Medieval Craft Guilds

Timeline

1. c. 1100–1250Flemish cities (Ghent, Bruges) · FlandersArtisans in textiles, metalworking and other trades formed mutual-aid associations in Flemish and Rhineland cities, meeting as religious confraternities and gradually winning municipal recognition.
2. c. 1268–1300Paris · ParisThe charters of Paris's hundred-plus trade guilds were compiled into the Book of Trades, specifying apprenticeship terms, wages, raw-material inspection and quality penalties, becoming a model for urban craft governance.
3. 1331–1340Florence · TuscanyIn the 1330s, Florence's seven major art guilds and the wool guild vied for power in republican politics; guilds across regions contested economic regulatory authority through strikes, petitions and municipal elections.
4. c. 1350–1450England (areas enforcing the Statute of Laborers) · EnglandPost-plague labor shortages drove up wages, and states used statutes to restrict guild price-raising and labor mobility, intensifying conflicts between guilds and lower-rank urban craftsmen and wage laborers.