Johnston R.A. All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World

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depended on painted shades. Last, painted glass panels had to be ﬁ red in a

kiln to ﬁ x the metallic tint to the glass permanently.

If a panel was made of ﬂ ashed glass, especially red layered over clear, an

artisan could grind the red away to expose the white. This technique could

make a saint’s red robe have intricate designs, or it could make rays of light

show against a red background. In some cases, the exposed white glass was

painted. In the 14th century, painters used a tint of silver nitrate to tint

glass yellow. Yellow paint could tint blue glass green, or it could make the

clear spaces on ﬂ ashed glass into gold.

Once all colored pieces were cut and painted, they were assembled on

the worktable. Glaziers cast lead in long strips of an H shape, forming long

notches on each side for the glass to ﬁ t in. The lead was bent to follow the

shape of each glass piece and then soldered into place. The ﬁ nished win-

dow was moved to the construction site to be ﬁ tted into the stone opening

with more lead.

At ﬁ rst, structural iron bars divided the windows into panels because the

leaded glass panes were not strong enough to stand against wind. Some

windows used these divisions to create smaller scenes, while others allowed

the bars to cross one large image. The window was typically about nine

feet wide and three or four times as high. But later Gothic stained glass

windows did not use iron bars to reinforce and instead used stone tracery.

The tracery divided the windows into smaller windows that were easier to

make, transport, and install. Glaziers only had to assemble portions of the

window, and the masons would ﬁ x these round, ﬂ ower-shaped, or arched

sections into the stone tracery supports. The overall window size could be

even larger, rather than held back by the limitations of the glazier’s art.

See also: Cathedrals, Houses, Lead and Copper.

Further Reading

Cherry, John. Goldsmiths. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.

De Hamel, Christopher. Scribes and Illuminators. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 1992.

Harvey, John. Mediaeval Craftsmen. New York: Drake Publishers, 1975.

Rippon, Stephen, Peter Claughton, and Christopher Smart. Mining in a Medieval

Landscape: The Royal Silver Mines of the Tamar Valley. Exeter, UK: University

of Exeter Press, 2009.

Spufford, Peter. Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1989.

Thompson, Daniel V. The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting. New

York: Dover Publications, 1956.

Guilds

The Middle Ages were a time of rapid specialization of industries and crafts.

The average European in 500 was a farmer, a hunter, or a warrior, but

greater settlement required many different occupations. By 1500, there

were hundreds of skilled and unskilled professions in city and countryside.

General crafts, such as blacksmiths, splintered into many ﬁ ne-tuned profes-

sions: locksmiths, pin makers, armorers, and buckle makers, to name just a

few specialized smiths. New crafts came into being as new things were in-

vented or as things previously custom-made for royalty became common

items, such as seals or books.

The skilled professions in towns formed into guilds, associations of mu-

tual help and professional standards. Guild membership was the certiﬁ ca-

tion of competency. Only male trades were organized in guilds; ale brewing

was never organized, nor was spinning. Rural trades such as farming or

sheepherding never organized into guilds, but miners and masons, travel-

ing workers not tied to a town, were both free (of service to a lord) and

soon organized. Town guilds controlled quality and oversaw apprentice-

ships.

The 15th-century guilds included outdoor skills—masonry, quarrying,

mining, gardening, and brick making—and many more indoor skills. Some

were involved in making food: cooks, bakers, saucers, butchers, spicers,

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and ale brewing. Some made household objects: potters, soap makers, and

chandlers. Some participated in different stages of clothing production:

dyeing, weaving, fulling, tailoring, embroidering, haberdashery (selling

clothing), tanning, glove making, hatting, shoemaking, and purse making.

Some built: shipwrights, masons, joiners (carpenters), glaziers, and painters.

Many made tools or even supplies for other crafts: ploughwrights, saddlers,

buckle makers, nailers, wire makers, pin makers, needlers, tilers, armorers,

ﬂ etchers, mold makers, and blacksmiths. There were ﬁ ne crafts: gold-

smithing, silversmithing, bookbinding, and clock making. And some sold

things: merchants, ﬁ shmongers, and, in the late Middle Ages, grocers and

drapers.

Guild Activities

Guilds were associations of men within a craft or trade for the purpose

of helping each other. A guild set the standards for entering the profession

and issued licenses so the reputation of the trade would remain good. No-

body was permitted to follow that trade in the town without the permission

of the guild. The terms of apprenticeship were set by a guild, as were the

tests to move from apprentice to master. Each aspiring master had to pres-

ent a masterpiece to the leaders of the guild, fulﬁ lling the requirements of

a demanding test.

The guild’s chief work was to organize and police its craft. They required

that any craftsman who made a product must put a mark on it so it could

be identiﬁ ed as his. Cut stone, tiles, bricks, hats, metal, barrels, cloth,

and bread were among the products that must be marked. A guild could

take action against any member whose work was not up to their standards.

Guilds also helped members who were unable to complete work and gave

weaker members instruction so the craft as a whole would remain in good

repute. Members might make bulk purchases of raw materials like leather

or iron.

Organizing a trade was easier than it would be today because trades were

usually located in the same part of town or on the same street. Guild mem-

bers might lease a workshop together. They knew each other well and were

neighbors for life. They gave each other social assistance, from help when a

member was sick and unable to work to support in his old age or burial and

funeral Masses when he died. Some guilds, such as the masons, used their

dues to set aside a pension for old or injured members.

In many trades, the guild sent out ofﬁ cers to do random quality checks in

the city; the bakers of Paris could count on their bread being thrown away

if the guild decided it was impure. They regulated terms of work: hours,

days, holidays, and whether work could be done at night. They regulated

size, style, prices, and wages. There were few aspects of the work guilds

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did not regulate. The guilds of merchants and craftsmen sometimes found

themselves in opposition as merchants sought low prices and craftsmen

sought a living wage. They acted like unions, making demands for collec-

tive bargaining.

Like modern unions and companies, small guilds combined into larger

guilds for better leverage. Some craft guilds became associated with mer-

chant guilds for better deals. By the 15th century, London had only 12

main guilds, down from 50. These 12 large guilds were each granted the

right to have a coat of arms, as though they were knights. They were the

mercers, grocers, drapers, ﬁ shmongers, goldsmiths, skinners, haberdashers,

merchant tailors, salters, ironmongers, vintners, and cloth makers.

Guilds had trade secrets that had to be passed on to apprentices and mas-

ters within the trade. They guarded their trade secrets carefully, and being

admitted to the guild meant taking on this responsibility. Painters and gla-

ziers had recipes for paints, dyes, and colored glass; joiners had recipes for

glue. Metalworkers had secrets for making metal alloys. Salters knew where

the best sources were, and ﬁ shermen had secret ﬁ shing banks.

Guilds in other regions often tried to steal each other’s secrets, which led

most regional guilds to bar foreign workers (who might be there to learn

the secrets and then return home) and to banish their own workers who had

made lengthy stays abroad (and could have taught the secrets). National

laws often restricted craftsman travel for the same reason. A few weavers

The daily life skills of a guild’s profession

received a royal treatment in ofﬁ cial

guild ceremonies. Full guild members

wore special robes showing their

membership, and their elected leaders

were like kings within their small

common spheres. Here, the consul of a

masons’ guild watches while two

workmen demonstrate their abilities to

carve stone and wood. Guild approval

was hard to get and critically important.

The guild took responsibility for its

members’ quality, for arbitration in

disputes, and even for old-age care and

funerals. (George Unwin, Gilds and

Companies of London , 1908)

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308

imported from Flanders had spread the ﬁ ne points of weaving to a new,

competing industry in England. The secret import of a few silkworms from

China had destroyed China’s exclusive export of silk. Most regions had a

trade specialty, and it was clear that if it spread, they would lose their mar-

ket value.

Guilds were self-governing. They constituted some of the earliest practice

in limited democracy in an age of aristocracy and monarchy. In the 12th cen-

tury, King Henry II gave a charter of self-governance to the merchants’ guild

and the weavers’ guild. Other guilds followed soon after. They had their

own courts to settle disputes and wardens who exercised regulatory over-

sight. Although the guilds met in separate halls to govern themselves, the

mayor was elected by all of them. Each guild sent an alderman to elect the

chief alderman—the mayor. In 1354, the king of England granted the mayor

of London to be called “lord mayor.” The concepts of city government and

citizenship came from the ways the guilds interacted and controlled com-

merce.

The guilds also worked together socially. Many developed a uniform

gown, called a livery, so they would all match and look impressive when

they rode in a procession. The livery was created by the guild and distrib-

uted to members, so the word livery is related to the word delivery . In some

places and times, all guilds in a city used the same livery each year, usually a

parti-colored surcote. In some guilds, livery was reserved only for the top-

ranking guild members.

Guilds built halls to meet in, some of which included a kitchen and guest

rooms, probably for traveling guild members. Some halls included a gar-

den that members could enjoy. The wealthiest guilds supported charitable

projects like hospitals, as well. Poorer guilds met in a local church and ad-

opted the church’s patron saint as their own.

The goldsmiths’ guild in London was one of the richest guilds. Its hall

was the ﬁ rst built in the city, in 1366, and it remained the grandest. It was

designed like a medieval house, with a prominent, large meeting hall. In

the 15th century, the guild commissioned tapestries telling the story of

their patron saint, Saint Dunstan, to hang in the hall. They also had a silver

statue of Saint Dunstan and ﬁ ne cushioned chairs for the guild’s ofﬁ cers, as

well as ordinary tables and benches. Attached to the hall were the rooms for

food preparation: pantry, buttery, and kitchen. There were chambers above

and a separate parlor for the guild’s ofﬁ cers to meet in. In the 15th century,

the guild bought some musical instruments and kept them in a locked chest

so they could hire minstrels to play them at feasts.

Guilds put on festivals in honor of their patron saints and other church

holidays, and, by the middle of the 13th century, guilds had taken over the-

atrical productions. The church had been producing plays that acted out

stories from the Bible or from the lives of saints, but guilds began to put

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these on for the public, perhaps once a year. They built stages in market-

places and used scenery and props. Building on this tradition, they began

to put on secular shows for big occasions, such as the coronation of a king

or the election of a mayor. They lined their streets with banners and arches

and posed actors dressed as mythological ﬁ gures on them, or they built the

decorative wagons that led to modern parade ﬂ oats.

Apprentices

Apprenticeships were individual contracts made between a boy’s fam-

ily and a craftsman whose trade they wished him to learn. While many ap-

prentices were schooled in the same craft their fathers practiced, since that

is where the family had connections, the apprentice system permitted boys

to step into another trade. The system developed throughout the Middle

Ages and came into full development only after 1200. Before this, boys fol-

lowed their father’s trade; before the growth of towns during the 13th cen-

tury, most men were rural serfs. The apprenticing system was a large step

forward in education and freedom.

In this detail of a stained glass window, a shoemaker’s young apprentice stands at the

counter of his master’s shop. He holds a leather-cutting knife and gestures toward a

display of boots. Medieval shoes and boots were made with the same techniques. They

were usually made to order for a particular customer, but with a rough sizing convention

in place, shoemakers could also make basic shoes to display at fairs. As with all crafts

done outside the home, the cordwainers’ guild determined all standards. (Paul Lacroix,

Moeurs, Usage et Costumes au Moyen Age et a l’Epoque de la Renaissance , 1878)