In Mexican urban life of the eighteenth century, the artisan guilds dominated the economy. The guild system controlled production and trades, regulated apprenticeship and entrance into the trades, and meditated between the interests of the guilds and an intrusive state. Beginning in the latter part of that century, however, and continuing on into the latter part of that century, however, and continuing on into the nineteenth century, economic pressures from merchant capitalists and unlicensed petty producers undermined the guilds paramount position in the local economy. While this process is well known (although little understood), nearly unknown is the role played by the craft-cofradias (confraternities) within the artisan community. My dissertation focuses on the inter-relationship between the guilds and the cofradias, the secular and the sacred. It is my belief that whereas the separate interests of the shopowning artisans and their wage-earning journeymen tended to divide along social class lines, especially with the formal abolition of the guild in 1814, the cofradias melded and mediated the different socio-economic interests of their members. Masses, processions and cofradia administration brought craftsmen together, strengthening and consecrating existing bonds, and gave an added dimension to craft membership. The institutions of the guild-cofradias remained the nuclei around which the city's artisans clustered to maintained their secular and spiritual community. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-01, Section: A, page: 0412. / Major Professor: Rodney D. Anderson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77642 |
| Contributors | Gies, Gerald Anthony., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 185 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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