III. Zunft und Unordnung

Abstract

Abstract Guilds between authority and opposition. This paper compares the legal status of guilds in two German towns of the late Middle Ages: Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. Both cities represented commercial hubs, Frankfurt with its privilege to hold fairs, Hamburg as a port town and member of the Hanse. Both cities also witnessed unrest and public protest by guilds during the second half of the 14th century. This article argues that those conflicts erupted over the guilds’ attempts to formalise their legal status by having their statutes written and acknowledged by the city council. The council eventually pre-empted those attempts. This happened through a process of bargaining that can be subdivided into three different stages: production of written demands or statutes, destabilisation, escalation. Putting something into writing created a qualitative distinction to orality in a society that was predominantly communicating orally and in presence. Thus, the latter was still the mode of political communication, mainly by swearing an oath, that could settle these conflicts. Where this process failed, the conflict could erupt into open violence, which in turn could only be settled by outside intervention – as in the case of Frankfurt.