HIST 407/507

25587/25588

European Artisans

Winter Term 2008

This seminar is concerned with the historical experience of artisans in Europe , from the Middle Ages through the end of the nineteenth century. By “artisans” are meant manual workers who labored with their hands, largely in urban contexts and originally with materials, techniques and skills, learned through apprenticeship, that were regulated by custom and, very often as well, by law. Excluded from consideration in this seminar are workers in agriculture (normally called “peasants”), and wage-earning workers in factories or mines. Thus the “artisans” studied in this seminar were handicraft workers with a strong sense of their craft or “trade.”

General Description

The seminar addresses a variety of features of artisan experience, including family, culture, and community as well as work. It does so in two very broad topical or context areas. These are (1) pre-industrial urban artisans organized in guilds, confraternities and independent associations (eg journeymen brotherhoods) and (2) “radical artisans” of the modern era. The seminar sessions and common readings are divided more or less equally between these two broad topical areas. In addition, for each topical area (1) and (2), two kinds of common readings are given. One set of readings addresses social, institutional and political history of artisans in several European countries, or readings that relate artisan association to social, cultural and political context. For pre-industrial urban artisans, the book James R. Farr, Artisans in Europe , 1300-1914 provides an overview; for radical artisans, a selection of articles on specialized topics for different European countries will be used. The second kind of reading concerns individual life stories of artisans. For the pre-industrial period, the book Paul S. Seaver Wallington's World is the life story of an artisan of London , during the period of the Protestant Reformation, and its focus is on the religious beliefs and practices of this artisan as well as on other aspects of his life story and experience: family, work, community, etc. For the “radical artisan” period, The French Worker , ed. Mark Traugott, a collection of autobiographical selections authored by French artisans, provides multiple windows on experience told as first-person narrative. Thus the intention of the common readings for the seminar is to provide at once an overview/introduction to the main themes of artisan history under the two rubrics mentioned above, and some encounter with primary sources for observing and reflecting upon artisan experience.

Method

The course meets in one session each week (Wednesday, 14:00 – 16:50). The readings assigned for that session will be discussed by seminar participants. This discussion will normally be preceded by open-ended reflection upon a specific theme or topic of the readings by one participant. Each participant will take a turn in doing this. This presentation will be the first of two “oral reports” required of each student in the seminar for the term. The second oral report will be a presentation by each student on that student's research paper topic, based on at least one of the books the student will use in the paper. Certain seminar sessions will include a guest presentation or a visit to materials collections relating to artisan history or craft.

As an aid to reflecting upon the readings of each week and for the purpose of assessing ongoing student performance in doing these readings, each student will keep a personal journal of notes and thoughts about those readings. In the journal entry, the student may develop any topic or topics she or he wishes on the readings. The journal in this sense is “personal” in terms of the approach taken, as long as the entries provide evidence of doing the reading each week. The journal will be brought to class and used to contribute to the common discussion in the seminar session. The journal will also be evaluated at mid-term and at the end of the term, as evidence of the student's personal investment in reading the assigned course material.

The main individual project of each student for the term is the design, research and writing of the seminar research paper . The paper will be developed in separate stages. Each stage is required and completion of each by the specified due date is expected. No paper submitted without completion of each stage will be accepted.

Grade

Course grade will be assessed on the basis of the research paper, the personal journal, the two oral reports, and participation in seminar sessions. The research paper will be the most heavily weighted individual item.