In this article, the author considers some problems with which London livery companies were confronted in the first half of the 17th century, and tries to explicate the reason why the livery companies, which had developed the oligarchic system in the 16th century, faced the seperation movement of small masters, artisans, and retailers, who organized their own companies getting the incorporation charters from the Crown. First of all, he surveys the Poll Tax Return in 1641 to see the actual conditions of freemen of livery companies, and finds the mixture of various kinds of trades among the company members. For instance, in the Drapers', Company, only 75 of 862 members were drapers, accounting for 8.7%, while the rest were the men of other 118 kinds of trades. Such mixture can be found in almost all companies, but it is more conspicuous in trading companies, such as the Drapers' and the Leathersellers', than in artisans' companies, such as the Horners'. In the former, the actual trades were so diversified that they had lost the character of a homogenious trade association. On the other hand, in the latter, the members of the proper trade accounted for more than 70% of all, so that the companies could still have some aspects of the medieval craft gilds. What was it that caused such a trade mixture? Following Dr. Thrupp's article, the author claims that the main reason lies in the way how the trade monopoly of medieval gilds was maintained. In medieval London, the monopoly of gilds existed in the retail trade and handicraft, but not in the wholesale trade. Moreover, "the custom of London" enablec anyone to run any trade, when he had finished the apprenticeship in a mistery and had become a freeman of a company and the city. These circumstances brought about the trade mixture, especially in trading companies. Finally, examining the Repertories of the Court of Aldermen in the early 17th century, he sees how artisans and retailers made resistance against the trade mixture within their companies. The Stuart Corporation of small masters was the realization of it in the extremest form, trying to get the men of same trade together and to revive the homogenious trade association.
抄録全体を表示