The Area of the Guilds

On our third field trip we visited the area where the guilds used to operate. Once again we met right by El Cathedral off of the Jaume I stop. We winded around the many streets where members of the different guilds set up shop by day and lived by night. I found it very interesting how each street was named after the guild that worked and was producing there and that those streets continue to have the same names to this day. This was a neat field trip to take because there is not an ounce of me, which believes I would have been able to locate these streets. Also, my only initial knowledge of the guilds was that the only way to become part of a guild was to hold a three-year apprenticeship and then pass a challenging strict test to be accepted. In addition these apprenticeships were the only way to learn or to be able to practice a skill as well. On our way down one of the first streets we stopped to notice a medium sized square, which served as a market for a particular item where all the guild members would meet so that buyers could compare prices and choose what they wanted to purchase. I thought the saying in the book that “a blind man could know his way around” the area simply because of the routine locations of each guild was interesting. We next stopped to observe the layout of a general guild house. The shop was located on the first and bottom floor of the building with the owner of that guild living on the first floor. As you looked higher and higher up on the building the windows would become smaller and smaller with the workers and apprentices living on the very top floor. We learned that the women workers were in charge of the laundry for everyone in the house and would hang the clothes to dry outside of these windows.  I realized from this trip that it would be easy to underestimate the guilds and not know how central they were to the economy and the government of Barcelona at the time. We learned that the influence of the guilds extended past simply the creation of their products into being a sort of private police. They would negotiate with the monarch for certain privileges, write city laws, and help with the early militia. In general though the guilds were very well known for intensely controlling the quality of materials and work of all of their members allowing them to maintain their position as the very center around which all productive work was organized in Barcelona. Discussing this, we ended our field trip at the Llotja or the stock-market of Barcelona which was important for sea-trade as well as the guilds. Unfortunately, after around six-hundred  years in power the guilds were overwhelmed by family businesses and their handiwork became mute in the presence of factory production. While the guilds clearly are no longer a presence or force in Barcelona it’s interesting to think about what it would be like if they were still the predominate economic factor in present day!