Religious guild

A religious guild is a guild whose purpose is primarily religious rather than social or economic. They were often centered around religious festivals.^[1]

In the dark ages there were self defence communities called by some "guilds." These were denounced by Catholic clergy for their "conjurations" — the binding oaths sworn among the members to support one another in adversity, kill specific enemies, and back one another in feuds or in business ventures. The occasion for these oaths were drunken banquets held on December 26. In 858, West Francian Bishop Hincmar sought vainly to Christianise the guilds.^[2]

Religious observance was an important part of medieval guild life for merchant guilds and craft guilds as well as those of primarily a religious purpose.^[3]

See Also

• Archconfraternity, a Roman Catholic confraternity
• Confraternity, a lay organization in the Roman Catholic Church
• Confraternities of priests
• Sodality (Catholic Church), also a lay organization in the Roman Catholic Church
• Unions of Prayer
• Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement

References

1. Starr 1919, p. 42.
2. Rouche 1992, p. 432.
3. Burton 1910.

Sources

• Burton, E (1910). "Guilds". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• Rouche, Michel (1992). "Private life conquers state and society". In Ariès, Philippe; Veyne, Paul; Duby, Georges (eds.). A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Vol. 1. Harvard University Press. pp. 419–452. ISBN 978-0-674-39974-7.
• Starr, Mark (1919). A worker looks at history: being outlines of industrial history specially written for Labour College-Plebs classes. Plebs League.