Society
The association of journeymen and servants of a certain craft group, which has been documented since the 14th century and which, in disputes over working conditions , faced the association of the masters - that is, the guild or "championship" responsible for this craft, is referred to as society or journeyman's brotherhood .
etymology
Society means 1) "the time and status when one is a society" ; 2) the "relationship of the comrades to one another: their (the pope and the devil) mutual company" and 3) the "totality of the companions" .
history
In the time of the free guild system the journeymen were legally in the same relationship to the masters as the apprentices . The journeyman belonged - in keeping with the patriarchal tone of the time - to the household of his master, whose house he, the servant or squire, was not even allowed to leave for one night. The journeyman was a future master.
The company was the transition stage to the master class. So originally there was no separation of a class of dependent workers and a class of self-employed entrepreneurs. Only the social separation did the journeymen see themselves as a group.
In the course of the 14th century, the guilds of the individual trades differentiated. Journeymen who were not satisfied with the working conditions could usually only bring about a change if they appeared as a group. Such a coalition of journeymen can be documented in 1329 in Breslau : There - as it says in the Latin council charter - the journeymen “made a decision that no one should serve any master mayor within a year” . The exact reason for the dissatisfaction cannot be found in the documents, but it must have been serious in view of the long duration of the withdrawal. The united beltmasters committed themselves to each other and to the council not to take any of the striking journeymen back into their service.
In the first documented wage dispute, the already independent harvestmen - they were allowed to be married and were not fed by their masters - had "commonly" declared to their masters in Speier 1351 that the usual wages were too low and their work stopped. A comparison "for ever and ever" was made, which was kept for 10 years and then led to a new cessation of work, which was resolved again in 1362.
In the further course of the 14th century the guilds met in many places to meet the increasing demands of the more self-confident journeymen, also by extending the apprenticeship and traveling time prescribed by the guilds .
In the course of the 15th century both the efforts to form societies and the opposing efforts of the guilds and councils to limit or forbid these intensified.
At the beginning of the 16th century , the increasingly better organized societies in various imperial cities were banned from the guilds. In 1519, for example, the master brewers in Lüneburg complained that “their servants held meetings outside the city, which could easily lead to rotting and bad behavior”.
As a result of numerous complaints from the imperial cities, the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1530 issued a general imperial police order with a first general ban against jointly carried out undertakings by journeymen, but this seems to have had no lasting effects on the increasingly tightly closed societies, as the Nuremberg Council in 1565 in in a letter to the Strasbourgers.
In the 17th century , journeyman orders of societies increasingly conscious of their power prevailed against the masters and grievances emerged, which led to the imperial report of 1672.
In the 18th century , the existing brotherhoods and societies were abolished by the Imperial Trade Act of 1731 and the state regulations that followed it. The authorities are obliged to prohibit meetings or associations of journeymen. The most severe punishments, including the death penalty, are threatened.
In the 19th century , as a result of liberalization, the concept of freedom of association increasingly prevailed and ultimately led to the Reichsgewerbeordnung of 1872, which lifted all coalition bans.
Individual evidence
- ^ Ritscher, Wolfgang, Coalitions and right of coalition in Germany up to the Reichsgewerbeordnung ; New print Keip Verlag 1992; ISBN 3-8051-0111-2
- ^ German dictionary by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm , Volume 5, pages 254-255, S. Hirzel Verlag, Leipzig 1897.
- ^ Gierke, German cooperative law .
- ↑ Lujo Brentano, The industrial worker question in Schönber (ed.) Handbook of political economy
- ↑ Korn, Silesian documents for the history of the trade .
- ↑ Mone, Journal for the History of the Upper Rhine Volume 17, p. 56 ff.
- ^ Lujo Brentano, The Employment Relationship According to Today's Law .
- ^ Schmidt, History of the City of Schweidnitz .
- ^ Schönlank, Social Struggles 300 Years Ago.
- ^ Rüdiger, Older Hamburgische and HanseatischHandwerksgesellendokumente .
- ↑ Bode man Older guild charters of the city of Lueneburg .
- ^ Emminghaus, Corpus Juris Germanici
- ↑ Schönlank, see above
- ^ Schmoller, The Brandenburg-Prussian Guild System from 1640-1800 .
- ^ Meyer, History of Prussian Crafts Policy Volume I).
- ^ Gerstlacher, Handbuch der Teutschen Reichsgesetze .