The Ideal and Reality: Apprentice-Master Relationships in Seventeenth Century London

Abstract

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND, like the rest of western Europe in the early modern period, was a patriarchal society. It had been such for a long time and would remain so until industrialization and the concept of greater individualism began to upset traditional values. The notion of family was quite different then from what it is now: the family included all persons living in a household whether they were related or not. Thus, servants, apprentices, and live-in employees were part of the employer's family and the head of the household was its absolute master, serving as surrogate father to those not actually his children. His relationship with the younger members of the family was similar to the relationship between the absolute monarchs of the era and their subjects. Of course, not all subjects were dutiful and obedient sons or daughters of the father figure, either in the state or in the family, but the ideal was patriachalism in every social unit. This ideal was perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the institution of apprenticeship. This essay will concentrate on the apprentices of London during the early seventeenth century and will describe both the ideal and the reality of apprentice-master relationships. (1) Perhaps the oldest form of education, apprenticeship was designed to provide training in the crafts and trades, thus assuring competent workers. Yet it was far more than a system of education; it was part of a complex social and economic system. Controlled by the companies or guilds, apprenticeship was also a means of limiting the supply of workers. It was widespread since most of those who pursued careers outside the learned professions which required university training and those who were to be farmers or laborers customarily served apprenticeships. The growth of population in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries