Florence,
1961), 177–81.
28
F. Morandini, Statuti dell’Arte dei legnaioli di Firenze (1301-1346) (Florence, 1958), 55–6, 109, 158–9; G.
Camerani Marri, Statuti delle arti dei corazzai, dei chiavaioli, ferraioli e calderai e dei fabbri di Firenze (13211344) con appendice dei marchi di fabbrica dei fabbri, dal 1369 (Florence, 1957), 70–1; G. Camerani Marri,
Statuti delle arti dei correggiai, tavolacciai e scudai, dei vaiai e pellicciai di Firenze (1338-1386) (Firenze,
1960), 32–3; Ciasca (ed.), Statuti dell’Arte dei medici e speziali, 144; C.-M. de la Roncière, ‘Pauvres et pauvreté
à Florence au XIVe siècle’, in M. Mollat (ed.), Etudes sur l’histoire de la pauvreté (Moyen Âge - XVIe siècle), 2
(Paris, 1974), 671, 711.
29
ASF, Arte dei Calzolai, no. 1, f. 15r-16r. The cobblers appointed a medico to visit their ill brethren. Also, see
the revised statutes (1514) of the confraternity; CSR, no. 850, f. 8r-9r, 10v. The statutes of the German cobblers,
organised into the confraternity of Our Lady, can be found in the same manuscript, which stipulates that if ‘eyn
bruder kranck wirt, so sollen dy vier herren in besuchen und sollen den krancken bruder trosten’. See, for a
critical edition: L. Böninger, Die deutsche Einwanderung nach Florenz im Spätmittelalter (Leiden and Boston,
2006), 355–98.
30
Spicciani, ‘Solidarietà, previdenza e assistenza’, pp. 324–37.
31
U. Dorini (ed.), Statuti dell’Arte di Por Santa Maria del tempo della repubblica (Florence, 1934), 467–8, 565–
9. The corporate assistance was not only meant for poor and ill guild members, but also for their wives, the
dowries of their daughters, and incarcerated members.
32
See, for example: Stadsarchief Gent (SAG), Reeks 165/1, fol. 6r. Alms given to Jan Bouten, a hosier, recorded
in the guild’s accounts.
33
SAG, Reeks 173/2, fol. 7v.
34
J. Lameere and H. Simont (eds.), Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas. Deuxième série, 1506-1700, 4
(Bruxelles, 1907), 179, 292–3. The returned rents are listed in SAG, Reeks 94bis/1 and analysed by J.
Dambruyne, ‘Rijkdom, materie͏̈le cultuur en sociaal aanzien. De bezitspatronen en investeringsstrategieën van de
Gentse ambachten omstreeks 1540’, in C. Lis and H. Soly (eds.), Werelden van verschil. Ambachtsgilden in de
Lage Landen (Brussel, 1997), 169–70.
35
Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent, Ms 58, 57-551. All but six of the 54 guild associations had this stipulation in
their new statutes. The expenses on charity had to be registered in a separate account.
36
Ibid., 67. The first three prebends were worth 6 s. 8 d. gr., the fourth 4 s. 4 d. gr., and the fifth 3 s. 4 d. gr. The
basket makers did not belong to the 58 politically recognised guilds before 1540, but functioned as an
occupational association.
37
SAG, Reeks 182/2, f. 65r (1495); and Reeks 182/1, f. 6r-6v (1534).
38
E. Gezels, ‘De Gentse edelsmeden en hun ambachtsleven tijdens de 15de en 16de eeuw’, Handelingen der
Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, 64 (2010), 266–7.
39
SAG, Reeks 157, no. 4, f. 46v-47r, 179r, and passim (accounts, 1471-1511). Eighteen guildsmen and one
women received assistance between 1478 and 1511, some of them for several years, but not all year round. 15021503 was an exceptional year, with eight individuals receiving payments; f. 227r.
40
Although many of the Ghent guilds were well endowed, no data have been preserved about the value of the
properties and capital of the butchers in 1540.
20
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
41
B. de Munck, ‘Fiscalizing solidarity (from below). Poor relief in Antwerp guilds: between community
building and public service’, in M. van der Heijden (ed.), Serving the Urban Community. The Rise of Public
Facilities in the Low Countries (Amsterdam, 2009), 168–93; H. Masure, ‘“Eerlycke huijsarmen” of
“ledichgangers”? Armenzorg en gemeenschapsvorming in Brussel, 1300-1640’, Stadsgeschiedenis, 7 (2012), 7–
8.
42
With exception of the goldsmiths’ company, of which the first preserved account of 1334-1335 already
mentions the distribution of alms. One Adam de Shadwell refused to join the goldsmiths’ confraternity of St.
Dunstan in 1339, and thereby renounced his right to receive aid; L. Jefferson (ed.), Wardens’ Accounts and
Court Minute Books of the Goldsmiths’ Mistery of London, 1334-1446 (Woodbridge, 2003), 2, 11–3.
43
A.H. Johnson, The history of the Worshipful Company of the Drapers of London, 1 (Oxford, 1914), 268. One
draper, Sir Lawrence Aylmer, a former mayor of London, sold land to the company in 1523, borrowed from the
company in 1525, and was receiving alms by 1528; A.H. Johnson, The History of the Worshipful Company of the
Drapers of London, 2 (Oxford, 1922), 27; I.W. Archer, The Pursuit of Stability. Social Relations in Elizabethan
London (Cambridge, 1991), 26.
44
Davies, ‘The tailors of London’, 168–9.
45
L. Jefferson, The Medieval Account Books of the Mercers of London. An Edition and Translation, 1-2
(Farnham, 2009); Davies, ‘The tailors of London’, p. 170. Archives of the Mercers’ Company, London, MS
Renter Wardens’ Accounts, 1442-1500. Guildhall Library, London (GLL), MS 7806/1-2 (pewterers); MS 5440
and 5442/1 (bakers); Archives of the Drapers’ Company, London, MS Wardens’ Accounts, 1-3.
46
B. Megson (ed.), The Pinners’ and Wiresellers’ Book, 1462-1511 (London, 2009); C.J. Kitching (ed.), London
and Middlesex Chantry Certificate, 1548 (London, 1980), 81–95. In 1548, seventeen of 34 London companies
reported that they distributed alms to their own members, as well as to non-members.
47
The possible growth or decline of the guilds’ membership should be taken into account before definite
conclusions can be drawn about changes in the scope of corporate mutual assistance.
48
Archer, ‘The livery companies’, pp. 24–5.
49
P. Emiliani-Giudici, Storia politica dei municipj italiani. Appendice, 4 (Firenze, 1851), 147–50.
50
Emiliani-Giudici, Storia politica, 167–8, 181–2, 196–8; Spicciani, ‘Solidarietà, previdenza e assistenza’, 328–
30, 336–8; Sandri, ‘La gestione dell’assistenza’, 1369–74.
51
J. Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence (Chicago, 1997), 193–4, 229–33, 253–7, 267–8,
293, 386–7; Spicciani, ‘Solidarietà, previdenza e assistenza’, 330–2; Gavitt, ‘Corporate beneficence’, 139–50.
52
A. Spicciani, ‘The “poveri vergognosi” in fifteenth-century Florence’, in T. Riis (ed.), Aspects of Poverty in
Early Modern Europe (Alphen aan den Rijn, 1981), 119–82; R.C. Trexler, ‘Charity and the defense of urban
elites in the Italian communes’, in F.C. Jaher (ed.), The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper
Classes in History (Urbana, 1973), 64–109.
53
P. Gavitt, ‘Economy, charity, and community in Florence, 1350-1450’, in T. Riis (ed.), Aspects of Poverty in
Early Modern Europe (Alphen aan den Rijn, 1981), 96–104.
54
The butchers’ guild in Ghent, for instance, made annual payments to the Dominicans and Augustinians, and an
occasional payment to the zwarte zusters; SAG, Reeks 157/4, f. 117r, 119v.
55
L. Lyell and F.D. Watney (eds.), Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company, 1453-1527 (Cambridge, 1936), 530;
Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent, MS 58, 61.
56
J.M. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200-1575 (Malden, MA, 2006), 37, 43–44, 137, 165. The dyers briefly
gained independence from the Arte della Lana in 1342-1343, while the subordinated skilled artisans and
unskilled workers in the cloth industry were allowed to organise themselves into three guilds for some time
between 1378 and 1382.
57
Boone, Gent en de Bourgondische hertogen, 36–39, 48; M. Boone and A.J. Brand, ‘Vollersoproeren en
collectieve actie in Gent en Leiden in de 14de-15de eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 19 (1993),
172–5.
58
M. Davies, ‘Artisans, guilds and government in London’, in R. Britnell (ed.), Daily Life in the Late Middle
Ages (Stroud, 1998), 132–135; Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages, 148–50, 228–33.
59
Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, 343–5.
60
Dambruyne, Corporatieve middengroepen, 23–31.
61
J.M. Najemy, ‘Guild Republicanism in trecento Florence. The successes and ultimate failure of corporate
politics’, The American Historical Review, 84 (1979), 58; F. Franceschi, ‘Intervento del potere centrale e ruolo
delle arti nel governo dell’economia fiorentina del Trecento e del primo Quattrocento. Linee generali’, Archivio
storico italiano, 151 (1993), 883–890, 896–900.
62
Najemy, A History of Florence, pp. 43–44; cf. Goldthwaite, The building of Renaissance Florence, pp. 252–
254; Dambruyne, Corporatieve middengroepen, pp. 38–44; C.M. Barron, ‘London, 1300–1540’, in D.M. Palliser
(ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, 1 (Cambridge, 2000), 400.
21
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
63
Florence probably lost half of its estimated population of 100,000 inhabitants to the outbreak of the plague in
1348, and this number had fallen to 37,144 by 1427. Its population rose steadily from the late-fifteenth century
onwards and had reached 59,000 souls by the mid-sixteenth century. Ghent was less severely hit by the Black
Death. The population of the Flemish city is estimated at 64,000 just before the mid-fourteenth century, and it
counted approximately 45,000 inhabitants around 1500. London’s population reached the 80,000 inhabitants
mark in the early fourteenth century. The city’s size was probably reduced by half after the Black Death, but
London had an estimated 55,000 inhabitants in 1520
64
Najemy, A History of Florence, 43.
65
W. Prevenier, ‘Bevolkingscijfers en professionele strukturen der bevolking van Gent en Brugge in de 14e
eeuw’, in Album aangeboden aan Charles Verlinden ter gelegenheid van zijn dertig jaar professoraat (Ghent,
1975), 277.
66
S.L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300-1500 (Ann Arbor, 1989), 42–44. The companies
of the grocers and the tailors were the largest, each with 84 liveried members and a total membership of 273 and
230 (freemen and yeomen) respectively.
67
Najemy, A History of Florence, 130; J.M. Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral
Politics, 1280-1400 (Chapel Hill, 1982), 174–5; cf. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence, 261–2.
In Florence, according to the latter author, the terms master, apprentice and worker referred to chronological
phases in one’s career, not to juridical or social categories.
68
Boone, Gent en de Bourgondische hertogen, 61, 87–92; J. Dambruyne, ‘Proletarisering in de corporatieve
wereld? De doorstroommogelijkheden van gezellen in Vlaamse en Brabantse ambachten ca. 1450-1650’, Revue
belge de philologie et d’histoire, 83 (2005), 367–97.
69
Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages, 211–216.
70
Barron, ‘London, 1300-1540’, 412–428; P. Nightingale, ‘The Growth of London in the Medieval English
Economy’, in R.H. Britnell and J. Hatcher (eds.), Progress and Problems in Medieval England: Essays in
Honour of Edward Miller (Cambridge, 1996), 89–106; D. Keene, ‘Medieval London and its region’, London
Journal, 14 (1989), 99–111.
71
M. Boone, ‘L’industrie textile à Gand au bas moyen âge ou les resurrections successives d’une activité réputée
moribonde’, in M. Boone and W. Prevenier (eds.), La draperie ancienne des Pays-Bas, débouchés de survie
(14e-16e siècles) (Leuven and Apeldoorn, 1993), 15–58; Nicholas, The Metamorphosis of a Medieval City, 135–
141, 241–250, 290–291. The authors disagree with each other on the evolution of Ghent’s medieval cloth
industry.
72
Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, 23, 30–34; B. Dini, ‘L’economia fiorentina dal 1450 al
1530’, in La Toscana al tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico, 3 (1996), 799–824.
73
H. Soly, ‘The political economy of European craft guilds. Power relations and economic strategies of
merchants and master artisans in the medieval and early modern textile industries’, International Review of
Social History, 53 (2008), 45–71.
74
Henderson, Piety and Charity, 426–428; idem, The Renaissance Hospital, appendix. The major guilds initially
prevented the minor artisans, shopkeepers and labourers from organising themselves into confraternities or
compagnie. These restrictions were only relaxed in the second half of fifteenth century; Spicciani, ‘Solidarietà,
previdenza e assistenza’, 326; F. Ammannati, ‘“Se non piace loro l’arte, mutinla in una altra”. I “lavoranti”
dell’Arte della lana fiorentina tra XIV e XVI secolo’, Annali di Storia di Firenze, 7 (2012), 22–24.
75
Cf. A. Greif and C. Kingston, ‘Institutions: rules or equilibria?’, in N. Schofield and G. Caballero (eds.),
Political Economy of Institutions, Democracy and Voting (New York, 2011), 40.
76
Najemy, A History of Florence, 320–322; Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, 345–346;
Gavitt, ‘Corporate beneficence’, 141–150.
77
G. de Messemaeker-De Wilde, ‘De parochiale armenzorg te Gent in de late Middeleeuwen’, Annales de la
Société Belge d’Histoire des Hôpitaux, 18 (1980), 47–58; Nicholas, The Metamorphosis of a Medieval City, 41–
66; J. Haemers and W. Ryckbosch, ‘A targeted public. Public Services in fifteenth-century Ghent and Bruges’,
Urban History, 37 (2010), 118–224.
78
Boone, Gent en de Bourgondische hertogen, 98–102; S. de Keyser, ‘Documenten over de stichting en de
inrichting van de armenkamer te Gent (1535-1578)’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Commissie voor
Geschiedenis, 134 (1968), 139–238.
79
Barron, London in the later Middle Ages, 266–301.
80
McIntosh, Poor Relief in England, 127–129, 138; Archer, The Pursuit of Stability, 120–124, 154, 167–169,
178, 179.
81
For example, see: A. Black, Guild and State. European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the
Present (New Brunswick, 2003), 24, 47, 134; G. Rosser, ‘Going to the fraternity feast. Commensality and social
relations in late medieval England’, Journal of British Studies, (1994), 443–444.
22
AMSTERDAM CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY
WORKING PAPER SERIES – NO. 3
82
See, for the influence of changing perceptions about poverty on confraternal charity in Florence: N.A.
Eckstein, ‘“Con buona affetione”: Confraternities, Charity and the Poor in Early Cinquecento Florence’, in T.M.
Safley (ed.), The Reformation of charity. The secular and the religious in early modern poor relief (Boston,
2003), pp. 47–62.
23