Alsfeld properly!Oldest surviving guild charters

On August 11, 1355, Landgrave Heinrich II issued the first guild charter for Alsfeld. It actually consisted of two guild charters for two different professions in a single document: 1. for the drapers or merchants, and 2. for the cloth makers or wool weavers. Both types of craftsmen processed the same raw material, which was of great importance in Alsfeld: sheep’s wool. The wool weavers wove the cloth, then fulled it, roughed it up, and used cloth shears to trim it to a uniform length. The drapers then purchased this woolen cloth or garment from them and, as merchants and cloth traders, sold it at surrounding markets and as far away as the fair in Frankfurt.

This guild charter is particularly significant because it strengthened the craftsmen and merchants striving for importance and power, and thus simultaneously supported the emerging middle class against the long-established patrician families who had previously held power. This policy of strengthening the power of the citizenry culminated in an initial draft of the right of “The Four from the Community”—that is, the right of co-determination for craftsmen and citizens in the city government. Although this was initially withdrawn after Heinrich’s death, it was finally established for good in the “Kore-Brief” of 1429. (MNic)