One counter and your own account: redefining illicit labour in early modern Antwerp

Abstract

This article examines the problem of illicit labour from the perspective of transformations in the (local) distribution channels. Rather than large masters circumventing the guilds' rules regarding labour market entry or large merchants shifting from a Kauf to a Verlag system, early modern manufacturing guilds in Antwerp confronted mercers and wholesalers who entered into production without being masters. In response, the guilds extended their rules, so that their regulations actually matured in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rather than (labour market) deregulation and proto-industrialization, the issue was the disappearance of the straightforward link between production and retailing, tied together by mastership.

Rewinding Civil Society: Conceptual Lessons from the Early Modern Guilds

“…By contrast, the giant trades that came along with the monoculture of textile industries and that were often controlled by the major merchants (who often also had a say in the alderman's college) were gradually substituted by a multitude of smaller and often quite different trades in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (De Munck et al 2006). In these trades, moreover, the internal coherence could also greatly differ and, in time, the social composition of the trades often experienced significant changes (De Munck 2010b; Lis and Soly 2008).…”

“…In most fifteenth-century ordinances it is unclear whether apprenticeship terms were required or how long they should last. Mostly, urban officials simply asked to have declared before the city magistrates “who that person was” when someone was taken in as a new member (De Munck 2010b: 35; 2011: 223–24). This makes us assume that the organizations determined informally and through face-to-face mechanisms whether someone could become a member.…”

“…This makes us assume that the organizations determined informally and through face-to-face mechanisms whether someone could become a member. In case that someone was a stranger, the initiate was sometimes asked to prove that he could work the craft (De Munck 2010b: 35). I assume that the possibility existed to request a master trial ad hoc whenever it was deemed necessary—in the function of the need for a standardized product quality.…”

Interlopers and disorderly brethren at the Stade Mart: commercial regulations and practices amongst the Merchant Adventurers of England in the late Elizabethan period

“…Parallels can be drawn here with European craft guilds in places such as Antwerp, which from the seventeenth century onwards struggled to define the boundaries of their trade and the status of ‘master’ in light of changes to the product market associated with an emerging consumer society driven by cheaper goods; de Munck, ‘Skills’; idem, ‘One counter’.…”

Gilding golden ages: perspectives from early modern Antwerp on the guild debate, c. 1450 - c. 1650

“…119-23;; see also Thijs (1987, pp. 219-57). to the masters' labour market monopsony (De Munck 2007a, 2010a. Again, the question is what part apprenticeship arrangements played.…”