Although most Venetian guilds were organized to represent an occupational interest, the earliest, the scuole, were “associations for religious devotion and mutual aid.” Each “had its own special place of worship… and a meeting place” in a church or monastery.  “These religious fellowships included both rich and poor and gave aid to members who fell into misfortune.  There were at least fourteen such religious fraternities active in the city before the end of the twelfth century.” (Lane 1973 p77)  A later development was the arte, an “association for maintaining craft discipline” (Lane 1992 p72) and for other jurisdictional disputes, training of apprentices, and also for delivering labor services to the Venetian government, particularly supplying oarsmen for the Venetian galleys.  From the earliest times the guilds were regulated by three Justices; their primary job was to prevent the guilds from increasing their influence enough to become political players.  A key role for the Justices was to “enforce standard weights and measures and to police markets generally.”  On the other hand, the Justices had little interest in regulating the religious and charitable activities of the guilds, except to make all members liable for the payment of fees and fines.  But they were interested in supervising the economic activities of the guilds, and “did not hesitate to legislate on industrial questions and to cancel any measure taken by a guild [that was] deemed contrary to public interest.”  Thus when the tailors’ guild in the early thirteenth century attempted to boycott customers who would not pay their cartelized prices, the Justices “forbad unilateral price-fixing and boycotts by the tailors guild.” (Lane 1973 p106) 

In their intermediate position between government and people the guilds developed their own self-government, rule-setting meetings, and banquets.  They participated prominently in city festivals, supplying color, floats, and marchers.  They “possessed chapels, tombs, and altars” to discharge their religious functions, and each had their own patron saints.  For instance, the ship caulkers’ guild

by contract with the monastery of San Stefano in 1454 acquired in the refectory of the monastery a place of meeting and in the church the site of an altar and of a tomb.  In 1455 a special tax was laid on the members to be used in building the altar and decorating its chapel.  For the honor of God, the praise of the guild, and the good reputation of the men of the craft, it was added to the duties of the gastaldo (the master of the guild) in 1461, that on the day of San Marco he was to call all the men of the guild to Mass, solemnly prepare the altar, and hire trumpeters and two pipers for the celebration of that Mass. (Lane 1992 p77)

Members were required to attend upon the memorial ceremonies of departing members, and they ministered to economic needs and to the unfortunate with sick benefits, death benefits, and care for the families of needy members.

In the Netherlands and in London, the guilds developed in a similar manner to Venice.  They began mostly as religious and charitable fraternities, and then developed into craft or employer associations that focused on the economic needs and privileges of their members.  Like modern labor unions, they squabbled frequently over jurisdictional issues, experiencing economic life as a zero-sum game.  But they were also more active in politics.  The kings and princes of the land were less interested in greasing the wheels of commerce than the merchants of Venice, and found themselves trading powers and favors with the guilds in exchange for loans and banking services.  The result was that the guilds obtained patents of monopoly that were never permitted in Venice by its commerce-focused merchant princes.  In general, cities where the merchant guilds dominated maintained a flexible policy towards trade; cities where the craft guilds dominated often throttled the growth of their cities by protection and restriction of trade (Cipolla 1994).

Between the medieval guilds and the nineteenth century fraternal movement is the linking phenomenon of freemasonry.  In a process still shrouded in mystery and speculation, the lodges of medieval stonemasons became fraternal organizations of middle-class men with nothing to do with the building trade.  But it appears that the craft guild fathered freemasonry, and the Masonic lodge became the model of modern fraternal mutual-aid.

Medieval stonemasonry was a unique craft.  Stone buildings were unusual and expensive.  Thus masons were itinerant workers, moving from town to town and from one project to another.  They became detached from locality and built associations with each other that transcended place.  But they still needed to replicate the usual institutions of a craft guild: apprenticeship, transmission of craft skills and mysteries, and defining a circle of trust: those craftsmen who were competent and trustworthy.  They also needed a meeting place at the job-site.  All these factors combined the stonemasons by the seventeenth century into a loosely associated set of societies that had a strong sense of history, with a Masonic myth that intertwined the craft with Biblical narrative and various historical characters who “loved” masons, a set of rituals and secrets, and an extension of membership beyond actual practicing masons to others, “non-operatives,” who also participated in membership. 

The elucidation of the history of freemasonry has suffered from a unique combination of factors.  There has been the tendency for freemasons themselves to construct a heroic myth of freemasonry; there has been the tendency of conspiracy theorists to spin fantastical webs of intrigue and conspiracy out of the traditional Masonic interest in ritual and secrets.  There has been the reluctance of academic historians to tackle the subject.  And there is the difficulty of teasing out the story of a movement that has never particularly desired publicity or glory.  Although there have been many eminent men who were Masons, the movement itself has never desired eminence.

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©2005 Christopher Chantrill