ABSTRACT
From the late Middle Ages onward, many craft guilds had a religious orientation in addition to a social-economic one. Free associations of fellow tradesmen, such as guild brotherhoods and journeymen brotherhoods, even propagated religious worship as their chief mission. Did guild members partake in religious rituals and in some cases invest heavily in material religious infrastructure out of piety alone, or did their actions serve other purposes as well? This question, which has received little consideration so far, is the subject of this chapter. Lacking suf¿ cient preliminary studies, this exercise has to be merely exploratory.
