Apprenticeships with and without Guilds: The Northern Netherlands

Abstract

The majority of apprenticeships in the Dutch Republic took place under the oversight of guilds and their regulations. Private contracts existed but were exceptional and usually covered the room and board issues not included in the guild rules. As in many other places there was a trade-off between the size of premiums and the length of the apprenticeship. The duration of apprenticeships varied substantially, both between and within crafts. Many Dutch apprentices failed to complete their apprenticeship and were therefore unable to progress to the mastership. Whether they saw this as ‘failure’ is difficult to say. The abolition of Dutch guilds under the influence of the French Revolution created more opportunities to enter the crafts, but also led to more complaints about skill levels in the nineteenth century. Vocational schools gradually replaced apprenticeship training from the end of the nineteenth century, structurally shifting a large share of skill formation from the workshop to school benches.