[Rezension zu F. G. Savagnone: Le Maestranze Siciliane e le origini delle corporazioni artigiane nel medio evo]

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Savagnone (1893)

Schullern’s review of F. G. Savagnone’s Le Maestranze Siciliane e le origini delle corporazioni artigiane nel medio evo situates a predominantly legal-historical study within Italian economic history, especially alongside Cusumano’s research on Sicilian craft corporations. Its account follows the book’s movement from institutional development to internal organization, emphasizing the relationship between jurisdiction and economic privilege.

Savagnone schildert in seinem ersten Abschnitte die Entstehung der sicilianischen Meisterschaften, welche mit dem Verfalle des Grosshandels bei Erlangung des privilegium fori in allen Angelegenheiten des Handwerks (ratione materiae) vom Ende des 14. Jahrhunderts an begann, ihr Wachstum, ihren Blütestand und ihren Verfall, der im Jahre 1822 zu ihrer Auflösung führte.

English translation: In his first section Savagnone depicts the origin of the Sicilian craft guilds, which began from the end of the fourteenth century with the decay of wholesale trade upon the attainment of the privilegium fori in all matters of the handicraft (ratione materiae), their growth, their flourishing, and their decline, which in the year 1822 led to their dissolution.

This chronology connects the corporations’ emergence to declining wholesale trade and the acquisition of jurisdiction over craft matters. Schullern then identifies the institutional distinction between maestranze principali, which had consuls, and mezzane, which submitted to their jurisdiction. Religious commitments accompanied an economic foundation in craft monopoly, but corporate membership did not ensure solidarity: the review stresses the disadvantaged position of apprentices and journeymen and the lack of fraternity among masters.

The consulship supplies the key legal distinction. Custom governed jurisdiction over craft matters (ratione materiae), while contractual arrangements extended authority beyond explicit state concessions into private-law relations between masters and their corporation (ratione personarum). Schullern’s concluding judgment turns these institutional details into a recommendation for comparative guild research:

Wir glauben, dass das vorliegende Büchlein einen wertvollen Beitrag zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Mittelalters darstellt und dass es bei Studien über Zunft- und Innungswesen nicht übersehen werden sollte.

English translation: We believe that the present little book constitutes a valuable contribution to the economic history of the Middle Ages and that it ought not to be overlooked in studies on the system of guilds and craft corporations.