ABSTRACT
A guild is an organization of craft workers specialized in accordance with the type of occupation. It functions through undertaking two things, namely, internal regulation of work and monopolization against outsiders. Guilds in the sense of unfree organizations were found in late antiquity and in Egypt, India, and China. The guilds strove towards and reached the objective that in very many cases the policing of the industry in matters affecting the craft was placed in their hands, and in such cases they maintained an industrial court. With this development the character of certain parts of medieval craft work as small capitalism is determined, and corresponding to this character a permanent class of journeymen originates. This development took place not only where craft work was carried on as price work and a certain capital was necessary for the purchase of raw material and for carrying on the industry, but most commonly where the limitation of the number of masters was established.
