{"id":92,"date":"2025-09-08T15:56:47","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/?p=92"},"modified":"2025-09-08T15:56:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:56:47","slug":"the-political-economy-of-medieval-guilds-and-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/2025\/09\/08\/the-political-economy-of-medieval-guilds-and-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Political Economy of Medieval Guilds and Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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York Merchant Adventurers Guild Hall (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nEric Wilhelm, a new scholar-in-residence at the Stephenson Institute, recently discussed his research on medieval guilds and their impact on economic growth with Marcus Shera of <\/span>The Econ Playground<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilhelm explained that European guilds existed from 1000 to 1800 AD, from the \u201clate medieval to pre-industrial era.\u201d Craft guilds had \u201cboth a commercial component involved with some sort of production process\u201d and had social aspects similar to \u201cclubs.\u201d These tradesmen such as blacksmiths, masons, weavers, or bakers were organized into \u201cranks of apprentice journeyman to master,\u201d who were trained in this way \u201call the way back into the medieval era.\u201d Wilhelm emphasized \u201cthe variety of organizations, variety of industries, types of crafts, and structures that they were involved with.\u201d Stressing that guilds were not \u201ca purely private order institution,\u201d they \u201ctypically shared religious practices\u201d as well.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n