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137-615: The Consulado de mercaderes was the Spanish merchant guild , founded in Seville , the sole port for Spain's overseas trade in the 16th and 17th centuries, until the official port was relocated to Cadiz , following the Treaty of Utrecht . In theory, the Consulado enjoyed virtual monopoly rights over goods shipped to America, in a regular and closely controlled Spanish treasure fleet , and handled much of

274-491: A 1 ⁄ 6 -shekel per day freight rate for a 60-gur vessel. A type of guild was known in Roman times. Known as collegium , collegia or corpus , these were organised groups of merchants who specialised in a particular craft and whose membership of the group was voluntary. One such example is the corpus naviculariorum , a collegium of merchant mariners based at Rome's La Ostia port . The Roman guilds failed to survive

411-483: A muškēnum than an awīlum : a muškēnum 's life may have been cheaper, but so were some of his fines. There was also inequality within these classes: laws 200 and 202, for example, show that one awīlum could be of higher rank than another. Martha Roth has shown that ideas of shame and honour motivated certain laws. The above principles are distant in spirit from modern systems of common and civil law , but some may be more familiar. One such principle

548-630: A 'tramping' allowance for those needing to travel to find work. As the guild system of the City of London declined during the 17th century, the Livery Companies transformed into mutual assistance fraternities along such lines. European guilds imposed long standardized periods of apprenticeship , and made it difficult for those lacking the capital to set up for themselves or without the approval of their peers to gain access to materials or knowledge, or to sell into certain markets, an area that equally dominated

685-421: A 2-shekel wage for each 60- gur (300- bushel ) vessel constructed in an employment contract between a shipbuilder and a ship-owner. Law 275 stipulated a ferry rate of 3- gerah per day on a charterparty between a ship charterer and a shipmaster . Law 276 stipulated a 2 1 ⁄ 2 -gerah per day freight rate on a contract of affreightment between a charterer and shipmaster, while Law 277 stipulated

822-654: A consistent underlying legal system. As with the Code of Hammurabi, however, it is difficult to interpret the purpose and underlying legal systems of these earlier collections, prompting numerous scholars to question whether this should be attempted. Extant collections include: There are additionally thousands of documents from the practice of law, from before and during the Old Babylonian period. These documents include contracts, judicial rulings, letters on legal cases, and reform documents such as that of Urukagina , king of Lagash in

959-423: A corporation without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as they were called, were not always disfranchised upon that account, but obliged to fine annually to the king for permission to exercise their usurped privileges. Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto also criticized the guild system for its rigid gradation of social rank and what he saw as the relation of oppressor and oppressed entailed by this system. It

1096-427: A decline in women's labor in south German cities from the 16th-18th centuries to both economic and cultural factors; as trades became more specialized, women's domestic responsibilities hindered them from entering the workforce. German guilds started to further regulate women's participation at this time, limiting the privileges of wives, widows, and daughters. It also forbade masters from hiring women. Crowston notes that

1233-448: A goat come next. Wolfram von Soden , who decades earlier called this way of thinking Listenwissenschaft ("list science"), often denigrated it. However, more recent writers, such as Marc Van De Mieroop, Jean Bottéro, and Ann Guinan, have either avoided value judgments or expressed admiration. Lists were central to Mesopotamian science and logic, and their distinctive structural principles let entries be generated infinitely. Linking

1370-507: A highly organised code similar to the Code of Justinian and the Napoleonic Code . There is also evidence that dīnātum , which in the Code of Hammurabi sometimes denote individual "laws", were enforced. One copy of the Code calls it a ṣimdat šarrim , "royal decree", which denotes a kind of enforced legislation. However, the arguments against this view are strong. Firstly, it would make

1507-401: A hope that "any wronged man who has a lawsuit" ( awīlum ḫablum ša awātam iraššû ) may have the laws of the stele read aloud to him and know his rights (3240'–3256'). This would bring Hammurabi praise (3257'–3275') and divine favour (3276'–3295'). Hammurabi wishes for good fortune for any ruler who heeds his pronouncements and respects his stele (3296'–3359'). However, he invokes the wrath of

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1644-511: A hypothetical conditional. The durative , sometimes called the "present" in Assyriology, may express intention in the laws. For ease of English reading, some translations give preterite and perfect verbs in the protasis a present sense. In the apodosis, the verbs are in the durative, though the sense varies between permissive—"it is permitted that x happen"—and instructive—" x must/will happen". In both protasis and apodosis, sequence of action

1781-511: A journeyman and entitled him to travel to other towns and countries to learn the art from other masters. These journeys could span large parts of Europe and were an unofficial way of communicating new methods and techniques, though by no means all journeymen made such travels — they were most common in Germany and Italy, and in other countries journeymen from small cities would often visit the capital. After this journey and several years of experience,

1918-401: A journeyman could be received as master craftsman, though in some guilds this step could be made straight from apprentice. This would typically require the approval of all masters of a guild, a donation of money and other goods (often omitted for sons of existing members), and the production of a so-called " masterpiece ", which would illustrate the abilities of the aspiring master craftsman; this

2055-430: A lifetime progression of apprentice to craftsman , and then from journeyman eventually to widely recognized master and grandmaster began to emerge. In order to become a master, a journeyman would have to go on a three-year voyage called journeyman years . The practice of the journeyman years still exists in Germany and France. As production became more specialized, trade guilds were divided and subdivided, eliciting

2192-461: A man who was not a member, she usually lost that right. The historian Alice Clark published a study in 1919 on women's participation in guilds during the Medieval period. She argued that the guild system empowered women to participate in family businesses. This viewpoint, among others of Clark's, has been criticized by fellow historians, and has sparked debate in scholarly circles. Clark's analysis of

2329-505: A network of cottagers who spun and wove in their own premises on his account, provided with their raw materials, perhaps even their looms, by the capitalist who took a share of the profits. Such a dispersed system could not so easily be controlled where there was a vigorous local market for the raw materials: wool was easily available in sheep-rearing regions, whereas silk was not. In Florence, Italy , there were seven to twelve "greater guilds" and fourteen "lesser guilds". The most important of

2466-505: A schooling period during which he was first called an apprenticeship . After this period he could rise to the level of journeyman . Apprentices would typically not learn more than the most basic techniques until they were trusted by their peers to keep the guild's or company's secrets. Like journey , the distance that could be travelled in a day, the title 'journeyman' derives from the French words for 'day' ( jour and journée ) from which came

2603-450: A seated Shamash. Shamash wears the horned crown of divinity and has a solar attribute, flames, spouting from his shoulders. Contrastingly, Scheil, in his editio princeps , identified the seated figure as Hammurabi and the standing figure as Shamash. Scheil also held that the scene showed Shamash dictating to Hammurabi while Hammurabi held a scribe's stylus , gazing attentively at the god. Martha Roth lists other interpretations: "that

2740-421: A sequence. Van De Mieroop provides the following examples: If a physician performs major surgery with a bronze lancet upon an [ awīlum ] and thus heals the [ awīlum ], or opens an [ awīlum ]'s temple with a bronze lancet and thus heals the [ awīlum ]'s eye, he shall take ten shekels of silver (as his fee). If a physician performs major surgery with a bronze lancet upon an [ awīlum ] and thus causes

2877-420: A set of self-employed skilled craftsmen with ownership and control over the materials and tools they needed to produce their goods. Some argue that guilds operated more like cartels than they were like trade unions (Olson 1982). However, the journeymen organizations, which were at the time illegal, may have been influential. The exclusive privilege of a guild to produce certain goods or provide certain services

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3014-591: A significant number of women members. John, Duke of Berry documents payments to female musicians from Le Puy, Lyons, and Paris. In Rouen women had participated as full-fledged masters in 7 of the city's 112 guilds since the 13th century. There were still many restrictions. Medieval Parisian guilds did not offer women independent control of their work. Women did have problems with entering healers' guilds, as opposed to their relative freedom in trade or craft guilds. Their status in healers' guilds were often challenged. The idea that medicine should only be practiced by men

3151-403: A tooth for a tooth when one man destroys another's. Punishments determined by lex talionis could be transferred to the sons of the wrongdoer. For example, law 229 states that the death of a homeowner in a house collapse necessitates the death of the house's builder. The following law 230 states that if the homeowner's son died, the builder's son must die also. Persons were not equal before

3288-572: A town's place in global commerce — this led to modern trademarks . In many German and Italian cities, the more powerful guilds often had considerable political influence, and sometimes attempted to control the city authorities. In the 14th century, this led to numerous bloody uprisings, during which the guilds dissolved town councils and detained patricians in an attempt to increase their influence. In fourteenth-century north-east Germany, people of Wendish , i.e. Slavic , origin were not allowed to join some guilds. According to Wilhelm Raabe, "down into

3425-561: A variety of gods individually to turn their particular attributes against the defacer. For example: "may the [storm] god Adad   ... deprive him of the benefits of rain from heaven and flood from the springs" (3509'–3515': adad... zunnī ina šamê mīlam ina nagbim līṭeršu ); "may the god [of wisdom] Ea   ... deprive him of all understanding and wisdom, and may he lead him into confusion" (3440'–3451': ea... uznam u nēmeqam līṭeršu-ma ina mīšītim littarrūšu ). Gods and goddesses are invoked in this order: The Code of Hammurabi

3562-484: A very unusual code—Reuven Yaron called the designation "Code" a "persistent misnomer". Vital areas of society and commerce are omitted. For example, Marc Van De Mieroop observes that the Code "deals with cattle and agricultural fields, but it almost entirely ignores the work of shepherds, vital to Babylonia's economy". Then, against the legislation theory more generally, highly implausible circumstances are covered, such as threshing with goats, animals far too unruly for

3699-546: Is 281 lines long and extremely forceful. Some of the curses are very vivid: "may the god Sin   ... decree for him a life that is no better than death" (3486'–3508': sîn... balāṭam ša itti mūtim šitannu ana šīmtim lišīmšum ); "may he [the future defacer] conclude every day, month, and year of his reign with groaning and mourning" (3497'–3501': ūmī warḫī šanāt palēšu ina tānēḫim u dimmatim lišaqti ); may he experience "the spilling of his life force like water" (3435'–3436': tabāk napištišu kīma mê ). Hammurabi implores

3836-448: Is conveyed by suffixing verbs with -ma , "and". -ma can also have the sense "but". The Code is relatively well-understood, but some items of its vocabulary are controversial. As mentioned, the terms awīlum and muškēnum have proved difficult to translate. They probably denote respectively a male member of a higher and lower social class. Wolfram von Soden, in his Akkadisches Handwörterbuch , proposed that muškēnum

3973-428: Is either a soldier or [an auxiliary] who is taken captive in a royal fortress, and his son is able to perform the service obligation, the field and orchard shall be given to him, and he shall perform his father's service obligation. If his son is young and is unable to perform his father's service obligation, one third of the field and orchard shall be given to his mother, and his mother shall raise him. Here, following

4110-522: Is perhaps justified by Hammurabi's interest in his subjects' affairs. His affinities with many different gods are stressed throughout. He is portrayed as dutiful in restoring and maintaining temples and peerless on the battlefield. The list of his accomplishments has helped establish that the text was written late in Hammurabi's reign. After the list, Hammurabi explains that he fulfilled Marduk's request to establish "truth and justice" ( kittam u mīšaram ) for

4247-451: Is short: "I am Hammurabi, the shepherd, selected by the god Enlil" ( ḫammurabi rē'ûm nibīt enlil anāku ). Then Hammurabi continues for over 200 lines in a single nominal sentence with the anāku delayed to the very end (291). Hammurabi repeatedly calls himself na'dum , "pious" (lines 61, 149, 241, and 272). The metaphor of Hammurabi as his people's shepherd also recurs. It was a common metaphor for ancient Near Eastern kings, but

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4384-452: Is that the Code is not a true code but an abstract treatise on how judgments should be formulated. This led Fritz Rudolf Kraus, in an early formulation of the theory, to call it jurisprudence ( Rechtssprüche ). Kraus proposed that it was a work of Mesopotamian scholarship in the same category as omen collections like šumma ālu and ana ittišu . Others have provided their own versions of this theory. A. Leo Oppenheim remarked that

4521-472: Is the presumption of innocence ; the first two laws of the stele prescribe punishments, determined by lex talionis , for unsubstantiated accusations. Written evidence was valued highly, especially in matters of contract . One crime was given only one punishment. The laws also recognized the importance of the intentions of a defendant. Lastly, the Code's establishment on public stelae was supposedly intended to increase access to justice. Whether or not this

4658-453: Is the longest and best-organised legal text from the ancient Near East, as well as the best-preserved. The classification below (columns 1–3) is Driver & Miles', with several amendments, and Roth's translation is used. Laws represented by letters are those reconstructed primarily from documents other than the Louvre stele. The purpose and legal authority of the Code have been disputed since

4795-510: The Basque and Montañés , even though some were from neither of these Iberian regions. American-born merchants came to be part of the consulado in the later colonial period, but a small number of peninsular merchants dominated. Goods were shipped from the Spanish port of Cádiz to Veracruz, but many of the goods were produced elsewhere in Europe. In the mid-16th century, all American trade from Spain

4932-495: The Code of Ur-Nammu , when Hammurabi produced his own Code. This suggests that earlier collections may have not only resembled the Code but influenced it. Raymond Westbrook maintained that there was a fairly consistent tradition of "ancient Near Eastern law" which included the Code of Hammurabi, and that this was largely customary law . Nonetheless, there are differences: for example, Stephen Bertman has suggested that where earlier collections are concerned with compensating victims,

5069-653: The Louvre , in Room 227 of the Richelieu wing. At the top is an image of Hammurabi with Shamash , the Babylonian sun god and god of justice. Below the image are about 4,130 lines of cuneiform text: One fifth contain a prologue and epilogue, while the remaining four fifths contain what are generally called the laws. Near the bottom, seven columns of the laws, each with more than eighty lines, were polished and erased in antiquity. The stele

5206-615: The Mesopotamian plain through military prowess, diplomacy, and treachery. When Hammurabi inherited his father Sin-Muballit 's throne, Babylon held little local sway; the local hegemon was Rim-Sin of Larsa . Hammurabi waited until Rim-Sin grew old, then conquered his territory in one swift campaign, leaving his organisation intact. Later, Hammurabi betrayed allies in Eshnunna , Elam , and Mari to gain their territories. Hammurabi had an aggressive foreign policy, but his letters suggest he

5343-540: The Mosaic Law . Scholars quickly identified lex talionis —the "eye for an eye" principle—underlying the two collections. Debate among Assyriologists has since centred around several aspects of the Code: its purpose, its underlying principles, its language, and its relation to earlier and later law collections. Despite the uncertainty surrounding these issues, Hammurabi is regarded outside Assyriology as an important figure in

5480-691: The Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers , have been formed far more recently. Membership in a livery company is expected for individuals participating in the governance of The City , as the Lord Mayor and the Remembrancer . The guild system reached a mature state in Germany c.  1300 and held on in German cities into the 19th century, with some special privileges for certain occupations remaining today. In

5617-732: The collapse of the Roman Empire . A collegium was any association or corporation that acted as a legal entity . In 1816, an archeological excavation in Minya, Egypt produced a Nerva–Antonine dynasty -era (second-century AD) clay tablet from the ruins of the Temple of Antinous in Antinoöpolis , Aegyptus that prescribed the rules and membership dues of a burial society collegium established in Lanuvium , Italia in approximately 133 AD. Following

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5754-529: The trade secrets — the guilds' power faded. After the French Revolution they gradually fell in most European nations over the course of the 19th century, as the guild system was disbanded and replaced by laws that promoted free trade. As a consequence of the decline of guilds, many former handicraft workers were forced to seek employment in the emerging manufacturing industries, using not closely guarded techniques formerly protected by guilds, but rather

5891-475: The 15th century, Hamburg had 100 guilds, Cologne 80, and Lübeck 70. The latest guilds to develop in Western Europe were the gremios of Spain: e.g., Valencia (1332) or Toledo (1426). Not all city economies were controlled by guilds; some cities were "free." Where guilds were in control, they shaped labor, production and trade; they had strong controls over instructional capital, and the modern concepts of

6028-456: The Babylonian sky god and king of the gods , granted rulership over humanity to Marduk . Marduk chose the centre of his earthly power to be Babylon, which in the real world worshipped him as its tutelary god . Marduk established the office of kingship within Babylon. Finally, Anum, along with the Babylonian wind god Enlil , chose Hammurabi to be Babylon's king. Hammurabi was to rule "to prevent

6165-668: The Code evinced. Several singled out perceived secularism : Owen Jenkins, for example, but even Charles Souvay for the Catholic Encyclopedia , who opined that unlike the Mosaic Law the Code was "founded upon the dictates of reason". The question of the Code's influence on the Mosaic Law received much early attention. Scholars also identified Hammurabi with the Biblical figure Amraphel , but this proposal has since been abandoned. The relief appears to show Hammurabi standing before

6302-401: The Code of Hammurabi and similar Mesopotamian law collections "represent an interesting formulation of social criticism and should not be taken as normative directions". This interpretation bypasses the problem of low congruence between the Code and actual legal judgments. Secondly, the Code does bear striking similarities to other works of Mesopotamian scholarship. Key points of similarity are

6439-469: The Code of Lipit-Ishtar in 1947, the Laws of Eshnunna in 1948, and the Code of Ur-Nammu in 1952. Early commentators dated Hammurabi and the stele to the 23rd century BC. However, this is an earlier estimate than even the " ultra-long chronology " would support. The Code was compiled near the end of Hammurabi's reign. This was deduced partly from the list of his achievements in the prologue. Scheil enthused about

6576-418: The Code or any other law collection, despite the great scale of the corpus. Two references to prescriptions on "a stele" ( narû ) come closest. In contrast, numerous judgments cite royal mīšarum -decrees. Raymond Westbrook held that this strengthened the argument from silence that ancient Near Eastern legal "codes" had legal import. Furthermore, many Old Babylonian judgments run entirely counter to

6713-434: The Code suggests about Old Babylonian society and its legal system. For example, whether it demonstrates that there were no professional advocates, or that there were professional judges. Scholars who approach the Code as a self-contained document renounce such claims. One principle widely accepted to underlie the Code is lex talionis , or "eye for an eye". Laws 196 and 200 respectively prescribe an eye for an eye and

6850-411: The Code to the scribal tradition within which "list science" emerged also explains why trainee scribes copied and studied it for over a millennium. The Code appears in a late Babylonian (7th–6th century BC) list of literary and scholarly texts. No other law collection became so entrenched in the curriculum. Rather than a code of laws, then, it may be a scholarly treatise. Much has been written on what

6987-719: The Code was published by Father Jean-Vincent Scheil in 1902, in the fourth volume of the Reports of the Delegation to Persia ( Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse ). After a brief introduction with details of the excavation, Scheil gave a transliteration and a free translation into French, as well as a selection of images. Editions in other languages soon followed: in German by Hugo Winckler in 1902, in English by C. H. W. Johns in 1903, and in Italian by Pietro Bonfante, also in 1903. The Code

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7124-403: The Code's prescriptions. A second theory is that the Code is a sort of law report, and as such contains records of past cases and judgments, albeit phrased abstractly. This would provide one explanation for the casuistic format of the "laws"; indeed, Jean Bottéro believed he had found a record of a case that inspired one. However, such finds are inconclusive and very rare, despite the scale of

7261-567: The European guilds was tied to the emergent money economy, and to urbanization . Before this time it was not possible to run a money-driven organization, as commodity money was the normal way of doing business. The guild was at the center of European handicraft organization into the 16th century. In France, a resurgence of the guilds in the second half of the 17th century is symptomatic of Louis XIV and Jean Baptiste Colbert 's administration's concerns to impose unity, control production, and reap

7398-504: The Medieval era was an ever-changing, mutable society—especially considering that it spanned hundreds of years and many different cultures. There were multiple accounts of women's participation in guilds in England and the Continent. In a study of London silkwomen of the 15th century by Marian K. Dale, she notes that medieval women could inherit property, belong to guilds, manage estates, and run

7535-550: The Mesopotamian legal corpus. Furthermore, legal judgments were frequently recorded in Mesopotamia, and they recount the facts of the case without generalising them. These judgments were concerned almost exclusively with points of fact, prompting Martha Roth to comment: "I know of only one case out of thousands extant that might be said to revolve around a point of law". A third theory, which has gained traction within Assyriology,

7672-579: The [ awīlum ]'s death, or opens an [ awīlum ]'s temple with a bronze lancet and thus blinds the [ awīlum ]'s eye, they shall cut off his hand. Laws 215 and 218 illustrate the principle of opposition: one variable of the first law, the outcome of the operations, is altered to create the second. If there is either a soldier or [an auxiliary] who is taken captive while serving in a royal fortress [...] if he should [...] return and get back to his city, they shall return to him his field and orchard and he himself shall perform his service obligation. If there

7809-400: The acquisition of craft skills required experience-based learning, he argues that this process necessitated many years in apprenticeship. The extent to which guilds were able to monopolize markets is also debated. Guilds were often heavily concerned with product quality. The regulations they established on their own members' work, as well as targeting non-guild members for illicit practice,

7946-535: The apparent exceptions of stonecutters and perhaps glassmakers, mostly the people that had local skills. Gregory of Tours tells a miraculous tale of a builder whose art and techniques suddenly left him, but were restored by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a dream. Michel Rouche remarks that the story speaks for the importance of practically transmitted journeymanship. In France , guilds were called corps de métiers . According to Viktor Ivanovich Rutenburg, "Within

8083-509: The aristocracy"; others have left it untranslated. Certain legal terms have also proved difficult to translate. For example, dīnum and dīttum can denote the law in general as well as individual laws, verdicts, divine pronouncements and other phenomena. mīšarum can likewise denote the law in general as well as a kind of royal decree. The Code of Hammurabi bears strong similarities to earlier Mesopotamian law collections. Many purport to have been written by rulers, and this tradition

8220-439: The armourers were divided into helmet-makers, escutcheon-makers, harness-makers, harness-polishers, etc. In Catalan towns, especially at Barcelona , guilds or gremis were a basic agent in the society: a shoemakers' guild is recorded in 1208. In England, specifically in the City of London Corporation , more than 110 guilds, referred to as livery companies , survive today, with the oldest 869 years old. Other groups, such as

8357-521: The benefits of transparent structure in the shape of efficient taxation. The guilds were identified with organizations enjoying certain privileges ( letters patent ), usually issued by the king or state and overseen by local town business authorities (some kind of chamber of commerce ). These were the predecessors of the modern patent and trademark system. The guilds also maintained funds in order to support infirm or elderly members, as well as widows and orphans of guild members, funeral benefits, and

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8494-514: 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. In the Early Middle Ages , most of the Roman craft organisations , originally formed as religious confraternities , had disappeared, with

8631-474: The case detailed in the protasis ("if" clause ) and the remedy given in the apodosis ("then" clause). The protasis begins šumma , "if", except when it adds to circumstances already specified in a previous law (e.g. laws 36, 38, and 40). The preterite is used for simple past verbs in the protasis, or possibly for a simple conditional. The perfect often appears at the end of the protasis after one or more preterites to convey sequence of action, or possibly

8768-539: The city council or cabildo . A number of them were connected to the crown mint in the capital. They diversified the assets locally, investing in urban real estate. In the 18th century, as New Spain 's economy boomed, consulados were established in the port of Veracruz and in Guadalajara , indicating increased trade and the expansion of the merchant elite. The consulado in late colonial Mexico had approximately 200 members, who divided themselves into two factions,

8905-466: The decline thesis has been reaffirmed in the German context by Wiesner and Ogilvie, but that it does not work in looking at the matter from a larger scope, as her expertise is in French history. There were exclusively female guilds that came out of the woodwork in the 17th century, primarily Paris , Rouen , and Cologne . In 1675, Parisian seamstresses requested the guild as their trade was organized and profitable enough to support incorporation. Some of

9042-405: The development of Assyriological science since the days of Rawlinson and Layard ". Charles Francis Horne commended the "wise law-giver" and his "celebrated code". James Henry Breasted noted the Code's "justice to the widow, the orphan, and the poor", but remarked that it "also allows many of the old and naïve ideas of justice to stand". Commentators praised the advanced society they believed

9179-488: The economic marginalization of women in the 17th c., and has highlighted that domestic life did not organize women's economic activities. The research has documented women's extensive participation in market relations, craft production, and paid labor in the early modern period. Clare Crowston posits that women gained more control of their own work. In the 16th and 17th centuries, rather than losing control, female linen drapers and hemp merchants established independent guilds. In

9316-518: The eighteenth century no German guild accepted a Wend." In the Russian Empire , from the reform of Peter the Great (beginning of the 17th century ) until 1917 , these were corporations of wealthy merchants, with their own rights. They therefore constituted an Order which was divided, according to property, into three classes: merchant of the first Guild, of the second Guild, and of the third Guild and

9453-407: The entire economy but because they benefited the owners, who used political power to protect them. Ogilvie (2011) says they regulated trade for their own benefit, were monopolies, distorted markets, fixed prices, and restricted entrance into the guild. Ogilvie (2008) argues that their long apprenticeships were unnecessary to acquire skills, and their conservatism reduced the rate of innovation and made

9590-496: The family business if widowed. The Livre des métiers de Paris (Book of Trades of Paris) was compiled by Étienne Boileau , the Grand Provost of Paris under King Louis IX . It documents that 5 out of 110 Parisian guilds were female monopolies, and that only a few guilds systematically excluded women. Boileau notes that some professions were also open to women: surgeons, glass-blowers, chain-mail forgers. Entertainment guilds also had

9727-458: The gods on any man who disobeys or erases his pronouncements (3360'–3641', the end of the text). The epilogue contains much legal imagery, and the phrase "to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak" (3202'–3203': dannum enšam ana lā ḫabālim ) is reused from the prologue. However, the king's main concern appears to be ensuring that his achievements are not forgotten and his name not sullied. The list of curses heaped upon any future defacer

9864-675: The governing body of a town. For example, London's Guildhall became the seat of the Court of Common Council of the City of London Corporation, the world's oldest continuously elected local government, whose members to this day must be Freemen of the city. The Freedom of the City , effective from the Middle Ages until 1835, gave the right to trade, and was only bestowed upon members of a Guild or Livery. Early egalitarian communities called "guilds" were denounced by Catholic clergy for their "conjurations" —

10001-603: The government and the citizenry of both Spain and the Indies colonies, and grew richer and more powerful every day because of it. Guild Typically the key "privilege" was that only guild members were allowed to sell their goods or practice their skill within the city. There might be controls on minimum or maximum prices, hours of trading, numbers of apprentices, and many other things. Critics argued that these rules reduced free competition , but defenders maintained that they protected professional standards. An important result of

10138-509: The greater guilds and the lesser artisanal guilds, which depended on piecework . "In Florence, they were openly distinguished: the Arti maggiori and the Arti minori —already there was a popolo grasso and a popolo magro ". Fiercer struggles were those between essentially conservative guilds and the merchant class, which increasingly came to control the means of production and the capital that could be ventured in expansive schemes, often under

10275-472: The greater guilds was that for judges and notaries, who handled the legal business of all the other guilds and often served as an arbitrator of disputes. Other greater guilds include the wool, silk, and the money changers' guilds. They prided themselves on a reputation for very high-quality work, which was rewarded with premium prices. The guilds fined members who deviated from standards. Other greater guilds included those of doctors, druggists, and furriers. Among

10412-671: The guild framework was the emergence of universities at Bologna (established in 1088), Oxford (at least since 1096) and Paris ( c.  1150 ); they originated as guilds of students (as at Bologna) or of masters (as at Paris). Naram-Sin of Akkad ( c.  2254 –2218 BC), grandson of Sargon of Akkad who had unified Sumeria and Assyria into the Akkadian Empire , promulgated common Mesopotamian standards for length, area, volume, weight, time, and shekels , which were used by artisan guilds in each city. Code of Hammurabi Law 234 ( c.  1755–1750 BC ) stipulated

10549-505: The guild itself there was very little division of labour, which tended to operate rather between the guilds. Thus, according to Étienne Boileau 's Book of Handicrafts, by the mid-13th century there were no less than 100 guilds in Paris , a figure which by the 14th century had risen to 350." There were different guilds of metal-workers: the farriers, knife-makers, locksmiths, chain-forgers, nail-makers, often formed separate and distinct corporations;

10686-622: The guild meetings and thus had a means of controlling the handicraft activities. This was important since towns very often depended on a good reputation for export of a narrow range of products, on which not only the guild's, but the town's, reputation depended. Controls on the association of physical locations to well-known exported products, e.g. wine from the Champagne and Bordeaux regions of France , tin-glazed earthenwares from certain cities in Holland , lace from Chantilly , etc., helped to establish

10823-586: The guilds in Cologne had been made up almost entirely of women since the medieval period. Early modern Rouen was an important center of guildswomen's activity. By 1775, there were about 700 female masters, accounting for 10% of all guild masters in the city. A survey that circulated in the late 18th century listed that the Rouen ribbonmakers had 149 masters, mistresses, and widows, indicating its mixed gendered composition. A tax roll of 1775 indicated that their total membership

10960-662: The guilds in France. In 1803 the Napoleonic Code banned any coalition of workmen whatsoever. Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations (Book I, Chapter X, paragraph 72): It is to prevent this reduction of price, and consequently of wages and profit, by restraining that free competition which would most certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation laws, have been established. (...) and when any particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as

11097-451: The guilds of dyers, cotton-weavers, and guilds in the leather industry. They did enjoy full rights in some wood-working guilds, the guilds of coopers and turners. Women also seemed to have extensively engaged in the fish trade, both within and outside of the guild. The butcher and cattle-trade guilds also listed women among their ranks. In practically all of these guilds, a widow was allowed to continue her husband's business. If she remarried to

11234-439: The guilds' concerns. These are defining characteristics of mercantilism in economics, which dominated most European thinking about political economy until the rise of classical economics . The guild system survived the emergence of early capitalists , which began to divide guild members into "haves" and dependent "have-nots". The civil struggles that characterize the 14th-century towns and cities were struggles in part between

11371-780: The history of law and the document as a true legal code. The U.S. Capitol has a relief portrait of Hammurabi alongside those of other historic lawgivers. There are replicas of the stele in numerous institutions, including the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin . Hammurabi (or Hammurapi), the sixth king of the Amorite First Dynasty of Babylon , ruled from 1792 to 1750 BC ( middle chronology ). He secured Babylonian dominance over

11508-483: The king is offering the laws to the god; that the king is accepting or offering the emblems of sovereignty of the rod and ring; or—most probably—that these emblems are the measuring tools of the rod-measure and rope-measure used in temple-building". Hammurabi may even be imitating Shamash. It is certain, though, that the draughtsman showed Hammurabi's close links to the divine realm, using composition and iconography. The prologue and epilogue together occupy one-fifth of

11645-516: The late 17th century and onward, there was evidence of growing economic opportunities for women. Seamstresses in Paris and Rouen and flower sellers in Paris acquired their own guilds in 1675. In Dijon , the number of female artisans recorded in tax rolls rose substantially between the years of 1643 and 1750. In 18th c. Nantes , there was a significant growth in women's access to guilds, with no restrictions on their rights. Historian Merry Wiesner attributed

11782-562: The law ; not just age and profession but also class and gender dictated the punishment or remedy they received. Three main kinds of person, awīlum , muškēnum , and wardum (male)/ amtum (female), are mentioned throughout the Code. A wardum / amtum was a male/female slave. As for awīlum and muškēnum , though contentious, it seems likely that the difference was one of social class, with awīlum meaning something like "gentleman" and muškēnum something like "commoner". The penalties were not necessarily stricter for

11919-409: The lesser guilds, were those for bakers, saddle makers, ironworkers and other artisans. They had a sizable membership, but lacked the political and social standing necessary to influence city affairs. The guild was made up by experienced and confirmed experts in their field of handicraft. They were called master craftsmen . Before a new employee could rise to the level of mastery, he had to go through

12056-513: The list format and the order of the items, which Ann Guinan describes as a complex "serial logic". Marc Van De Mieroop explains that, in common with other works of Mesopotamian scholarship such as omen lists, king lists, and god lists, the entries of the Code of Hammurabi are arranged according to two principles. These are "opposition"—whereby a variable in one entry is altered to make another entry—and "pointillism"—whereby new conditions are added to an entry, or paradigmatic series pursued, to generate

12193-439: The mid-20th century. Theories fall into three main categories: that it is legislation , whether a code of law or a body of statutes ; that it is a sort of law report , containing records of past cases and judgments; and that it is an abstract work of jurisprudence . The jurisprudence theory has gained much support within Assyriology. The term "code" presupposes that the document was intended to be enforced as legislation. It

12330-457: The mid-3rd millennium BC, whose reforms combatted corruption. Mesopotamia has the most comprehensive surviving legal corpus from before the Digest of Justinian , even compared to those from ancient Greece and Rome . The first copy of the text found, and still the most complete, is on a 2.25 m (7 ft 4 + 1 ⁄ 2  in) stele . The stele is now displayed on the ground floor of

12467-424: The middle English word journei . Journeymen were able to work for other masters, unlike apprentices, and generally paid by the day and were thus day labourers. After being employed by a master for several years, and after producing a qualifying piece of work, the apprentice was granted the rank of journeyman and was given documents (letters or certificates from his master and/or the guild itself) which certified him as

12604-490: The most outspoken critics of the guild system were Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith , and all over Europe a tendency to oppose government control over trades in favour of laissez-faire free market systems grew rapidly and made its way into the political and legal systems. Many people who participated in the French Revolution saw guilds as a last remnant of feudalism . The d'Allarde Law of 2 March 1791 suppressed

12741-676: The other hand, Ogilvie agrees, guilds created "social capital" of shared norms, common information, mutual sanctions, and collective political action. This social capital benefited guild members, even as it arguably hurt outsiders. The guild system became a target of much criticism towards the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Critics argued that they hindered free trade and technological innovation , technology transfer and business development . According to several accounts of this time, guilds became increasingly involved in simple territorial struggles against each other and against free practitioners of their arts. Two of

12878-493: The other hand, most trade and craft guilds were male-dominated and frequently limited women's rights if they were members, or did not allow membership at all. The most common way women obtained guild membership was through marriage. Usually only the widows and daughters of known masters were allowed in. Even if a woman entered a guild, she was excluded from guild offices. While this was the overarching practice, there were guilds and professions that did allow women's participation, and

13015-549: The passage of the Lex Julia in 45 BC, and its reaffirmation during the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 BC–14 AD), collegia required the approval of the Roman Senate or the emperor in order to be authorized as legal bodies . Ruins at Lambaesis date the formation of burial societies among Roman soldiers and mariners to the reign of Septimius Severus (193–211) in 198 AD. In September 2011, archeological investigations done at

13152-467: The people (292–302), although the prologue never directly references the laws. The prologue ends "at that time:" (303: inūmišu ) and the laws begin. Unlike the prologue, the 500-line epilogue is explicitly related to the laws. The epilogue begins (3144'–3151'): "these are the just decisions which Hammurabi   ... has established" ( dīnāt mīšarim ša ḫammurabi... ukinnu-ma ). He exalts his laws and his magnanimity (3152'–3239'). He then expresses

13289-435: The period is that things change during the early modern period, specifically the 17th century, and become more stifling for women in guilds. She also posits that domestic life drove women out of guild participation. Many historians have done research into the dwindling women's participation in guilds. Studies have provided a contradictory picture. Recent historical research is usually posed in rebuttal to Alice Clark's study on

13426-608: The prescriptions themselves bear "an astonishing absence   ... of all theological or even ceremonial law". The laws are written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian. Their style is regular and repetitive, and today they are a standard set text for introductory Akkadian classes. However, as A. Leo Oppenheim summarises, the cuneiform signs themselves are "vertically arranged   ... within boxes placed in bands side by side from right to left", an arrangement already antiquated by Hammurabi's time. The laws are expressed in casuistic format: they are conditional sentences with

13563-467: The principle of pointillism, circumstances are added to the first entry to create more entries. Pointillism also lets list entries be generated by following paradigmatic series common to multiple branches of scholarship. It can thus explain the implausible entries. For example, in the case of the goat used for threshing (law 270), the previous laws concern other animals that were used for threshing. The established series of domesticated beasts dictated that

13700-408: The quality of the wig, making it too thin to style. Guild officers pointed out that if the consumer discovers the bad quality, the guild would be blamed, and the consumer would search elsewhere to purchase goods. Women's participation within medieval guilds was complex and varied. On one hand, guild membership allowed women to participate in the economy that provided social privilege and community. On

13837-641: The relief portion of the stele, especially the beards of Hammurabi and Shamash, was reworked at the same time. Roth suggests the stele was taken as plunder from Sippar, where Hammurabi lived towards the end of his reign. Fragments of a second and possibly third stele recording the Code were found along with the Louvre stele at Susa. Over fifty manuscripts containing the laws are known. They were found not only in Susa but also in Babylon, Nineveh , Assur , Borsippa , Nippur , Sippar , Ur, Larsa, and more. Copies were created during Hammurabi's reign, and also after it, since

13974-504: The responsibilities of some trades toward the public. Modern antitrust law could be said to derive in some ways from the original statutes by which the guilds were abolished in Europe. The economic consequences of guilds have led to heated debates among economic historians. On the one side, scholars say that since merchant guilds persisted over long periods they must have been efficient institutions (since inefficient institutions die out). Others say they persisted not because they benefited

14111-465: The rules of guilds of their own. German social historians trace the Zunftrevolution , the urban revolution of guildmembers against a controlling urban patriciate, sometimes reading into them, however, perceived foretastes of the class struggles of the 19th century. In the countryside, where guild rules did not operate, there was freedom for the entrepreneur with capital to organize cottage industry ,

14248-542: The silver this trade generated. A consulado was founded in Mexico City in 1594, controlled by peninsular wholesale merchants who dealt in long-distance trade and often married into local elite families with commercial ties. Their assets had to amount to at least 28,000 pesos. Although they were not supposed to deal in local retail trade, they often did some indirectly. They mainly lived in Mexico City and had positions on

14385-527: The site of an artificial harbor in Rome, the Portus , revealed inscriptions in a shipyard constructed during the reign of Trajan (98–117) indicating the existence of a shipbuilders guild. Collegia also included fraternities of priests overseeing sacrifices , practicing augury , keeping religious texts, arranging festivals , and maintaining specific religious cults . There were several types of guilds, including

14522-400: The society poorer. She says their main goal was rent seeking , that is, to shift money to the membership at the expense of the entire economy. Epstein and Prak's book (2008) rejects Ogilvie's conclusions. Specifically, Epstein argues that guilds were cost-sharing rather than rent-seeking institutions. They located and matched masters and likely apprentices through monitored learning. Whereas

14659-460: The squabbles over jurisdiction that produced the paperwork by which economic historians trace their development: The metalworking guilds of Nuremberg were divided among dozens of independent trades in the boom economy of the 13th century, and there were 101 trades in Paris by 1260. In Ghent , as in Florence , the woolen textile industry developed as a congeries of specialized guilds. The appearance of

14796-487: The standardized methods controlled by corporations . Interest in the medieval guild system was revived during the late 19th century, among far-right circles. Fascism in Italy (among other countries) implemented corporatism , operating at the national rather than city level, to try to imitate the corporatism of the Middle Ages. Guilds are sometimes said to be the precursors of modern cartels . Guilds, however, can also be seen as

14933-424: The stele features an image in relief of Hammurabi with Shamash , the Babylonian sun god and god of justice. Below the relief are about 4,130 lines of cuneiform text: one fifth contains a prologue and epilogue in poetic style, while the remaining four fifths contain what are generally called the laws. In the prologue, Hammurabi claims to have been granted his rule by the gods "to prevent the strong from oppressing

15070-453: The stele's fragments were found on the tell of the Susa acropolis ( l'Acropole de Suse ), between December 1901 and January 1902. The few, large fragments made assembly easy. Scheil hypothesised that the stele had been taken to Susa by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nakhunte and that he had commissioned the erasure of several columns of laws to write his legend there. It has been proposed that

15207-460: The stele's importance and perceived fairness, calling it "a moral and political masterpiece". C. H. W. Johns called it "one of the most important monuments in the history of the human race". He remarked that "there are many humanitarian clauses and much protection is given the weak and the helpless", and even lauded a "wonderful modernity of spirit". John Dyneley Prince called the Code's rediscovery "the most important event which has taken place in

15344-584: The strong from oppressing the weak" (37–39: dannum enšam ana lā ḫabālim ). He was to rise like Shamash over the Mesopotamians (the ṣalmāt qaqqadim , literally the "black-headed people") and illuminate the land (40–44). Hammurabi then lists his achievements and virtues (50–291). These are expressed in noun form, in the Akkadian first person singular nominal sentence construction "[noun]   ... anāku " ("I am [noun]"). The first nominal sentence (50–53)

15481-465: The task (law 270). The laws are also strictly casuistic ("if   ... then"); unlike in the Mosaic Law, there are no apodictic laws (general commands). These would more obviously suggest prescriptive legislation. The strongest argument against the legislation theory, however, is that most judges appear to have paid the Code no attention. This line of criticism originated with Benno Landsberger in 1950. No Mesopotamian legal document explicitly references

15618-400: The text became a part of the scribal curriculum. Copies have been found dating from one thousand years after the stele's creation, and a catalogue from the library of Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (685–631 BC) lists a copy of the "judgments of Hammurabi". The additional copies fill in most of the stele's original text, including much of the erased section. The editio princeps of

15755-455: The text is inscribed on a basalt stele 2.25 m (7 ft 4 + 1 ⁄ 2  in) tall. The stele was rediscovered in 1901 at the site of Susa in present-day Iran, where it had been taken as plunder six hundred years after its creation. The text itself was copied and studied by Mesopotamian scribes for over a millennium. The stele now resides in the Louvre Museum . The top of

15892-444: The text. Out of around 4,130 lines, the prologue occupies 300 lines and the epilogue occupies 500. They are in ring composition around the laws, though there is no visual break distinguishing them from the laws. Both are written in poetic style, and, as William W. Davies wrote, "contain much   ... which sounds very like braggadocio". The 300-line prologue begins with an etiology of Hammurabi's royal authority (1–49). Anum ,

16029-758: The two main categories of merchant guilds and craft guilds but also the frith guild and religious guild. Guilds arose beginning in the High Middle Ages as craftsmen united to protect their common interests. In the German city of Augsburg craft guilds are mentioned in the Towncharter of 1156. The continental system of guilds and merchants arrived in England after the Norman Conquest , with incorporated societies of merchants in each town or city holding exclusive rights of doing business there. In many cases they became

16166-426: The weak". The laws are casuistic , expressed as "if   ... then" conditional sentences . Their scope is broad, including, for example, criminal law , family law , property law , and commercial law . Modern scholars responded to the Code with admiration at its perceived fairness and respect for the rule of law , and at the complexity of Old Babylonian society. There was also much discussion of its influence on

16303-578: Was a required regulation of the yarn-spinners guild. The guildswomen of the gold-spinners guild were often wives of guildsmen of the gold-smiths. This type of unity between husband and wife was seen in women's guild participation through the medieval and early modern periods; in order to avoid unpleasant litigation or legal situations, the trades of husband and wife often were the same or complementary. Women were not restricted to solely textile guilds in medieval Cologne, and neither did they have total freedom in all textile guilds. They had limited participation in

16440-496: Was about 160, with 58 men, 17 widows, 55 wives, and 30 unmarried women. Code of Hammurabi#Laws The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East . It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian , purportedly by Hammurabi , sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon . The primary copy of

16577-410: Was concerned with the welfare of his many subjects and was interested in law and justice. He commissioned extensive construction works, and in his letters, he frequently presents himself as his people's shepherd. Justice is also a theme of the prologue to the Code, and "the word translated 'justice' [ ešērum ]... is one whose root runs through both prologue and epilogue". Although Hammurabi's Code

16714-510: Was derived from šukênum , "to bow down/supplicate". As a word for a man of low social standing, it has endured, possibly from a Sumerian root, into Arabic ( miskīn ), Italian ( meschino ), Spanish ( mezquino ), and French ( mesquin ). However, some earlier translators, also seeking to explain the muškēnum 's special treatment, translated it as "leper" and even "noble". Some translators have supplied stilted readings for awīlum , such as "seignior", "elite man", and "member of

16851-513: Was found at the site of the ancient Elamite city of Susa . Susa is in modern-day Khuzestan Province , Iran (Persia at the time of excavation). The stele was excavated by the French Archaeological Mission under the direction of Jacques de Morgan . Father Jean-Vincent Scheil published the initial report in the fourth volume of the Reports of the Delegation to Persia ( Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse ). According to Scheil,

16988-410: Was found in three large fragments and reconstructed. It is 225 cm (7 ft 4 + 1 ⁄ 2  in) high, with a circumference is 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) at the summit and 190 cm (6 ft 3 in) at the base. Hammurabi's image is 65 cm (2 ft 1 + 1 ⁄ 2  in) high and 60 cm (1 ft 11 + 1 ⁄ 2  in) wide. The Louvre stele

17125-530: Was mandated to go through the city of Seville, and later, the nearby port of Cádiz . The Casa de Contratación , ("House of Trade"), registered ships and passengers bound for Spain's overseas territories, kept sea charts, collected taxes, and in general controlled the Indies trade. In order to survive and maintain an effective business, the Casa de Contratación worked in conjunction with the merchant guild (Consulado) , which in turn controlled goods shipped to America and

17262-558: Was often retained by the guild. The medieval guild was established by charters or letters patent or similar authority by the city or the ruler and normally held a monopoly on trade in its craft within the city in which it operated: handicraft workers were forbidden by law to run any business if they were not members of a guild, and only masters were allowed to be members of a guild. Before these privileges were legislated, these groups of handicraft workers were simply called 'handicraft associations'. The town authorities might be represented in

17399-481: Was paid vast amounts of silver in return for its cooperation. Since it controlled most of the trade in the Spanish colonies, and since the Consulado was linked to the branches in Mexico City and Lima (and in the 18th century, other ports as well), it was able to maintain its monopoly of Spanish trade and keep prices high in all the colonies, and even played a hand in royal politics. The Consulado effectively manipulated

17536-513: Was probably widespread. Earlier law collections express their god-given legitimacy similarly. Like the Code of Hammurabi, they feature prologues and epilogues: the Code of Ur-Nammu has a prologue, the Code of Lipit-Ishtar a prologue and an epilogue, and the Laws of Eshnunna an epilogue. Also, like the Code of Hammurabi, they uphold the "one crime, one punishment" principle. The cases covered and language used are, overall, strikingly similar. Scribes were still copying earlier law collections, such as

17673-508: Was similar in spirit and character to the original patent systems that surfaced in England in 1624. These systems played a role in ending the guilds' dominance, as trade secret methods were superseded by modern firms directly revealing their techniques, and counting on the state to enforce their legal monopoly . Some guild traditions still remain in a few handicrafts, in Europe especially among shoemakers and barbers . These are, however, not very important economically except as reminders of

17810-478: Was supported by some religious and secular authorities at the time. It is believed that the Inquisition and witch hunts throughout the ages contributed to the lack of women in medical guilds. In medieval Cologne there were three guilds that were composed almost entirely of women, the yarn-spinners, gold-spinners, and silk-weavers. Men could join these guilds, but were almost exclusively married to guildswomen. This

17947-453: Was the 18th and 19th centuries that saw the beginning of the low regard in which some people hold the guilds to this day. In part due to their own inability to control unruly corporate behavior, the tide of public opinion turned against the guilds. Because of industrialization and modernization of the trade and industry, and the rise of powerful nation-states that could directly issue patent and copyright protections — often revealing

18084-478: Was the first Mesopotamian law collection to be discovered, it was not the first written; several earlier collections survive. These collections were written in Sumerian and Akkadian . They also purport to have been written by rulers. There were almost certainly more such collections, as statements of other rulers suggest the custom was widespread. The similarities between these law collections make it tempting to assume

18221-463: Was thought to be the earliest Mesopotamian law collection when it was rediscovered in 1902—for example, C. H. W. Johns' 1903 book was titled The Oldest Code of Laws in the World . The English writer H. G. Wells included Hammurabi in the first volume of The Outline of History , and to Wells too the Code was "the earliest known code of law". However, three earlier collections were rediscovered afterwards:

18358-487: Was to create a standard of work that the consumer could rely on. They were heavily concerned with public perception. In October 1712, the Lyon Wigmaker Guild petitioned the local police magistrates. According to this petition, guildmasters required guild officers to step up policing of statutes forbidding the use of bleached hair or wild goat and lamb hair. The real concern that they had was that bleaching hair destroyed

18495-467: Was transmissible hereditarily. Ogilvie (2004) argues that guilds negatively affected quality, skills, and innovation. Through what economists now call " rent-seeking " they imposed deadweight losses on the economy. Ogilvie argues they generated limited positive externalities and notes that industry began to flourish only after the guilds faded away. Guilds persisted over the centuries because they redistributed resources to politically powerful merchants. On

18632-497: Was true, suggesting that a wronged man have the stele read aloud to him (lines 3240'–3254') is a concrete measure in this direction, given the inaccessibility of scribal education in the Old Babylonian period. The prologue asserts that Hammurabi was chosen by the gods. Raymond Westbrook observed that in ancient Near Eastern law, "the king was the primary source of legislation". However, they could delegate their god-given legal authority to judges. However, as Owen B. Jenkins observed,

18769-481: Was used by Scheil in his editio princeps , and widely adopted afterwards. C. H. W. Johns, one of the most prolific early commentators on the document, proclaimed that "the Code well deserves its name". Recent Assyriologists have used the term without comment, as well as scholars outside Assyriology. However, only if the text was intended as enforced legislation can it truly be called a code of law and its provisions laws. The document, on first inspection, resembles

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