Ambachtssolidariteit in Brabantse steden (1250-1600)

Samenvatting

Craft Guild Solidarity in Brabantine Cities (1250-1600)

Guilds’ poor boxes enable us to look at poor relief and communities from the bottom up and with an eye for socio-economic, political, and religious causalities. In addition, a focus on poor boxes allows to understand exactly how the definition of the ‘communities’ involved had changed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There is, however, a lack of case studies of Catholic regions and, above all, a long-term and integrated approach. This article therefore analyses the early development of poor boxes founded by guilds in Mechelen, Brussels, and Antwerp (in the southern region of the Low Countries) between 1250 and 1600 to address the following questions: how did the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion work, which communities were implied (a guild, the urban community, a group of voluntary members etc.), how did they interlink with each other, and how did this change in the long run? First: already before the official recognition of craft guilds, artisans tried to unite in religious and social associations, which provided for guildsmen in need. Without these early confraternities, late medieval craft guilds (as we know them) would not have existed. Second: the poor box type of guild solidarity was far more widespread than expected. All or almost all guilds in these large Brabant cities appear to have had a poor box. Some also had a hospice and most of them were founded or formalised in the fifteenth century. They were highly intertwined with guild identity. Third: poor boxes were often exclusively aimed at jour- neymen, and increasingly so. Fourth: I discern six factors that have determined the rise of poor boxes. The Reformation and an economic decline, as have often been pointed out, do not suffice as explanatory factors. More important were the size and urbanisation level, habitude and imitation, a general trend of formalisation, the financial situation of guilds, the urge to show off guild status and distinguish from public poor relief and, in some cases, a trend towards exclusion.