ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that variation between statutory regulations and actual practice. It analyses the similarities and differences in entrance policies. The chapter looks at a variety of guilds in different economic sectors in cities in the Southern and Northern Netherlands between the Late Middle Ages and the Napoleonic Era. It examines long-term transformations in the level of the entrance fees, the difference between several types of apprentices and masters and the ratio of registration fees to admission fees in these various guilds and cities. The chapter aims to get more insight into the multifaceted character of regulating entrance to Early Modern cities and local labour markets. It collects a mass of data on registration fees and admission fees in a large number of guilds in some 16 cities in the Low Countries between c. 1500 and 1800. The Northern Netherlands, in contrast, the main policy instrument would seem to have been citizenship.
