Craft corporations in Western Europe in the XI-XIII centuries

The purpose of the study: to reveal the peculiarities of the workshop system of Western European cities of the High Middle Ages, to analyze the specifics of the internal stratification of the workshop and its functions in terms of relations with the city authorities. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, and dialectical interrelation of processes and phenomena in the society of a medieval city. In the process of writing the work, the author used comparative historical and problematic chronological methods, which allowed to trace and compare historical processes and phenomena in dynamics against the background of specific historical conditions; the method of working with historical documents; logical and retrospective. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that the author, based on the analysis of foreign historiography and published sources, reveals the peculiarities of the functioning of craft workshops in the context of their relations with municipal authorities, and identifies the factors that determined the level of their political influence in the framework of cooperation with municipal authorities. Conclusions. The study concluded that the economic activity of Western European cities of the High Middle Ages tended to be clearly organized in the form of craft guilds/shops, regulated by workshop charters and controlled by the city authorities. During the High Middle Ages, there was a process of establishing close cooperation between the municipal authorities and the workshops. Each party assumed a certain range of responsibilities, the fulfillment of which contributed to the expansion of the range of political rights of the guilds. In particular, their members could participate in the elections of municipal governments. The workshop system was characterized by an internal hierarchy. An important feature of it was the presence of privileged/elite and non-privileged/junior workshops. In general, during the High Middle Ages, the craft organization of production was at the peak of its development and played a progressive role in the economic life of cities.