ABSTRACT
How did economically active European townspeople perceive themselves in the late Middle Ages and early modern era? Did their profession play a role in their image of themselves? To what extent could there have been a collective professional consciousness and an ethical code that was linked to it? The complex relationship between work and identity is central in Jaume Aurell and James Amelang’s chapters, which relate to merchants and artisans, respectively. Both authors pose interesting questions and formulate hypotheses that may stimulate further investigations. Consequently, their papers provide ample opportunity for discussion. To begin this discussion, I will place the discourses about work found in the sources that Aurell and Amelang used in a somewhat larger context. First, I will focus on the merchants, not primarily because Aurell deals with an earlier period than Amelang, but because the merchants were a professional group whose activities since Classical Antiquity have been evaluated in very different ways.
