抄録
Despite the major growth of urban history in recent years, consideration of the English provincial towns during the late medieval period has been largely confined to the debate on urben decline which has developed since 1977. Even within this field, the late medieval crafts and fraternities have been somewhat neglected since the publication of the classic studies by G. Unwin and S. Kramer. The York Memorandum Book contains the registration of 142 ordinances of 74 diflerent crafts; the majority of these were concentrated in two periods, 1380-1492, when the economy of York prospered, and 1460-1509, when it declined. This paper deals with the ordinances of the textile, leather and building crafts in late medieval York, illustrating the various functions of crafts and their adaptability to the changing demographic, economic, social and political environment. Presenting the characteristics of the ordinances of the same crafts in each period, we demonstrate that in the earlier period of economic prosperity and growing occupational specialization their economic functions were the maintenance of a skilled labour force and high standards of workmanship, and the regulation of conflicts between different crafts, but that in the later period of econmic decline and the growing political power of the crafts their functions tended to restrict both the labour forces and production. We reaffirm their function as agencies of city government and stress their social function of maintaining order and coherence in the crafts and the urben community both in the former period or rapid turnover of urban population and in the latter period of urban exodus. We also stress their religious function as fundamental throughout the whole period.
