What are examples of cool historical merchant guilds? Was there violence towards them?
>>18291245This had me thinking about the Republic of Genoa, a merchant republic that held ports from western Iberia all the way to Crimea during the middle ages.They were involved in military conflicts throughout their history, but one that stands out in particular is the siege of Caffa during the 1340s, where the Mongols ended up catapulting plague-infected corpses over the city walls toward the end of the siege.
>>18291263Did the Genoese have any particular opinion on the Mongols?
>>18291245>What are examples of cool historical merchant guilds?Dutch East India CompanyBritish East India Company>Was there violence towards them?You could say that
I know, vile juden, but: The Radhanites. They were an early form of silk road monopoly, immediately predating the maritime trading republics. Their loss almost entirely removed eastern spices from europe and almost entirely annihilated the slave trade -and completely broke the white slave trade. Gil Moshe (heh) wrote an okay article called Radhanite Merchants and the Land of Radhan. Jewish Merchant Adventurers by Louis Rabinowitz (heh) is pretty solid too. For a less circumcised look, try The Radhanites, from East to West, by Barbier De Maynard.
>>18291277I can't find any sources saying so, but I can't imagine they'd have anything positive to say about the Mongols laying siege to their cities and introducing plague to Europe.
>>18291281>Land of RadhanWere they from Baghdad? I don't know much about them
>>18291245Not exactly a singular guild but the Hanseatic League was quite a powerful confederation of Free and Imperial Cities (as well as other branch locations outside the HRE) in the North and Baltic Sea during the 14th and 15th centuries. Their greatest military feat was arguebly their victory against the Kingdom of Denmark in the 14th century which secured the Hanse the right to be exempt from the tolls Denmark usually levied on ships passing the Öresund (the strait between Denmark and Sweden). Economically the Hanse was greatly involved with the trade of wood, fur, ores, grain and fish. To this end it also participated in the economic fair systems that sprang up in the early middle ages and that served to further interconect the mercantile european classes.
The Worshipful Companies of London all have long and 'interesting' histories. I particularly like the Tallow Chandlers as they start out as the looked down upon younger siblings of the Wax Chandlers, but slowly build up and build up and absorb other businesses and industries I to their control by being cheeky cockney chaps ducking and diving, over hundreds of years.
>>18291430Do they still exist? Underdogs
>>18291388Probably. The only source I know of for their origins is the Moshe Gil work. There might be some sort of Nestorian record buried around.
>>18291413How was living within the Hanseatic League like?
>>18291245The Lanfang Republic in Borneo, formed by Chinese merchants involved in gold mining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanfang_Republic
>>18291748Not that different than in any other city. The Hanseatic League had no dedicated governmental institutions and primarily fulfilled the functions of safeguarding, furthering and expanding the mercantile interests of its members. The closest thing to an senior governmental body were the Hanseatic Diets, which (on paper) were assemblies of all members. On those assemblies matters of economic interests, foreign policy, economic blockades or privleges and declarations of war/defense were negotiated. But not every member attended those assemblies and the big member cities (like Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Cologne) definately had more weight than the smaller ones. And keep in mind that hanseatic cities were not independent by virtue of being in the Hanseatic League. While it is true that the most prominent members were either Free (like Lübeck) or Imperial (like Cologne) Cities, not every hanseatic member was independant. Rostock for example was another important hanseatic city but it belonged to the Duchy of Mecklenburg.
>>18291774Was it the first Chinese republic?
