European Review of Economic History, , –.


C European Historical Economics Society 
doi:./S First published online  March 

Gilding golden ages: perspectives

from early modern Antwerp on the
guild debate, c.  – c. 
BERT DE MUNCK
Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp, bert.demunck@ua.ac.be

This article contributes to the debate about the early modern craft guilds’
rationale through the lens of apprenticeship. Based on a case study of the
Antwerp manufacturing guilds, it argues that apprenticeship should be
understood from the perspective of ‘distributional conflicts’. Fixed terms
of service and masterpieces guarded the guilds’ labour market monopsony,
enabling masters to distribute the available skilled and unskilled labour
among members (among other ways, through the restriction of the
number of apprentices per master). Although from the perspective of
product quality, this may have enabled masters to prevent adverse
selection, the introduction of standardized apprenticeship requirements
was the result of social and rent-seeking concerns.

Some three decades of ‘guild rehabilitation’ have shown that guild

regulations were neither necessarily at odds with economic growth nor by
definition opposed to flexibility and innovation. The empirically established
correlation between rising numbers of guilds and economic expansion
(for instance, during the golden ages of the Southern Netherlands and
the Dutch Republic) suggests that economic growth and guild regulation
could perfectly well go hand in hand. Moreover, economic historians,
using concepts from ‘new institutional economics’ and game theory, have
developed thought-provoking theories in which guilds are seen as helping
(in the words of S. R. Epstein) ‘to overcome the persistent market failures
caused by thin, underdeveloped, or non-existent markets’ (Epstein ,
p. ). Craft guilds appear to have played a relevant role, especially in skill-
and technology-intensive industries producing high-quality goods (Pfister
, pp. –). They are said to have been of major importance for the
development and diffusion of (transferable) skills. According to Epstein,
guilds could enable masters to recover the cost of training by paying wages
below the marginal product of labour, while at the same time stimulating
apprentices to train by means of bonds (entry fees) and end-term rewards
(higher wages or a privileged entrance to the labour market as an employee

For a recent state of the art see Epstein and Prak ().

De Munck et al. (). For Italy see Mocarelli ().
 European Review of Economic History

or an employer). Moreover, guilds are thought to have guaranteed product

quality and developed customer trust in the products and skills involved in
making them. By monitoring skills and product quality, selling imperfect
substitutes, and investing in brand loyalty, craft guilds were able to prevent
adverse selection and to raise prices above marginal cost (Munro , ;
Gustafsson ; Pfister ; Richardson , ).
Recently, however, some serious doubts have been cast on these
arguments, in particular in a fierce discussion between S. R. Epstein and
S. Ogilvie (Ogilvie , ; Epstein ; see also Boldorf ). While
Epstein has specifically developed a theory on the possible positive economic
effects of apprenticeship arrangements – which are considered not only as
advantageous to product quality but also to have facilitated human capital
formation and technological innovation (Epstein ; reprinted in Epstein
and Prak , pp. –), Ogilvie () has questioned the positive impact
of guilds altogether. Based on a case study of the worsted industry in the
Wildberg canton in Württemberg and on an extensive ‘deconstruction’
of existing theories and models, Ogilvie (, , ) has argued
that ‘distributional conflicts’ provide better explanation for the enduring
existence of guilds in early modern Europe. Ogilvie thus rehabilitates an
older tradition in which guilds were seen as (inefficient) vehicles for rent-
seeking behaviour, suggesting that they should be examined also from a
social and cultural perspective. Next to power relations and conflicts over
resources and entrance to markets, other norms and values – which could be
at odds with economic efficiency – should be taken into account when trying
to explain the introduction and enduring existence of guild regulations.
Notwithstanding intense debate, it remains inconclusive. Ogilvie’s
arguments are set aside because of her case study’s atypical characteristics –
the worsteds produced in the western Black Forest were of relatively low
quality and Württemberg’s proto-industry was controlled not by ‘powerful’
guilds but by a guild-like association of merchant-entrepreneurs who left the
weavers little economic leeway (Pfister , pp. –; Lis and Soly ,
p. ). Nor are the models and theories supporting the view that guilds
were economically beneficial unambiguous. The role of apprenticeship
arrangements in particular is hard to pinpoint. According to Epstein,
craft guilds enforced contractual norms that reduced opportunism by both
masters and apprentices. Since apprentices were liable to be exploited as
cheap labour and could be discharged before acquiring the agreed skills,
they needed to make sure they would receive adequate training. Masters,
in turn, needed to ensure that there would be a return on their investment


Esp. Epstein (). For the influence of guilds on migration and the transfer of
technology see Ehmer (); Elkar (); Reith ().

For a historiographic overview with extensive references see Farr (); see also
Richardson (, ), Stabel ().
 Gilding golden ages 

in training, so they ‘demanded rights over the apprentice’s labour through

long-term training agreements upheld by formal or informal sanction’. Yet
Epstein is very unclear on why precisely guilds were needed. He assumes that
guilds had contract-enforcing effects related to apprentice contracts (to keep
the apprentices on the shop floor longer), not least because masters were
vested with the legal prerogatives of fathers (Epstein , pp. , –).
However, this was not necessarily introduced formally by the guilds, and
could just as well have been the result of customs or informal rules, perhaps
in the context of a brotherhood. Introducing it formally or sanctioning it in
practice could just as well have been the work of urban or central authorities.
Moreover, as the possible positive economic effects referred to in Epstein’s
theory were largely unintended, guilds may have had rent-seeking intentions
while remaining economically beneficial.
The aim of this article is not to examine economic effects, but to shed light
on the reasons behind (formal) apprenticeship arrangements and (hence) on
the intentions behind their introduction. The choice of Antwerp during its
so-called ‘golden age’ should answer the need for a more representative
region or city. In the long sixteenth century, Antwerp was renowned for its
economic accomplishment and its high-quality and skill-intensive products.
Moreover, at its economic peak the large majority of artisans worked in guild-
based industries, and whenever new industries took off, they were generally
soon incorporated, mostly at the request of the masters themselves. The role
of apprenticeship, however, is far from straightforward. In manufacturing
guilds, apprenticeship materialized mostly in fixed minimum terms to
serve and ex post assessment of skills with standardized masterpieces.
Interestingly, in Antwerp these rules were introduced mostly in (or at least
in the run-up to) its ‘golden age’, i.e. from the second half of the fifteenth
century to  (the so-called Fall of Antwerp). Not only did the number
of guilds increase during its economic expansion, but a masterpiece was
typically introduced in the ‘long sixteenth century’ as well. Fragmentary


Cf. Van der Wee (, ); Thijs (), Blondé and Limberger (n.d.); Van Damme
().

E.g. the gold and silversmiths (), silk weavers (), ribbon makers (), camlet
dyers () and diamond cutters ().

An international database on collective organizations such as guilds has been built in the
frame of the Dutch NWO-project ‘Data infrastructure for the study of guilds and other
forms of corporate collective action in pre-industrial times’ (dir. Jan Luiten van Zanden).
The data on Antwerp are being collected in order to include them in a sub-database on the
Southern Netherlands. For the moment, they include  guilds,  of which were
established (or at least first mentioned) between  and . See
www.collective-action.info/ (accessed  December ).

Cabinetmakers: ; tinsmiths: ; gold and silversmiths: ; linen weavers: 
(small weavers and tick weavers in the seventeenth century); carpenters: ; cloth
dressers: (probably) ; shoemakers and tanners: ; twiners: ; the Four Crowned
(masons, stone cutters, slaters and road pavers): . City Archives Antwerp (CAA
 European Review of Economic History

data suggest that even a fixed minimum term of service was all but standard
until well into the fifteenth century. At least until the first decades of that
century guild officials simply had to declare before the city magistrates who
someone was when accepting him as a new member. Finally, restrictions
on the number of apprentices per master and entry fees for apprentices were
introduced (or became pecuniary) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
What problems did guild officials try to solve in devising these
apprenticeship rules? Were they related to economic efficiency or to
distributional conflicts? If the latter, was there awareness of possible
economic effects? I will argue that apprenticeship arrangements as they were
established by the Antwerp guilds should be understood as a consequence
rather than a cause of economic expansion. Unsurprisingly, Antwerp’s
‘golden age’ – the peaks of which should be situated between the end of the
fifteenth century and the third quarter of the sixteenth – was accompanied
by unprecedented demographic growth. Between the end of the fourteenth
century and the s – the period in which apprenticeship arrangements
were formalized and standardized – the city expanded from less than ,
to about , inhabitants (Blondé and Limberger n.d., –). This
raises questions on how the introduction of apprenticeship arrangements was
related to the inclusion (or exclusion) and integration of new entrants (both
apprentices and masters). Moreover, demographic growth was accompanied
by changing labour relations. Current research on the economic history of
the South Netherlandish (export) industries tends to stress the co-existence
of merchant capitalism and powerful guilds, but this did not prevent power
relations from shifting drastically – as the fierce debates between large and
small masters and between masters and merchant capitalists reveal. While
the former typically debated the size of workshops, the latter discussed the
boundaries of the group of privileged freemen (masters) and the entrance

hereafter), Guilds and Crafts (GC hereafter) ,  June , art. , fol. v; GC ,
fol.  (copy); GC ,  November ; GC ,  November ; GC , 
March , art. –; GC ,  April , fol. v; CAA, GC ,  March ;
Prims (, p. ; , p. ); Thijs (, p. ). This was the case also in other cities
in the Southern Netherlands. In Ghent many master trials were introduced only around
. Dambruyne (, pp. –).

In most fifteenth-century ordinances it is unclear whether apprenticeship terms were
required or how long they should last. E.g. CAA, GC ,  September , fols.
r–r (shipmasters); GC ,  October , fols. v–v (wood breakers); GC
,  November , fols. v–v (gardeners); GC /bis,  May , art. –
(tailors); GC ,  September , art.  (stocking makers).

CAA, GC ,  February , fol. r (shoemakers); GC ,  September , fol.
r (shipmasters); GC ,  October , fol. v (wood breakers); GC , 
March , fol.  (blacksmiths); GC ,  August , fol. r (coopers); GC
,  November , fol. r (carpenters); GC ,  August , art.  (masons);
GC ,  November , fol. r (second-hand dealers).

Lis and Soly (; ; , pp. –; ); see also Thijs (, pp. –).
 Gilding golden ages 

to the masters’ labour market monopsony (De Munck a, , a).
Again, the question is what part apprenticeship arrangements played.
Analysing this, I will specifically address Epstein’s theory on
apprenticeship. In the first section, I will reflect on the practice of concluding
apprentice contracts from the perspective of human capital formation. While
apprentice contracts could in theory be concluded without guilds, in the
Southern Netherlands it was a relatively autonomous activity even in guild-
based sectors (De Munck b). The crucial question to ask, then, is what
guilds may have added to this practice. From this perspective, the second
and third sections analyse the introduction of fixed terms and standardized
master tests, exploring in particular whether they served a contract-enforcing
goal. By closely following their earliest changes and comparing them with a
sample of apprenticeship contracts, it will be shown that these regulations
were not introduced for economic reasons. From the perspective of the
formation of ‘human capital’ and the inclusion of skills, they did more
to create problems than to solve them. While fixed terms of service and
standardized masterpieces were geared to transferable skills in particular (i.e.
more or less general skills applicable in a specific range of firms, for example
across a craft guild), the emphasis in Antwerp appears to have shifted to
a need for specific skills. Moreover, increasing immigration brought about
a concern about the inclusion of skills, rather than the production of skills.
In my opinion, therefore, these regulations first of all served to guard the
guilds’ labour market monopsony against the intrusion of merchants and
illegal entrepreneurs in the context of increasing immigration and a strain
on face-to-face relations, as will become clear in the fourth section. The
subsequent analysis of the maximum number of apprentices per master in
this section will show that the Antwerp guilds should be seen, at least in
part, as brotherhoods who tried to guard a certain equality among members
in the face of concentration trends (large masters favouring deregulation).
Hence, the guilds’ alleged exclusiveness should be qualified too. In the
fifth section, it will be shown that rising entry fees for apprentices served
to counterbalance rising entry fees for masters. As such, they may have
served a contract-enforcing goal, but only so as to check raising barriers
of entry for masters, which climbed unintentionally – in part as a result
of cultural and symbolic preoccupations. Expanding on this, some possible
other explanations than Epstein’s for the positive economic effects of guild
regulations will be reflected upon in the sixth section.
My analysis is based on a broad sample of guild ordinances, beginning with
the first ever edited (mostly fifteenth century) up to about . A carefully
selected sample of trades will be studied in more detail: the barber-surgeons,
the cloth dressers, the cabinetmakers (including the ebony workers), the
gold and silversmiths, the pewterers and plumbers, and the shoemakers and
tanners. For these industries I have also analysed a sample of apprentice
contracts, starting from a database of  contracts which I developed
 European Review of Economic History

in the course of my PhD research on apprenticeship in Antwerp (see De

Munck c). Most of these contracts date from the second half of the
seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, so there is a time lag between the
bulk of the corporative regulations studied and the bulk of the contracts.
Moreover, the contracts we found were mostly drawn up before a public
notary, suggesting that they might be rather atypical (as registering the
contracts was not obligatory). The appearance of these contracts might
even be considered a response to shifts related to apprenticeship in the
sixteenth century. As a result, I will not use the contracts in order to reveal
a reality which preceded the sixteenth-century regulations, but rather as a
possible alternative to them. With respect to the guild rules, the empirical
base is far more substantial: the first and most important ordinances of
all the craft guilds of any significance in Antwerp were used. For the
most part they are used qualitatively, paying attention to the arguments
used and the co-appearance of different regulations while linking them to
the socio-economic and political context. However, for three guilds I have
been able to empirically link the establishment of formal apprenticeship
arrangements to the demographic context (using immigration figures as a
proxy). As these groups are either exemplary of Antwerp’s success (on wider
markets) in its golden age (ribbon makers) or typical of any urban economy
in that era (carpenters and shoemakers) they should have at least a limited
representativity.
Of course, I am fully aware of the gap between norm and reality and
between the discursive strategies of guild boards and genuine intentions, but
a close reading, which pays attention to both small but significant adaptations
over time and the co-appearance of different types of regulations, should
enable me to reveal some of the guild boards’ aims. Given that Antwerp
should, moreover, be considered a city with ‘strong’ guilds, in which masters
mostly held the reins and had a considerable say in the guilds’ policy,
we should, then, get an impression of the masters’ preoccupations. Even
assuming that there had already been unwritten customs before a guild
statute, privilege, or ordinance was edited, the rules provide a good insight
into what guilds considered important enough to regulate or enforce.


Apart form the existing literature, I have used a total of  ordinances emanating from 
guilds: bakers (), barbers and surgeons (), blacksmiths (), blue dyers (),
cabinetmakers (and ebony workers) (), camlet dyers (), carpenters (), cloth dressers
(), coopers (), diamond cutters (), fullers (), gardeners (), glove- and pursemakers
(), gold and silversmiths (), hat makers (), linen weavers (), masons (), millers and
wagoners (), ribbon makers (), second-hand dealers (), shipmasters (), shoemakers
and tanners (), silk weavers (), stocking makers (), tailors (), tinsmiths (and
plumbers) (), woollen weavers (), wood breakers (). Other documents, such as
requests, were occasionally used as well. Merchant and mercers guilds, journeymen
guilds, the St Lukes Guild, the transport sector, and hereditary guilds (butchers and fish
mongers) were excluded.
 Gilding golden ages 

. Apprenticeship and contract enforcement?

The apprentice contracts illustrate that a boy’s training could perfectly well
be agreed upon, apart from guilds, between a master and the boy’s father.
The length of the term could differ according to the range of skills to be
learned and the price that was agreed upon. Shorter apprenticeship terms
were more expensive; while boys who could pay less were required to have
a longer learning period in order to settle their debt with unpaid labour.
From the perspective of the efficiency of the transfer of technical knowledge,
this practice has complex consequences. Some boys were forced to stay on
the shop floor longer, but it is unclear whether they were indeed learning
rather than providing cheap labour, performing repetitive or preparatory
jobs. Moreover, we can assume that apprentice contracts involved a certain
lack of trust. Apprentices who served longer terms than strictly necessary to
learn their craft tended to run away once they had learned what could be
learned from a particular master or workshop. This hold-up problem (one
party exploiting an improved bargaining position) was dealt with in default
clauses (cf. Smits and Stromback , pp. , –). In addition to up-
front payments, which were agreed upon in most contracts, it was sometimes
stated that previous payments would not be refunded, that apprentices who
violated their contract still had to pay the full amount, or that a penalty had
to be paid, the amount of which could vary according to the precise moment
of departure. Moreover, there were end-term rewards. Some apprentices
simply received an amount of money or some tools at the end of the term (in
five of our cases), or else every year a specific ‘new year’ was provided (three
cases). More often (in  per cent of the contracts) they were entitled to
some gradually rising pocket money, called ‘gratuity’ (dringeld or speelgeld).
Boarding-out contracts by the boy’s orphanage, which were typically free of
charge, included stipulations about pocket money, which systematically rose
as the boy acquired more skills. It is, of course, difficult to quantify, but the

Smits and Stromback (, pp. –); also Davids (), Wallis ().

References in De Munck (c, p.  n. .) See also Grießinger and Reith (,
pp. –, –).

References in De Munck (c, p. ).

Sometimes whether or not they could pocket the ‘new year’ of customers was agreed
upon.

All quantitative data result from my database on apprentice contracts (containing 
contracts). Some specific examples: cabinetmakers: CAA, Notaries Archives (N
hereafter) , fol. v; N ,  March ; N , fol. ; N , fol. . Pewterers
and plumbers: N , nr.  (); N ,  November ; N ,  July ;
N ,  May ; N ,  March ; N ,  June ; N ,  June
; N , fol. ; N ,  November ; N , nr. . More references,
especially on the gold- and silversmiths, in De Munck (, pp. –). The amount of
pocket money was at the discretion of the masters in only six cases.

As a rule it amounted to half a penny a day the first year, one penny a day the second
year, two pennies a day the third year, etc. (based on a sample of  boarding-out
 European Review of Economic History

sum of the pocket money seems to have been related to the opportunity cost
of the apprentice. As an apprentice acquired more skills, his opportunities to
earn a wage (elsewhere) rose, so we can view the pocket money as intended
to keep apprentices on the shop floor longer.
In short, in the context of well-established contract-enforcing mechanisms,
an apprentice contract could be a very flexible economic instrument, one
which already solved the most important problems the contractees faced
(cf. Reyerson , p. ). How, then, if at all, did guild boards try to
intervene in the practice of learning on the shop floor? Did they promulgate
new rules and sanctions in order to stimulate learning and investing in the
transfer of skills? In theory, apprenticeship might have been part of a strategy
devised to solve the so-called ‘quality problem’ – along with quality scrutiny
of the raw materials, the production process, and the products (sanctioned
by the application of trademarks) (Gustafsson , pp. –; Epstein ,
pp. –). However, as it was synonymous with the obligation of spending a
certain amount of time on the shop floor – while any sanctioning for whether
apprentices actually learned there was absent – skill quality was likelier to
have been checked by the obligation of making a masterpiece (see below).
Apprenticeship itself is more likely to be broached from the perspective of
contract enforcement. In order not to be exploited as cheap labour and
perform only preparatory or repetitive tasks, apprentices needed to ensure
they would actually learn and acquire technical knowledge. Masters, for their
part, in order to warrant a return on their investment in training, sought to
ensure that the apprentices would stay on their shop floor long enough.
According to Epstein, guild coercion in this context could serve as ‘a means
of enforcing apprenticeship rules’, but in practice it remains unclear exactly
how – if at all – masters actually pursued this (Epstein , pp. , –
). How did guilds ensure () that apprentices stayed on the shop floor
long enough and () that new apprentices entered the masters’ ateliers –
notwithstanding entry requirements of guilds?
On an informal level, mastership as a status may have enhanced the
patriarchal authority of fathers – so the first question should be whether
guilds solidified the patriarchal authority of fathers via written rules. Absent
a strong state or centralized legislation, guilds may have acted as a third
party, but whether they actually did so is impossible to determine in the
absence of figures on completion rates or quantifiable data from juridical
proceedings – as is the case in Antwerp in the sixteenth century. However,

contracts of the boy’s orphanage, –, which were included in another database). Cf.
OCMW-archive [OCMW], Godshuis [House of God, HG]  and ).

In the sample of boarding out contracts from the Antwerp boy’s orphanage
(Knechtjeshuis), less than  per cent of the boys ran off before the term was finished.
Even including other reasons for which the contract might be ended, most of the
contracts were simply served completely (De Munck , pp. –). (But the
 Gilding golden ages 

as any reference to the authority of fathers (qua masters) is lacking in the

ordinances, it would seem that this was not the guild boards’ first concern.
How, then – if at all – did they serve contract-enforcing goals? Apart from
solidifying the masters’ legal prerogatives, guilds may have introduced either
end-term rewards (such as a privileged entrance to the labour market for
journeymen or to the guilds’ labour market monopsony for masters) or
entry fees (stimulating the apprentices to serve out the contract). They may
also have simply tried to keep apprentices on the shop floor longer when
introducing minimum terms.
As both the guilds’ labour market monopsony and entry fees are likely
to be addressed from the perspective of ‘distributional conflicts’ from the
start, let us begin with the fixed term to serve, which was standardized
from about the mid-fifteenth century onwards. Minimum terms to serve
may have helped in solving the hold-up problem for masters – as a result
of which they may have invested in training more (Smits and Stromback
, pp. –, –). Moreover, as time and effort were essential in
early modern learning, minimum terms may have increased the output
in terms of ‘human capital’ as such (Epstein , p. ; De Munck
c, ch. .). However, in the absence of national legislation and from
the perspective of individual guilds, a minimum term to serve may also
have had exclusionary effects. Social historians have mostly considered long
apprenticeship terms a sign of exclusionist motives rather than concerns
about training. According to R. Reith, there was a tendency to extend the
terms, first because of higher qualification requirements and specialization,
but from the sixteenth century onwards because of labour market regulations
(Reith , p. ; see also Kaplan , p. ). Of course, insofar as long
apprenticeship terms are concerned, one can argue that they answered both
social (exclusionary) and economic preoccupations, but things become more
complicated when apprenticeship periods (prescribed by guilds) were fairly
short – as was the case in the Southern Netherlands. In Antwerp, most
obligatory apprenticeship terms were two years, and more than four years was
exceptional. Did these apprenticeship terms intend to keep the apprentices
on the shop floor longer? And if so, was it to improve the creation of ‘human
capital’?

problem here is of course the atypical character of the contracts.) More data in Elbaum
(, p. ); Reyerson (). Perhaps paradoxically, drop-out rates seem to have been
particularly high in England, but we should take into account the lengthy apprenticeship
terms there and compare rates for contracts of similar duration or percentages of those
absconding after a specific duration. See Rappaport (, pp. –, –); Wallis
(); cf. Rushton ().

A short overview in Smits and Stromback (, pp. –).

Figures in De Munck (c, p. ).
 European Review of Economic History

. Fixed terms to serve versus specialization

Apprenticeship terms may have been intended to keep apprentices on
the (same) work floor longer when they were first established. There are
indications that the length of the term had initially been tied to the difficulty
of the craft, and that in the beginning it was even adjusted to changing
production techniques. In  the gold and silversmiths ruled that their
pupils had to serve an additional two years as journeymen before they could
become masters, apparently responding to shifts in the nature of demand.
In the same vein lengthening the apprenticeship of aspiring cabinetmakers
from two to three years in  may be attributed to changing expectations
related to skills, as it coincided with their split from the coopers, a trade
that may have been easier to learn than cabinetmaking. The strange fact
is, however, that the terms were not extended when the trades became
even more complex in the course of the sixteenth and the first half of the
seventeenth century. In  the cabinetmakers reacted to a complaint about
apprenticeship being neglected by requiring a more difficult masterpiece,
not with additional regulations about apprenticeship itself. In  the
apprenticeship term was reduced again to two years, whereas the craft (if
anything) became even more complex. Inversely, the diamond cutters tried
to lengthen the term in a period of increasing standardization of production.
At the end of the seventeenth century a (short-lived) term of nine years was
prescribed notwithstanding a shift towards more simple and standardized
types of jewellery (Schlugleit , p. ). In fact, the most important feature
of the apprenticeship terms in Antwerp is that they did not change at all after
about . They remained relatively short, ranging from one to four years.
When terms were lengthened – as happened in a few cases in the seventeenth
century – exclusionary motives seem to have been behind it. In  the
ribbon makers, for example, extended the apprenticeship term from two to
four years because of the excessive numbers of outsiders settling in the city.
Only the deans of the camlet dyers extended the apprentice period from two
to three years in , arguing that after two years many apprentices had not
yet mastered the required techniques (Thijs , pp. , ; , p. 
n. ).


E.g. Thijs (, p. ); Grießinger and Reith (); Landes-Mallet (); Krausman
(, pp. –), but also Didier (); Reyerson (, p. ).

CAA, ,  November , fol. r, art. .

CAA, GC ,  June , fol. v art. ; GC , fols. ff. (copy). The coopers
required two years. Willems (, p. ).

CAA, GC , fols. v–v; GC ,  August  (copy).

CAA, GC , fols. r–r; GC ,  March .

The guild of masons, roofers, and other builders [the Vier Gekroonden] prescribed a
four-year apprenticeship term (instead of three) from  on. See Prims (, pp. 
and –).
 Gilding golden ages 

By comparing obligatory apprenticeship terms with the diversity of

apprentice contracts, it becomes clear that fixing the terms may have been
an impossible task from the perspective of economic efficiency. The average
terms agreed on in apprentice contracts (at least in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries) were often longer than the terms prescribed by guilds.
Boys apprenticed to a pewterer or a plumber on average served . years
(n = ), while the guild only required that they serve two years. Most of
them learned both tin smithing and plumbing, so perhaps we should view
four years as the normal term of service (for the guild), but the agreed-on
average term for indentures to carpenters was also significantly longer (.
years, n = ) than what the guild prescribed (two years). The cabinetmakers
(including the ebony workers) apprenticed for an average of . years (n = ),
whereas the guild only required apprentices to serve two years. Admittedly,
the most highly skilled crafts were somewhat exceptional in prescribing a
relatively long term (four years for the gold and silversmiths, five years for
the diamond cutters), so that in these sectors the official terms tended to
correspond roughly with the real terms when first established. The average
term agreed upon in gold and silversmith indentures, for example, was .
years (n = ). Yet all in all, it remains to be seen whether apprenticeship
arrangements really kept apprentices on the shop floor longer.
In the face of specialization in particular, establishing a minimum and
uniform term was an intricate enterprise. Although the contracts stipulate
that the youth normally had to ‘learn and exercise the trade’ or to ‘exercise the
craft and everything depending on it’ (sometimes adding ‘as far as the boy can
understand’ or ‘as far as the master can do it himself’), apprentice contracts
could also be concluded for specialized training. First, they could specify
that the apprentice had to learn ‘everything depending on the shop’,
qualifying the need to learn the trade as a whole. Moreover, in  to  per
cent of the contracts standard phrases were replaced with phrases pointing
to very specific knowledge. With the gold and silversmiths, for example,
contracts referred to gold-beating, wire-drawing, engraving, enamelling,
gilding, diamond-setting, or fabricating silver buttons or thimbles. Some-
times contracts only envisaged ‘completion’ (perfectioneren) for an apprentice,

Moreover, in this sector apprentices had to serve one (the diamond cutters) or two (the
gold and silversmiths) additional year(s) as a journeyman, before they could become a
master. CAA, GC ,  October , fols. –, arts.  and ; GC , 
November , fol. r, art. .

More data in De Munck (, pp. –). Of course, we again face the problem of the
atypical character of such contracts, but as the contracts concluded before a public notary
tended to be rather expensive, other contracts (written or oral) are likely to have been
lengthier on average.

E.g. CAA, N , fol.  (); N , fol. v (); N , fol.  ().

Cf. CAA, N ,  October ; N ,  April ; N ,  August ; N ,
 July ; N , fol.  (); N , fol.  (); N , nr.  (); N
,  January ; N ,  November ; N ,  April ; N , nr. 
 European Review of Economic History

suggesting that he had already learned his craft elsewhere. As a result,

although on average the apprentice contracts lasted longer than the term
prescribed by the guilds, the contracts could be shorter as well. The terms
agreed on could range from one to seven or eight years, depending on the
premium paid as well as the degree of specialization and skills the apprentice
wanted to learn or already possessed when entering into the agreement.
In my opinion, therefore, the short apprenticeship terms found in Antwerp
should be understood as a compromise or middle path between the need for
an apprenticeship term and the need for flexibility and inclusivity in a context
of increasing specialization and an influx of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled
artisans of all sorts. As a result of the growing importance of the industrial
sectors and the high added-value industries, Antwerp became ever more
attractive for all sorts of economic immigrants – a substantial number of
whom were skilled one way or the other. For the local authorities and the
guilds’ boards, it was imperative not to raise barriers for these workers and
entrepreneurs, for this would amount to increasing competition from either
the surrounding countryside or other cities. So it is as if guild officials, when
establishing an obligatory term for apprentices, almost immediately checked
the possible negative effects (in terms of economic efficiency) by keeping the
terms short. This would at least explain the strange additional rule stipulated
by the cabinetmakers in  that the master and the apprentice could always
agree on longer terms if they saw fit. It would also explain why the ebony
workers in  (when they were officially included in the cabinetmakers
guild) also prescribed an apprenticeship of only two years, while their trade
was one of the most complex.

. Standardized masterpieces and the guilds’ labour market

monopsony
Significantly, the shape and characteristics of the masterpieces appear to
have contained the same compromise between the necessity to intervene
in the conditions of entry through learning requirements on the one hand
and the preoccupation to remain flexible and inclusive on the other. In
theory, masterpieces may have been established with an eye to standardizing
the imparted skills. Apart from the problem that the exchange was not

(); N ,  January ; N ,  July ; N , nr.  (); N , nr.
 (); N , nr.  (); N , nr.  (); N ,  July .

For the gold and silversmiths: CAA, N , no.  (); N ,  September ;
N , fol.  (); N , no.  (); N , fol.  (); N , fol. v
(); N , fol. v (); N , no.  (); N ,  February .

Verbeemen (); Thijs (); Lesger (); De Meester (, ); also Thijs
().

CAA, GC , fol. r; GC , fol. r,  June  (copy).

CAA, GC , fols. v–v, art. ; GC ,  April  (copy).
 Gilding golden ages 

synchronized in time, the contracting parties faced the problem that the
‘commodity’ to be exchanged was difficult to define, and this perhaps
hindered an apprentice from paying upfront (Humphries , pp. ff.).
Were masterpieces a response to this? Did they intend to objectify when
exactly a boy was fully trained? Judging from the apprentice contracts, they
did not. Occasionally, masters promised to have the apprentices registered
in the guilds’ ledgers (in  contracts or . per cent of our sample), or
to train them until they could do the master trial or become masters (in
 contracts or . per cent of our sample). The majority of contracts,
however, contained no references to the craft guild and did not reflect
corporative stipulations. Still, when they were established the master trials
seem to have been closely aligned to the product market. The first few
decades, the trial evolved along with changes in product types and forms.
The trial of the cabinetmakers, for example, evolved from two different
cabinets and a table in  to one dressoir in , perhaps answering to
shifts in demand. Yet at least towards the end of the sixteenth century, guild
officials gave up the idea of aligning masterpieces closely to the product. The
founding ordinance of the diamond cutters in  contained a very elaborate
and detailed description of a masterpiece, but in the end the guild officials
were free to choose ad hoc what a would-be master had to make. The same
was true for the tests of the gold and silversmiths in , the cabinetmakers
in , and the ribbon makers in , which could all be adapted at the
discretion of the deans. This freedom to choose may have been a result of
specialization in the trade, just as with the goldsmiths in Paris, suggesting
that the deans wanted to include all specializations (Bimbenet-Privat ,
p. ).
Based on these data, it is doubtful whether the corporative regulations
on apprenticeship were established – typically between the mid-fifteenth
and the end of the sixteenth century – with an eye to solving economic
problems. Given the informal character of early modern learning processes
and the importance of tacit knowledge, it may seem sensible to restrict the
formal apprenticeship system to a minimum length of service and a test at

In only two cases was an apprentice taken on specifically to learn and to serve ‘his
apprenticeship’: CAA, N , nr.  () and N , nr.  (); the appearance of
this term in contracts executed before the same notary in the same year may be indicative
of a standard formula. Sometimes the master was responsible for the registration, but the
father paid the registration fee.

Some contracts stipulated that apprentices would receive a certificate upon completion,
which may be indicative of a network outside the guild system. CAA, N , nr. 
(); N , nr.  (); N , nr.  ().

CAA, GC , fols. ff.; GA ,  June , (copy); GC, , fols. –; GA ,
 March  (), (copy). See De Munck (b, pp. –).

CAA, GC ,  October , art. .

CAA, GC ,  November , art. ; GC ,  March ; GC , 
October , art. .
 European Review of Economic History

the end of this service. However, considering the geographic mobility in the
labour market (journeymen entering a city with skills that had been acquired
elsewhere) and specialization within the craft (causing unstable boundaries
among general, transferable and specific skills), establishing a uniform
apprenticeship term and a masterpiece must have been counterintuitive.
In his efforts to highlight the economic advantages, Epstein appears to have
underestimated the exclusive offshoots of the guilds’ apprenticeship systems.
The problem with his theory is that it assumes () that apprenticeship
involved only transferable skills, () that guild-based artisans were better
trained than outsiders, and () that specialized skills of outsiders diverged
from the masters’ all-round expertise (Epstein , p.  n. ; ,
p. ). In reality, high-quality skills and the mastering of complex
techniques were of course not limited to guild-based artisans. Some
immigrants were better trained than locals (as is clear from their higher
wages), suggesting that for masters it was a question of benefiting from
their entrance, rather than having them trained. Moreover, as a result of
subcontracting and specialization, it may have been far more efficient for
some masters to invest in specific skills – as a result of which standardizing
skills may have been counterindicative. Indeed, guilds may have had
contract-enforcing effects – because they either added to the informal
authority of masters or formally functioned as a ‘third party’ – but as they
first of all introduced a minimum (and fixed) term of service and (uniform)
masterpieces, the price was a lack of flexibility.
It remains to be seen, then, whether a minimum term of service and
a uniform masterpiece were introduced for economic reasons at all. My
hypothesis is that craft guilds created (or maintained) a labour market
monopsony for social and rent-seeking reasons. This may have had beneficial
effects in terms of either the availability or creation of skills or the
enhancement of product quality (see below), but this was not the guild
boards’ intention. As I have argued elsewhere, the Antwerp craft guilds
were very much preoccupied with unfree work – i.e. unfree work at the
employer level, not at the employee level. While apprenticeship distinguished
masters from faux-maîtres, masters faced large entrepreneurs who were
not themselves masters, yet employed journeymen and apprentices, thus
circumventing the masters’ labour market monopsony. Apprentices were
inscribed in the guild books without really being present on the shop floor
to learn, not only because they worked elsewhere for large (merchant)
entrepreneurs (who were not members of the guild) but perhaps more

Thijs (, p. ); De Munck (); also Luu ().

E.g. CAA, GC , fol. , copy in GC , fol. –v.

Hans Bernardus ‘den duyts’ (the German) who allegedly introduced the inlaying of wood
(ebony) in Antwerp was forced by the local authorities not to train local youth but to
employ foreigners who were already trained (by him). CAA, GC , fol. ; GC ,
 September  (copy).
 Gilding golden ages 

so because they were in fact such entrepreneurs themselves. The logical

thing for the guild to do to counter this was to establish a masterpiece
requirement. Without really altering the learning content, masterpieces
served to obstruct unfree entrepreneurs who wanted to bypass mastership
and integrate production processes (see De Munck a, ). When the
cabinetmakers prescribed another masterpiece in , the alleged intention
was to prevent artisans from becoming masters ‘without it being checked
whether it were workers’. So the aim was not to exclude incompetent
workers, but to prevent those who had not learned at all (among whom were
merchants and large entrepreneurs) from entering the trade as a master.
This is confirmed when considering the accompanying measures
concerning the place where the trade was to be carried out and working
in company. While masters and their employees were to work exclusively in
the master’s own house, working in company was prohibited. Both practices
had enabled irregular entrepreneurs ‘to be freed’, i.e. to use the trademark
of a regular master. Even the obligation for apprentices to live under their
master’s roof should be understood from this perspective. After establishing
a masterpiece, illegal entrepreneurs still managed to become masters. The
response of the guild boards was to explicitly oblige apprentices to live under
the roof of their master. Every time this decree occurs in guild ordinances in
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Antwerp, it was issued solely to prevent
people from being registered as an apprentice and at the same time work on
their own (or for an illegal entrepreneur). Hence, the obligation to board
did not serve a patriarchal and contract-enforcing goal. Above all, exactly
who was qualified to be a master (or in some cases a journeyman) needed to
be unambiguous.

. Labour market mobility and the maximum number of

apprentices per master
Unfortunately, due to a lack of data on immigration (before )
and the number of new entrants in the guilds concerned (before the
eighteenth century), it is impossible to establish a correlation between
the number of masters and apprentices entering the city or the guild
on the one hand and on the other, the introduction of fixed terms of

CAA, GC , fols. v–v; GC ,  August  (copy).

E.g. CAA, GC ,  January , arts. ff. (hat makers); GC ,  October ,
arts. – (diamond cutters); Schlugleit (, p. ); CAA, Process dossiers, A ,
– (gold and silversmiths); GC , no. ,  and  September , fol.
r-v.

Very explicitly so in CAA, GC ,  January , arts. ff. (hat makers). Additional
references in De Munck (a, ).

The gold and silversmiths eventually considered setting a maximum age for apprentices
in order to prevent fictitious apprenticeships. Schlugleit (, pp. –).
 European Review of Economic History

service and standardized masterpieces. Yet it can hardly be a coincidence

that both types of regulations were introduced exactly when Antwerp
experienced unprecedented expansion from the second half of the fifteenth
century on. Previously, apart from declaring new members to the local
authorities, trials were prescribed ad hoc, especially for immigrants whose
antecedents and level of experience (especially whether they had finished
an apprenticeship) were uncertain. Literally, an artisan immigrating to
Antwerp and immediately aspiring to mastership was obliged to prove ‘that
he is able to do his craft reasonably’. Between about  and  virtually
all guilds introduced fixed terms of service, and by the end of the sixteenth
century most also had standardized trials. As both were established in a
period of dazzling demographic growth – which was, as in all early modern
cities, largely due to immigration (Blondé and Limberger n.d., pp. –) –
it would seem that these rules were introduced because monitoring entrance
to the guilds (and excluding free riders and outsiders) failed in the face of
economic and demographic expansion.
The study of the establishment of new guilds (with the introduction of a
fixed term of service as a standard ingredient from about the second half of
the fifteenth century onwards) after  (for which we have immigration
figures based on burgher books) justifies the hypothesis that they were
instigated by a group of established artisans facing growth and immigration.
In the case of the ribbon makers (who founded a guild subordinate to
the mercers’ guild in ) some  masters were active at the time
when the guild was founded. In the early s, there were about 
but as Figure A in the Appendix demonstrates, the start of the growth
(in terms of immigration) pre-dates the foundation of the guild. The
guild, moreover, reaffirmed some of its regulations – among which was the
masterpiece requirement – and became autonomous after years of increasing
immigration (in ). As the prelude to the ordinance makes clear, this
happened against the will of unfree ribbon makers, who protested especially
the obligation to make a masterpiece.


See note .

The linen weavers, for example, were concerned about the skills of the woollen weavers
and outsiders entering their guild. GC ,  November , fol. , arts. –.

CAA, GC ,  February , fol. r (shoemakers); GC ,  August , fol.
 (cabinetmakers and coopers); GC ,  March , fol.  (blacksmiths); GC
,  November , fol. v (carpenters); GC /bis,  May , art.  (tailors).

Using burgher books as a proxy for immigration, moreover, tends to underestimate
immigration for the period prior to the foundation of a guild, as masters were obliged to
become burghers only when the guild was founded. Figures in Thijs (, p. ).

CAA, GC ,  October .

Perhaps the peak in the number of new burghers was due in part to ribbon makers
residing in Antwerp becoming burghers because of the guild becoming autonomous (as
being a burgher was a standard requirement for guilds).
 Gilding golden ages 

The examination of the introduction of masterpieces in existing guilds

confirms this trend. Using the immigration of burghers as a proxy for
the number of new masters and apprentices and the establishment of a
masterpiece as a proxy for the standardization of apprenticeship, I have been
able to link the guilds’ policy to labour market mobility twice (Figures
A and A). In each case, regulation followed rising immigration figures;
in one case it was, in turn, followed by a sharp decline in the number of
new entrants (perhaps due to higher entrance fees). Hence my hypothesis
that regulation followed rather than preceded economic expansion in the
Antwerp case.
Were Antwerp guilds, then, rent-seeking cartels who sacrificed economic
efficiency to their particularistic group interests? Perhaps the relevant field
of tension should rather be understood as one between, on the one hand,
a guild ethos emphasizing friendship and mutual aid and, on the other,
individualistic and liberal notions related to what Anthony Black has called
‘civil society’. From the perspective of late medieval confraternal ideas and
attitudes, established masters may have been concerned about: () the total
size of the group of masters and () equality among masters. Both problems
can be broached from the perspective of the limited number of apprentices
per master, which from the perspective of human capital formation is a very
disturbing element. In theory, four reasons may have prompted putting a
ceiling to the number of apprentices per master: (a) the quality of training,
(b) the protection of youths against exploitation, (c) avoiding concentration
by large masters who tended to attract all potential apprentices, and (d)
reducing the number of new masters. The first three possibilities may be
consistent with Epstein’s view (, pp. –), as apprentices receiving
proper training is likely to have been economically beneficial on an aggregate
level. Yet as these maximums were mostly prescribed along with maximums
on the number of journeymen a master could hire, it is likely that guild
officials were primarily concerned about ‘equality’ among masters.
Some guilds explicitly referred to equality and solidarity among masters
when defining the number of apprentices per master (and even the length


Thanks are due to Jan De Meester, who kindly lent me his database on immigration to
sixteenth-century Antwerp.

It may perhaps be interesting to connect the number of masters (and the pace of growth)
to the establishment of a guild or certain rules in future research. Unfortunately, our data
do not permit us to go any further here, the principal reason being that we only have
immigration figures from  on, while a substantial part of the regulations were
introduced before that date. Moreover, it is sometimes unclear whether certain rules we
find in ordinances for the first time did not exist before that date. Or else, our data are
biased because of masters who were already active in the city before, suddenly registering
as burghers as a result of a guild being founded, as clearly happened with the silk weavers
and diamond cutters.

This field of tension is central in Black (). See De Munck (b).
 European Review of Economic History

of the term). Moreover, the judicial micromanagement of the number of

apprentices suggests a compromise between large and small masters. In the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries one apprentice per master seems to have
been standard, but in some guilds this rule was gradually relaxed. The
shoemakers and tanners allowed one apprentice per master in the fifteenth
century but two at the beginning of the seventeenth century, suggesting that
the concentration within this sector had increased. Apparently some masters
had tried to abolish the maximum, as the argument in favour of a (new)
fixed maximum was the need ‘to maintain a certain equality among the
masters’. In  the cabinetmakers – who had maintained a maximum of
one apprentice per master – ruled that a second apprentice could be hired
when the first had completed one year and nine months of his two-year term,
increasing the possible turnover of apprentices for large masters. In 
the ribbon makers established that a second apprentice could be taken on
when the first had finished one year of his apprenticeship term, adding that
a third could be taken on when the first had completely finished his (two-
year) term. Thus the maximum may have prevented some masters from
cornering the market on apprentices.
The protection of youths can of course have been a reason as well.
Significantly, in  the diamond cutters ruled that a master could hire
three apprentices at the same time, adding that they could not hold other
‘aspirants or house servants’. Additional clauses concerning the number of
apprentices per master suggest that apprentices in this sector were protected
from being exploited by large masters. Guild masters were not only obliged
to register their apprentices, the exact time of registering was a bone of


E.g. CAA, GC , Deductie, s.d. (gardeners).

CAA, GC ,  October , fol. v (wood breakers); GC ,  November
, fols. – (millers and wagoners); GC ,  August , fols. v– (masons);
GC ,  April , fol. v (silk weavers); GC ,  October , fol. ; GC
, , fols. –, art.  (weavers); GC ,  February , fol. v (blue
dyers); GC ,  September , art.  (coopers); GC , s.d., fols. –, art. 
(fullers); GC ,  November , fol. r (carpenters); GC , fols. ff.; GC ,
 June , fol. v (cabinetmakers). The pewterers and plumbers had a maximum of
two apprentices per master in  (Van Deun , pp. –), but requested a
restriction to one in . CAA, Privilegiekamer (PK) ,  February , fols.
r–v.

CAA, GC ,  February , fol. v; GC ,  December , fols. r–v, arts.
, and ; GC bis, p. , (copy); GC ,  November , fol. v; GC ,
 January , fol. r.

CAA, GC , fols. v–v; GC ,  November , v ff.

CAA, GC ,  November , art. .

This is at least what happened with the cloth dressers (Thijs , pp. –) and the
glove and purse makers (CAA, GC ,  February ).

CAA, GC ,  October , art. .

E.g. CAA, GC ,  February , art.  (silk weavers); GC ,  November ,
art.  (ribbon makers).
 Gilding golden ages 

contention. According to the founding ordinance of the diamond cutters, a

trainee had to be registered in the guild books at least fourteen days after
he began to work with his master. Furthermore, within six weeks the master
must again go to the guild chamber to make a statement about what ‘he
intends to do with the boy’. This stipulation was supposed to prevent masters
from using apprentices as cheap workers, since masters who did not really
want to engage the boy as an apprentice had two more weeks to discharge
him.
However, although the quality of the training (which from the perspective
of the trainee was dependent on not being exploited) could in theory have
been a factor as well, in the Antwerp case it appears to have been secondary at
best. This can be deduced from additional clauses concerning the maximum
number of apprentices per master. In  the gold and silversmiths specified
that a master could train two apprentices at a time, but the second could not
be hired before the first had completed two years of the four he was supposed
to serve. This could lead to the assumption that a master was unable to
teach two (new) apprentices adequately at the same time, but when the rule
changed in  a clause was added that stated: if an apprentice ran away,
his master could not take on a new one before both parties had agreed that
the term was over or acquitted. Moreover, when the apprentice left, he had
to promise he would not establish himself as a gold or silversmith, which
suggests that illicit work was the real issue.

. Entrance fees and inclusive strategies

In short, these stipulations may be understood from both the perspective
of unfree work (the need to clearly distinguish those who had finished an
apprenticeship term and those who had not) and confraternal ideas on
‘friendship’ among masters. Using the terms of Ogilvie, the final aim of
these orders must have been ‘distributional’, but this is not to say that guilds
were exclusive. Other regulations confirm that the challenge for guilds was
to guard their labour market monopsony while at the same time including the
available workforce. From an economic perspective craft guilds or the urban
authorities not only needed to ensure that apprentices stayed on the shop
floor longer and were less inclined to run away (stimulating masters to invest
in training), but also to maximize the number of apprentices by making
the end-term reward more attractive (stimulating apprentices to invest in
training). To some extent these are conflicting goals, as will become clear
as we follow Epstein’s arguments that both entry fees and end-term rewards
served as stimuli for apprentices to conclude and to serve out contracts.

CAA, GC,  October , art. –.

CAA, GC ,  February , fol. .

CAA, GC ,  November , art. .
 European Review of Economic History

Epstein qualifies the notion that entry fees served to restrict entry to the
trade, and suggests that they should rather be understood as either ‘a bond
on future performance’ (solving the problem of asymmetric information
about the apprentice’s ability and willingness to repay his training costs)
or ‘a mortgage on trust’ (which was necessary to prevent less well-known
masters from exploiting the guild) (Epstein , p. ; , p. ).
In theory, increasing entry fees could (on top of the fees agreed upon in
contracts) indeed stimulate apprentices to serve their term, but in practice
it seems to have been more complex. To understand this complexity, we
should not only distinguish between training fees (to be paid to the master)
and entry fees (to the guilds), but also between entry fees paid by new
masters and entry fees paid by new apprentices (which Epstein fails to do).
Examined closely, apprentice fees charged by the guilds (registration fees
hereafter) seem to have been more a response to the exclusive effects of
master fees (entry fees for masters) than an economic stimulus. Up to the
second half of the sixteenth century, registration fees were either nonexistent
or very low, but they systematically rose in the course of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Proportionately the registration fees rose even
more than the master fees. And yet they were not intended to exclude
prospective apprentices; quite the contrary. Some guild officials explicitly
stated that higher registration fees served to deter apprentices from using the
skills acquired from a guild-based master outside the guild framework. In
addition, it was often stipulated that part of the registration fees could be
deducted from the master fees, again deterring apprentices from applying
their skills elsewhere.
Contrary to the introduction of fixed terms of service and uniform
masterpieces, this may have been consistent with Epstein’s view, the more so
as the stipulation that apprentices (or journeymen) had to finish their terms
and the prohibition against masters employing apprentices who had not was
standard in the Antwerp guild ordinances of the sixteenth century. It suggests
that guilds attached apprentices to their masters and at the same time
solved the free-rider problem (masters employing apprentices or journeymen
trained by other masters), as Epstein argued. However, the economic

Figures and references in De Munck (c, chapter ..).

E.g. CAA, GC ,  February  (draft) (carpenters); GC , fols. v–v; GC
,  April  (copy); GC , fols. v ff. (cabinetmakers); Schlugleit (,
pp. –).

Shoemakers and tanners: CAA, GC ,  April , fol. r; GC , fols.
v–r; GC bis, pp. –; GC , Alle degene die dese letteren; cabinetmakers:
CAA, GC ,  April , fols. –r; GC , fols. v–v; GC  (copy); GC
, fols. v ff. Sometimes it was simply prohibited for those who had finished an
apprenticeship term to leave the craft (or a fine was due). CAA, GC ,  June ,
fol. r, art. ; GC , fols. v–r (copy) (cabinetmakers).

E.g. CAA, GC ,  October , fol. v (wood breakers); GC ,  March
, fol. v (blacksmiths); GC , , fols. –, art.  (weavers); GC ,
 Gilding golden ages 

rationale should again be qualified. To be precise, rising registration fees were

meant to solve the exclusionary effects of rising master fees, which needed
to be increased because guilds needed funds to balance their accounts and
settle their debts. Their debts resulted from judicial litigations and building
expensive guild houses, altars and the like. Especially after , when
the number of new members had fallen drastically – severely reducing the
guilds’ yearly income – guild officials had no other option than to raise entry
fees to stave off bankruptcy (see De Munck c, ch. ..). But of course
rising fees had exclusionary effects, which the guilds tried to compensate for.
When entry fees were raised expensive meals and treats were often waived
in the same ordinances. Or else, simpler and less costly masterpieces were
prescribed, while yearly payments were substituted for entrance fees – all
measures intended to raise the guilds’ income without raising the financial
barriers of entry. So rising registration fees were a response to what appears
to have been – at first sight at least (see below) – very ineffective investment
strategies from an economic perspective.
Was the end-term reward of apprenticeship thus the crucial element? Were
end-term rewards introduced to attract apprentices and to motivate them
to serve out their term? Again, the complexity has been underestimated
in recent research. From the perspective of a craft guild, possible end-
term rewards included the right either to become a master or to work as
a ‘free’ journeyman (at minimum wage). The former was always the case,
but affected only a minority of the apprentices (at best about one-third).
The problem here is to find out to what extent the existence of mastership
attracted apprentices who would not have learned (in Antwerp, in that sector)
in the absence of a guild (again taking into account entry fees). The second
was the case in only a minority of the guilds. Most guilds did not at all

 September , art.  (stocking makers); GC ,  February , fols. – (silk
weavers); GC ,  November , art.  (ribbon makers); GC ,  May ,
art.  (bakers); GC ,  September , art.  (coopers); GC , s.d., fols.
–, arts.  and  (fullers). It is often unclear whether it was the fixed term or the
term of the apprentice contract that was alluded to. When it was explicitly mentioned
(e.g. the coopers, fullers and weavers) apprentices had to fulfil the fixed term but not the
contract, except perhaps with the bakers.

CAA, GC ,  December , fol. ; GC ,  November , fols. v–;
GC ,  July ; GC , , fol. ; GC , Contrarie redenen voor. . ., s.d.,
arts. –; GC ,  February , fol.  (shoemakers and tanners); GC , 
April , fols. –; GC ,  July , arts. – (cabinetmakers and carpenters);
GC , Request  May ; Schlugleit (, pp. –) (gold- and silversmiths).

E.g. CAA, GC , fols. , –,  ( and  June ); GC ,  November
, fol. , arts. –; GC ,  January , fols. –; GC , fols. –;
Willems (, pp. –); GC ,  March  ().

Cabinetmakers (–): . per cent; carpenters (–): . per cent; gold- and
silversmiths (–): . per cent; pewterers and plumbers (–): . per cent
(sons of masters) and . per cent (others); shoemakers (–): . per cent;
tanners (–) . per cent. Cf. De Munck (c, pp. –).
 European Review of Economic History

exclude ‘unfree’ journeymen (those who had not finished an apprenticeship

term) (De Munck a). In the tanners and shoemakers guild, for example,
it seems to have been the custom that journeymen who had not finished
an apprenticeship term worked under regular masters. Other guilds even
explicitly stated that immigrating artisans could work within the guilds
without having finished an apprenticeship term or masterpiece, provided they
worked for a free master. The guilds that did distinguish between ‘free’ and
‘unfree’ journeymen were typically those with large numbers of journeymen
who had succeeded in acquiring a so-called ‘right of preference’. The
right of preference prevented masters from hiring outsiders (who had not
finished an apprenticeship term) and circumventing the minimum wage of
free journeymen. Such guilds may have succeeded in attracting apprentices
because of their regulations pertaining to apprenticeship, but as it concerned
minimum wages and the exclusion of unfree journeymen, the guild officials
were not to blame, but rather the free journeymen.

. Product quality as a convention

The fact that trial pieces for journeymen existed only in sectors with a right of
preference for journeymen supports the idea that they served exclusionary
(or rather ‘distinguishing’) goals. Yet this is not to say that the guilds’
regulations and practices were diametrically opposed to economic efficiency.
At first sight, the guilds’ efforts to obtain conspicuous halls (preferably in the
city centre) and to embellish or preserve their chapels and altars (preferably
in the cathedral) are hard to understand from an economic perspective.
Common sense would be to relate these investments in outward appearances
to the social cohesion in the groups, or else to attempts to literally materialize
their political ambitions in the heart of the city. However, guilds may
have enhanced economic efficiency (perhaps unintentionally), despite their
rules regarding apprenticeship not being conceived with an eye on a more
efficient transfer of skills and technical knowledge. Simply establishing a
labour market monopsony may have stimulated investments in skills or
technological innovation whatever the ambitions of guild officials (see Smits


CAA, GC ,  January , fols. v–; GC , fols. v–v,  November
.

CAA, GC ,  February , art  (gold- and silvermsiths); GC ,  October
, art.  (diamond cutters). Also Deceulaer (, pp. –).

Cf. the carpenters, masons, cloth dressers, fullers and yarn twisters. Scholliers (,
p. ); Thijs (, pp. –, –).

In Antwerp, to my knowledge, only the carpenters, masons and cloth dressers had
separate trials for journeymen. See CAA, GC ,  March , art. ; GC , 
October , arts.  and ; and Scholliers (, p. ).

For more information on guildhalls see Dambruyne (); for devotional practices see
Thijs ().
 Gilding golden ages 

and Stromback , ch. ). Moreover, as the guilds’ rising entry fees were
related to their investments in cultural and symbolic capital while serving
inclusive goals, a possible hypothesis might be that they contributed to the
guilds’ attractiveness, and hence stimulated youngsters to come to Antwerp
or register as an apprentice in a guild-based industry. The guilds’ cultural
and symbolic capital – to use Bourdieu’s terms – may have been what
attracted prospective apprentices and masters from elsewhere. To set the
record straight, therefore, we should in future research be able to measure
the return on these investments in terms of new entrants (taking into account
the exclusionary effect of higher financial barriers).
Next to the attraction of artisans, positive economic effects may have
resulted from the guilds’ impact on product quality. Firstly, apprenticeships
and masterpieces could check product quality ex ante. The ordinances of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries often stated that those who failed to make
the trial piece had to train for another year (or two). This suggests that the
trial did at least increase skill levels (and, in the end, product quality) for
those officially registered as apprentices. However, apart from a few guilds –
not coincidentally those with a right of preference for free journeymen –
only masters had to pass a test. So, at best, a trial piece had to ensure
that the supervisors of manufacturing processes knew their job. Presumably,
this means that guilds were more concerned about masters knowing and
applying the product standards than about their technical abilities. From
the perspective of economic efficiency this is not necessarily inadequate
of course. The existence of master status and related instruments such as
searches and trademarks enabled masters not only to guard product quality,
but to standardize products and to solve information asymmetries. Besides
prescribing an apprenticeship term and masterpiece, most guilds checked
product quality ex post extensively. Either every finished product had to be
inspected by the deans or elders (in the guildhall) or guild officials had the
right to visit the masters’ workshops.
Here, too, however, one could ask why guilds were needed. Because
maintaining product quality often benefited merchants (especially in export
sectors), craft guilds theoretically might just as well oppose quality controls,
or at least leave it to others. Were the Antwerp craft guilds used by merchants
(or urban authorities) to delegate their monitoring costs, as U. Pfister ()
would argue, or was there more to it? To start with, merchants were not
opposed to the foundation of guilds. They only fought guilds when they
were used to establish price cartels, as some groups of dyers did at the end
of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century (Thijs ,


CAA, GC ,  October , p. , art.  (diamond cutters); GC ,  August
, fols. r–v, art. ; CA , fol. ev. (copy); GC ,  March , fols. r–v,
art.  (cabinetmakers); GC ,  April , fols. r–r (shoemakers and tanners).

References in De Munck (c, chs. . and .; a; ).
 European Review of Economic History

pp. –). In the preface to the founding ordinances of the silk weavers
and the diamond cutters, merchants were even said to benefit from the
existence of the guild in terms of product quality. But this is not to say
that product quality arrangements, as we find them in guild ordinances,
had to be imposed on the guilds; quite the contrary. Apprenticeship
requirements equally well enabled masters to distinguish between ‘qualified’
and ‘unqualified’ artisans and to represent their own skills as superior.
While this may again appear inefficient, even rent-seeking and distributional
intentions may have been advantageous in economic terms, provided
product quality is taken into account. After all, this distinction between
‘qualified’ and ‘unqualified’ was precisely what enabled masters to tackle
problems related to information asymmetries and adverse selection – be it
intentionally or not – effectively.
Prior to guarding product quality or to producing information on product
quality, there has to be agreement on what constitutes high quality. Arguing
for the foundation of the guild of the diamond cutters in , the spokesmen
of the masters claimed that ‘it happened daily that some were cutting stones
who were not capable to do so nor had learned it, contracting work from
merchants (who did not know them) and employing apprentices who had
just begun to learn’. What happened here was that a group of established
masters – who, to be sure, did not have to be born Antwerpeners for
generations – asked for the establishment of a guild in order to exclude
unfree and foreign entrepreneurs who were successful in driving a wedge
between masters and apprentices. Although the ultimate argument was
product quality, the goal was to guard a pre-existing (informal?) type of
labour market monopsony. Claiming that unqualified entrepreneurs had
deprived them of their apprentices before they had finished learning (and
were therefore producing stones of inferior quality), they contrasted those
who were not ‘in the trade from childhood’ with those ‘who had exercised
in the art since their early days, and out of love for the noble stones and for
the honour of the city’. Similar arguments appear in the preface to the silk
weavers founding ordinance from . The silk weavers allegedly needed
a guild because their journeymen and apprentices were lured away. The
camlet dyers argued (in ) that they needed a guild because quality was a
serious problem, but this – in their eyes – was again the result of the increased
number of dyers.
In a way, guilds solved a social and an economic problem at the same
time. Establishing a guild went hand in hand with fixing product quality and

For a theoretical framework see Gomez (); Eymard-Duvernay (, ); Callon
et al. (, pp. –); see also Minard (); Stanziani ().

CAA, GC ,  October .

CAA, GC ,  October , arts. , –, .

CAA, GC ,  February , fol. .

CAA, GC ,  July ; GC  fols. –.
 Gilding golden ages 

determining how it should be measured and represented with trademarks

and seals of approval. In the founding ordinance of the gold and silversmiths
() all attention was focused on the content of the alloy, the association of
the alloy with specific trademarks, and possible ways to circumvent that. The
ordinance defined what silver should be used, what the alloy should be, how
it should be assessed, and what trademarks should be applied for what kind
of work (i.e. alloy). Additionally, the ordinance elaborately sums up all kinds
of fraud, such as the gilding of copper or the use of inferior silver. In my
opinion, therefore, rather than simply safeguarding product quality, guilds
represented a given product quality as the product quality, thus defining what
the necessary skills were and which conventions should be applied. While
distinguishing insiders from outsiders, guilds helped objectify what – in the
case of the diamond cutters – a ‘well and carefully cut’ diamond was.

. Conclusion
To conclude, the guilds’ requests and normative sources suggest that
the establishment of a craft guild (including apprenticeship, masterpieces,
and the like) should be addressed from the perspective of ‘distributional
conflicts’. Founding a guild not only restricted manufacturing activities to a
limited group of masters, it also created the exclusive right to the available
workforce for these masters (as only masters could hire apprentices and
journeymen). From the perspective of masters it served to exclude merchants
and entrepreneurs of all sorts from engaging in producing activities by hiring
skilled workers themselves. In theory, just as guilds were not needed in order
to have learning on the shop floor, a fixed term of service and a masterpiece
were not necessary for the definition of master status. Membership could
just as well be regulated informally and ad hoc. However, while immigration
put a strain on informal and ad hoc mechanisms in regulating entrance to
the group, guild boards confronted entrepreneurs who tried to circumvent
the masters’ labour market monopsony. This problem in particular was
tackled in prescribing a minimum term of service and a masterpiece, which
were introduced to (re)define the boundaries of the group and to guard the
masters’ labour market monopsony. The absence of a distinction between
‘free’ and ‘unfree’ journeymen in most cases confirms that apprenticeship
was related not to entrance to the labour market for journeymen but to the
status of masters.
Taking the immigrating workforce into account, the main purpose of the
craft guild was not ‘to share out the unattributed costs and benefits of training
among its members’, as Epstein (, pp. –) had it, but to share the
available unskilled and skilled labour. To distribute the available skills more


CAA, GC ,  February , published in Génard (, pp. –).
 European Review of Economic History

or less evenly over the pool of established masters, a maximum number

of apprentices per master was established, preventing large masters from
cornering the market and exploiting youths as cheap labour. In combination
with measures against luring away apprentices this may have had contract-
enforcing effects, but as guild boards deliberately tried to compensate for
the exclusionary offshoot of their rules, it is very unlikely that they were
introduced for economic reasons. When introducing these regulations, the
guilds considered in this article clearly faced the complexity of the labour
market – in particular a growing specialization within the craft. The corpo-
rative apprenticeship rules in Antwerp came about at a time when the
labour relations grew ever more complex – with subcontracting intensifying
in particular. In this context, introducing standardized regulations such as
a fixed term to serve and a standardized masterpiece was not at all self-
evident. While the skills transferred in apprentice contracts could range from
general and transferable skills to very specific and specialized ones, formal
apprenticeship rules could only be accommodated to transferable skills.
Consequently, while the minimum terms had been related to the difficulty
of the craft when they were first prescribed, most guilds retained unchanged,
relatively short apprenticeship terms from the late sixteenth century onwards.
Masterpiece requirements changed as product forms changed during the
first decades of their establishment, but at least from the second half of
the sixteenth century on they could be prescribed ad hoc, according to
the specialized skills of the would-be master. Apparently, it simply became
impossible to adjust the prescribed terms and the masterpiece to the exact
needs of every (or the average) master.
The exact shape of the rules was the outcome of negotiations between
different power groups within the guild, especially with regard to the
maximum number of apprentices per master and the entry fees. Most
Antwerp guilds (at least in the export sectors) were known for the all-
pervasive conflicts among three parties: merchants, large entrepreneurs (or
masters) and small masters. As guild structures were used in order to exclude
merchant-entrepreneurs from the labour market, we can assume that masters
mostly held the reins in these guilds. The fine-tuning of rules related to
workshop size suggests that power shifted towards larger masters, as Lis and
Soly have convincingly argued before. Further research might examine
how shifting power relations affected the entry conditions of the craft. My
idea would be to focus on the (judicial and financial) fine tuning of entry
barriers and to pay attention in particular to the shifting difference between
registration fees and master fees and between fees for masters’ sons and
others (including immigrants). These differences should be linked to the
possible influence of the various power groups in the sector concerned:
journeymen, small masters, large masters, merchants, and last but not


See footnote .
 Gilding golden ages 

least, the local authorities. Depending, for example, on whether merchants

(perhaps via the local authorities) or large masters had a say, the entry barriers
might have been intended to include either a maximum number of masters
or a maximum number of journeymen. At least in theory, merchants must
have favoured easy entrance for masters, while (large) masters must have
welcomed low entry barriers for journeymen.
When it comes to the masters’ motives and intentions, social concerns
seem to have been more important than economic concerns – at least for
small masters, who, convened in a type of brotherhood, tried to maintain a
certain equality among masters. In a long-term perspective, therefore, it may
perhaps make more sense to presuppose a shift from collective brotherhood-
like values such as equality, mutual aid and friendship towards more liberal
and individualistic notions (see De Munck , b). As to the question
of economic effects, they should in future research be addressed from a
perspective other than Epstein’s. At first sight, the mechanisms related to
the entry fees seem to support Epstein’s hypothesis – with rising registration
fees intended to bind the apprentices to the trade –, but in the end the
level of the entry fees was first of all determined by the guild’s massive
debts, which dictated higher income fees. Entry fees for apprentices were
needed to compensate for rising master fees. Perhaps the real issue, then,
is the relationship of the investments in cultural capital (prestige and trust,
embodied in guild houses, chapels, altars and the like), on the one hand, to
economic return (the attraction of apprentices), on the other hand – taking
into account exclusionary effects. Moreover, a guild enabled masters not
only to enhance and standardize product quality but also to objectify product
quality – which was an important condition for an effective communication
both among masters and towards customers.
So, from the perspective of the guild members themselves, there may
hardly have been a conflict between economic efficiency and distributional
motives. While the guild-based masters seem to have been concerned with
either rent-seeking or the social fabric of their brotherhood, the unintended
result of their investments in cultural and symbolic capital (from trademarks
to guild houses) can be perhaps be seen as investments in the reputation
of their ‘brand’, which in turn can have been beneficial in two ways: it
may have resulted in: () the guild’s increased attractiveness to newcomers
(apprentices and masters) and () a higher value and price for their
products.

Acknowledgements
This article was written in the context of the IAP-project / ‘City and society in
the Low Countries, –: space, knowledge, social capital’. Thanks are due
to Jan De Meester and Jan Luiten van Zanden for their comments on an earlier
version.
 European Review of Economic History

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Appendix

25
(becoming burgher)

20
immigrants
Number of

15 Ribbon makers
10 Ordinances

5
0
1530

1540

1550

1560

1570

1580

1590

1600
Year

Figure A. Immigration of ribbon makers and the introduction of the

founding ordinances of the guild

25
Number of immigrants
(becoming burgher)

20 Carpenters

15
Ordinance and
10 establishment of
masterpiece
5
0
1530

1540

1550

1560

1570

1580

1590

1600

Year

Figure A. Immigration and the introduction of a masterpiece among

the carpenters in Antwerp

20
(becoming burgher)
immigrants

15
Number of

Tanners and
10 shoemakers

5 Ordinance and
establishment of
0 masterpiece
1530

1540

1550

1560

1570

1580

1590

1600

Year

Figure A. Immigration and the introduction of a masterpiece among

the shoemakers and tanners in Antwerp