Abstract (eng)
The Viennese bakers' guild of the 17th century had its own jurisdiction in which it punished offenses of various kinds and settled disputes between its members. In addition, the journey-men gathered in their own association, called a brotherhood, whose jurisdiction was changed in 1628 from private, decentralized conflict resolution in the workplace to partially public, centralized dispute resolution before the journeymen's assembly. Since little attention has been paid to guild jurisdiction in research to date, this paper attempts to remedy this research gap. For this reason, using the guild archives of the bakers' guild that still exists today, 2,997 law-suits of master craftsmen and journeymen were collected and categorized. The result showed clear differences between the courts of the journeymen and the masters. While verbal juries and personal conflicts predominated among the journeymen, the disputes of the master craftsmen were mostly economically motivated. Territorial disputes between urban bakers and bakers from other towns were instigated to maintain equal competition within the guild. Prop-erty crimes and cases of criminal assault were rare and often results of escalating confronta-tions. Settlements in the courts of the journeymen were reached with mostly minor material penalties in the form of candle wax. In contrast, the masters tried to improve their chances by involving informal forms of court, such as the mayor or the municipal court. In addition, the guild court of the masters waived sentencing for many offenses or halved the punishment in exchange for clemency petitions. Even non-material punishment options, such as the hand-shake or the apology, were the guild court's attempt to reintegrate the accused into the com-munity as quickly as possible.