Guilds

[Joerg]

In response to the question whether RQ has too strong social commitment for its characters (I think it doesn't, BTW), I started researching the origin of guilds and similar fraternities.

 

These things crop up when cooperation of folk not related through family ties is required to ensure a benefit for all participants. This is the same prerequisite that led to the formation of cities, but cities are not a prerequisite for formation of guild-like structures, only a breeding ground because they tend to bring together people from different family backgrounds. This lack of family ties is the main difference to clans. The concentration on the here and now and usually a lack of organized priesthood and shrines is the main difference to a cult.

Guilds are fine existing in an environment controlled by other authorities, as long as they get their say in what they regard as internal matters. These internal matters usually imply privileges that force non-guild members to seek certain services exclusively from guild members.

Infrastructure often is managed by guild-like associations – whether irrigation or coastal protection, road maintenance or maintenance of fortifications. Often controlled and created by authorities, but not necessarily so – coastal protection at the continental North Sea shores worked as communal effort without any higher authority when the coastal communities still were farmer republics, and continued to work in that fashion under feudal and absolutist rule.

 

The term guild in its role as an association of business folk appears to be of German origin.

A precursor to the guilds were the collegia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegium_%28ancient_Rome%29) of the Romans. When new cities were founded in the Germanies, guilds crop up in the early middle ages or the late dark age. German Wikipedia offers the origin of the term guild as old Norse "gildi", meaning companionship, association or carousal.

"Guild" is one of the few cases where German has a lot more terms than English - the German "Gilde" is restricted to merchants, mutual insurance associations, and defence associations ("Schützengilde").

In German, associations of crafters have different names like "Zunft" (from "ziemen", to befit) or "Innung" (Einung, roughly: union, and yes, with a strong element of trade union responsibilities in addition to creating an exclusive, inaccessible market with all its obvious benefits for the practitioners).

Some guilds had their founding hero/saint, like the knudsgilde - a merchant guild that took the sainted father of King Waldemar of Denmark (who got murdered in peace negotiations which could have resulted in him becoming King of Denmark, and who had worked towards protection of merchants crossing the cimbric peninsula at Schleswig as duke of that region). Wikipedia articles available in German, French, Danish and Swedish.

So: guilds are mostly an urban phenomenon, as only cities can support more than one specialist crafter in a place. However, once in place, the rural specalists would join the urban associations for their specialist knowledge (in Glorantha: crafts, sorcery and lore).

 

When Sartar founded his cities, he introduced the crafters and merchant associations to Dragon Pass. This is a parallel to the Greek and Phoenicians foundig their colonies around the mediterraneans, or the wave of cities founded in the Baltic region which led to the Hanseatic League.

Sartar modeled his cities on the cities in his native Heortland, which have a history reaching back to the late Dawn Age (or further, as in the case of Old Karse), and are an imitation of the cities of Esrolia (which reach back into the Golden Age) and/or God Forgot (which bring the Golden Age Malkioni tradition of city building into the region).

Now, people might say that cities have nothing to do with the heroes of the Ilias. However, that is not quite the case - most of the heroes before Troy were kings of their home cities, or champions for them. Being kings usually means having some deity few generations past in the male lineage.

We don't find any mention of crafters' or merchant guilds in the Ilias, though.

Few artisans are mentioned in Greek mythology. There is Daedalos, and there's Hephaistos the god of smiths, and the carpenter/shipwright of the Argo. Odysseus' horse has no named builder.

Crafter heroes are rare in the myths I am most familiar with. Daedalos, Wayland, Ilmarinen, soon followed by historical masters remembered for their works (Archimedes, the Alexandrine artificers). Crafting deities other than domestic crafts are quite rare, too – the Tuatha de Danann field an unusually high number. The Norse gods rely on outsiders – giants, svartalfar, dwarfs. And when they get the goods, they aren't ready to pay the price.

There is hardly any pantheon without a smith figure, though (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Smithing_gods). The Norse Wayland appears to be a rather weak and later addition, though.

Such heroes or deities had no need for guilds, of course. But e.g. the helpers of Hephaistos would form a fraternity.

Greek mythology does provide something like guilds, like the Idaean Dactyls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactyl_%28mythology%29#Idaean_Dactyls or nations of metallurgists like the Telchines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telchines, both listed as precursor cultures included in the Hellenes.

From the bureaucratic records for the tomb builders at Gizeh we know that the ancient Egyptians had specialized crafters in the bronze age. Corraling the elite of these into a secluded city probably started something like an association, too. While these folk toiled away at Gizeh, other monuments were built by the kings and the temples, and there seems to have been an exchange of patterns and styles between the tomb builders and those crafters working elsewhere in Egypt.

RQ2 mentions the name "guilder" for the standard silver coin for "the city of Corflu, run by various guilds." This must have been written before Biturian's visit...
 

[Noita]

The "city of Corflu"? I reckon the inhabitants would love to hear it called so  

 

[M Helsdon]

34 minutes ago, Joerg said:

In response to the question whether RQ has too strong social commitment for its characters (I think it doesn't, BTW), I started researching the origin of guilds and similar fraternities.

There are definitely guilds in modern Glorantha - see page 11 of the Sartar Companion which refers to the Guilder coin and the merchant guild of Jonstown. On these pages the merchant guild (mostly Issaries-based), Redsmiths Guild are mentioned, as well as the guilds of butchers, carpenters, leatherworkers, masons, weavers, and porters are all mentioned, as well as the Free Sages (Lhankor Mhy) who oversee the trades of scribes, alchemists, booksellers, parchment and ink makers. Similarly, Sartar: KoH makes mention of guilds of glass and leather guilds, and Pavis: GtA mentions Guild Elders, Guild Masters, Journeymen and their numbers (25 Elders, 120 Masters, 200 Journeymen, 50 guild wage-earners/junior apprentices). In addition to the Redsmith and Leather guilds, a jewelers guild, a merchants guild, a minstrels guild, riverman guild, stonemason's guild, weaponmasters guild are also mentioned.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

13 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

There are definitely guilds in modern Glorantha - see page 11 of the Sartar Companion which refers to the Guilder coin and the merchant guild of Jonstown. On these pages the merchant guild (mostly Issaries-based), Redsmiths Guild are mentioned, as well as the guilds of butchers, carpenters, leatherworkers, masons, weavers, and porters are all mentioned, as well as the Free Sages (Lhankor Mhy) who oversee the trades of scribes, alchemists, booksellers, parchment and ink makers. Similarly, Sartar: KoH makes mention of guilds of glass and leather guilds, and Pavis: GtA mentions Guild Elders, Guild Masters, Journeymen and their numbers (25 Elders, 120 Masters, 200 Journeymen, 50 guild wage-earners/junior apprentices). In addition to the Redsmith and Leather guilds, a jewelers guild, a merchants guild, a minstrels guild, riverman guild, stonemason's guild, weaponmasters guild are also mentioned.

Interesting. looking at the changes in Apple lane revisited, mention of the guilds has been removed -The Horse Masters Guild and Weapon Masters Guild. I had put this down to the word "guild" having too strong an association with medieval guilds rather then an ancient concept.  But perhaps they're removal is more to do with Apples Lane's remoteness from Urban centres, with guilds being largely an Urban phenomenon?

[M Helsdon]

44 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

Interesting. looking at the changes in Apple lane revisited, mention of the guilds has been removed -The Horse Masters Guild and Weapon Masters Guild. I had put this down to the word "guild" having too strong an association with medieval guilds rather then an ancient concept.  But perhaps they're removal is more to do with Apples Lane's remoteness from Urban centres, with guilds being largely an Urban phenomenon?

Guilds and guild-like organizations tended to be urban.

Whilst there's nothing quite like the medieval guild organization in ancient Assyria or Babylon, there are strong indications of trade organizations, often tracing their origin to a 'trade-father', and people engaged in a particular trade often lived on the same streets or same area of town... Later in the Hellenistic world there were more guild-like organizations, especially for professions such as actors, doctors, weavers, dyers etc.

Edited March 2, 2016 by M Helsdon

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

FWIW, Wikipedia has articles on "guilds" in medieval India and Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Guilds_of_South_India; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Za_(guilds)).  Another articles references organizations similar to guilds going back to the 5th century BC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shreni).   

[Garrik]

"Fraternity" was and is a good, general and perhaps even neutral term for guilds and guild-like social structures. That's the Latin term used since the Antiquity and through the medieval period.

This term also explains why a guild - instead of a family. Essentially, you act as if you were brothers/siblings, even when you aren't.

In Glorantha, the local guild-local cult-secret society divide is drawn on water, I guess. Issaries Inc Storm Tribe and Thunder Rebels books had these special cults to accommodate virtually all aspects of the society/economy. The number of specialist guilds given for Pavis seems to echo this type of Gloranthan vision.

Garrik

[Jon Hunter]

imho the guilds as represented in RQ2 were far to medi evil in nature for Glorantha.

Also most places in Glorantha are not urbanised enough to be able to support more than one or two guilds.

Guilds could exist and be significant in Esroila, Karolea and the Lunar Empire.

With cities such Pavis with its small population a wide range of guilds is not really feasible.

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, Garrik said:

"Fraternity" was and is a good, general and perhaps even neutral term for guilds and guild-like social structures. That's the Latin term used since the Antiquity and through the medieval period.

This term also explains why a guild - instead of a family. Essentially, you act as if you were brothers/siblings, even when you aren't.

This isn't so different from the formation of clans from disparate families.

7 hours ago, Garrik said:

In Glorantha, the local guild-local cult-secret society divide is drawn on water, I guess. Issaries Inc Storm Tribe and Thunder Rebels books had these special cults to accommodate virtually all aspects of the society/economy. The number of specialist guilds given for Pavis seems to echo this type of Gloranthan vision.

Garrik

Hero Wars and HeroQuest 1 had an overabundance of subcults. If you have them as guild patrons - more like wyters than subcults - that can work.

 

2 hours ago, Jon Hunter said:

imho the guilds as represented in RQ2 were far to medi evil in nature for Glorantha.

Also most places in Glorantha are not urbanised enough to be able to support more than one or two guilds.

Guilds could exist and be significant in Esroila, Karolea and the Lunar Empire.

With cities such Pavis with its small population a wide range of guilds is not really feasible.

Pavis has its own native specialty of the masons, due to Ginkizzie and his kin. Old Pavis catered to a range of magicians, so the survival of some specialized alchemy makes some sense, too, and probably one or two other crafts that wouldn't do in the same guild as their secrets are too different.

For New Pavis Dorasar brought a range of specialists from Sartar and probably Nochet, which may have resulted in filial chapterhouses rather than a fully fleshed guild, but still keep the customs and special knowledge of the mother guilds.

 

This takes us to Sartar and how many specialist guilds there could be.

Apart from Runegate and Clearwine, Wilmskirk was the first urban center in Quiviniland. Wilms was Sartar's crafting companion, and he seeded a lot of specialists from Heortland and Esrolia in the city named after him.

I think that putting up a city practically over night requires the importation of quite a few specialists. I know that my comparisons are mostly medieval, too, but take e.g. the city of Kiel which was founded on the edge of the Obodrite slavs and on the Danish border. The founding count sent his brother, an abbot, to oversee the founding of that city. The city itself had a road layout like a hash ( # ) with the central square occupied by the church and the market. There were hardly any fortifications to be built because the city was founded in  on a peninsula with a narrow connection to the mainland, where the castle of the count was founded. Preparing the city for its official take off took 8 to 10 years, with a lot of the work force based on a village just across the lagoon which the peninsula separated from the Kiel Fjord. Kiel pretty soon approached its final (for the next centuries) size of about 4000 inhabitants.

Now compare Wilmskirk. Sartar enters Dragon Pass around 1470.  Wilmskirk is founded in 1476, and its wall is up basically the same year.

Conwy and Caernarfon in Wales were similar newly founded cities. Like Kiel these cities were harbors, but unlike Kiel these cities had solid walls from the beginning. Still, getting those walls up took a number of years despite a huge workforce that possibly outnumbered the later inhabitants of the city.

The Romans dropped cities and military camps along the Rhine with similar speed. Cologne, Xanten or Haltern all started as standard legionary camps inside palisades, but then were expanded and fortified  to create a more permanent presence. The Danish kings of the closing Viking Age did similar kernels with their Trelleborg garrisons (tied to ships, though).

The Danubian Celtic city of Manching was founded in the La Tene period using the Hippodamus road layout found in the Greek colonies around the Mediterranean. It sported a river port on a side arm of the Danube or Isar and an extensive gallic wall (as described in admiraton by Caesar) from chalk stone, on an area that almost rivaled Old Pavis (and which - much like Old Pavis or Boldhome in Glorantha, or Karakorum in our world) never was fully urbanized.

The carpenters of Manching used standardized oak beams for the building frames - so standardized that they could be reused without the need for modifications for other buildings if their previous one was abandoned and built back after a couple of decades. This strongly suggests that the carpenters at least were organized in a guild-like structure.

[Garrik]

Here would be my entry points to pondering what is a guild in Glorantha, when, and where:

Historical guilds were oath-sworn local communities, often with a religious function. For the sake of argument, let's differentiate religious guilds and craft guilds.

1) In Glorantha, there are cults and clans, and it's hard to say where a religious guild would fit as a separate social structure. The process of founding a religious guild community would be probably identical to a specialist cult. In the now non-canonical Issaries-style Glorantha such a cult would have its own special hero. In the broader old/present-style Glorantha, the city-founder-spirits probably gather all the special craftspersons within a single city cult. Only some very special centres with a special cultural role (Jonstown with its Heroes of Wisdom) would have a local guild/cult for a different god/hero.

2) A craft guild (Zunft) that is preoccupied with production has two functions: it does quality-control of the goods, and sees to the employment of its members by keeping competition out. If that is the type of guild you're after, you need to check the production and trade within a region. There can be some rural guilds of this type, but most likely these kind of craft guilds are found in the tribal or inter-tribal centres: towns and cities. They can be really small, just a couple of families, if they're very specialized.

Guilds were not predominantly urban. There were rural guilds in medieval Europe. Most towns were quite small (less than 1.000 inhabitants, even less than 500 inhabitants). They are well comparable to Orlanthi tribal centres and Gloranthan small towns.

Standardization of construction probably doesn't need a special guild. Then again, you could call e.g. the workshops responsible for erecting the Greek temples guilds. I'd prefer "workshop", and maybe "fraternity".

Ancient Greek texts do not speak of guild-like structures probably because they are centred on the activities of the aristocracy. Also, in a world where many craftspersons are actually slaves, it's no wonder that they are not organized to control & defend their rights, or do not have a dominant role in stories and myths.

Summary?

Having guilds as a dominant structure in RQ2 society is plausible. But you probably have to accept that the player-characters in that game are not your ordinary land-tilling clansmen who visit the market as semi-outsiders to town life. The player-characters are more tied to buying, selling, and special tasks, and thus are more likely to encounter specialist groups - be they guilds, special cults, or magical persons. The RQ2 society works just fine as a vision of Glorantha, if you accept that it's the famous "one in seven" - only this time the "one in seven" are the player-characters, who see the world through their specialist eyes.

 

Garrik

Edited March 7, 2016 by Garrik

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Garrik said:

Here would be my entry points to pondering what is a guild in Glorantha, when, and where:

Historical guilds were oath-sworn local communities, often with a religious function. For the sake of argument, let's differentiate religious guilds and craft guilds.

Instead of religious, read magical function, and that pertains to pretty much all the guilds.

 

2 hours ago, Garrik said:

1) In Glorantha, there are cults and clans, and it's hard to say where a religious guild would fit as a separate social structure. The process of founding a religious guild community would be probably identical to a specialist cult. In the now non-canonical Issaries-style Glorantha such a cult would have its own special hero. In the broader present-style Glorantha, the city-founder-spirits probably gather all the special craftspersons within a single city cult.

For the Heortlings, here's how I would approach the cult/guild separation.

- Durev did it: It is an everyman's skill, and thus a subcult of Orlanth. Not necessarily for Orstan the Carpenter, but most other rural tasks.

- Ernalda did it: That doesn't exclude the presence of guilds for especially skilled individuals, e.g. weavers and potters. Bakers possibly too. Basket-making is a traditional non-guild craft in the Euopean middle ages, but needn't be in Glorantha. It is a typical rural craft, though, so maybe no guild after all, and rather a subcult of Ernalda.

- You need some lore for it: chances are high that the Lhankor Mhy cult will take these crafts into their fold. It isn't all about libraries and sages, you can (and should) have LM initiates in lore-heavy crafts. In the cities, these still may form guilds.

- You moved to the city to make most of your living form your craft: you join a guild and its wyter. Probably you also attend the city god, and you have a shrine to your clan wyter, for the festivals when you cannot make it back home into the hills.

Too many wyters? Not different in any way from joining a heroband/warband while remaining an active member of your clan.

2 hours ago, Garrik said:

2) A craft guild (Zunft) that is preoccupied with production has two functions: it does quality-control of the goods, and sees to the employment of its members by keeping competition out.

There's more to a Zunft, Innung etc. - it is a mutual security fonds which makes sure that your widow and orphaned children (and orphaned craft shop) will have a future. Quality control goes hand in hand with keeping the guild lore - special magics, trade secrets. And workplace security - a lot of crafts work with fire, which requires special care in urban environments, and usually is placed somewhat isolated.

There is also another function - if you have crafts which deal with several steps in the production process (like dyeing, weaving, tailoring), the guild controls the supply side. This may include touring the countryside to buy up cottage-made cloth or yarn, typically in exchange for dyed yarn and cloth (if only in the shape of ribbons).

2 hours ago, Garrik said:

If that is the type of guild you're after, you need to check the production and trade within a region. There can be some rural guilds of this type, but most likely these kind of craft guilds are found in the tribal or inter-tribal centres: towns and cities. They can be really small, just a couple of families, if they're very specialized.

Often related crafts join into a single guild if their environment doesn't really support multiple craft shops of that type.

 

2 hours ago, Garrik said:

Guilds were not predominantly urban. There were rural guilds in medieval Europe. Most towns were quite small (less than 1.000 inhabitants, even less than 500 inhabitants). They are well comparable to Orlanthi tribal centres.

That strongly depends on your definition of "medieval Europe". Probably more than half the modern cities in central Europe were founded between 1100 and 1300 AD, in an expansion very similar to Sartar's city foundations, or even more so to Dorasar's foundation of New Pavis parallel to the settlement of Pavis Country by farmers (especially in the Hanseatic League cities).

Earlier cities founded by the natives like Dorestad or Schleswig were smaller. (Hedeby possibly was quite a bit larger than its successor Schleswig). In Britain and weast of the Rhine/south of the Limes, a lot of the surviving Roman founded cities were bigger than that.

There are some parallels to the Hanseatic spreading of cities along the Baltic Sea and its hinterland, and the Greek and Phoenician distribution of colonies around the Mediterranean and its hinterland. Like a certain obligation to the parent city, and keeping that city's laws and rules for the colony.

2 hours ago, Garrik said:

Standardization of construction probably doesn't need a special guild. Then again, you could call e.g. the workshops responsible for erecting the Greek temples guilds. I'd prefer "workshop", and maybe "fraternity".

Temple workshops or cathedral masonries have in common that they attract specialists who become residents for the duration of the project, then migrate on to the next such project (possibly a generation or two later). But then I already mentioned the Pharaonic grave builders as a kernel for a guild-like fraternity.

 

2 hours ago, Garrik said:

Ancient Greek texts do not speak of guild-like structures probably because they are centred on the activities of the aristocracy. Also, in a world where many craftspersons are actually slaves, it's no wonder that they are not organized to control & defend their rights.

A lot of Greek citizens really were members of the land-holding class, owning a vineyard or an olive tree plantation worked on by dependants. It is this class that provided the urban hoplite militia. The crafters were second tier citizens, providing lightly armored militia, or e.g. marines for the fleet.

From classical Greece, I can name just one humble crafter: Sokrates the cobbler. Not a union member, as far as I recall.

5 minutes ago, Garrik said:

Having guilds as a dominant structure in RQ2 society is plausible. But you probably have to accept that the player-characters in that game are not your ordinary land-tilling clansmen who visit the market as semi-outsiders. The player-characters are more tied to buying, selling, and special tasks, and thus are more likely to encounter specialist groups - be they guilds, special cults, or magical persons. The RQ2 society works just fine as a vision of Glorantha, if you accept that it's the famous "one in seven".

I have been goin on about urban Orlanthi ever since I started discussing Glorantha. And pretty much so because I am/was chafing against "just the clan can give you your magic" dictum.

So: Every clan living within a day's forced march from the city will have kin (i.e. clan members) living more or less permanently in the city. These detached kin will join the clan in some of their greater festivals, will act as hosts to clan members having business in the city, and will send their children to be fostered by the clan for a couple of seasons.

Their contribution to the clan magic may be less than that of the typical stay-at-home farmer/herder clan member, since they don't participate in as many clan festivals feeding the wyter with their personal magical power. Whenever they do, though, they bring urban stuff to the sacrifices or to be sanctified.

Clan members on detached "duty" aren't that rare. If a clan member gets involved in the tribal ring,

 

There is another factor to be considered. We encounter guilds in an Orlanthi/Malkioni environment (like e.g. the glassblowers of Syran). I am not sure whether the Dara Happan culture has them. If so, probably inherited from the Pelandans. But the material on the Lunar Empire (of somewhat dubious canonicity) suggests that the Dara Happan trades etc. are organized in associations headed by potentates who are in control of the means of productivity (much like the Greek hoplite militia class or the Russian or US oligarchs of today).
While this too is a form of organisation, it is different from the guild concept which gives the crafters a form of emancipation with the nobles.

The material on the Malkioni suggests that at least the urban worker caste has formed a standing beyond that of mere serfdom, even in Rokari lands.

And about the port city run by guilds: I wonder whether that concept was moved from Corflu to Handra.

[Garrik]

Good stuff, I agree with your vision and addenda. 

By "medieval Europe" I meant the more urbanized high and late middle ages. Most of the town charters were held by rather small communities. A town of 1,000-2,000 inhabitants was already above the average. I agree, mid/late medieval period may not be a good comparison for the Orlanthi culture.

Garrik

[Lord High Munchkin]

Don't forget the social and fraternal (i.e. drinking) societies, associations and sworn brotherhoods - medieval people were pretty mad-keen on joining groups and clubs of all sorts.

[Jeff]

By "guild" we mean quasi-kinship groups organized around a craft or occupation. Traditionally, one is "adopted" into a guild, offers regular sacrifices to their patron spirit or founder, and usually has some sort collective liability to outsiders (but also internally handles disputes between its members). Within many cities, you need to belong to a guild to have the right to practice a trade. In many cases, the guild membership is synonymous to belonging to a cult or subcult. Examples include

• the "Merchants Guild" and the Issaries cult;
• "Redsmiths" and Gustbran; 
• Boatsmen and the local River or Sea cult);
• Potters and "the Potter Goddess" (an Ernalda Asrelia sub-cult); and
• Brewers and Minlister.

 

 

 

[Noita]

That's how I see them. I don't see the point of trying to justify guilds with examples from our own world. 

Guilds in my Pavis are just that, small groups of people/family banding together to share supplies, skills and revenue and perhaps cheating the tax man in some small way. Making money by teaching their skills and taking on apprentices. Not some sprawling trade group that spans countries.

[Mankcam]

55 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Examples include

• the "Merchants Guild" and the Issaries cult;
• "Redsmiths" and Gustbran; 
• Boatsmen and the local River or Sea cult);
• Potters and "the Potter Goddess" (an Ernalda Asrelia sub-cult); and
• Brewers and Minlister.

• The Trade Rings (associated with Issaries cult)
• The Free Sages (associated with Lhankor Mhy cult)
• The Brotherhod of Market Porters ( unsure of cult affiliation, ? Issaries)

Just sayin' (currently flipping thru Sartar Companion looking at the Jonstown section)

I tend to like the the notion that guilds are probably localised to particular regions and although they may have counterparts in other regions, they are in fact different guilds, possibly with different names as well. The cults are broad, yet the guilds are local or regionalised - that seems to work for me.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Mankcam

[Jeff]

I should have looked at the new Runequest for the boxed text I had:

Guilds

Gloranthan guilds are quasi-kinship societies organized around a craft or occupation. In most cases, a member is “adopted” into a guild. Guilds also serve as cults to their patron spirit or founder, and offer regular sacrifices and feasts. In most cities, one must belong to a guild to have the right to practice a trade, but the guild has some sort of collective liability to outsiders. Each guild tends to be independent; belonging to the Redsmith Guild in New Pavis does not make you a member of the Redsmith Guild in Boldhome! In large cities, there may be more than one guild for the same occupation – Nochet is notorious for street fights between rival guilds.

[Jon Hunter]

What would it take to form a guild?  i'd guess a few things

• At least 3 or 4 practitioners of that trade in the community.
• The freedom to organise
• A clear advantage or need for organising
• The need for professional services due to amateur skills not being qualified- ie weavers being a cottage industry in Orlanthi communities that most hearths will do themselves, means it unlikely to become a guild.

There would also be mobile brotherhoods or guilds for certain trades which require imported tradesmen to the best examples would be masons, builders and mercenaries.

I would also see smaller cities having limited of guilds and cross trade guilds.

[Jon Hunter]

On 3/6/2016 at 11:00 PM, Joerg said:

Pavis has its own native specialty of the masons, due to Ginkizzie and his kin. Old Pavis catered to a range of magicians, so the survival of some specialized alchemy makes some sense, too, and probably one or two other crafts that wouldn't do in the same guild as their secrets are too different.

For New Pavis Dorasar brought a range of specialists from Sartar and probably Nochet, which may have resulted in filial chapterhouses rather than a fully fleshed guild, but still keep the customs and special knowledge of the mother guilds.

I think I need to do some back tracking on pavis, id forgot what its population was.

With some back of fag packet maths  population 4000.

% of city population being supported by craftsmen at 20%, with each craftsmen having 3 depends gives us about 200 craftsmen in the city.

That does give room for 3 or 4 big guilds and 6 or 7 minor ones.

What I think I was pushing back against was large towns and small cities with populations of 500 - 2000, with a wide range of large guilds.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

I should have looked at the new Runequest for the boxed text I had:

Nice text, and basically what I set out defending. It would be interesting to see regional variations on how guilds work in different cultures, but I take this to be the norm for Theyalan civilization (though not for rural hicks).

 

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Gloranthan guilds are quasi-kinship societies organized around a craft or occupation. In most cases, a member is “adopted” into a guild. Guilds also serve as cults to their patron spirit or founder, and offer regular sacrifices and feasts.

So basically, guilds are a (usually non-heroic) form of hero band or "spirit" cult, with the best practitioners acting as guildmasters in a position similar to rune lords in martial cults. No Divine Intervention, possibly voluntary possession by/incarnation of the founder.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

In most cities, one must belong to a guild to have the right to practice a trade, but the guild has some sort of collective liability to outsiders.

Practicing a trade probably needs some clarification.

Like e.g. carpentry. Every rural Heortling is a carpenter, to some extent. Preparing and erecting a house or roof frame or a barn is something every men has participated in, as much as standing in the shield line in a raid (whether as raider or raided).

Raising a house in a city might be seen as "mind your own business, as I do mine, and my business right now is getting this house up", or it may be seen as requiring a master carpenter to oversee and evaluate the project, using only approved material imported by the guild of carpenters and woodworkers, each component bearing a brand of the guild sigil. I suppose that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Another subject that routinely leads to problems is influential people keeping retainers practicing the trade - not for business with outsiders, but servicing themselves at the exclusion of the local guild. So the band of mounted mercenaries has its own farrier and sharpener, who most likely doesn't belong to the local guild (if any at all). As long as he keeps to company jobs, this may be tolerated, but what if a mercanry's friend profits from the farrier's work, too?

 

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Each guild tends to be independent; belonging to the Redsmith Guild in New Pavis does not make you a member of the Redsmith Guild in Boldhome!

Still, membership in X guild of A makes you an associate of X guild in B (where X = Redsmith, A = New Pavis and B = Boldhome), whose standing in the guild remains to be determined by the local guild, though.

Say our redsmith from the mercenary company originally founded in New Pavis, but now more or less permanently garrisoned in Boldhome after the liberation of both cities from the Lunar occupation, used to be a member of the redsmiths (or metal workers in general) of Pavis. He will need to draw on the same kind of supplies as do the local redsmiths, he will need the same magics, and he would be crazy to operate in blatant opposition of the local guild unless provoked.

Let's assume blatant opposition for a bit. Having a band of battle-hardened mercenaries whose interests you serve may be a sufficient deterrent to keep his workshop from being destroyed, but that doesn't solve his supply problems. He will have to organize his charcoal, his raw metal and those tools he cannot produce himself from outside of the established channels of the local guild. There is little hope that the guilds in Jonstown, Swenstown or Wilmskirk will react favorably to his attempts to provision himself there, but he might have better luck with some of the local clans whose craftfolk maybe ran afoul of the Boldhome guild, too. There will be a risk of interference by guild members or guild sponsored muscle when bringing in those supplies - a good thing that he has his mercenary buddies.

And so on. Do I need to spell out story hook?

But more likely you don't want to play "my smith retainer has logistics problems", and you will be happier to have him establish a working relation with the local guild, sharing some of his work out at times, or accepting a few jobs brought to the guild. He might even switch his primary association from the mercenary band to the guild, which you don't really want (to play out) either, so an associate status is required.

 

Then there are journeymen - craftfolk who finished their apprenticehood but who don't own a workshop. If we are talking about bakers, brewers or potters, this means they cannot do any work outside of the guild. In the case of carpenters, woodcarvers or other professions that make do with a couple of tools you can carry around with you, they could take jobs without involving the guild. In order to avoid this situation where everyone loses, the guilds need to be reasonably welcoming to journeymen, offering them at least temporary opportunities.

It might be symptomatic that only the German wikipedia has articles on the subjects of Freisprechung, Gesellenbrief etc. which reflect the traditions and realities of a craft guild system, and which still are part of the German education curriculum for traditional crafts.

Freisprechung or Lossprechung is the ritual initiation of an apprentice to journeyman status. It releases him from his apprentice obligations to his master (and vice versa) and makes him eligible to temporary or full guild membership should he choose to continue to work for his master, or another master in this guild. But this also frees him to wander about, taking jobs with other cities' guilds' masters, or autonomously in the rural areas where there are no guild masters, and entitles him to a guild-approved payment for his work days. It also makes him eligible to go for his mastery. (Strangely, anglophone academia has kept this tradition where the crafts haven't...)

 

All of this may sound very medieval to you, and of course this is what was practiced in medieval times. In case of much of Germany, there were hardly any cities around before the middle ages, and so the guild system developed that lately. (There may have been city-like communities of not quite this size before contact with the Romans which may have been abandoned due to Roman raids.) However, the practice seems to have spread from the Roman-founded cities into the rest of Germany, so I think it is fairly safe to assume that there were precursors in Cologne, Trier, or Augsburg in the late Roman era or the Dark Ages.

Let's have a look at Thrace or Dacia during the Roman Empire. In Dacia, we find a mining industry producing gold for the chieftain seats, which was the reason why Trajan led his legions there, eliminating the culture, enslaving the population and saving the financial balance for the empire for the duration of his reign - repeating earlier such lucrative expansions like against the Macedons, the Sicilian, then Spanish, then African holdings of Carthage, the Gallic gold, and Augustus completing Caesar's and Marcus Antonius' grab for Egypt. (The failure of the empire might have resulted from the Romans running out of sufficiently wealthy neighbors they managed to conquer to pay for their state - the more distant successor states had been collected by the Parthians, the Germans had destroyed too many legionaries for too little profit, as did the Picts, Hibernia lay across a sea which was too risky for the Roman fleet, and all of Africa north of the desert had been included.)

 We don't know whether the Dacians had anything like craft guilds. They appear to have had a flowering industry producing artfully crafted artifacts, which the Romans enslaved as workforce for their home country.

In case of Noricum, the situation appears to have been different. This region had been a major supplier for the Roman legions, producing gladii, spatae and helmets from the famous "Noric Steel", and served as a transshipping link in the amber road. Some gold was mined, too. Apart from minor border conflicts (one of which led to the annexation of "regnum noricum" as a semi-autonomous province under Augustus), they tended to be friends with the republic and early empire, and stout trading partners. Craftsmanship was the foundation for this trade relation, and it is more than likely that the local craftsfolk had some organisation. Already the Hallstatt folk had non-agricultural communities in the salt mining. Adding a steel industry likely inherited from these experiences where the output of the non-farmers fed the community, and may have created a special caste or fraternity of the folk creating these riches.

Now compare the relationship between Noricum and the republic of Rome with that of Sartar and Kethaela. A long standing trade route (the amber road, and also salt), interrupted and depopulated dramatically by the Chiemgau impact (the only event in Old World history approaching the dimension of the Dragonkill, however localized it may have been and how downplayed by historians and archaeologists, who nevertheless fail to account for the break between the Hallstatt and the La Tene cultures), then repopulated and providing strong trade relations with the civilization on the sea shore in the south, both facing the onslaught of an unstoppable development in the north. (Ok, the nature of the Germanic threat differs greatly from the Lunar Empire, but the threat potential is comparable. The Huns and Attila add a nice Sheng element, too.)

 

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

In large cities, there may be more than one guild for the same occupation – Nochet is notorious for street fights between rival guilds.

In this case, I think the various guilds will have alliances with different cities outside of Nochet. If you are a journeyman from Arkat's Hold or New Crystal City, you had better avoid contacting guilds that are allied with the Pennel guilds or those of Rhigos. Party allegiances like Old Earth, Warm Earth etc. and Chartered House relations soon overlap with these, I suppose.

[Jon Hunter]

Should guilds of the ancient world be organised round trades, or important tradesmen?

As in i belong to the guild of Arras the Redsmith, rather than I belong to the redsmiths guild.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Jon Hunter

[Jeff]

26 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Should guilds of the ancient world be organised round trades, or important tradesmen?

As in i belong to the guild of Arras the Redsmith, rather than I belong to the redsmiths guild.

You likely belong to the cult of Gustbran the Bonesmith, or the Bonesmith Brotherhood, or the Smith Street Association, or Flaming Hand Family. But we'll call it the Redsmiths Guild for our own sanity.

[Joerg]

1 minute ago, Jon Hunter said:

should guilds be organised round trades, or important tradesmen ?

I would say guilds organize around shared interests - supply, market control, secrets held in common. A small town may have a guild of metalworkers including tinkers and jewellers, while a large city may have a guild of armorers, a guild of bladesmiths etc.

On the far end, a metropolis like Nochet will have rivaling guilds of bladesmiths. Each guild will have influence on different markets of the city.

A Dara Happan metropolis will have rivaling associations vying for control over a certain trade segment.

With merchants, one may well encounter individuals (or individual families) that rival city confederations. Gringle used to be one such, but was leeched into near destitution by his involuntary role as tax farmer. The chartered houses of Nochet can be like the Fuggers of Augsburg, the Casa Vecchia families of Venice, or like the Triumvir Crassus (who failed so miserably against the Parthians). The Assiday of Raibanth are comparable to the Medici, combining economical and political power. So are the Capratis of Pasos.

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, Jeff said:

You likely belong to the cult of Gustbran the Bonesmith, or the Bonesmith Brotherhood, or the Smith Street Association, or Flaming Hand Family. But we'll call it the Redsmiths Guild for our own sanity.

In Nochet, you have to make the differentiation. It will be a rare redsmith who doesn't belong to the cult of Gustbran the Bonesmith, but in Nochet you define your allegiance by the guildhouse/temple which you frequent.

In Wilmskirk, you will find Wilms as the patron of the guilds. They may have started separately, but as likely they may have split off an initial city guild-of-all-trades when trade caught up and forming a specialized group became valid, or when providers and consumers in the guild found out that their interests diverged (like e.g. dyers and weavers, who are both textile oriented trades, but may have come head to head about the agreed-upon prices).

[Jon Hunter]

57 minutes ago, Joerg said:

In Nochet, you have to make the differentiation. It will be a rare redsmith who doesn't belong to the cult of Gustbran the Bonesmith, but in Nochet you define your allegiance by the guildhouse/temple which you frequent.

In Wilmskirk, you will find Wilms as the patron of the guilds. They may have started separately, but as likely they may have split off an initial city guild-of-all-trades when trade caught up and forming a specialized group became valid, or when providers and consumers in the guild found out that their interests diverged (like e.g. dyers and weavers, who are both textile oriented trades, but may have come head to head about the agreed-upon prices).

I think you got the point I was trying to make.

Size of city will determine the number, diversity and strength of guilds.

Also I think current politics, travel networks, religion, culture and will determine guild cooperation across cities, but agree with Jeff that the norm will be isolated city guids.