Guilds

[HaMizrachi@aol.com]

Unto all who read these words, greetings from Yaakov.

In response to Karen, I do not mean to suggest that official structure and
recognition are necessarily bad (though I frequently think they are).  I mean
that there is an unfortunate tendancey to believe that people *cannot* engage
in a particular activity unless it is somehow made official.

Take the current flap on the Rialto re: Chiurgeoning and water-bearing.  Why
did at least one poster assume that fighters would go thirsty of the
corporate structure for chiurgeons (and, by extension, water bearers)
disappeared?  Why should it make a difference to the people who enjoy doing
the activity?

Similarly, if people want to get together and tell stories, or perform plays,
or juggle, why does their need to be some recognized guild?  The answer is,
there does not have to be.

I think that it would be worthwhile to see our SCA guilds do research about
what guilds actually did.  For one thing, I suspect that they would be
frustrated by the restrictions of the guild structure.  Different guilds
handled different parts of making a bow or an arrow, for example, and none of
them would necessarily have been involved in shooting them.  Yet we would be
surprised at an "archery guild" that didn't teach fletching, stringing, etc.
 We would be positively horrified at a fletchers guild that fined its
memebers for daring to make bows and thus stepping on the toes of the bowyers
guild.

Yaakov