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III. Zunft und Unordnung

III. Zunft und Unordnung AbstractGuilds between authority and opposition. This paper compares the legal status of guilds in two German towns of the late Middle Ages: Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. Both cities represented commercial hubs, Frankfurt with its privilege to hold fairs, Hamburg as a port town and member of the Hanse. Both cities also witnessed unrest and public protest by guilds during the second half of the 14th century. This article argues that those conflicts erupted over the guilds’ attempts to formalise their legal status by having their statutes written and acknowledged by the city council. The council eventually pre-empted those attempts. This happened through a process of bargaining that can be subdivided into three different stages: production of written demands or statutes, destabilisation, escalation. Putting something into writing created a qualitative distinction to orality in a society that was predominantly communicating orally and in presence. Thus, the latter was still the mode of political communication, mainly by swearing an oath, that could settle these conflicts. Where this process failed, the conflict could erupt into open violence, which in turn could only be settled by outside intervention – as in the case of Frankfurt. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Germanistische Abteilung de Gruyter

III. Zunft und Unordnung

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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
ISSN
0323-4045
eISSN
2304-4861
DOI
10.1515/zrgg-2022-0003
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractGuilds between authority and opposition. This paper compares the legal status of guilds in two German towns of the late Middle Ages: Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. Both cities represented commercial hubs, Frankfurt with its privilege to hold fairs, Hamburg as a port town and member of the Hanse. Both cities also witnessed unrest and public protest by guilds during the second half of the 14th century. This article argues that those conflicts erupted over the guilds’ attempts to formalise their legal status by having their statutes written and acknowledged by the city council. The council eventually pre-empted those attempts. This happened through a process of bargaining that can be subdivided into three different stages: production of written demands or statutes, destabilisation, escalation. Putting something into writing created a qualitative distinction to orality in a society that was predominantly communicating orally and in presence. Thus, the latter was still the mode of political communication, mainly by swearing an oath, that could settle these conflicts. Where this process failed, the conflict could erupt into open violence, which in turn could only be settled by outside intervention – as in the case of Frankfurt.

Journal

Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Germanistische Abteilung – de Gruyter

Published: Jul 1, 2022

Keywords: Cities; Council; Guilds; Oath; Unrest

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