Originating around 1200 during the economic boom of the Middle Ages, the guild system reached its peak in most of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During this period, urban guilds increased dramatically in cities and towns across Europe.

Guild masters occupied the summit of the world of work. Each guild possessed a detailed set of privileges, including exclusive rights to produce and sell certain goods; access to restricted markets in raw materials; and the rights to train apprentices, hire workers, and open shops. Any individual who violated these monopolies could be prosecuted. Guilds also served social and religious functions, providing a locus of sociability and group identity to the middling classes of European cities.

To ensure there was enough work to go around, guilds jealously restricted their membership. Most urban men and women worked in non-guild trades as domestic servants; as manual laborers; and as vendors of food, used clothing, and other goods.

While most were hostile to women, a small number of guilds did accept women. Most involved needlework and textile production, occupations that were considered appropriate for women. In 1675, seamstresses gained a new all-female guild in Paris, and soon seamstresses joined tailors’ guilds in parts of France, England, and the Dutch Republic. By the mid-eighteenth century, male masters began to hire more female workers, often in defiance of their own guild statutes.