ABSTRACT
The first chapter recounts the history of the urban revolts, starting with the emergence of the urban communes and their struggle for independence in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In a second phase (from the thirteenth century on) the guilds to take center stage in this book entered the scene as they fought for political recognition within the urban communes. Conceptually, this chapter ties in with the ideas of William Sewell (in Logics of History) about the importance of multi-causality and historical contingency. While I explain which factors were decisive in the guilds’ success and the differences with other European regions, I point at the co-occurrence and entanglement of different types of structural factors while taking into account smaller events and coincidences. In addition, I introduce the idea that the success of the guild revolts was contingent upon epistemic and epistemological transformations. As is well known, the exclusion of artisans from political office was based upon the idea in political philosophy that working with one’s hands was equivalent to being part of nature and a slave to necessity, whereas being a political actor in the service of the common good required independence. From this point of view, the recognition of artisans as political subjects, implies a different view on the relationship between Nature and the Political (or Artifice). And this is what actually happened according to some historians of science and knowledge (notably Pamela Long and Pamela Smith). Proceeding from their ideas, I argue that the success of the artisans corresponded to an epistemological shift in which the gap between Nature and Artifice narrowed. Not only were the artisans ever more capable of imitating (or even surpassing) the Wonders of Nature in their products—thus yielding economic success—they also bridged the realms of nature and convention, artifice and politics.
