Note 3 — Chapter I · ORIGIN AND GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
Dorothy Terry translation
A short study and a detailed bibliography of the origin of guilds will be found in M. Martin-Saint-Léon’s Histoire des corporations de métier, book i., 2nd edition. We recommend it to the reader, but do not ourselves accept all the author’s opinions. As, however, he chiefly gives the German, English, and French sources of information, we add a list of Italian works, or works concerning Italy, which deal with the same subject, classifying them according to the theories they adopt.
The theory of the separate creation of each guild is defended by M. Arrigo Solmi (Le Assoziazioni in Italia avanti le origini del Commune, 1898), but since then the works and criticisms of Messrs. Robert Davidsohn, Alfred Doren, Hartmann, and Bonolis have deprived his arguments of all that was strongest and most original in them. M. Solmi, in an article in the Rivista Italiana di Sociologia, ix. 1 (Roma, 1905), entitled “Sulla storia economica d’Italia nel medio evo,” himself recognized that the persistence of certain ancient institutions and the division of labour in the great royal or feudal domains appear to have played an important part in the organization of crafts. M. Nino Tamassia has specially emphasized, amongst other causes, the part played by the influence of religious congregations and fraternities.