As soon as it was seen that the printer and the author had produced something more than a mere piece of merchandise and that the property right of the producer inhered in that added element quite as much as in the piece of merchandise the basis was laid for the common law treatment of the whole matter. The extension of the conception of property to cover thoughts as well as things was the basis of the whole matter.
It was a long time before these ideas emerged on the Continent. It was well to the end of the 18th century before these matters were clearly understood and recognized by law. It was not until 1777 that French law distinctly recognized the difference between old and new books, and the rights of the author. This was only twelve years before the French Revolution. At that time all the old laws were swept away and the extreme regulation of printing in France gave place to no regulation at all, which for a time made things worse than ever. It was not until into the nineteenth century that the question of copyright has been reasonably settled. There is still something to be desired before ideal conditions are reached. Copyright laws of the various nations differ greatly, but on the whole they fairly accomplish the desired results within the national boundaries.
International copyright rests on the Treaty of Bern in 1887. The United States was for many years a great offender in the matter of the recognition of the rights of foreign authors. At the time of the Treaty of Bern the United States recognized the principle of international copyright, but we did not have reasonably satisfactory legislation on the subject until so recently as 1909. In this, as in other matters which we have been discussing and shall discuss in this volume, very little reference has been made to England for the reason that a separate volume will be given to the history of printing in that country.
CHAPTER V
Trade Guilds and the Coming of The New Industry
The outstanding factor in the industrial, social, and economic life of the Middle Ages is the trade guild. The real life of any people is not the story of its wars or the record of the doings of its kings and nobles. It is the life of the people themselves. The moment we try to study this aspect of these old times we find that in the towns especially the life of the people centers around their trade guilds. The guild was an organization of all the workmen in any given trade. It included the master workman, the journeyman, and the apprentice. It controlled the whole life of the industry from the buying of materials to the selling of the finished product, from the indenturing of the apprentice to the certification of the master workman. Its peculiar strength lay in the fact that it did not exercise this control in the interest of either the employer or the employed. It exercised it in the interest of the industry as a whole. It did not forget the interests of the public. It did not permit the industry to be practised by the unauthorized or outsiders. It limited competition. It distributed labor. It prevented over-production. It assumed great responsibility for its members and it held them to a very strict accountability.
Of course, such an organization was possible only under conditions of production far different from those which now prevail. All work was hand-work and each hand-worker was supposed to make the whole of the thing produced. There were no machines of any importance and there was practically no division of labor. The armorer, for example, made his helmet, carrying it through every process from the first shaping of the steel to the attaching of the last plume. The shoemaker selected his leather and carried it through every process until the shoe was finished. Men learned trades in those days. They did not learn to tend a machine. A trade was worth something because the trade organization of that day made lack of employment impossible for a decent man in ordinary times. Learning a trade took a long time. As soon as the boy was old enough to begin to learn he was apprenticed to a master workman, usually for a term of seven years. Usually he paid something for his apprenticeship, in some cases a considerable amount. He lived in the master’s family and was supported by him until he was out of his time. He then usually worked as a journeyman until he could accumulate the small capital necessary to set up as an independent master.
Having been apprenticed under guild regulations to a guild member he became a member of the guild himself as soon as he qualified as a journeyman. Meantime he had not only been thoroughly instructed in the practice of the industry but he had absorbed the craftsman’s spirit and become imbued with the great principles of guild life. These principles were five:
1. General protection of workmen. This has perhaps been sufficiently described already.
2. Limitation of competition. This has also been remarked upon.
3. Perfection of work. The guild always stood behind the quality of the product made by its members. If goods were not up to standard in quality it was not only held to be a disgrace to the guild, but the offending member was liable to severe punishment at the hands of the guild itself. The guilds maintained their own inspectors. These inspectors visited the shops and the fairs or occasional markets where goods were sold. If they found poor work in the shop or if they found that poor work had been put in the hands of the merchants for sale, they reported it to the guild officers who immediately dealt with the offending member.