Guilds in the Middle Ages

Renard, Georges François, 1847-1930Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6
Word count
282K words
Chapters
29

Tags

English Originals World HistoryHistory and Culture Institutional ChangeDivision of LabourSocioeconomic HistoryTeam CollaborationCraftsmenHistorical CriticismAcademic StudyMedieval GuildsCommercial CivilizationMedieval Europe

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Guilds in the Middle Ages by Georges François RenardAuthor: Renard, Georges François, 1847-1930,Language: English, Class: HD: Social sciences: Economic history and conditions, Production, Release Date: Apr 17, 2014

Editor's review

Guilds in the Middle Ages is an English-language work by Georges François Renard on the guild system in the Middle Ages, classified under economic history and social conditions. The book examines the organizational forms, economic functions, and social roles of medieval guilds, and is suitable as an introductory or supplementary reader for the study of European economic history, urban history, and institutional history. The free Project Gutenberg electronic edition is easy to search and cite, suitable for students and researchers consulting it by topic. Because it was written relatively early, readers should read it alongside modern scholarship and be mindful of its period perspective and the limitations of its sources.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the introduction and table of contents first, outline the classification of guild functions, then read chapter by chapter
  2. Compare with modern works on medieval economic history to identify the perspective limitations of early research
  3. Take thematic notes, focusing on the relationship between guilds and urban autonomy and labor organization

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29

FAQ

What is the scope of this book? According to the source, the book focuses on medieval guilds and belongs to economic history and social conditions. Its content centers on the organization and institutions of guilds; the specific chapter structure should be based on the electronic edition's table of contents, which is worth browsing before reading to grasp the scope.
Does the electronic edition include notes and a bibliography? The Project Gutenberg edition mainly provides free electronic text and generally does not guarantee the complete scholarly notes or bibliography of the original book. If used for citation in papers, check the original edition or supplement with modern research literature.
Are the views of an early work still reliable? Renard was born in 1847, and his work reflects the economic history perspective of his time. It retains value as a survey of sources and an introductory reference, but specific conclusions should be compared with modern scholarship and not taken directly as settled fact.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Renard, Georges François, 1847-1930 Author · French · 1847–1930

Georges François Renard (1847–1930) was a French historian and socialist. He focused on industrial history and the workers' movement, examining economic organization together with social thought—an approach that runs through his writing. His representative work, Guilds in the Middle Ages, takes medieval guilds as its subject, tracing their origins, organizational forms, and economic functions, and discussing the place of the guild system in European social change. Renard's writing emphasizes sources and institutional analysis; it is clear and avoids empty generalization. Because public information is limited, details of his life and a complete bibliography remain difficult to establish, and knowledge of him rests mainly on this work. The book is still consulted by readers studying guild history and labor history, and may be seen as an extension of his socialist concerns into historical research.