medieval-atlas/administration/215

Transcription

Burghs 1426 to 1550 Gilds are found throughout medieval western European as socioreligious groups which developed in towns as economic organisations involved in mercantile pursuits. The emergence of burghs in Scotland was often tightly linked with gilds merchant, although it cannot be concluded with certainty that all early burghs possessed them. The early gild merchant could reflect the self-expression of the burgh, and gild members (as able members ofsociety rather than as gild members) took an increasingly dominant role in the organisation of the burgh and admission ofburgesses. The interminglingof the function of burgh and gild lasted into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in smaller burghs and was most apparent in the gild's control of the town's commercial activities (e.g. pricing of basic commodities, fining forestallers and regraters, monopolisation of dealing in staple goods, hides, furs, skins, wool and wool fells, overseeing the cloth and leather industries, controlling overseas trade). Gild members were the wealthier burgesses, entrance being by right of inheritance, or for service to the town or gild, or by the intercession ofthe crown or other influential person, or by payment. Early burgh laws and charters exclude weavers, f1eshers, dyers and (;> fullers from gild membership, but in practice craftsmen were accepted into the gild's fraternity. As formal craft organisations emerged in the larger burghs in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a certain exclu iveness and social stratification manifested itself in economic tension between groups, but in the smaller burghs the gild merchant maintained its role as an organisation of men, whether merchants or craftsmen, who dealt in merchandise. Dundee "'---Perth (1249 x 1286) (pre-1189 x 1202) 0 ~StA d Cupar n rews (1369) (1189 x 1202) Stirling 0 ( (1226) f -I' ,r'"O"Bumtisland Dun erm Ine~(1541) (1395) • 'r Edinburgh .-(1401) • km. Burghs with gilds merchant already in existence by the 0 2,5 50 75 100 ,, , , date shown 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 o Burghs with gilds merchant granted on the date shown miles Burghs with gilds merchant by 1550 EPD 215

  Transcribers who have contributed to this page.

None