ABSTRACT
The medieval craft gilds were associations of skilled workers who, pursuing the same craft within the walls of the same town, joined together to protect and monopolize their trade and enjoy the social benefits that such an association could offer. In their concern to secure quality in the work produced, they organized a highly effective system of vocational education. Parents who wished their child to be taught a craft found a willing and competent master and entering into a contractual relationship with him, put their child under his care, the master becoming in loco parentis. The indentures of apprenticeship, which were usually drawn up and signed in the gild hall in the presence of the wardens of the gild, involved rights and obligations on the side of both the master and the apprentice. Usually an apprenticeship was to last seven years, and the master was to provide food and clothes for the apprentice for most of that period. The boy on the other hand had to work for his master, learning the craft and keeping its secrets.
