Guilds

[soltakss]

On 3/8/2016 at 8:47 AM, Jeff said:

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.

 

While I agree that the local cult will dominate in a particular guild, I think that the guild structure lends itself to membership from multiple cults.

So, the Merchants Guild in Sartar would be dominated by Issaries but could well have members who are worshippers of Argan Argar, Etyries, Lokarnos, Carith or other trading cults. 

They come along to guild meetings, pay their dues and have their say. Membership also allows them to practise their trade in the area where the guild applies.

[Joerg]

7 minutes ago, soltakss said:

While I agree that the local cult will dominate in a particular guild, I think that the guild structure lends itself to membership from multiple cults.

So, the Merchants Guild in Sartar would be dominated by Issaries but could well have members who are worshippers of Argan Argar, Etyries, Lokarnos, Carith or other trading cults. 

They come along to guild meetings, pay their dues and have their say. Membership also allows them to practise their trade in the area where the guild applies.

When it comes to merchant guilds, I can see guilds spanning several cities, and rivaling guilds even in small places like Wilmskirk. A bit like the Joh Mith guild in Balazar and the Far Point, and bigger ones for bigger trade volumes.

Merchant cults are more or less always associate cults of one another, that's the nature of their activities. At the same time, merchant guilds will jealously guard exclusive trade goods. Like e.g. the legal Hazia trade of the Empire. All the hubbub about illegal Hazia plantations is about taxes and exclusive trading rights, as far as the Lunars are concerned. The Yelmalio cult might see this as an infringement of cult restrictions (but then, they put a damper on any activity that might be fun, whether fornication, food, fumes, or flamboyant clothing - they might be most forgiving about drinking).

[Jeff]

If you want to be part of the merchants' guild, be protected by Issaries' magic, and have the right to sell goods in the Issaries market, I suspect you need to be at least a lay member (if not an initiate) of Issaries. Heck, in many cities, the Issaries market is the Issaries temple. When the members of the temple acts in city affair, we often call it "the Merchants Guild". But we'd be just as accurate to say "the Issaries cult". 

 

[Joerg]

26 minutes ago, Jeff said:

If you want to be part of the merchants' guild, be protected by Issaries' magic, and have the right to sell goods in the Issaries market, I suspect you need to be at least a lay member (if not an initiate) of Issaries. Heck, in many cities, the Issaries market is the Issaries temple. When the members of the temple acts in city affair, we often call it "the Merchants Guild". But we'd be just as accurate to say "the Issaries cult".

Sure - lay membership of Issaries (or Etyries, or whichever cult is running the market) is highly advisable, even as customer. The question is rather whether membership in one Trader cult doesn't automatically make you an associate initiate of the other, giving you a choice of ritual roles in the market.

[Jon Hunter]

18 minutes ago, Jeff said:

If you want to be part of the merchants' guild, be protected by Issaries' magic, and have the right to sell goods in the Issaries market, I suspect you need to be at least a lay member (if not an initiate) of Issaries. Heck, in many cities, the Issaries market is the Issaries temple. When the members of the temple acts in city affair, we often call it "the Merchants Guild". But we'd be just as accurate to say "the Issaries cult". 

 

That works fine when your looking at one culture with professional merchants, what about a culture where there are multiple trading cults.

• Issaries/Argan Argar parts of kethelia  
• Issaries/etyries/lokarnos lunar provinces

In these situations guilds would need to cross cult lines.

It also doesn't look at non professional merchants such as the farmer selling his excess crops, the rural cottar/potter bring her excess wares to a larger market once a season. I can see many market stalls in cities being of this type. The trading cults will organise and police such markets, but many stall holders will not be merchants.

I'm not entirely sure the point i'm trying to make apart from I thinks its messier in many situations that all traders = guild members = cult members.

Different cities could run different systems

So city A in the empire one guild rune exclusivity by etyries, initiates only in the main market, have to be a lay member to trade in the farmers market, no other cults allowed to trade.

or the Johnstown Guild runs predominately by etyries and Issaries cults, the lunar administration demands an open a market for its traders, so the cults and the guild are separate entities, this makes Johnstown busier as it becomes an open not closed market.

Again variation is the spice of life.

[scott-martin]

17 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Sure - lay membership of Issaries (or Etyries, or whichever cult is running the market) is highly advisable, even as customer. The question is rather whether membership in one Trader cult doesn't automatically make you an associate initiate of the other, giving you a choice of ritual roles in the market.

I think this opens the door to the more pernicious old question of how you discover reciprocal initiation in play. If I come to a new jurisdiction where they don't recognize Goldentongue, I need to identify their local equivalent and convince their examiners to let me set up my shingle. This may involve a little lip service to their gods, certification, silver crosses palms, I swear not to handle state monopoly goods and respect local pricing, etc.

I basically have to prove my magic and prove to them that I respect theirs. Once that happens, I was always already in -- their temple is compatible enough with mine that I can recover spells and sacrifice there, I was always compatible enough with them that they'll take me (even begrudgingly). Until that happens, they don't know me and will tend to deal with me like any other interloper trying to horn in on their action.

It's probably similar for many of the other old "generic" cults, many of which perhaps not coincidentally have something like a professional or guild-like orientation. The local examiners are key.

[Jeff]

16 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Sure - lay membership of Issaries (or Etyries, or whichever cult is running the market) is highly advisable, even as customer. The question is rather whether membership in one Trader cult doesn't automatically make you an associate initiate of the other, giving you a choice of ritual roles in the market.

No it doesn't. Look Issaries and Argan Argar have very different roles. Issaries is the god of the marketplace. He protects its neutrality, protects his worshipers from thieves and cheats, and is the god of a place where commerce can happen.

Argan Argar is the god of surface darkness. He's not a god of markets. He's a god that is the darkness on the surface world - he lets you walk in the darkness, he brings the shadows, suppresses the light, and bars passage into the deeper darkness. He's the friendliest of Darkness gods towards the Earth, and as a result is sometimes seen as a "trade god" - but that's actually not his mythic or magical role. His cult monopolizes peaceable communication between the Darkness (trolls) and the surface world, which is why if you want to trade with the trolls, you need to go through Argan Argar.

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, Jeff said:

No it doesn't. Look Issaries and Argan Argar have very different roles. Issaries is the god of the marketplace. He protects its neutrality, protects his worshipers from thieves and cheats, and is the god of a place where commerce can happen.

Argan Argar is the god of surface darkness. He's not a god of markets. He's a god that is the darkness on the surface world - he lets you walk in the darkness, he brings the shadows, suppresses the light, and bars passage into the deeper darkness. He's the friendliest of Darkness gods towards the Earth, and as a result is sometimes seen as a "trade god" - but that's actually not his mythic or magical role. His cult monopolizes peaceable communication between the Darkness (trolls) and the surface world, which is why if you want to trade with the trolls, you need to go through Argan Argar.

I wasn't talking about identity, but about a role of mutual support based on Godtime events when this was the case.

Argan Argar, or at least the Only Old One, was about mutual tribute to increase mutual benefits. The customary tributes were defined in the Gray Age, and they oriented themselves along supply and demand. Supply in the Gray or Silver Age was extremely limited while demand was high.

Issaries was active in the Underworld in the Silver Age. His lesser aspects such as Harst not necessarily, and I think it is rather likely that worshippers of Harst were the default interface with the Kitori collectors (and dispensers). A mutual role in an Issaries market may (but need not) be derived from this.

[scott-martin]

31 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Argan Argar, or at least the Only Old One, was about mutual tribute to increase mutual benefits. The customary tributes were defined in the Gray Age, and they oriented themselves along supply and demand. Supply in the Gray or Silver Age was extremely limited while demand was high.

Issaries was active in the Underworld in the Silver Age. His lesser aspects such as Harst not necessarily, and I think it is rather likely that worshippers of Harst were the default interface with the Kitori collectors (and dispensers). A mutual role in an Issaries market may (but need not) be derived from this.

Interesting. On the surface it is true, there is no active Market program among the Argan Argar at this time. We don't give them that spell. They come to us when they want to deal. As a result Issaries has no native competition throughout the Holy Country.

The underworld rites are a matter of inner temple doctrine and not the open marketplace. The Market spell is not fungible at this level but perhaps this is where Spell Trading comes into its own, changing the terms of the discussion and opening all obstacles to free exchange. (This in itself conceals a Secret of how "reciprocal initiation" works in general.)

Either way, since I'm here, I would suggest that much of the lay production in the "guilds" comes under the Issaries umbrella -- the urban Harsts source and manufacture their own packaging, associate Minlinsters and so on are always available to add value before resale, the tavern cult handles retail, etc.

Edited March 9, 2016 by scott-martin

[Jeff]

Pottery, at least in Dragon Pass, Kethaela, and Maniria, I think is associated with the Earth goddesses. A subcult of Ernalda/Asrelia (let's just call her the Pot Goddess), she is the secret of making and decorating wombs of clay that hold grain, wine, oil, the remains of the dead, and much more. She is old - a daughter of Asrelia and Lodril, or perhaps Ernalda and Lodril (Earth cults often treat them as the same goddess, just at different stages of their life)

[scott-martin]

25 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Pottery, at least in Dragon Pass, Kethaela, and Maniria, I think is associated with the Earth goddesses. A subcult of Ernalda/Asrelia (let's just call her the Pot Goddess), she is the secret of making and decorating wombs of clay that hold grain, wine, oil, the remains of the dead, and much more. She is old - a daughter of Asrelia and Lodril, or perhaps Ernalda and Lodril (Earth cults often treat them as the same goddess, just at different stages of their life)

This raises the interesting and perhaps delicate question of the status and provenance of female Issaries in Esrolia. For me there's nothing shocking about a woman who moves her wheel into the Issaries workshop and bargains her own account. After all, it's just a quick hop from the Asrelia grandmotherly secret to Spare Grain and besides, the talking god is complex. But the mothers may have other opinions and in any event it's another thread.

[TRose]

Should be kept in mind many Craft skills where family or State Secrets. Good example of
Tyrian purple dye where some say the slaves responsible for making the dye where blinded so as to not run away. or the making of glass in Venice where the glass workers where forbidden from leaving the island of Murano on pain of death.

 I remember reading a story set in Japan where a man moved to a village famous for its pottery, married a local woman and stayed there for twenty years till he learned the secrets of how their pottery was made. He then moved back to his old village and taught them the secrets he learned about pottery making. The people in the village who had their secrets stolen where so enraged they burn the mans wife and children to death.

[Darius West]

The fact is that a guilded labor system is pretty universal in human cultures across Eurasia.  The Romans and Greeks had them, so did the Egyptians.  The Indians had them.  The Chinese had them and so did Japan.  

The notion of a guild is that it is as much a school of quality training as it is an industrial monopoly.  The notion being that if you sign on for an apprentice and stick it out, you will become a journeyman and become a recognised practitioner in your own right.  There are often strong familial ties within guilds, and often parents would sell their children to become apprentices with a fair hope that their kids would be better off as a result.  

The point of guilds were that they acted as monopolies on certain goods, and as a result they were responsible to the leadership in whatever form it took for filling contracts, so if the Emperor needed 80,000 spears asap, they could call on all their skilled workers and fill the contract and everyone in the guild shared the remuneration according to rank and effort.

The other thing was that nearly all guilds had a patron saint or deity

Of course Guilds were also often pretty corrupt.  In Japan the guilds often tattooed members, and many of them became the foundation of organized criminal syndicates.  In China the Tongs were "mutual prosperity societies" i.e. guilds.  And notably in Byzantium the fist non-skilled guild was the Dock Worker's guild who paralyzed that city with a stand off against the legions until they got recognition.

Obviously guild papers are only relevant within the jurisdiction where the guild operates, however situations create wiggle room.  For example if you are a skilled smith and you set up in a city where your papers aren't recognised you will likely get in trouble with the local guild... on the other hand if the Emperor wants 80,000 spears and it is all hands on deck, perhaps you can pay a fine and guild dues and the guild will recognise your papers.  Similarly some guilds may have international connections.

The crucial thing is to remember that a Guild is more than a little like a cult and IS often attached to a cult, and similar in its dynamics to any other human tribe or society that operates in an urban setting.

 

 

Edited June 22, 2016 by Darius West