Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Second part - X. Manufacturing Industries. By Å. G. Ekstrand, Ph. D., Chief Engineer, Control Office of the Department of Finance - 12. Handicraft and Domestic Industry, by A. Raphael, Ph. D., D. C. L., Stockholm
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HANDICRAFT AND DOMESTIC INDUSTRY.
897
For this purpose, artisans were forbidden to engage in commerce and to carry
on more than one trade; likewise, merchants to drive a craft; nor yet were
merchants allowed to import from abroad such manufactures by which the town
artisans might be »ruined». To carry on a craft, it was necessary to be vested with
the rights and privileges of the city and to be a member of a guild. The
endeavours of the Middle Ages to concentrate the trades into the towns were taken
up afresh and with greater earnest. The rural parts were, however, allowed to
keep »tailors, shoemakers, skinners, blacksmiths, and carpenters», who were
considered indispensable. Another exception was occasioned by the King’s right of
appointing nfreemasters», who were permitted to carry on their trades, independent
of guilds and burghership. That privilege was mostly granted to foreigners, as
there was continually a complaint about the want of clever Swedish craftsmen,
which still remained the case under the reign of King Johan III (1568/92).
The successive evolvement is marked by a still stronger patronizing of the
towns at the expense of the rural districts and by more and more rigorously
making the membership in the guilds obligatory. Charles IX (1599/1611) set
down a fixed number of artisans for each hundred (härad), and as early as
1576 he ordered all the guilds of his duchy, to be close, i. e., they were to
have a certain number of masters proportional to the population and size of
the town. The town artisans obtained a monopoly of work inside the town
and within a Swedish mile’s (6 */3 English miles) circuit outside of it, but were
not allowed to work beyond that district. To drive a craft it was required
that the masterpiece should have gained approval by the bailiff, the council, and
the alderman of the guild, which authorities, moreover, should exercise the
superintendence of the guilds, examine the articles of fabric, and fix a suitable price
of them. In the same spirit or a still severer one (the extension of »the mile
of freedom» to two miles’ distance, enhanced demands as to apprentices’ and
journeymen’s employment, etc.), Charles as a King issued guild privileges for
special crafts as well as for whole towns.
Gustavus Adolplius (1611/32) went even still farther than his predecessors
in his attempts to restrict the pursuit of a craft in the rural parts. Now
country artisans were not allowed to work at less than four Swedish miles’ distance
from a town, whereas urban ones, with the knowledge of the alderman, had
permission to work for the country people. In 1644, liberty of trade in the rural
districts was still more limited, so far even that all craftsmen in the country
districts had to apply for the freedom of the city and to pay their taxes in town.
Had urban craft thus been almost completely delivered from the rivalry of
the rural parts, it was, however, threatened with a more dangerous intrusion from
another quarter. The Nobility privileges of 1612, as well as those of 1617,
granted a nobleman the right gratuitously to keep any number of artisans he
might need and to hold his domain free from all the burdens to Government
and town unless the inhabitants of it carried on a craftsman’s trade. In this
circumstance the Nobility found a pretext for »protecting» from taxes and
military conscription a quantity of »handicraftsmen» in the rural districts, who
were working there for other people, as also for releasing a number of town
artisans from all kinds af taxes. The attempts of checking this undue interference
did not lead to any satisfactory result. — On the other hand, the new statutes
of 1621 and 1622 do not know about any close guilds, though some older ones
of the kind were kept up in many places, and the right of the guild alone to
examine the masterpiece of an applicant, considerably checked competition.
It is also about this time that voices are heard to rise against the obligatory
membership of guilds, and as a remedy against the unreasonable prices of craftsmen’s
goods, Axel Oxenstierna, Sweden’s real regent during the years 1632/44, enforced
the holding of markets overt, in Stockholm and Kalmar at least. But the promises
Sweden. 57
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