ABSTRACT
The craftsmen associated in the manorial law organization combine and become economically independent after they have gotten money in their hands through production for the market. Then begins the struggle for the market and for autonomy, in which the guilds are increasingly successful, and the lord is finally expropriated as a result of the introduction of money economy. In connection with the market concession and the ancient tradition of skilled craftsmen separated from household and clan, it contributed to the production of the individual skilled artisan outside of household and clan groupings. In southern Europe free craftsmen are mentioned as early as the sixth century, in the north in the eighth, and from the Carolingian period they became more common. In this struggle the merchants regularly stood side by side with the rural craftsmen against the guilds. Parallel with the struggle against the retailers went wars within individual guilds and between various guilds.
