The Lublin Carpentry Guild in the 16th and 18th Centuries

Abstract

The economic development of Lublin in the fifteenth, sixteenth centuries and in the first part of the seventeenth century was enormous. Consequently, the construction works in the town revived. In 1524 there were ten carpentry workshops in Lublin, i.e. working groups, composed of various specialists. In 1621 Polish King Sigismund III confirmed the rights and privileges regulating labour, duties to the town and customs that the craft corporation abided by. The carpenters worked for the Lublin townsmen, at erecting buildings and urban fortifications, also in the village where wooden construction dominated. The carpenters erected there groups of wooden buildings − a mansion with a farm, including farm houses. The craftsmen were headed by a carpentry master who orders. In the eighteenth century this principle was not longer working, and the guild was on the decline.