Guilds & Heathenry

The History of Guilds

One of the problems in Heathenry today is figuring how the lore was passed in the Elder Period. It is clear it had to be passed mouth to ear, from elder to younger, from master to apprentice. But was this done under the sanctions of some formal organization? We know nothing like modern schools existed, but certain aspects of Heathen culture seem to show an amazing amount of uniformity, too much for a society that did not have something akin to formal loremasters. But perhaps they did have formal loremast ers and formal organizations for the passage of lore. If we look closely at the period just following the conversion of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in England, we fall upon a word we know to indicate an organization that provided formal educations for its members. That word with a little help from its Danish cognate became our word, guild.

Old English gild in its earliest uses meant "offering, payment, money," as did most of its Germanic cognates, although Gothic gild specifically meant "tribute." Amongst the Ingvaeonic languages however, there were some additional meanings for the word. Old Saxon geld, Frisian geld, and Old English gild all had the additional meanings of "sacrifice, worship, idol." These meanings, as well as gild's relationship to the verb gieldan "to pay, sacrifice," point to the religious connotations of gild and nearly all of its cognates (save Gothic gild) either evolved or already held the meaning of "fellowship, brotherhood," as in the merchant guilds of the Middle Ages.

In pre-Conquest England, these "guilds," were societies that resembled the burial and gift societies of latter day England. The incorporated merchant and craft guilds that played such an important role in the medieval period, did not arise in England or Germany until after the conquest of William the Conquer in 1066. It has therefore been supposed by scholars that the Old English word gild as well as its cognates may have referred to a religious organization of some sort long before it appeared in writing. According to the Oxford English Dictionary under the entry "guild," "Some have supposed that guilds were so called as being combinations for religious purposes, Heathen or Christian." This is the stance of Edred Thorsson who believes the systematic spread of the runes is evidence of some sort of formal organization. To support Edred Thorsson's theory, it must be pointed out that the runic futharks showed an amazing uniformity that most ancient writing systems do not achieve. Amongst the Etruscan and North Italic alphabets, there is not a one that gained supremacy over the others through out their nearly thousand years of use. The Phoenician and Greek alphabets took several centuries to achieve a single standard for each, and then this was through one system winning out over the others, and not an active attempt at standardization. On the other hand the Elder Futhark burst on the scene in the order we know it. And as Edred Thorsson has pointed out, the Younger Futhark was created by reducing the Elder Futhark from 24 to 16 runes in a systematic fashion in under 50 years with complete uniformity in areas that were still Heathen occupied. Such a systematic change in the runes indicates the presence of some form of organization that may have oversaw it. The earliest organization to appear in Germanic society short of the thing and outside of the dryht (warband) and mg (clan) was the guild.

When guilds are first mentioned in writing, they appear as societies with specific religious duties such as payment of members' burials, the administration of religious rites, and even the payment of wergild for members that had committed murder. The apprentice/journeyman/master structure also first appeared in writing as an intact system linked to these guilds, and at the time of the writing, seemed to have been around for quite some time.

One might even suppose that the Norse skalds formed a guild of sorts, although no formal mention is made as such, the circumstantial evidence points that direction. All of the skalds living at the same time, no matter what source you consult seemed either to know, or at least know of the other skalds. They frequently met, and exchanged tips on style, subject matter, or simply to try to outdo each other in a duel of words. And skalds often seemed to train others with the gift of poetry in skaldcraft. The Prose Edda may have its roots in a guild expressly for the training of skalds, and Snorri as one of the last to know the craft set it down for eternity to read and learn. While none of this counts as hard and true evidence that the skalds had a guild, no where is it expressly said they did not. Now that we have looked at what little evidence for guilds as Heathen learning centers exists, we can hazard a few educated guesses about what the guilds may have looked like in the Heathen Era. The earliest known guilds took care of their members religious needs including the payment of wergild. The payment of wergild is important to note for normally this was handled only by one's family or by one's dryht and dryhten. It implies that some sort of troth oath (oath of loyalty) may have been exchanged amongst the guild brethren, much as members of a war band swore troth oaths to each other. The maintenance of religious needs and the word gild's relation to gieldan indicates that such organizations as the guilds were religious and sacrificial in nature. Finally, the apprentice/journeyman/master system of rank advancement shows that a system of formal education must have existed. That the terms for these "ranks" are native shows they were a native innovation. In Anglo-Saxon England, the ranks were cniht/thegn/dryhten (ON dreng/thegn/drttim). Had the concept of guilds been a borrowing from the Mediterranean cultures, these terms would have most likely been Latin. From this we can surmise that the guilds were religious insitutions for a common interest, most likely a craft interest, that provided an education in the finer points of the Heathen lore. This education would not have been highly structured like our modern schools, but more personal, pupil to master. A large part of this training may have been religious in nature, and each guild may have had religious practices peculiar to its self. As an example of this, sometime, contrast Egil Skallagrimsson's healing of a young girl with the runes in Egil's Saga with the healing charms of a le in the Lacnunga. The skald's healing of the young girl is clearly not in keeping with the techniques of a healer. Even when trying to accomplish similar aims, skalds and healers would handle things differently. The guilds may have celebrated their own religious rites at the holy tides and made their own sacrifices.

Having made an educated guess at all of this, a guild member's life may have went like this: At an early age, lets say a young boy shows a prowess for healing, the village elders and wisemen encourage him in his developing healing skills, maybe even teaching him the basics (first aid 101). Upon reaching his teen age years, the young healer might go out and find a master to train him, or he might be approached by a master healer after a good word is put in for him by the village elders. Either way, he is now fostered as an apprentice to the healers guild. From then until adulthood his training will be under a single master who will teach him the craft of healing. How to set a bone, how to remove elf shot, how to seek out the spirits of disease and drive them away.

Upon reaching adulthood, the apprentice, if he learned well, is made a full member of the guild by plighting troth to all in the guild, and takes his place as a journeyman healer. He now might wish to travel from place to place and make a name for himself, or settle down in the service of some lord. Whatever his choice, his time of learning mouth to ear are over, and he has entered the school of life experience. As a journeyman he will be expected to take care of those in his charge, perhaps aid a master healer once in a while. Periodically, he may gather with other healers and swap "war stories" and talk shop. These times may be at the time of the holy tides, when the guild meets to test apprentices who wish to be journeyman, and to yield a sacrifice to their patron gods. At one time or another in his life the journeyman healer may be accused of accidental murder, man slaughter. At such a time, he falls back on the guild as a sort of malpractice insurance to pay the victim's wergild. His guild brothers gladly help pay it, knowing they may be the next that need the guild's help with dissatisfied customers. Late in life, with years of experience behind him, the healer may be acknowledged as a master and have apprentices fostered to him. Until his last breaths he will teach others to be healers, and with the other master healers run the guild. Sometimes he might be asked to judge on whether a healer should be sent wretched for evil deeds, at other times he might be called to save an ailing king. When he dies, the guild takes care of his burial, playing the part of family or lord. They dress him in his finest, tie his healers pouch at his side, and place his belongings about him. Finally, they raise a mound over his remains, sing the dirges, and drink the mynne ale to his memory. This tale could just as easily been that of a skald or any other craftsman that guilds may have served. The guild would have been an institution of higher education, company, and union all rolled into one.

What professions might have had guilds in the Heathen Era? Any that required specialized training, wofod thegns, scops (poets), leeches (healers), smiths and any other craftsmen that needed years of training. With the coming of Christianity, many of these guilds may have vanished, others may have went underground in a fight to survive the Conversion only to ultimately fail. Yet others still, may have survived, only to change with the times and lose their Heathen identity. Some of the earliest craft guilds, though there is no record of them before the Norman Conquest in England, may have been Heathen in origin, and were only noticed when Kings not elected by a Witan or thing figured out a new source of taxes.

While this discussion of guilds by no means solves the question of whether or not guilds existed in the Heathen Era, it does give a us a few leads in finding out more. One might for example look at the earliest mention of guilds in each of the Germanic tongues and examine their nature. Common features amongst the first guilds of the various Germanic languages are more likely to be Heathen in origin. Or perhaps a close examination of the activities of the Norse skalds might reveal what could be guild activity (remember, a Heathen guild is not likely to have been too formal in nature, only traditional). Perhaps the retinues the vlur (volvas) traveled in may have been "guilds." Unfortunately, even if we investigate every lead we find, we may not learn all we wish to know about the possibility of Heathen guilds. This may be because they operated in secrecy, or as G rman Lord has said about much lore, it was just "everyday knowledge" to our spiritual forebears, and they never thought to write it down. Either way it leaves us with alot of room to speculate on whether or not guilds existed in the Heathen Era.

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