Abstract
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 aKaufto aVerlagsystem, 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.
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