Guilds, Labour and the Urban Body Politic

This book presents an integrated history of the guilds in the Southern Netherlands, connecting political history, the history of political thought, economic history, and labor history, while taking into account the cultural and religious context. It does so from a long-term perspective, in order to counter anachronistic and ahistorical views on the emergence of European modernity.

Bert De Munck is Professor at the History Department at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.

Introduction 1. Communal Revolts and the Politicization of Labor 2. The Fabrication of the Urban Body Politic 3. The Political Economy of Freeman Status 4. Corporatism, Proletarianization and the Patriarchal Order 5. Equality, Solidarity and the Decline of Brotherhood Epilogue: Dis/Assembling the Workplace and the Agora