Local Market Rules and Practices: Three Guilds in the Same Line of Production in Early Modern Bologna

This essay looks at the connections between three guilds (butchers, tanners, and shoemakers) linked together by the trading and processing of skins. The author examines the conflicts arising at the interfaces between the guilds, in which the different role of each guild in the line of production leads to conflicts that may be interpreted in terms of the economic theory of bilateral monopoly. In the example presented, these conflictual roles were managed in a relational framework governed by political authority and aimed at maintaining the steady flow of materials-in-process from one stage of production to another in spite of market fluctuations. This approach to internal conflicts within the city’s production structure reveals a “network of dependence and compensation” based on the awareness of mutual obligation as a necessary condition for social stability.