Traveling Journeymen in Metternichian South Germany Author(s): George S. Werner Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 125, No. 3, (Jun. 23, 1981), pp. 190-219 Published by: American Philosophical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/986482 Accessed: 09/07/2008 13:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=amps. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org TRAVELING JOURNEYMEN IN METIERNICHIAN SOUTH GERMANY* GEORGE S. WERNER INTRODUCTION This hope was created and fostered by the guilds, The nineteenth century was not the happiest time even though they had changed in purpose and attitude for traditional institutions in Central Europe. In par- in the centuries since their birth. Generally speaking, ticular, accelerated population growth and the En- guilds had come into being during the Middle Ages lightenment-directly or through the filter of Revo- as (usually urban) associations of the practitioners of lutionary and Napoleonic France-had undermined a particular craft or trade, united to establish and the efficacy of traditional approaches to political, maintain standards of training and production. Ini- economic, and social life in the German states. The tially meant to carry on religious and social functions, old givens and certainties were now called into ques- they gradually took on economic and political qualities tion; the entire structure had begun the process of as well, increasing their importance in and control over modernization. On the individual level, as social and their members' lives. They soon assumed the authority economic relations changed, as the equilibrium estab- to determine what would be produced, in what manner lished over the centuries among the various compo- and quantity, by whom, and how the product would nents of society was upset, each element found itself be sold. Competition among the masters decreased by set adrift, liberated from old restrictions, but lacking mutual agreement, while competition between, rather the security they had provided. It is precisely when than within, cities began to increase as the medieval individuals are aware that traditional values have lost city ceased to be an isolated economic district. While their meaning and that previous expectations can no journeymen and new masters suffered, others used the longer be realized, that social tensions begin to take altered circumstances to advantage and the guilds on crisis proportions, leading, in the extreme case, to developed into a craft aristocracy in many cities, de- social disintegration, until either the old institutions fending their own.2 The guilds became increasingly regain some degree of validity or new ones arise, able more exclusive, restricting membership and thereby to accommodate the changes. limiting not only the opportunity to engage in guilded One group in nineteenth-century German society crafts, but also the chance to settle in the towns and seemed to be more exposed to the misery that this cities which they controlled. Moreover, they tried to dislocation caused than other segments. Journeymen prevent craftsmen from working in the villages and were halfway through the process established by the would tolerate no work which someone outside the guild system for the creation of new master craftsmen guild produced even for his own household. Well be- to replace those who had died or to tend to the de- fore the eighteenth century, the guilds had become mands of a larger population. They were beyond the monopolies, jealously guarding the rights and prerog- training stage of apprenticeship, but not considered atives granted or, through weakness, forfeited to them sufficiently developed to ply their trade without su- by the state. The old laws became privileges and more pervision. As long as the journeyman remained in a energy was expended on preventing competition from condition of becoming, of having not yet attained per- outsiders than on productivity and efficiency. Conse- manent status and thus security, he was exposed to quently, "subquality goods were produced at high the uncertainties and anxieties that change-modern- prices,"3 while large numbers of people were refused ization-magnifies. While some few consciously chose needed employment. To be part of the guild system the route of radicalism, the vast majority consciously was to be assured a livelihood; to be an outsider meant or unconsciously followed the path that had been fol- exclusion from the crafts and denial of a right even lowed for generations in the hope that they too would of subsistence. successfully attain acceptance as masters, thus guar- The underlying logic of this attitude rested on the anteeing their existence and livelihood.' belief that the economy could be expanded only by population growth, since both incomes and the portion * This study, made possible in part by a grant from the American to be spent on craft products were assumed to be fixed. Philosophical Society, sabbatical leave from the University of Del- 2 aware, and the expert help of Mrs. Joyce Storm of that university's Bopp, P. Hartwig, Die Entwicklung des deutschen Handwerks- Interlibrary Loan Department, is dedicated to the memory of George gesellentums im 19. Jahrhundert (Paderborn, 1932), pp. 4-5. 3 G. Windell-my mentor and friend. Shorter, Edward, "Social Change and Social Policy in Bavaria, ' Nahrung was more than simple economic sufficiency. Rather it 1800-1860" (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, described rights and obligations in one's station as well. Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 98. PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, VOL. 125, NO. 3, JUNE, 1981 190 VOL. 125, NO. 3, 1981] TRAVELING GERMAN JOURNEYMEN 191 To increase the number of masters engaged in a craft "necessary wares for daily sale."" Yet while acting beyond a certain fixed number could only result in as a safety valve, the rural crafts were unable to absorb overproduction, which, given fixed demand, would more than a fraction of the excess journeymen ex- force prices and artisan incomes dangerously low.4 In cluded by the guilds and began to complain bitterly this view of a static society, the artisan thought only of "overfilling," of being unable to provide an adequate in terms of "the local market, a secured livelihood, a livelihood for existing artisans, a complaint already closed community, patriarchal work relationships and expressed by the urban guilds. unchangeable moral principles."5 He worked to keep What "overfilling" and surplus journeymen indi- himself and his family at that level determined by his cated was the accelerated process of change, the reor- place in society, seldom seeking to outstrip his neigh- dering of the German economic and social structure bor and even more rarely being allowed to try. in the transition from the late feudal world to that of As long as the population grew slowly and inno- the industrial nineteenth century. No radical change vation in production could gradually be absorbed with- in the economy had occurred since the Middle Ages, out placing stress on the fundamentals of the craft, when the bulk of trade had been primarily local. Now, this logic was perfectly adequate: apprentices were a world that had once seemed static took on a dynamic trained, became journeymen, and could reasonably quality overwhelming to contemporaries. The guild expect to attain masterhood. But by the eighteenth masters were no longer able to grow with the psycho- century this was no longer the case. Technical change logical and organizational demands placed on them disrupted the existing order by reorganizing the ex- by the altered times.12 Well into the nineteenth century isting division of labor and stirring up antagonisms they reacted in the conviction that the old social order between those who had a vested interest in the tra- had been sound and ought either to be restored or to ditional forms6 and those who might benefit from the serve as a model for a restructured society.'3 Instinc- new ones. Moreover, while many masters were able tively, the guildsmen-masters and journeymen alike- to maintain themselves and their families, they could aspired toward a return to "corporative unity with no longer profitably engage journeymen.7 In some guild regulation and the independent existence of cases masters had to work for other masters as jour- small masters."'4 What most refused to grasp was that neymen or to become day laborers in order to be fully a world experiencing rapid change in technology, pro- employed.8 Yet the number of apprentices and jour- duction, money, competition, social mobility, and new neymen continued to grow, indicating not that the forms of consumption'5 could not be controlled by the masters were hiring more to meet increased demand, old institutions. Improvements in communication and but rather that they were no longer able to be absorbed transportation, for example, produced economic dis- into the system,9 that they were becoming surplus la- location as the local artisans lost monopolies based bor.