Goldsmiths in Glogau, members of the guild in Wschowa. Excerpt from economic and religious history of Silesian-Greater Poland borderlands at the turn of the 18th century Cover Image

Złotnicy głogowscy, członkowie cechu we Wschowie. Z dziejów gospodarczych i religijnych pogranicza śląsko-wielkopolskiego na przełomie XVII i XVIII wieku
Goldsmiths in Glogau, members of the guild in Wschowa. Excerpt from economic and religious history of Silesian-Greater Poland borderlands at the turn of the 18th century

Author(s): Bartłomiej Łyczak
Subject(s): History, Cultural history, Economic history, Local History / Microhistory, Middle Ages
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika
Keywords: craft guilds; religion and politics; goldsmithery

Summary/Abstract: During the early modern period goldsmithery was quite an important trade in Glogau (now Głogów), a town in the Habsburg Empire, near the border with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Despite relatively big number of masters active there in the 17th century, they did not manage to form a guild. That is why some of the masters decided to join an organization founded in 1676 in adjacent Wschowa (Fraustadt in German), located on the other side of the border. In 1699 a group of four Catholic goldsmiths from Glogau have finally established a guild together with painters and sculptors. Taking advantage of an anti-Protestant climate in the Habsburg Monarchy and by using legal loopholes, they managed to block the non-Catholic craftsmen from joining the ranks of the organization. After Leopold I confirmed the charter of the newly established guild in 1701, the Protestant goldsmiths active in Glogau were considered as illegal craftsmen and consequently forced to leave the town and move their workshops elsewhere. So d all the masters enrolled in the guild in Wschowa, who emigrated to nearby towns in the Habsburg Empire: Bauten, Liegnitz, Freystadt and Schweidnitz and in one case to Halle in Saxony

  • Issue Year: 52/2020
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 47-58
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Polish