Corporation

CORPORATION. - It can be defined as the voluntary and organized union of those who practice the same profession, for the purpose of facilitating its activity from the technical and economic point of view, of protecting it in relation to the other members of the corporation and to bodies and persons outside it, and finally of integrating it into the whole economic, social, political and religious life of the city.

I. CHARACTERISTICS

The corporations, of arts and crafts (paratici, arti, guilds were what they were called according to the times and localities) can be considered as the most typical economic-social institutions of the Middle Ages, those that largely sum up its characteristics and pursue its rational order inspired by the Christian ideal. For this reason, when one speaks of corporations, in a historical context, one normally means the medieval corporations, and this even though corporative organization is a phenomenon that dates back to a much more remote era.

Still debated is the question of the derivation of the medieval corporations from the Roman collegia, whether or not through the Byzantine corporations, also because the documentation is so scarce as to support now one and now the other hypothesis. In fact, if several common elements are found in the corporative organizations of the various cities, it is certain that there are others that differentiate them, and this makes it difficult to find among them a logical continuity.

In particular, the principle of autonomy (the same one that in the city had given rise to the commune) also distinguishes the medieval corporation from the Roman collegia, especially those of the imperial age, as well as from the Byzantine corporations, as from the Roman and Ravennate scholae of Byzantine inspiration and from the Pavia ministeria, organisms in all of which the intervention of public power for reasons of control and for fiscal reasons deprives the corporation of a good part of its freedom. This, however, does not exclude that the associative spirit, the common foundation of every organization that arose with the aim of facilitating for its members the carrying out of their activities and of defending them against other organisms, was handed down from one era to another, giving rise to different corporative forms according to the political and social conditions dominant in the historical moment and in the environment during which and within which they had come to life.

Precisely because of the particular characteristics presented by the political-economic-social environment, both in Italy and elsewhere, from the 11th century onward the medieval corporative organization assumes that specific physiognomy and that importance which make it a typical phenomenon. And these characteristics are, in addition to, as has been said, autonomy from public power and the Christian ideal, also the reflowering of urban centers and the multiplication of independent workers, both cornerstones of the renewal of society from the 11th century onward.

The corporations therefore arise in the cities and, among these, especially in the city-states, although they are not absent even in demographic centers dependent on a political body above and outside them.

The number of the arts varies. Few at first, they gradually increase, although their number is later limited by the political authority. From this limitation arises, alongside the legal corporation, that is, the recognized one, the unrecognized one, usually formed by separation from the former and likewise tending toward recognition.

The importance of the arts is also different, an importance whose foundation is economic potential. For this reason the corporations of the merchants, which gather the chosen part of the economically active population of the cities, hold primacy everywhere. They are followed by the corporations of the physicians, the notaries and the apothecaries, while at a distance follow those of the artisans proper, with the exception of the categories connected with the textile industry which, because of the importance assumed by that industry, soon acquire a leading rank.

Hence the distinction into major arts, middle arts and minor arts, a distinction which, starting from the substratum of differing economic importance, gradually assumes a juridical value.

(from C. Pedrazzini, La farmacia storica ed artistica italiana, Milan 1935, p. 39)
CORPORATION - Certificates of registration of Giotto in the art of the Speziali - Florence, State Archives.

II. FUNCTIONS

But an exact view of the nature of the medieval guilds, as well as of their evolution, can be had only through an examination of the functions they performed.

These functions may be grouped as follows: economic functions, political functions, judicial functions, welfare and religious functions.

The economic functions are the most important and, as such, those that essentially justify the vitality of the association; moreover, those from which the ethical-religious nature of the world that the guilds in a certain sense represent stands out most clearly. They consist in fact in the defense of the particular interests of the individual members (defense against third parties and defense against the members themselves, as in the case of the regulation of competition), in the recruitment of labor, in the regulation of the supply of raw materials, in the fixing of the purchase prices of the latter, as well as of the prices of products and of wages themselves, according to that criterion of the just price which is one of the cornerstones of medieval economic thought, in the regulation of the working of materials or in any case in the regulation of the practice of the trade (e.g., provisions on the practice of the barbers' trade when they acted as physicians and surgeons, on that of the apothecaries' trade in the manufacture of various medicines, provisions on the technique of cloth-working, provisions on the verification and use of weights and measures, etc.), on the maintenance of the outlet for products.

As regards political functions, a distinction must be made between the guilds that arose and developed in cities where the predominance of the central power was limited and where therefore the latter had to share its functions with the guilds, and the cities in which, on the other hand, the central power having succeeded in maintaining all its prerogatives, the guilds, if they had political functions, had them only by concession of the central power itself.

To the first category belong the guilds of Milan, Florence, Piacenza, Bologna, Siena, Pisa, Perugia, as well as of the cities of Flanders and of some in Germany. In them the construction of the constitution of the State on the basis of the guilds is in fact nothing but the last phase of the process by which, first through political emancipation, then through the incorporation of the corporate organization into the constitution of the State, the guild itself participates ever more closely in power, coming, as in Florence, to limit political rights to its own members alone.

The political "position" of the various arts is, however, different: that of the major arts is one of absolute pre-eminence, and they sometimes even come to direct the whole of foreign policy, a fact that is fundamental for the economic interests of the category, closely linked with foreign markets; that of the middle and minor arts is of secondary rank, their entry into the administration of the State (temporary, moreover) occurring at a later time, taking advantage of the economic crisis of the major arts (as in Florence through the middle class after the crisis of the fourth decade of the fourteenth century), or else through revolutionary action (as, again in Florence, with the revolt of the Ciompi, through the proletariat).

To the category of guilds whose political position is limited and controlled by the central power belong the corporate bodies of Venice, Genoa, the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, France, Spain and some cities of Germany.

In the Most Serene Republic, and in part also in Genoa, this is explained by the close union that prevailed among all the political-social forces and their subservience to the interests of great commerce and to the administration of a colonial dominion greatly increased from the thirteenth century onward.

Hence the limitation of the political function of the arts to a simple representation before the State of their economic and religious interests. In southern Italy the scant political strength of the guilds is explained, on the other hand, by the limited economic power of the professional categories that they framed.

In relation to the more or less ample independence of the political power, the guilds perform toward their own members an important judicial function. It is based on the tendency to replace the longer procedure of the ordinary courts with the agile and brief one of the specific tribunal of the art. Limited, at first, to disputes among the members of the c. over questions relating to the exercise of the art itself, it attempts to broaden its own competence, thereby bringing the jurisdiction of the association closer to that of the State. On the other hand, where the major arts dominate, these gradually extend their own jurisdiction over the other arts as well, also because they dispose, unlike the latter, of their own means of enforcement.

The charitable functions are carried out in moral and material aid to the member struck by unfavorable events and to the poor and unfortunate in general, an aid that can assume an organized and imposing form with the founding of hospitals and hospices.

The religious function, more extensive in the cities of northern Europe, ranges from the fixing of feast days, and therefore of abstention from work, to the celebration of the patronal feast, to the erection of chapels and churches and their operation.

III. ORGANIZATION

The internal organization of the c. [corporations] emerges from the most important documentation that is still preserved today as evidence of the structure of the various corporate bodies and that, at the time when the guild was in full operation, legally consecrated their existence, namely the statutes.

Alongside the statute, important elements of the corporate organization are the seal and the seat. As for the latter, its size and richness depend on the economic position of the guild, which sometimes gives rise to notable artistic manifestations.

The patrimony, too, is a constitutive element of the structure of the guild. It is gradually formed through the contributions paid by the members, through fiscal revenues granted by the central authority, and through bequests upon death.

But the essential element of the internal organization is provided by the leaders of the guild. Variable in number, they nonetheless include the true leaders in the persons of the consuls or abbots or gastalds or syndics, the councillors, advocates or assessors for jurisdictional functions, the notaries or clerks for the drafting of corporate acts, and, finally, the treasurers. Alongside them is a more or less numerous host of persons assigned to various duties.

The criterion for the appointment of the various offices is extremely varied: normally this takes place either by election or by drawing lots, except in those cities or in that era in which the guilds depend directly on the central government, in which case the appointment is made by the latter.

Closely connected with the internal organization is the position of the workers within the c.

At first not all those who practiced a guild were part of a corporate body; later, gradually, for defense against competition, membership became obligatory, and this obligatoriness was also sanctioned by the central power. This does not exclude the existence of artisans not enrolled in the guild.

On the other hand, to be enrolled in a c. the primary condition is the practice of that guild or of one of the guilds over which the c. has jurisdiction and, consequently, also (especially for those professions that require specific technical knowledge) the demonstration of knowing how to practice it.

Apart from these conditions, there are others that fit into the ethico-social physiognomy of the c. Among these, though not always, is being the son of a master of the guild (from which, especially in a later era, arose a hereditary right of enrollment); from this again derives the prohibition of enrollment for illegitimate children.

Enrollment entails two obligations: the payment of the prescribed tax; the oath of observance of the corporate statute.

The position of the members within the guild is not identical for all. At the apex stand the masters, who alone may hold corporate offices; then come the workers and the journeymen or apprentices, who are therefore not wage-earning workers dependent on the masters, but masters in potential themselves and who are legally destined to become such, after various formalities, essentially only after having given proof of knowing the practice of the guild thoroughly, which, as happens in some cities of northern Europe, takes place through the presentation, by the aspiring master, of a masterpiece.

From the 15th century onward (but the era varies from region to region in relation to the changing of the conditions that determine and accompany the phenomenon), the corporate organization declines. The reasons are of an economic and of a political character. The former are given by the changing of the productive organization. The affirmation of the merchant-entrepreneur and consequently, even if not immediately, the rise of the figure of the wage-earner, render anachronistic the survival of an organization that, by its nature, was bound — except for the quite particular case of the distinction between master and apprentice — to gather within its bosom elements in absolute equality and that instead now places side by side individuals whose economic potential and especially whose economic autonomy are clearly different.

On the other hand, the growth of competition urges the members of the guild, monopolists of its practice, to limit further the possibilities of entry into the c., with the logical result that there comes to be created, especially outside the cities, an ever stronger host of free workers whose mere presence undermines the corporate edifice at its foundations.

The reasons of a political character reside in the ever greater intervention of the central power with regard to the corporate bodies. Indeed the States, already of themselves ever more inclined to extend their intervention into the internal economy (we are in the period in which the Signorie establish themselves in Italy and the great monarchies outside Italy), find it useful for their own ends to transform the corporate bodies into instruments of their own economic policy, often indeed into true state organs.

At the same time, where, as in France and in England, the State wishes to promote its nascent industries, it acts outside the c., which therefore remain emptied of a great part of their functions.

With all this they entrench themselves even more within the circle of their own privileges, which they defend both against the other organizations and against the State, the latter recognizing such privileges in exchange for the collection of heavy fiscal contributions that end up exhausting the guilds even financially.

In such conditions the corporate body faces the eighteenth century, that is, when naturalistic conceptions begin to penetrate economic thought. And it is easy to intuit what evaluation the new ideas, opposed to all economic restriction, make of the surviving corporate bodies.

In the general aspiration for liberty, the guilds, which, in the last times, had instead increasingly been denying it to those who did not enter their orbit, become an ever more anachronistic and odious institution.

From this de facto situation to the launching of a veritable anti-corporate campaign the step is short, so that, when the reforms begin both in Italy and elsewhere through the work of the various enlightened princes, the problem of the suppression of the centuries-old, glorious, but by now outdated organism is ripe for a radical solution.

In France the c. are suppressed by Turgot, but not definitively, for this occurs only with the Revolution.

In Italy, instead, the suppressions begin in 1770 with Pietro Leopoldo in Tuscany, while at the same time in Lombardy-Venetia the guilds are deprived of every privilege, only to be completely suppressed between 1778-86.

Following the French Revolution, Belgium, Spain and some States of Germany also carry out the suppression, as well as the other Italian States, first among them the Papal State in 1801 with Pius VII, followed by Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies in 1821 and by Charles Albert of Sardinia in 1844.

The ancient c. are not yet suppressed in all countries, when in some the conditions for the rise of new workers' organizations are already definitively maturing. It is England, a country that had already long since suppressed the guilds, that is the environment where, because of the progress of industrialism, such conditions are most urgent. They can be summarized in an ever sharper intensification of labor conflicts and in the gradual conviction that a regime of absolute economic liberty is not the best either for settling labor conflicts or for resolve the countless problems that capitalist economy places on the table every day, they give life to that movement which, through trade-union organizations, today involves the entire world of labor (v. SINDACATI). As such it detaches itself from the medieval corporative system with a strictly artisan basis, inasmuch as the trade union gathers solely those who perform work or workers. Indeed, even the project by Italian Catholics at the end of the nineteenth century, a project that was framed within the other, broader one contained in the encyclical Rerum Novarum issued in 1891 by Leo XIII, of establishing mixed c. of employers and workers, is held to be impracticable by one of the most eminent sociologists of the time, Toniolo, who instead calls for the establishment of separate bodies, especially where the mass of workers is more substantial.

Entirely different from the traditional one relating to medieval c. is the content of the c. instituted by the Fascist government in February 1934, as well as the other corporativist manifestations of our times (v. CORPORATIVISMO). - See plate XXVIII.

Giuseppe Mira