Public Policy and Corporate Protectionism: Regional Institutions and Textile Guilds in Seventeenth Century Aragon

• Main Author: José Antonio MATEOS ROYO
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca 2015-12-01
• Series: Studia Historica: Historia Moderna
• Subjects: política pública; gremios textiles; aragón; siglo xvii
• Online Access: https://revistas.usal.es/index.php/Studia_Historica/article/view/13474

<p>Based on a regional case study, this article will argue that the craft guilds could respond adaptively to changing economic and institutional factors. This flexibility would limit any independent and regular impact of these guilds on regional or state economies in early modern Europe. Having contributed to economic growth in the sixteenth century, the Aragonese textile guilds fell prey to technological stagnation in the seventeenth, while restricting competition in urban product and labour markets as the region’s economy contracted. Their actions thus undermined quality and raised the cost of domestic manufactures. The regional institutions nevertheless tolerated these strategies within certain limits, because they saw the guilds as necessary to organize urban markets and production.</p>