Information on the thesis

The dissertation is devoted to the complex study of legal, economic and social as well as historical and demographic contents of a tailoring guild’s history in the city ofLviv during the course of the 16^th-18^th сenturies. The work analyzes the legislative basis of the guild system and determines the status of a tailoring corporation in the legal plane, outlining the rights and obligations of its members. Based on the analysis of source materials and resortion to scientific literature, the internal guild structure, production, specialization in crafts and competition outside the guild were reconstructed. The thesis follows the process of learning the craft and the professional career of a tailor. It also clarifies the causes and nature of social contradictions and ethno-denominational relations inside the guild, and forms the idea behind the demographic and prosopographic aspects of this historical phenomenon, emphasizing the fact that the tailoring guild was representative of the identity of the early modern corporate society.

The research establishes that a tailoring guild in Lviv has never been the subject of special historiographic studies before, so there were no separate publications covering the genesis or organization of tailoring production in the city. The main base of the dissertation was formed by manuscripts (unpublished) and printed materials (privileges, charters, universals, act books, guild and financial books, registers of city law adoption, etc.). The use of a wide range of available sources and historiographic materials from different areas of urban life has made it possible to comprehensively and comprehensively reconstruct the object of the dissertation’s research.

The genesis of the organization of tailoring crafts in Lviv dates back to princely times, but the classical shop structure was constituted after the city was granted the Magdeburg law. The privilege of King Sigismund I of Poland of June 10, 1533 laid the legal foundations for the corporation’s activity. In the future, the practice of reaffirming royal privileges and guild charters remained unchanged and was necessary for maintaining the monopoly status of the guild in its manufacturing activities, especially in view of the increasing competition from Jews, as well as local and visiting craftsmen that were not members of the guild.

The tailoring organization had a clear hierarchical model, a defined social status and its own disciplinary approach to the education of its members. On the basis of the privileges and charters granted, the necessary conditions were created for the professional activity of the team, which was divided into social-age groups: apprentices – craftsman’s assistants – craftsmen – guild masters and master foremen. At the same time, the process of socialization of artisans was lengthy and involved several stages under the control of experienced craftsmen.

The Lviv Tailoring Corporation was among the top three employers in the city for the entire period of its operation. This was reflected in the number of tailors and their ratio in comparison with the total number of both the artisan and the urban community. During the course of the 15^th-18^th centuries, 478 tailors became citizens of Lviv. If you also take into account all the citizenship applications that have not been entered in the registers, this number will increase to 563. At the beginning of the 17^th century the tailoring community of Lviv consisted of more than 600 people, in the middle of the 17^th century their total dropped to just over 400, while at the beginning of the eighteenth century the number of tailor rosa again to about 600 people. Consciously understanding their status in the society of those times, tailors considered themselves to be the middle class of Lviv’s urban society. As people of work that had no problems with representing their interests before city officials, they acted as the bearers of the identity of the Lviv bourgeoisie, its backbone.

Key words: tailoring guild, handicraft, tailors, craftsmen, craftsman’s assistants, apprentices, bunglers, privileges, statutes, Lviv.