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INTRODUCTION
(CHAPTER I) CHAPTER
II
CHAPTER
III
CHAPTER IV
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The Guilds of the Armament Producers of Sibiu, Braşov and Cluj (XIVth-XVIth C.) Author: Ioan Marian
Ţiplic. ISBN 973-651-337-8, Editura
Universităţii „Lucian Blaga”, Sibiu 2001.
© copyright Institutul
pentru Cercetarea şi Valorificarea Patrimoniului Naţional în
Context European, Marian Ţiplic
Seria Bibliotheca
Septemcastrensis I, University “Lucian
Blaga” Sibiu, Institutul
pentru Cercetarea şi Valorificarea Patrimoniului Naţional în
Context European.
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Abstract –
Introduction The historiography of the 19th Century as well as
the contemporany historiography neglected a broader approach on guilds and
their function; they only focused on their system of organisation, that is
why there are only few monographical studies on the guilds in Transylvania.
Old historiography did not show too much interest in this matter as compared
to its constant interest in the political and religios problem of history.
Even though when some representatives of the last century historiography
tried to present some aspects of the production of guilds, they dealt mostly
with their political and economic influences within the medieval society. The
research and the studies that have been done in the middle 19th century and
its latter half by historians M. Horwath, A. Ipoly, O. Meltzl as well as
those from the beginning the 20th Century for example the one of L. Szadeczky
ignore these aspects, too. The last study we have is in fact the first
synthesis that intends to present all the trades in Hungary from 1307 to
1848, but it has several negative aspects: ist presents the trades in an
unsystematic way; it is highly nationalist presenting mainly the fights
between the Hungarian and the German craftsmen. Apart from L. Szadeczky, at the beginning of the
20th Century, R. Rösler approached the theme of the guilds and trades
focusing only on the guilds in Sibiu and succeeds in writing a synthesis on
the local guilds, which later on will be source of information for various
studies on the guilds from Sibiu. R. Rösler presents their internal
organization, their type and their specific functions namely – economic,
religious, military –, the role of the craftsmen and apprentens. R. Rösler is
the first who tries and partly succeeds in doing a study more profound on the
different kinds of guilds. Starting from these references point, there were
other attempts to write monographical studies on guilds but these
studies are very few and those on the
guilds of the armourers are practically nonexistent. In keeping with the
category of syntheses we may mention A. Veress's work on the guilds from
Transylvania, unfortunatelly it deals with the matter rather superficially. Starting with the second decade of the 20th
century there appeared a series of studies/works on the guilds or collections
of documents mainly about the relations between the guild from Sibiu and
Braşov and those from Moldavia and Wallachia. This is explainable in this period because the
new state organization of Romania had to be legitimated first of all
historically, so that there were brought to light those documents that
certified long-termed political and economic relations between the 3 regions
of Romania, we have to mention Şt. Meteş's work Legăturile economce dintre Ţara
Românească şi Transilvania până în secolul al XVIII-lea.
Şt. Meteş approaches the economic exhanges between the goldsmiths'
guilds, the guilds of the armourers and the other guilds from Transylvania,
but mainly from Braşov and Sibiu. In fact, most studies on the guilds
from Transylvania will focus on the economic aspects. at the beginning of the
20th century, I. Bogdan made a more detailed research based on documents
collected from the archives of the towns in the South and east of
Transylvania and those from the both countries at South Carpathians
Principalities. In 1927, S. Dragomir wrote a book on the guilds
especially about the connections between Sibiu and Wallachia. Its title is Documente noi cu privire la relaţiile
dintre Sibiu şi Muntenia în secolele XV-XVI and it comprises
documents that reflect the economic and political connections between the two
regions of the country, documents that had not been published before. V. Motogna continued Şt. Meteş' s work
and in 1928 he published Relaţiile
dintre Moldova şi Transilvania în secolul al XVII-lea. This study
adds new information on the commercial relations between the guilds from
Transylvania and the countries beyond the Carpathians. These new pieces of
information were useful to those who were to continue their general study on
guild. In 1930, E. Sigerius wrote Kronik
der Stadt Hermannstadt 1100-1920 based on this new information. He
organized his study exactly as a chronicle focusing on the same political and
economic relations between 1100-1929. In 1938, P.P. Panaitescu brings out a new
collection of documents concerning Sibiu' s relations with Wallachia. His
work is entitled Documente slavo-române
din Sibiu – 1470-1653.It compries all the documents from the archives of
Sibiu. It chronologically folows the study published by S. Dragomir in 1927. As a result of Romania's involvement in W.W. II,
the publication of studies on guilds almost stopped. In fact, this phenomenon
is happening in other fields of history. In post-war period, the historiography on the
theme of guilds improves its quality but unfortunately few studies were
published. Consequently, the first and the only synthesis on the guilds from
Transylvania appears in 1954. It is written by Şt. Pascu and it is
called Meşteşugurile din
Transilvania până în secolul al XVI-ea. The work deals with the
appearance and the development of trades from villages and towns during the
period between the 13th century and the 16th century. All the other works
that were written after the year 1954 were based on this book. But its
greatest flaw is that it presents a Marxist interpretation of history. In his
opinion the appearance and the development of guilds had as an origin and
driving force the fight between social classes but the same reason lead to
their disappearance in the 19th century. Two years later, having a starting point in Meşteşugurile în Transilvania,
Şt. Pascu published an article which focused only on the economic
relations between Transylvania and Moldavia during the reign of Ştefan
cel Mare (Stephen the Great). Following Şt. Pascu's example, R.
Manolescu published Relaţiile
economice între Ţara Românească şi Sibiu la începutul
secolului al XVI-lea. Using the valuable documents given by P. P.
Panaitescu, Gr. Tocilescu and S. Dragomir, R. Manolescu makes a more profound
research of the import and the export of goods from Sibiu at the beginning of
the 16th century. He makes use of the customs registers from the archives of
Sibiu to draw a diagram of goods and their prices which is a real proof of
the economic evolution of the guilds. Developing Manolescu's idea S. Goldenberg
publishes some new and incredible information concerning the customs of Sibiu
in an article called Despre vama
(vigessima) Sibiului în secolul al XVI-lea. He also presents the economic
and commercial evolution of the main guilds in Cluj (information taken from
the registers of goods) in his monographical work Clujul în secolul al XVI-lea. Producţia
şi schimbul de mărfuri. The year 1967 is very important for the Romanian
historiography because Dinu C. Giurescu and A. Pănoiu publish Feronerie veche românească, a
work concerning the guilds involved in the processing of iron. They did a
good work but they presented only the main iron mines in the three Romanian
regions. However their work together with Şt. Pascu's remain the only
syntheses that give a general view on the Romanian guilds. A year later
appears G. Nussbächer´s work entitled Statutele
breslei arcarilor din Braşov. At that time it was the only book that
presented the statute of guild in
detail. Taking into account the information given by G. Nussbächer's study,
I. Bidianu published 2 articles in which he referred to the organisation and
the role of guilds from Braşov between the 15th century and the 16th
century. He only enumerates following Şt. Pascu's example without
discussing each in detail. More general information about the guilds of
armourers is given by M. Nistor in the article Producţia şi comerţul cu arme, clopote şi mojare
în Braşov între sec. XV-XVIII. It is one of the few articles on
trade, which was in fact quite flourishing between Braşov and the other
regions. The work Die Bürger von
Kronstadt im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert is important for the fact that it
presents the economic and political activity of the craftsmen in Braşov
and the guilds as well. Another attempt to aproach in a more profound way
the issue of the guilds of armourers was a catalogue, Arme în muzeele din România, published by C. Vlădescu, C.
König and D. Popa. The book provides a whole history of arms and of the
armourers and a great number of pictures with the parts found in the History
and Military Museums from Romania. Unfortunately a number of compilations on
the different military items and the guilds are brought together. In 1986
there appeared another work Istoria
militară a poporului român, coordinated by Şt. Pascu. Its aim
was to present the development of the armament and the Romanian military
thinking beginning with Burebista's
reign and ending with the 19th century but it was a complete failure. The
work has a sort of nationalist feeling it exaggerates emphasizing the idea of
the unity of the Romanians and it
does not bring anything new on the various types of military items. These preoccupations of the military history had
been before this appeared; so in the 1974-1975, P. Abrudan şi F. Szontag
published the article Sistemul de
apărare a cetăţii Sibiului în sec. XV-XVI. A work, written
as a catalogue for exhibition, signed by E. Roman, offers to its readers
information to a certain category of arms that is portable fire arms, found
in the collection of the Brukenthal Museum. In addition, she also written an
article Arme şi armuri în
colecţia muzeului Brukenthal. Arme de foc portative. This article is
very important as it mentions some of the pieces from Sibiu. Both works are
unique in the local bibliography among the works that appeared in the last 20
years on this theme: the guilds from Sibiu. And at least there appears in 1989 the work of
Al. I. Gonţa, Relaţiile
comerciale între Moldova şi Transilvania în perioada secolelor XIII-XVII.
This last work is a synthesis concerning the commercial relations between the
3 regions in Romania. As we may well notice in both the Romanian and the
German historiography, although there appeared a great number of syntheses
concerning the guilds there are no works that focus on every guild in detail. |
