13 ms·

Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master: The Medieval Guild (2018)

111 points by squircle 2y ago

082349872349872 2y ago
Journeyman sounds very much like a postdoc. (the traditional costumes are rare, but I've seen a few journeymen all togged out* for going "auf der Walz" over the last couple of decades) * eg https://www.wirholzbauer.ch/de/magazine-online/detail/?tx_hbchmagazin_article%5Barticle%5D=465 https://www.wirholzbauer.ch/de/magazine-online/detail/?tx_hb... more on the topic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=082349872349872%20apprenticeship&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- normie3000 2y ago
  "auf der Walz" auf Englisch?
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    "on tour"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years#:~:text=In%20contemporary%20brotherhoods,an%20immediate%20relative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years#:~:text=In%20... (EDIT: or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41159370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41159370 ) Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUslm_F0niA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUslm_F0niA
    - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      I guess in English for the upper classes The Grand Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour probably the plebes only go on tour.
- baruz 2y ago
  Universities began as medieval guilds (Latin universitas = guild corporate body) around cathedral schools, composed of teachers (in the northern cathedral schools) or students (in Italy). The university’s grant of a masters degree would allow you to perform as a teacher (Latin magister) in any other cathedral school.
geertj 2y ago
These levels are are still used in the US today for eg electricians and other licensed trades. Interesting that they survived for so long.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
(2018) Some previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473869
repelsteeltje 2y ago
Of course, the tag line for the classic Pragmatic Programmer book originally was not your journey to mastery, but from journeyman to master. So much more apt. https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-20th-anniversary-edition/ https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-2...
Simon_ORourke 2y ago
These are still very much in use in Germany today. I met a few of these guys in Berlin looking for a couch to crash on for a few days, all carpenters and very funny guys. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years
- Daub 2y ago
  I believe that German education is more pragmatic than (for example) British. The Germans invented the polytechnic, designed to teach practical skills. The British converted most of their polytechnics to universities, to their detriment. They now have a bunch of low functioning universities and have lost all their trade schools.
  - craz8 2y ago
    Ha! I went to a British polytechnic. There wasn’t a lot of very practical degrees ( there were some though), but there was a lot of hands on computer work in my Computer and Communications degree It is strange on a resume listing a university I never technically went to, but now only Wikipedia remembers! And I was there before Thor destroyed it in a movie
  - hnbad 2y ago
    That used to be the idea. University used to be much more broad with students often being encouraged to join courses in other disciplines to broaden their knowledge. Then came the Bachelor/Master system and suddenly you had to take exams at the end of lectures, participation was tracked and you'd be failed with no recourse for missing more than twice, everything had to fit into the narrowly defined "modules" you had to pick from (if there was any choice at all) and it all just started feeling like a continuation from school rather than a genuine gateway to scientific expert knowledge. I hope things have improved but the university system is a lot more school-like compared to the free-for-all it was twenty years ago. Meanwhile because of degree inflation trades for a long time had such a bad reputation they can't find any apprentices but also can't afford the lucrative wages and perks promised by international megacorps. There's also a very strong cultural and class divide between the three tracks of "highschool", especially Gymnasium (the highest tier -- doesn't have anything to do with sports) and the other two as only the former allows you to graduate with an Abitur which allows you to study at a university (unless you want to take night school classes to earn the same qualification with more time and effort). It's kinda like public vs private schools, except less explicitly about wealth and heritage.
zoogeny 2y ago
It is important to note, especially given the positive view given to the guild system in this article, that it is written on a masonic philosophy page. The freemasons have a long and esoteric history that should be viewed with some skepticism. Secret fraternal orders have a sketchy history. George Carlin has a famous comedy bit where he states "It's a big club and you ain't in it" [1]. My own feeling is that guilds of all sorts prioritize exclusivity for the purposes of bestowing power on some select few. As the article states "Master’s were few and far between". This is similar to how luxury brands maintain their high value: exclusivity. The standardization and guarantees of quality seem to be secondary to the pyramid scheme nature of ascension within these organizations (in the same way that the quality of luxury goods is often secondary to their exclusivity). It reminds me in some ways of the concept of "familiars" in vampire lore, humans who willingly toil away for their masters hoping one day to be elevated to the same level. It is a complex topic because of the positives and negatives of these systems being highly intertwined. To this day in Canada there is an apprenticeship system for trades. However, it is no longer an inner circle of masters deciding who gets the special status, it is a regional qualification body with clear guidelines, training, testing and certification. As a society we haven't at all gotten away from the degenerate aspects of guilds. Think of the association with the "golf/country club" crowd. Or things like the Skull and Bones [2] type organizations at elite universities. Or when people joke about the Illuminati. This article is arguing for that by presenting a rose-tinted-glasses view of the past. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso&ab_channel=SkyEcho7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso&ab_channel=SkyEc... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones
- waveBidder 2y ago
  Historically, guilds were first and foremost a tool to enforce monopoly power on the part of masters against anyone else trying to enter the market (and against eachother to maintain monopoly pricing and supply). Luddites were actually just doing what guilds normally did.
  - robwwilliams 2y ago
    Agreed, but parent article makes the good point that the Hansa League and guilds also pushed back very effectively on the nobility in Germany snd Northern Europe (Bergen Norway was in the Hansa League). And if you are willing to be more generous (as the author and I are) these protective societies of workers and merchants were an early step toward free market economies unencumbered by lazy landed gentry. Compare the history of Spain and France during this era to that of Germany and Holland.
throwaway290232 2y ago
[dead]
danjl 2y ago
I have often felt that programming would do well to have a guild-like system. Current job titles and years of experience do not really help to differentiate the quality of individuals. There's also the intangible benefits of trust and quality that come from the system. I'd love to write "craft" code, that is about producing quality code that elegantly solves real problems. Especially in comparison to the current trend of writing code as quickly as possible, with very little regard for quality from folks outside of the dev team.
- eddd-ddde 2y ago
  I love the idea. I think some people may fear the concept that their years of experience are just not equal to someone else's same years of experience.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    That’s no surprise. If I were not very good after 30 years of experience I’d also hope to not be judged by that.
    - tracker1 2y ago
      I've seen more than a handful of "senior" developers with a decade or more experience that were just Jr/Mid with a senior title. I think the problem is that relatively tight pay bands combined with certain expectations of title create practical issues in practice.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  There used to be (and maybe still is?) an apprenticeship scheme for software development in Germany. By reputation it produced some excellent developers. The Anglophone thing of having developers do a 3-year degree in Computer Science (an almost entirely unrelated discipline from Software Development) is ridiculous in comparison.
  - bane 2y ago
ggm 2y ago
Michael Polyani is quoted as making a comparison to guilds and scientists by Richard Rhodes in his book on the Atom Bomb. You become a scientist when other scientists accept you as a scientist. The publication side of things is a bit of a formalism, the critical point is acceptance into the craft. A quite a-scientific approach in some ways. That was of course in a prior age. Last century, in the dawn of Particle Physics, but I think he wrote of science in general in that time, not just Physicists.
abdullahkhalids 2y ago
Are there any good references on how this model, if it existed, was different in other cultures and societies?
lemurien 2y ago
This looks like the „compagnon du devoir et du tour de France“ in France. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Devoir https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Devoir They learn the basics and then they make a tour of France to refine their skills. They are required to move at least every six months. I know a couple of them from my family and this looks impressive. If this existed for software engineering, this would be the best training.
ImageXav 2y ago
The most interesting point in this article for me lies towards the end: "the role of the Guild was not to form rules, mores, regulations, and laws with respect to their crafts; their role was to introduce a system of art or craft to a new individual, to instill in them the idea of standards, quality, consistency, and perfection". A common complaint nowadays is that it is very difficult for juniors with no experience to get hired, unless they have a degree from a prestigious university, and even then that's not often a guarantee. It seems that companies are more averse than guilds to take the risk of training someone up to industry standards. I believe that it would be very beneficial to society to create schemes that encourage learning with a similar system. Mentors can sometimes accomplish this role, but that relation is far more informal.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > their role was to introduce a system of art or craft to a new individual, to instill in them the idea of standards, quality, consistency, and perfection". I always thought that their goals was controlling the supply of goods and services to maintain high prices and to prevent competition from ruining profit margins (of course not necessarily universally bad for consumers since guilds generally still maintained some sort of minimum quality standards). > than guilds to take the risk of training someone up to industry standards. Because as an apprentice you were effectively bound to your master and had to work him for a paltry wage for a number years just to get a chance to advance your career. Since workers are now free to leave whenever they want and have no obligations to the company that spent money/resources to train them those companies have few incentives to do that. > I believe that it would be very beneficial to society to create schemes that encourage learning with a similar system. We might as well bring back indentured servitude while we're at it? Otherwise who is going to pay for this?
  - ImageXav 2y ago
    I don't really see why a leap to indentured servitude is necessary here. There are obviously many other ways of implementing a training relationship - see the other comments re. how it is done in Germany. The point I'm making is that society as a whole is worse off if companies are too risk averse to hire and train juniors up to a certain level of quality. This results in too few people capable of doing a specific, presumably valuable, job well. The consequences of this are a society that underperforms it's true potential in the long run. In monetary terms, as you raise the question, that means that less taxable value is generated. So society as a whole pays the consequence.
xkcd1963 2y ago
In many ways guilds were also difficult to deal with. As example, in some towns peasants were not allowed to smith their own tools and had to travel to the city and buy the expensive tools from the guild.
penguin_booze 2y ago
> The word Hansa is Low German for “convoy” Ah, so Lufthansa (the German flag carrier) means Air Convoy.
YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
>> Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master Those are now more properly referred to as Apprentice, Journeyperson and Main.
- CyberDildonics 2y ago
  By who?
acenes 2y ago
This system is very much alive in academia: a graduate student (apprentice) trains under a professor (master) to become a member of the guild (academia), after which they can go off and find their own work as a postdoc (journeyman) and eventually start their own lab (shop) to have their own trainees.

111 points by squircle 2y ago

Journeyman sounds very much like a postdoc. (the traditional costumes are rare, but I've seen a few journeymen all togged out* for going "auf der Walz" over the last couple of decades) * eg https://www.wirholzbauer.ch/de/magazine-online/detail/?tx_hbchmagazin_article%5Barticle%5D=465 https://www.wirholzbauer.ch/de/magazine-online/detail/?tx_hb... more on the topic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=082349872349872%20apprenticeship&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

normie3000 2y ago
"auf der Walz" auf Englisch?
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  "on tour"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years#:~:text=In%20contemporary%20brotherhoods,an%20immediate%20relative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years#:~:text=In%20... (EDIT: or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41159370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41159370 ) Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUslm_F0niA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUslm_F0niA
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    I guess in English for the upper classes The Grand Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour probably the plebes only go on tour.
baruz 2y ago
Universities began as medieval guilds (Latin universitas = guild corporate body) around cathedral schools, composed of teachers (in the northern cathedral schools) or students (in Italy). The university’s grant of a masters degree would allow you to perform as a teacher (Latin magister) in any other cathedral school.

geertj 2y ago

These levels are are still used in the US today for eg electricians and other licensed trades. Interesting that they survived for so long.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

(2018) Some previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473869

repelsteeltje 2y ago

Of course, the tag line for the classic Pragmatic Programmer book originally was not your journey to mastery, but from journeyman to master. So much more apt. https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-20th-anniversary-edition/ https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-2...

Simon_ORourke 2y ago

These are still very much in use in Germany today. I met a few of these guys in Berlin looking for a couch to crash on for a few days, all carpenters and very funny guys. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years

Daub 2y ago
I believe that German education is more pragmatic than (for example) British. The Germans invented the polytechnic, designed to teach practical skills. The British converted most of their polytechnics to universities, to their detriment. They now have a bunch of low functioning universities and have lost all their trade schools.
- craz8 2y ago
  Ha! I went to a British polytechnic. There wasn’t a lot of very practical degrees ( there were some though), but there was a lot of hands on computer work in my Computer and Communications degree It is strange on a resume listing a university I never technically went to, but now only Wikipedia remembers! And I was there before Thor destroyed it in a movie
- hnbad 2y ago
  That used to be the idea. University used to be much more broad with students often being encouraged to join courses in other disciplines to broaden their knowledge. Then came the Bachelor/Master system and suddenly you had to take exams at the end of lectures, participation was tracked and you'd be failed with no recourse for missing more than twice, everything had to fit into the narrowly defined "modules" you had to pick from (if there was any choice at all) and it all just started feeling like a continuation from school rather than a genuine gateway to scientific expert knowledge. I hope things have improved but the university system is a lot more school-like compared to the free-for-all it was twenty years ago. Meanwhile because of degree inflation trades for a long time had such a bad reputation they can't find any apprentices but also can't afford the lucrative wages and perks promised by international megacorps. There's also a very strong cultural and class divide between the three tracks of "highschool", especially Gymnasium (the highest tier -- doesn't have anything to do with sports) and the other two as only the former allows you to graduate with an Abitur which allows you to study at a university (unless you want to take night school classes to earn the same qualification with more time and effort). It's kinda like public vs private schools, except less explicitly about wealth and heritage.

zoogeny 2y ago

It is important to note, especially given the positive view given to the guild system in this article, that it is written on a masonic philosophy page. The freemasons have a long and esoteric history that should be viewed with some skepticism. Secret fraternal orders have a sketchy history. George Carlin has a famous comedy bit where he states "It's a big club and you ain't in it" [1]. My own feeling is that guilds of all sorts prioritize exclusivity for the purposes of bestowing power on some select few. As the article states "Master’s were few and far between". This is similar to how luxury brands maintain their high value: exclusivity. The standardization and guarantees of quality seem to be secondary to the pyramid scheme nature of ascension within these organizations (in the same way that the quality of luxury goods is often secondary to their exclusivity). It reminds me in some ways of the concept of "familiars" in vampire lore, humans who willingly toil away for their masters hoping one day to be elevated to the same level. It is a complex topic because of the positives and negatives of these systems being highly intertwined. To this day in Canada there is an apprenticeship system for trades. However, it is no longer an inner circle of masters deciding who gets the special status, it is a regional qualification body with clear guidelines, training, testing and certification. As a society we haven't at all gotten away from the degenerate aspects of guilds. Think of the association with the "golf/country club" crowd. Or things like the Skull and Bones [2] type organizations at elite universities. Or when people joke about the Illuminati. This article is arguing for that by presenting a rose-tinted-glasses view of the past. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso&ab_channel=SkyEcho7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso&ab_channel=SkyEc... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones

waveBidder 2y ago
Historically, guilds were first and foremost a tool to enforce monopoly power on the part of masters against anyone else trying to enter the market (and against eachother to maintain monopoly pricing and supply). Luddites were actually just doing what guilds normally did.
- robwwilliams 2y ago
  Agreed, but parent article makes the good point that the Hansa League and guilds also pushed back very effectively on the nobility in Germany snd Northern Europe (Bergen Norway was in the Hansa League). And if you are willing to be more generous (as the author and I are) these protective societies of workers and merchants were an early step toward free market economies unencumbered by lazy landed gentry. Compare the history of Spain and France during this era to that of Germany and Holland.

throwaway290232 2y ago

[dead]

danjl 2y ago

I have often felt that programming would do well to have a guild-like system. Current job titles and years of experience do not really help to differentiate the quality of individuals. There's also the intangible benefits of trust and quality that come from the system. I'd love to write "craft" code, that is about producing quality code that elegantly solves real problems. Especially in comparison to the current trend of writing code as quickly as possible, with very little regard for quality from folks outside of the dev team.

eddd-ddde 2y ago
I love the idea. I think some people may fear the concept that their years of experience are just not equal to someone else's same years of experience.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  That’s no surprise. If I were not very good after 30 years of experience I’d also hope to not be judged by that.
  - tracker1 2y ago
    I've seen more than a handful of "senior" developers with a decade or more experience that were just Jr/Mid with a senior title. I think the problem is that relatively tight pay bands combined with certain expectations of title create practical issues in practice.
marcus_holmes 2y ago
There used to be (and maybe still is?) an apprenticeship scheme for software development in Germany. By reputation it produced some excellent developers. The Anglophone thing of having developers do a 3-year degree in Computer Science (an almost entirely unrelated discipline from Software Development) is ridiculous in comparison.
- bane 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

Michael Polyani is quoted as making a comparison to guilds and scientists by Richard Rhodes in his book on the Atom Bomb. You become a scientist when other scientists accept you as a scientist. The publication side of things is a bit of a formalism, the critical point is acceptance into the craft. A quite a-scientific approach in some ways. That was of course in a prior age. Last century, in the dawn of Particle Physics, but I think he wrote of science in general in that time, not just Physicists.

abdullahkhalids 2y ago

Are there any good references on how this model, if it existed, was different in other cultures and societies?

lemurien 2y ago

This looks like the „compagnon du devoir et du tour de France“ in France. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Devoir https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Devoir They learn the basics and then they make a tour of France to refine their skills. They are required to move at least every six months. I know a couple of them from my family and this looks impressive. If this existed for software engineering, this would be the best training.

ImageXav 2y ago

The most interesting point in this article for me lies towards the end: "the role of the Guild was not to form rules, mores, regulations, and laws with respect to their crafts; their role was to introduce a system of art or craft to a new individual, to instill in them the idea of standards, quality, consistency, and perfection". A common complaint nowadays is that it is very difficult for juniors with no experience to get hired, unless they have a degree from a prestigious university, and even then that's not often a guarantee. It seems that companies are more averse than guilds to take the risk of training someone up to industry standards. I believe that it would be very beneficial to society to create schemes that encourage learning with a similar system. Mentors can sometimes accomplish this role, but that relation is far more informal.

Wytwwww 2y ago
> their role was to introduce a system of art or craft to a new individual, to instill in them the idea of standards, quality, consistency, and perfection". I always thought that their goals was controlling the supply of goods and services to maintain high prices and to prevent competition from ruining profit margins (of course not necessarily universally bad for consumers since guilds generally still maintained some sort of minimum quality standards). > than guilds to take the risk of training someone up to industry standards. Because as an apprentice you were effectively bound to your master and had to work him for a paltry wage for a number years just to get a chance to advance your career. Since workers are now free to leave whenever they want and have no obligations to the company that spent money/resources to train them those companies have few incentives to do that. > I believe that it would be very beneficial to society to create schemes that encourage learning with a similar system. We might as well bring back indentured servitude while we're at it? Otherwise who is going to pay for this?
- ImageXav 2y ago
  I don't really see why a leap to indentured servitude is necessary here. There are obviously many other ways of implementing a training relationship - see the other comments re. how it is done in Germany. The point I'm making is that society as a whole is worse off if companies are too risk averse to hire and train juniors up to a certain level of quality. This results in too few people capable of doing a specific, presumably valuable, job well. The consequences of this are a society that underperforms it's true potential in the long run. In monetary terms, as you raise the question, that means that less taxable value is generated. So society as a whole pays the consequence.

xkcd1963 2y ago

In many ways guilds were also difficult to deal with. As example, in some towns peasants were not allowed to smith their own tools and had to travel to the city and buy the expensive tools from the guild.

penguin_booze 2y ago

> The word Hansa is Low German for “convoy” Ah, so Lufthansa (the German flag carrier) means Air Convoy.

YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago

>> Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master Those are now more properly referred to as Apprentice, Journeyperson and Main.

CyberDildonics 2y ago
By who?

acenes 2y ago

This system is very much alive in academia: a graduate student (apprentice) trains under a professor (master) to become a member of the guild (academia), after which they can go off and find their own work as a postdoc (journeyman) and eventually start their own lab (shop) to have their own trainees.