In the late Middle Ages the crafts guilds did not have only economic or politic goals, but continued to be imbued with a religious ethos and feelings of solidarity that took concrete form in a wide range of functions in the areas of devotion, charity, and aid, and made them great ‘inventors’ of rituals. Curiously, however, these aspects have never been subjected to an in-depth analysis. This paper aim to reconstruct the ritual dimension of the guildsmen life taking the example of the Tuscany: here, in fact, the high degree of urbanization and strong demographic and economic dynamism imparted a special importance to the phenomenon of corporative associations and thus has been the subject of a significant number of studies and publications of sources (for Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Siena, Lucca and others still). The investigation focuses on four distinct topics: the solemn oath which ratified the entrance of a member into the guild, the group banquet, the ceremonies accompanying the death and burial of an artifex, and the celebration of holidays, above all the feast day of the association’s patron saint and the celebration of Corpus Christi. In spite of characteristics of the sources, which should reflect especially the reassuring image that the members of the guilds wanted to project ouside, the main result of the investigation is that the ritual moments when the guilds displayed their greatest cohesion (common meals, ceremonies of farewell to the deceased, processions performed during the major holidays) were also those in which there existed a high probability of manifestation of internal conflicts.
Franceschi, F. (2013). The Rituals of the Guilds. Examples from Tuscan cities (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries). In Late Medieval and Early Modern Ritual. Studies in Italian Urban Culture (pp. 65-92). Turnhout : Brepols.
The Rituals of the Guilds. Examples from Tuscan cities (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries)
FRANCESCHI, FRANCO
2013-01-01
Abstract
In the late Middle Ages the crafts guilds did not have only economic or politic goals, but continued to be imbued with a religious ethos and feelings of solidarity that took concrete form in a wide range of functions in the areas of devotion, charity, and aid, and made them great ‘inventors’ of rituals. Curiously, however, these aspects have never been subjected to an in-depth analysis. This paper aim to reconstruct the ritual dimension of the guildsmen life taking the example of the Tuscany: here, in fact, the high degree of urbanization and strong demographic and economic dynamism imparted a special importance to the phenomenon of corporative associations and thus has been the subject of a significant number of studies and publications of sources (for Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Siena, Lucca and others still). The investigation focuses on four distinct topics: the solemn oath which ratified the entrance of a member into the guild, the group banquet, the ceremonies accompanying the death and burial of an artifex, and the celebration of holidays, above all the feast day of the association’s patron saint and the celebration of Corpus Christi. In spite of characteristics of the sources, which should reflect especially the reassuring image that the members of the guilds wanted to project ouside, the main result of the investigation is that the ritual moments when the guilds displayed their greatest cohesion (common meals, ceremonies of farewell to the deceased, processions performed during the major holidays) were also those in which there existed a high probability of manifestation of internal conflicts.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
https://hdl.handle.net/11365/14423
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