Talk:Guild/Archives/2015

Legal authority over members?

I know very little about the subject of guilds. However, recently, I was reading Manfred Kuehn's biography of Immanuel Kant, and he claims that guilds in 18th century Koenigsberg had some degree of legal authority over members. For instance, I believe he claimed (I don't have the book in front of me) that they were responsible both for collecting and distributing contributions for social security, including retirement and destitution pay. Guild membership included defined privileges for their members, such as rights of residency within a city. Apparently, these rights could be inherited, so Kant retained certain rights for part of his life in virtue of his father's membership in the bridlemaker's guild. Does anyone know anything about this? If legal authority outside of areas directly related to trade was a feature of guilds generally, then I think this would be an interesting contribution to the article, since right now it only focuses on the economic function of guilds.50.144.0.14 (talk) 04:48, 15 June 2015 (UTC)