One guild, two merchants, and common property. A social capital crisis in textile manufacturing during the eighteenth century

Abstract

A case study of the wool carders’ guild in Estella-Lizarra (Navarre) from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries questions prevalent opinions among historians, which have tended to define these collective action institutions as monopolies. This study complements the traditional ‘outside in’ approach that considers the guild to be a monolithic agent, adopting an inside perspective that reveals the tensions between collective and individual interests. The research focuses on the collective management of common properties (fulling-mill and dyeing house) until their disappearance in 1758, and guild relations with commercial capital in the form of a major financial sponsor and a new factory. Difficulties associated with the guild’s financial management and the loss of its social capital lay at the heart of its troubles.