Craftsman honor

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The carpenter (anonymous artist)

The craftsmanship is a form of the code of honor and stands for reliability, trust, quality and training security, as well as for values ​​such as hard work, consistency, dedication and loyalty within the practice of a craft. Concrete examples are the bricklayer's honor, the carpenter's honor or the stonemason's honor.

Linking morals and work

According to Werner Danckert (1963), the guilds (class corporation of craftsmen ) demanded moral impeccability as a condition of admission. To have won his apprenticeship certificate also meant that the master stated in front of the assembled trades that the apprentice had shown himself to be honest, pious and loyal as well as godly and honorable.

The honesty

The term “honorable” is widespread in traditional handicrafts, one also speaks of “honorable handicraft” and “honorable master and journeyman”. Within the traditional journeyman's organizations, everything that is part of the official equipment is largely given the title “honorable”. The term was also applied to a garment of the gap : respectability . It consists of a crocheted, narrow strip of fabric and, unlike a tie or a tie, is not knotted, but looped around the first button of the perennial and pinned with a needle (often with the guild symbol of the associated craft). These typical guild ties of the respective shafts differ in color (gray Free Meeting Shaft , black Righteous Strangers , blue Roland Shaft and red Foreign Freedom Shaft ). In order to identify themselves as honest traveling companions among the many vagabonds and crooks towards the end of the 19th century, these wore honorableness as a sign of righteousness. The great need to present themselves as “respectable” or “righteous” stems from the need for the craftsman to be perceived as “respectable” in public. For one thing, it is often necessary to penetrate the customer's personal area at work. On the other hand, the customer has to trust the craftsman to the extent that he gives him the order and then hands him the often considerable payment amounts, possibly without being able to estimate the correctness of the work.

Nowadays there are the following different colored honors: black is worn by the righteous strangers , blue by the Roland brothers , red by the stranger freedom brothers and the gray by the journeymen of the Free Encounter Shaft . In all of these shafts it is the same that there is a golden pin with the handicraft coat of arms of the respective profession in the respectability. The Free Vogtlander of Germany wear a golden pin with the FVD symbol in the collarless shrub instead of the honor.

Stranger freedom brothers with red honor

For the traveling companion it was (and is) a considerable advantage to be perceived as “respectable” in public, since as a traveler he is often dependent on help. For this reason, traditionally traveling craftsmen still make sure that none of their group z. B. leaves with debt. So the situation arises again and again of taking up work in another city and not being able to pay for accommodation and food at first. If the traveling companions are perceived as honest and reliable, it is not a problem for the landlords and lodging providers (nowadays, for example, often shared apartments) to get involved. Because they have made the experience that everything is paid for at the latest when the journeyman in question leaves.

Quality of work

The craftsman can develop his self-confidence and self-worth through his own good work. In this way he identifies with his work, and by being true to his work, he is also true to himself.

To maintain the quality of the craftsmanship, most of the craft guilds were familiar with the so-called “show” for monitoring and testing craft products. On the basis of certain quality features for the respective work area, it was carried out by appointed foremen or foremen. With regard to the preservation of quality, the guild regulations contained z. B. Prohibitions on Fraudulent Use of Inferior Materials.

The mason (anonymous artist, around 1880)
Hiking book by furrier Albert Strauss, 1816

historical development

Under the influence of age and culture-related living conditions, the honor of the craft profession as well as the artisan culture and the artisan's self-image have undergone a change.

In today's competitive struggle, the question may arise whether the quality of the work carried out should be related to the level of training. A technically more highly qualified craftsman could charge a higher price for his work, which enabled him to do his work with care and in accordance with his craftsmanship, because he would then have enough time for it.

Fredmund Malik (2007) elaborates on this point of view and defines clear rules for craft management. He writes about the design of teamwork, the making of personnel decisions and z. B. attaches great importance to capturing a salary structure. This set of tools is necessary to do justice to the artisan honor, to deliver professionalism to the customer. B. not taught in a business administration degree.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Danckert, Werner: Dishonest craft in the Middle Ages. ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Bern, 1963 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.conpac.de
  2. ^ Danckert, in Stratmann, Karlwilhelm (1967) The Crisis of Vocational Education A. Henn Verlag Ratingen 1967
  3. Stratmann, Karlwilhelm (1993) The commercial apprenticeship training in Germany Volume I; Publishing house of the Society for the Promotion of Work-Oriented Research and Education, Frankfurt / Main 1993
  4. The gap on zimmerin.de
  5. Sturm, Friederike (2001) The proper vocational training housework Grade: 1.7 Subject area: Pedagogy - history of pedagogues, archive number: K20970 [1] 3.2. Maintaining the quality of the craftsmanship
  6. Schulz, Knut (1999) Handwerk in Europa (Writings of the Historical College / Colloquium 41) Publisher: Oldenbourg, ISBN 978-3486563955
  7. Experts under price pressure 2005 (Mein Zeitz.de) Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeitz.de
  8. Malik, Fredmund (March 2007) Management. The be-all and end-all of the craft Campus Verlag; Edition 1, ISBN 978-3593382852
  9. Stefan Brüdermann : The Göttingen student excerpt 1790 / Craftsman honor and academic freedom Series title: Lichtenberg Studies, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 1991, Hsgr. Stefan Brüdermann and Ulrich Joost, volume number: 07, ISBN 978-3-89244-020-8 .