Conflicts within and between guilds

So far, we have seen the strong community that guilds wished to create, in their own towns and across Flanders, but conflicts must also be understood. Conflicts are not well documented; this deficiency is partially explained by a lack of civic justice records from the fifteenth century. Further, it should be remembered that

622 The abbreviation and damage meaning the full name cannot be recovered.

within guilds constables had the right to correct members’ behaviour; so many guild disputes would never have received municipal attention. For example the Ghent archers were required to avoid all discord, and any conflicts should have been settled by the dean and king.⁶²³ Though they should have been brotherhoods, and should have lived in peace with other guild, conflicts are documented within and between guilds.

Conflict in one guild.

We have seen that documents in Lille emphasised internal unity, honour and obedience among the archers and crossbowmen, but both guilds broke these rules.

In 1470 the king of the archers, Jehan Poton, and another guild member, Roger Lobe, had a dispute. The justice register records that ‘Poton offered and said exceedingly bad things with much injurious language and many great and

detestable oaths. In doing so he went against the ordinance and constitution of the said garden’. As a result, Poton was forbidden entry to the archers’ garden and expelled from the guild. Both Poton and Lobe were punished, by pilgrimage.⁶²⁴ But this was not the end of the story, a few months later, in July 1471, Poton ‘had been found in the garden where previously he had been reported for abuse’. He had entered ‘against his oath’.⁶²⁵ Poton’s next punishment has not been recorded, nor is the reason for this squabble, but this was the king of the archers, the best shooter, described in the court records as a cobbler.

The crossbowmen of Lille were similarly quarrelsome. In 1458 one guild-brother, Guilbin d’Ypres ‘with disorder and rebellion’ injured a fellow member, Jehan de Huernes, and refused to obey the king and constable.⁶²⁶ Here a difference

623BMG, Sint sebastiaangilde; privilegieboek, inv 1059, f. 1 v.-3.

624 AML, RM, 15919 f. 20.

625 AML, RM, 15919 f. 35.

626AML, RT, 15884 f. 137.

emerged. In 1471 Potin, archer king and cobbler, was punished by the aldermen.

In 1458 Guiblin d’Ypres appealed directly to the governor of Lille, and sought an exemption from punishment. Whether he received a pardon or not is not clear. No punishment is recorded, so it is possible that he received a verbal pardon, but the Lille justice records are imperfectly organised and preserved, it is also possible his sentence was not written down, or has been lost. Whether successful or not, it is significant that this crossbowman could appeal to the governor, a nobleman appointed by the duke, the cobbler Potin could not have done so. That Guilbin had a personal connection to such a figure shows he was an important man, probably related to, if no one of, the 15 aldermen (as well as 37 other municipal offices) from the d’Ypres family.⁶²⁷ This was a problem of an over-mighty confrere. For all their oaths, brotherhood and drinking in recreational assembly, guilds were not without conflict. Some favoured the ideal of unity, but others chose not to uphold it and had the means to pursue their own actions.

Conflict between guilds.

In Ghent, tensions within guilds are less well recorded, but tensions between the two crossbow guilds, the so called lesser and greater (jonghe and grote) were more obvious. Rules were passed that the lesser crossbowmen should obey and respect the greater. The jonghe were required to have a member of the grote guild as their headman, in 1416,⁶²⁸ 1449,⁶²⁹ and in 1468.⁶³⁰ All three charters make clear an ideal; that the 2 separate guilds, one of higher status, should respect one another, should follow their rules and respect their hierarchy. In 1446 a dispute broke out between the two guilds over precedence in shooting, showing that the lesser guild members were not willing to stay in their lower position indefinitely.

In 1467 the dispute seems to have been more serious, involving the revenues of

627 D. Clauzel, ‘Les élites urbaines et le pouvoir municipal; le “cas” de la bonne ville de Lille aux XIV et XV siècles,’ RN 78 (1996), 267.

628 SAG, jaerregister, 301/27 f.82 v.

629 SAG, jaarregister, 301/ 39 f. 63 r.

630 SAG, jaerregister, 310 49 f. 19 r. and 110 v.

the lesser guilds. However the town decided in favour of the greater guild, requiring the lesser crossbowmen pay a large fine.⁶³¹

In 1481 the guilds again fell out again over precedence, with the lesser guild trying to shoot before the greater guild. The magistrates attempted to re-impose

‘friendship’ ‘for the honour of the town’.⁶³² Though details of these conflicts are limited, from rules and fines it seems clear that the lesser guild of Saint George were not happy to remain subservient, they wanted the same rights, status and financial support as the greater guild, but the aldermen consistently supported the greater guild. Such statutes show that although guilds were honourable groups, their honour and prestige was relative to other guilds, and if a greater guild felt that the lesser guild was acquiring more status this caused conflicts, with the greater desperate to hold onto their privileged position. Such disputes do not detract from the ideal of guilds as agents of social peace, rather disputes show the complex and personal nature of guilds.

4.7. Hierarchy.

A great deal of the above information is based on statutes, showing the guild ideals, or of legal record showing the worst transgressions. To capture some sense of regular guild relations, only one source is available, the account books of the Bruges guild of Saint Sebastian, in particular their seating plans. I know of no comparable source for any other urban groups anywhere in Flanders. The

unparalleled Bruges records permit a glimpse inside the guild hall, and show how far guild-brothers chose to follow rules, and how far they chose to interact with each other. Meals were not just about commensality and conviviality, hierarchy was ever present, just as in the seventeenth century Haarlem militia meals which

631 SAG, SJ, NGR, 20.

632 SAG, SJ, NGR, 29.