Transferring useful knowledge. Quality mechanisms in European apprenticeship

Human capital is central to current debates about the sources of growth and divergence in the premodern economy. Apprenticeship, the key formal arrangement by which occupational skills were transferred in this period, has in the past often been associated with guild monopolies and exclusion, implying a drag on the accumulation of human capital. Several stimulating recent contributions have pointed to apprenticeship as a potentially important explanation for English or European advances in manufacturing and technology in the run up to industrialisation. In this paper, we explore mechanisms that helped improve quality among artisans. We focus on one in particular: the selection of training masters by apprentices

Citizenship among the historians

Around the time of the establishment of Citizenship Studies, historians had a straightforward picture of what it was, and how it developed. Citizenship had been invented in Ancient Greece, where philosophers like Aristotle had outlined its main features, which remained basically unchanged until the twentieth century. Citizenship was a male prerogative, closely related to political participation and for a long time only available to Europeans. Only in post-colonial regimes could the rest of the world develop its own forms of citizenship. This picture is hard to square with the contents of Citizenship Studies, and historians have indeed moved on, as the discussion of three major books demonstrates. Such changes have, however, not come about as a result of the impact of the journal among historians, because that has been very limited so far. The paper speculates about other explanations of this parallel developmen

Le droit de bourgeoisie dans l'Europe moderne

Comment penser aujourd'hui la nature de droits liés à une appartenance locale ? Dans notre expérience quotidienne comme dans notre pratique d'historien(ne), les droits, prérogatives et privilèges, sont liés à des individus et à des groupes sociaux, à des personnes physiques ou fictives, non à des lieux, non à des pratiques sociales liées à des lieux. Et pourtant, durant l'Ancien Régime, les villes d'Europe occidentale ont fait vivre le privilège de bourgeoisie au travers de modes de fonctionn..

Access to the trade: monopoly and mobility in European craft guilds, 17th and 18th centuries

One of the standard objections against citizenship systems and trade organizations in the premodern world has been their exclusiveness. Privileged access to certain professions and industries is seen as a disincentive for technological progress. Guilds, especially, have been portrayed as providing unfair advantages to established masters and their descendants, over immigrants and other outsiders. In this paper the results of detailed local investigations of the composition of citizenries and guild apprentices and masters is brought together, to find out to what extent this picture is historically correct. This data offers an indirect measurement of the accessibility of citizenship and guilds that allows insight into the mechanisms of exclusion and their impact. The paper finds that guild masterships were in most towns open to large numbers of immigrants and non-family, as were training markets for apprentices. Therefore, we argue, our understanding of urban and guild ‘monopolies’, and the measure of protection and reward they supplied to established citizens, is in need of serious revision