[61] “Ambo, pulpitum ubi ex duabus partibus sunt gradus.” Ugutio, quoted by Ducange.
[62] Originum, Book XV., Chap. iv.
[63] Noticia Histórica de la Cuchillería y de los Cuchilleros Antiguos en España (Almanaque de El Museo de la Industria, Madrid, 1870).
[64] See Pérez Pujol, Condición social de las personas á principios del siglo V. “The ironsmiths of Barcelona,” says Riaño, “formed an extensive guild in the thirteenth century; in 1257, four of its members formed part of the chief municipal council; this guild increased in importance in the following centuries.”
[65] The history of the Sevillian trade-guilds begins properly with the fifteenth century, although Gestoso states in his Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos that he has found a few documents which seem to point to their existence in the century preceding.
When the Spanish Christians pitched their camp before this city, prior to their victorious assault upon its walls, the besieging army was divided according to the various trades of its component soldiery: the spicers in one part of the camp, the apothecaries in another, and so forth. It is therefore probable that the Sevillian trade-guilds were instituted shortly after the re-conquest. The wages of smiths, shoemakers, silversmiths, armourers, and other craftsmen were decreed by Pedro the First in his Ordenamiento de Menestrales. The ordinances of the silversmiths, in particular, are so old that Gestoso believes them to have been renewed and confirmed by Juan the Second, in the year 1416. However this may be, it is certain that the Seville guilds were regularly constituted in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.
[66] Barzanallana defines the word gremio “as it came to be understood in Spain,” as “any gathering of merchants, artisans, labourers, or other persons who practised the same profession, art, or office; and who were bound to comply with certain ordinances, applicable to each individual of their number.”
It is well, however, to distinguish broadly between actual manufacturers or producers (menestrales de manos) and merchants or shopkeepers (mercaderes de tienda y de escriptorio), who merely trafficked in what was executed by another.
[67] This guild, as all the others, held an annual convocation of its members, and possessed a chapel of its own in the convent of San Francisco. It exercised a strict and constant supervision upon the gold and silver work produced throughout the city. On April 15th, 1567, the inspectors appointed and salaried by the guild visited the shop of Antonio de Cuevas, and seized an Agnus Dei and a faultily executed cross, both of which objects were destroyed forthwith. On February 8th, 1569, they repeated their visit to the same silversmith, and seized an apretador, which was likewise broken up. On February 9th, 1602, they entered the shop of Antonio de Ahumada, and took away “two rings, a gold encomienda, a cross of Saint John, some small cocks, a toothpick, and a San Diego of silver.” Similar notices of fines, confiscations, and other punishments exist in great abundance, and may be studied in Gestoso's dictionary. See also Vol. I., p. [114], of the present work.
[68] The foremost in importance of the gremios of Toledo was that of the silk-weavers (arte mayor de la seda), whose earliest ordinances date from a.d. 1533.