Guild
Topic: Medieval Europe: Feudalism and the Three Orders · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 4 "The Three Orders"; Class 11, Ch 5 "Changing Cultural Traditions"
Meaning
A guild was an association of people who did the same craft or trade in a medieval European town. Each guild controlled the quality, price and sale of its products. This protected its members and kept standards high. Every town had a guild-hall, a building where guild heads met and held ceremonies. Guilds grew with the towns that revived in Europe from the eleventh century.
Example
In a twelfth-century town, the weavers' guild fixed what cloth had to be like and what it could be sold for. The guild heads met in the town's guild-hall to decide these rules.
Don't confuse with
- Hanseatic League: a guild joined the craftsmen of one trade inside one town. The Hansa was a league of many merchant towns across northern Europe.