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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 337469" data-attributes="member: 5724">well-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Originally posted by jgbrowning ....i think the concept that people are out to maximize their profit so much that it hampers more civilized affairs is more of a modern, perhaps reinassance.. idea... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------=-----------------------------------originally poseted by vaxalonNot true at ALL.Medieval craftsmen, as the cities grew, banded together into guilds and bought themselves monopolies on their products from the Crown. They definitely did NOT want competition.=------------------------------------Well your partly right.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  guilds were important, very much so, but only in big cities and only towards the end of the middle ages (or high middle ages as some say).  1150---> 1350 or so  ( i know this "dating" of the middle ages is itself questionable<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )  I wasn't sure weather or not the PC wanted to set himself up in a big town or a little one, but i have to give you a nod cause the generic type of DnD setting is i suppose one around 1250 or 1350 or so.  course that really denpends where in europe your talking. also it is not improbable that a "outsider" could come into a guild situation and offer to join the guild, bribe with public works offers.. etc..  and guilds were not designed to maximise their profits, they were designed to make a stable market.  maximisation is pretty counter to the guild concept.  and merchant guild and artiesian guilds often clashed.out side of major cities/towns guilds had very little power, because the way guilds got power to begin with was through the cities taking power away from the liege lord who controled the land and the cities to begin with.  Development of cities is a very interesting subject and here's two good books to read about it if you haven't.Medieval cities; their origins and the revival of trade, by Henri Pirenne and the medieval town by Fritz rorig.both of them are older, but still solid, and pirenne's ideas about the muslim's changing the focus of the medieval world is still controversial, but they're good foundation books.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  gotta love jumping into history... who's right.. who's wrong?  nobody knows!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> joe b.</blockquote>

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