S.D. Goitein
This study is based mainly on the documents of the so-called Cairo Geniza, which is, as we have seen, a huge treasure of contracts, court records, letters and accounts, from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries, originally preserved in a synagogue of Fusṭāṭ, or Old Cairo.1 Most of the persons mentioned in these documents were Jews. Therefore the general title given to this essay requires some explanation. As we shall presently see, there was no professional ghetto in those times and places, just as there was no physical ghetto, no forced concentration of Christians or Jews in separate quarters. To be sure, each socio-religious group favored certain occupations to a degree, as is the case even today, e.g. amongst certain minorities in the United States. However, there were no watertight compartments in this respect. Consequently, with some reservations to be made presently, the Geniza documents, as far as they deal with the artisans, are indicative of their period and region rather than of anything specifically Jewish.
Similarly, since these documents were found in Egypt, one might assume that they solely reflect conditions prevailing in that country. However, here again it would be methodologically wrong to regard our sources as referring exclusively to the country in which they were discovered. The mobility of people in those days was astounding. We find in the Geniza records craftsmen from Spain, Morocco, Byzantium, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and even from Tiflis, today Tbilisi, Georgia. As we shall see, the internationality of the arts and crafts is also proven by many other indications. Only where wc are able to show positively that a certain branch of industry was typically Egyptian are we allowed to evaluate a Geniza document as a testimony to specific local conditions.
The Arabic handbooks on market supervision, our most important Muslim source on the working people of the period under discussion, as well as other literary sources bearing on the subject naturally have also been used for this study—but only as a corrective and check on the Geniza material presented in the following pages. At this early stage of research into the social history of Islam, the safest approach seems to be that each scholar working in the field should try to give as exhaustive an account as possible of the sources to which he has access, leaving the attempt of a wider synthesis, based on a series of similar studies, to a later period.
The technical aspects of medieval industry in the Mediterranean basin will not be treated here, since they have been discussed in detail in a recent publication of the present writer.1 There are, however, some technical factors which require special consideration, since they were of greatest significance for the social life of the working people.
Most impressive in this respect is the high degree of specialization and division of labor apparent in the Geniza records. Thus far, about two hundred and sixty five different arts and crafts have been encountered in them.2 This number must be regarded as very high, since the craftsmen, unlike the merchants, had little need for business correspondence and even less opportunity for making contracts in writing or for appearing in courts. Still, it can easily be proven that the total of two hundred and sixty five manual occupations counted thus far in the Geniza papers, impressive as it is, constitutes only a fraction of those actually in existence. Out of the twenty four crafts which gave names to bazaars in Maqrīzī's description of Cairo, eleven have not been found as yet in the Geniza, although there is no doubt that they were in existence at that time.3 In his study of the "corporations" of artisans in Damascus during the twelfth century, Nikita Elisséeff enumerates fifty one localities, each named after a special branch of industry. Of these, fifteen are not repre-sented in the records forming the basis of the present study. A similar discrepancy is to be observed with regard to the handbooks of market supervision contemporary with the Geniza records.1
The idea behind this far-reaching division of labor seems to have been that each finished product required a specialist to manufacture it. Shoemaking appears to us as a fairly specialized craft. In the Geniza records we find that, it was subdivided among a number of expert craftsmen. One document mentions three types of shoemakers together, and there were at least two others, corresponding to the various kinds of footwear in vogue at that time. In addition, there were many types of leatherworkers, besides the saddlers, e.g. the manufacturers of leather bottles, who had a bazaar of their own in Old Cairo. Naturally, in the absence of synthetic fabrics, bottles and bags of all descriptions made of leather were in those days of far greater importance than they are at present. Similarly, each household possessed at least one pleasantly decorated hide, which used to be spread beneath the low movable table on which one dined. The preparation of hides for this particular purpose was a craft in itself.
In an area in which timber was scarce and where very little wooden furniture was used, the carpenters' profession seems to have had a rather limited scope. Still, in the period under discussion, it comprised at least five different crafts: the carpenters proper, who mostly did the woodwork in buildings, the sawyers, who appear in building accounts regularly before the carpenters (the timber was sawn to the dimensions required on the site of the building), the chestmakers and turners—both had bazaars called after them in Old Cairo, and the makers of wooden door locks, who were of particular importance, since "the safety of property and the guarding of women" depended upon them.
A dyer would confine himself to a certain material and certain coloring stuffs, such as dyeing wool with various shades of purple or coloring silk with turquoise blue or crimson. There were specialists for knives, ladles and spoons, tongs, hooks (such as those used in a butcher's shop), razors, needles and the like. Each of these professions was called by a specific name. Additional details in the sources make it possible to ascertain that the persons concerned were indeed craftsmen and not merely traders in the articles referred to.1
As may be expected, many specialities are found in the Geniza records which have no counterpart in our economy today. Sawdust was used, instead of sand, to dry the ink on a freshly written page and has been actually found between the leaves of medieval Arabic manuscripts. Therefore, when we encounter the family name "Sawduster", we are justified in assuming that a man could make a livelihood by collecting, handling and selling this material. In many a marriage contract the little stick with which the kohl, or collyrium ("eye make-up") was applied to the eyes, appears as a separate item of the bride's trousseau, because it was often made of a precious material, such as crystal, gold or silver. Consequently, it is not surprising that the manufacture of kohl sticks formed a profession in itself. Examples of similar cases could easily be cited.
This far-reaching specialization must have affected the life of the craftsmen concerned in many ways. In some occupations, it reduced the skill and technical knowledge required to a minimum, comparable to that of a modern factory laborer working on an assembly line. In others, it gave opportunity for reaching highest perfection. We still admire the exquisite workmanship displayed in pieces of metalwork and pottery, textiles and woodwork which have survived from those days. In view of the great discrepancy in both the value of the material and the refinement of technique involved in the various occupations, the craftsmen of this period can, by no means, be regarded as forming a unified social class. We shall come to similar conclusions when scrutinizing the economic aspects of those professions.
Reference has been made, previously, to the topographical concentration of various professions. The Geniza records contain a considerable number of such details. They mention, e.g. a Lane of the Leatherbottle-makers, a Lane of the "Almonders" (makers of sweet meats containing almonds), a street of the Turners, also a Gate of the Turners (a gate of the ancient Byzantine fortress of Old Cairo which was called after that street) a Bazaar of the Woolworkers, and a Square of the Perfumers. Mostly, however, concentrations of craftsmen would be referred to without describing them as lanes, streets, bazaars etc. Thus one would say "we met on the Coppersmiths", "I was staying in The Lentilcooks", "This street leads to the Chestmakers and the Sellers of Sesban" (a local herb still commonly used), "on the corner of the Furriers and the Little Bazaar of the Tanners" (this detail refers to Aleppo, Syria), and the like.
Such references are found mainly in legal deeds describing houses which changed their proprietors by sale, gift or inheritance. Not infrequently it is possible to coordinate the data given in a document with those provided by literary sources. Still it is doubtful whether all this material together could enable us to sketch the economic geography of Old Cairo, at least as it had developed by the twelfth century. For it seems that at that time no coercion was exercised with regard to the location of a craft. According to a deed of partnership, dated 1125, glass was manufactured in a store which was situated in the bazaar of the coppersmiths and which had formerly served as a shop for the sale of copper vessels. Linseed oil, olives and lemon juice were sold in a store at the Gate of the Turners as shown by another contract of partnership, dated 1104. Authorized money assayers had their seat in the street of the alchemists according to two depositions made in court, one in December 1081 and the other approximately at the same time. A physician had his office in a shop "at the end of the Waxmakers" (1143), and a textile merchant kept a store in the street of the qushāshiyyin, sellers of vaiious kinds of straw (1148).
In a contract dated October 1194, a pious foundation leases a ground floor of one of its houses on condition that the tenant should not manufacture there rosewater, or litharge (an oxide of lead, frequently mentioned in the Geniza), or arsenic, or any other product requiring the use of fire. Thus it was assumed that the same premises could be used for such widely differing occupations as the processing of lead or arscnic and the making of perfumes. In a query submitted to Abraham Maimonides, the Nagid, or Head of the Jewish community of Egypt, the complainant asserts that his neighbor had converted a house in a residential area into a dyeing workshop and that the smoke from the latter's fireplace spoiled all wool and linen spread out by him (around 1220). Had fixed police rules existed with regard to the location of the different crafts, the Nagid would not have decided the question according to Jewish law. Similarly, when we find a twelfth century Spanish handbook of market police strongly emphasizing that each craft should be concentrated in a separate place assigned to it, we may safely assume that the reality was palpably different.1
The topographical concentration of the crafts goes back to remote antiquity, and had, then as later, technical as well as administrative purposes: it facilitated for the authorities the task of supervising the workmen concerned.2 It is, however, characteristic of the free economy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries that government control in this, as in many other respects, was comparatively loose.
Liberty in the choice of one's profession was another aspect of that free economy just referred to. With a few insignificant exceptions, such as the prevention of the sale of wine or pork to Muslims, no restrictions were put on Christians and Jews with regard to their economic activities. The instructions to Muslims not to work for members of the minority religions in occupations of a servile character, found in the Spanish handbook mentioned above, prove only that such relationships were commonplace. The very fact that the Geniza makes mention of at least two hundred and sixty manual occupations pursued by Jews shows that not only Muslim law, but also the social structure of that period, in particular the absence of rigidly organized guilds (see below), was conducive to occupational freedom.3
On the other hand, the Geniza clearly shows that the different socio-religions groups had definite preferences for certain occupations. In other words, there were some branches of industry in which the Jews were seemingly dominant—or, to define the situation more cautiously: there were certain crafts and arts which were particularly popular within the Jewish community.
As for textiles, the most important branch of industry during the Middle Ages, the Jews specialized in all aspects of silk work, from the unravelling of the cocoons to weaving and dyeing. This was an extremely ramified and highly specialized industry and we find Jews engaged in it in all countries of the Mediterranean, including Christian Byzantium, Correspondingly, the silk trade, both in the raw material and In finished products, was one of the main objects of Jewish commercial activity. On the other hand, flax, although no less important than silk in both local and international Jewish trade, did not attract Jews very much, as far as the higher stages of its manufacture were concerned. Jews were occupied in the processing of flax, from its harvest to its readying for export; however, the weaving of linen, at least its more artistic aspects, seem to have been mainly the domain of the local Christians.
Dyeing, together with other processes of endowing a material with a specific appearance, such as iridescence, gloss, and glitter, was a veritable Jewish specialty, as may be concluded from literally hundreds of references in the Geniza, Muslim sources mention even professional secrets in this field, known to Jews alone. It tallies with this that, dyeing stuffs were high up on the list of commodities traded by Jews in the countries of both the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. Similarly, the preparation of drugs and the processing of medical herbs was to a considerable extent a Jewish profession and again both the local and the international commerce in these commodities loom very large in the Geniza papers.
Metalwork of all descriptions is represented in the Geniza, gold and silversmithery and work in the caliphal mint being by far the most important. Another Jewish specialty was the manufacture of glass and glass vessels.
How is this occupational group specialization to be explained? In general, one has of course to bear in mind that normally a son followed the profession of his father. The socio-religious group is to be regarded as composed of a number of extended families each specializing in a profession handed down from one generation to another. In addition, however, the particular circumstances under which each group took to certain occupations have to be studied, although many problems in this respect may elude: solution forever. Thus silk might have become popular with Jews, because it was already at home in Palestine, or because of the early contacts of the Jewish merchants with China. Glass also was an ancient Palestinian product. It seems, however, that the main reason for the specializations mentioned above is to be sought in the fact that the Jews, as a widely dispersed people, often consisting of newcomers in a country, were, from the socio-economic point of view, a weak group. As such, they had either to be satisfied with hard work, not very eagerly sought after by others, or had to move into areas of economic activity not yet occupied, or only partially occupied by the local populations. The manufacture of glass or of coins (melting metals!) or dyeing required continuous work over a fire, which could not have been very pleasant in a hot climate under the primitive working conditions of those days.1 The industry of silk could be taken up by Jews, because it was comparatively new and not monopolized by long standing traditions, such as the ancient industries of linen, wool and cotton. Finally, Jews were welcome as gold-and silversmiths, as well as workers in the royal mints, because it was more convenient to confide precious metals to them than to members of more powerful groups, who, in case of fraud or theft, were backed by their clans and their connections.2
Should we assume that the occupations in which a minority group was prominent were despised and avoided by the majority? The sources of our information do not justify such an assumption. In his painstaking Ph.D. thesis3 on the professions and the economic background of the religious scholars in Islam during the first four hundred and seventy years of its existence, Mr. Hayyim J. Cohen enumerates fifty five Muslim gold-and silversmiths and workers in the mint, twenty two manufacturers of glass and glass vessels and one hundred and thirty one silk workers and merchants. The perfumers with four hundred forty three representatives constitute, next to the drapers, the most numerous (semi-) manual profession both in the Muslim and in the Jewish middle class. Even dyeing is represented by twenty three scholars called by the name of that profession.
Islamic law knows of despicable professions, which disqualify their members from marrying a girl of a good family or even from being admitted as a witness in court. Most of these occupations, such as those of cupper, bathhouse attendant, cleaner of sewers and cesspools or street cleaner never appear in the Geniza, although they must have been mentioned in the many lists of the poor supported by the Jewish community, if it had comprised such persons. Of the weavers, who also belong to this category (as mentioned already in the Talmud), a Muslim legal source remarks that in Alexandria they were regarded as respectable people. This was certainly true in the Geniza times.1
One of the base professions, that of the tanner, is described in some Muslim sources as exercised mainly by Jews.2 This could not have been the case during the period represented in the Geniza. In all of the types of writing found in it—lists, accounts, legal documents, business or private correspondence—tanners are extremely rare and the same applies to the family name Tanner. Scores of Jewish merchants and scholars from Tunisia are known to us by name, but thus far, none with the family name Tanner has been found by me in the Geniza. However, a prominentMuslim author of that country (13th century) was called thus. Mr. Cohen's list (cf. page 262) enumerates eight early Muslim scholars bearing that name.
In later, more fanatical times, the minority groups were pushed or forced into the base professions. Thus we hear that in Muslim countries so widely distant from each other as Morocco, Yemen and Bukhara, Jews were compelled to serve as cleaners of cesspools. However, the period and area reflected in the Geiiiza records was one of remarkable socio-economic freedom and mobility. As we tried to show, the natural forces active wherever groups of different strength live side by side inevitably led to certain specializations, but these forces were not oppressive to the degree of economic discrimination sanctioned by the law or enforced by administrative measures.
The socio-economic freedom characteristic of the High Middle Ages in the Mediterranean region manifests itself also in the frequency and enormous range of the transfer of industries from one country to another. To be sure, this fascinating process goes back to pre-historic times and is revealed to us with great clarity by archaeological and historical evidence from the ancient Near East. Egyptian craftsmen found their way to Babylonia and to the land of the Hittites. The Assyrians transferred by force all the skilled laborers of a conquered city to their own country, and the Babylonians, as we remember from the Bible (2 Kings 24:14), followed their example.1 The Persians did the same in such a systematic way that some of the most important. Iranian industries of the Middle Ages owed their origin to the transplantation of colonies of Armenians, Greeks and others. The process reached gigantic dimensions in Islam, which first by enslavement and forced labor, and later—mainly in the period considered here—through free intercourse, mixed the peoples from the outskirts of China to the borders of France and molded them together into a world of constant exchange of products, men and techniques. This situation is well illustrated in the records of the Cairo Geniza.
There is no need to point to the continuous flow of goods between the Middle East and Europe during the eleventh and twelfth cen-turies.2 As to the mobility of craftsmen, it has already been said that in those days one could find in Egypt workmen coming from all countries between Spain in the West and Georgia and Iran in the East. The Geniza makes mention of silk dyers, goldsmiths, furriers, tailors, cobblers and copyists (of Hebrew books) from Rūm, i.e. Byzantium or the Christian countries in general; of Syro-Palestinian glassmakers, silkweavers and dyers coming to Egypt in such masses that their competition was felt by the local artisans; of a silversmith from Ceuta, Morocco, and of two other Maghribī silversmiths emigrating via Egypt and Aden to far away Ceylon; of a shoemaker and a manufacturer of zurunbāq (a Spanish material) from Spain; of a blacksmith from Bagdad; of a maker of silver spoons from Iran and a dyer from Tiflis. In a few cases it is stated that the persons concerned left their respective countries because of persecutions or other dire circumstances. In others, this may be concluded from the fact that they appear in the lists of receivers of alms. There can be however, little doubt that their presence cannot have been without influence on local workmanship, particularly in case of keen com-petition.1
In this connection it is highly significant that the names of goods which were derived from the localities of their original production became designations of the products themselves. Dabīqī, a linen named after an Egyptian town, was manufactured m Kāzirūn, a city in Persia. Formerly, a Muslim geographer tells us, Egyptian flax or linen was imported by sea to Shīnīz, the port of Kāzirūn, but in his time (last third of the tenth century), the fine fabric was manufactured from locally grown flax. Tavvaz, another Persian town near the coast and therefore originally exposed to the import oflinen from Egypt, also excelled in the production of linen material to such a degree that it gave the name to one variety used a long time after it had been actually manufactured in Kāzirūn.2 Now, the Geniza letters show us that, from the beginning of the eleventh century, there lived in Egypt Jews bearing family names derived from these three Persian towns, namely Kāzirūni, Shīnīzī and Tavvazī. Whether the ancestors of these families actually came to Egypt from Persia (which is probable), or sold or produced in Cairo the fabrics called after these towns, we do not yet know. It is quite possible that these names suggest the three alternatives together, i.e. that the families concerned emigrated from Persia to Egypt and were among those who introduced there the manufacture of the fabrics for which their home towns had been famous.
Another, and very prominent, Jewish family from Persia, the Tustaris, also bore a name referring to both a town and a material called after it. From the correspondence preserved it is evident that the original Tustaris dealt in choice textiles, but did not limit themselves to the variety whose name they bore. In one letter, they send, among many other materials, a Rāzī (i.e. a robe made in, or called after, Rayy, a city in northern Persia) from Cairo to Kairouan, then the capital of Tunisia.1 In three cases we find Tustari cloth imported to Egypt from the West, by persons bearing the name Andalusi (which, however, does not necessarily mean that it was produced in Spain. It could have been made in Sicily or Tunisia as well. A family called Andalusi appears as long established in eleventh century Kairouan).
It is characteristic that concerning a precious material, frequently mentioned in literary sources, the Sūsī, it is not evident from them whether the designation refers to Sūs (the ancient Susa) in southern Persia, or to Sūsa in Tunisia. However, in the Geniza letters from the eleventh century they undoubtedly refer to the latter. For we read in them repeatedly about merchants exporting Egyptian flax to Sūsa, Tunisia, and importing from there at the same time the fine linen made from it. Cairo itself had a Sūsī bazaar. Whether this material was not only sold there, but also manufactured, we do not know.2 However, a Geniza record, dated 1098, mentions sūsī rūsī, Sūsi linen produced in Russia, which was confided to a merchant setting out for India and eventually secured an exceptionally high price. Thus we see that a fabric, actually manufactured in its town of origin, at the same time was imitated in a country far away.3
The most common example of such a situation is to be found in the Tabari, i.e. upholstery originally made in Tabaristan on the southern shores of the Caspian sea, and imitated elsewhere. In a number of marriage contracts from the Geniza, the bride receives "a Tabaristan Tabari", i.e. a genuine one. In most of them, however, this qualification is omitted, and in one she gets instead a ṭabarī ramlī, i.e. a Tabari made in Ramie (name of a town in Palestine and also in Egypt). Cf. also above, p. 240.
We wish to conclude this survey of migrating industries with a case which becomes particularly illustrative through the coinciding testimonies of a Geniza record and a literary source. A Muslim geographer remarks that in Qal'at Hammad, then the capital of Algeria, "they made excellent felt, called Ṭālaqān" (after a town in northern Iran). In a Geniza letter a Ṭālaqān felt is exported from Tripoli, Libya, to Egypt, which means either that this originally Persian industry was imitated also in Tripoli, or that we have here a case of re-exportation. Both the literary and the documentary sources refer to the eleventh century.
A final indication of the freedom of movement and individualistic spirit of enterprise characteristic of the world of the Mediterranean craftsmen during the eleventh and twelfth centuries is the absence of rigidly organized professional corporations.
Of late, it has become fashionable to talk about Muslim guilds. While such organizations, connected with the mystical brotherhoods of Islam, are attested to for the late Middle Ages, it has yet to be shown that they were in existence during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. While reading the relevant article about the subject (Sinf) in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, one realizes that it does not provide a single real proof of their activities prior to the thirteenth century. The assertion made there that the manufacture of drugs and the processing of precious metals was reserved in Muslim states exclusively to Christian and Jewish "guilds" will appear strange to the readers of this paper who have taken notice of the great number of Muslim perfumers and gold- and silversmiths active even before the year 470 of the Muslim era.
The term "guild" designates a medieval union of craftsmen or traders which supervised the work of its members in order to uphold standards, and, for the same reason, laid down certain rules and made arrangements for the education of apprentices and their initiation into the union. The guild protected its members against competition and, in Christian as well as in Islamic countries, was closely connected with religion.
Scrutinizing the records of the Cairo Geniza or the Muslim handbooks of market supervision contemporary with them, one looks in vain for an Arabic equivalent of the term "guild". There was no such word, because there was no such institution. The supervision of the quality of the artisans' work was in the hands of the state police, which availed itself of the services of trustworthy and expert assistants. In the case of professions which either required highly specialized knowledge such as that of the physicians, or were particularly exposed to fraud or other transgressions of the law, the appointment of "a reliable, trustworthy man from their own profession" is recommended in order to secure proper service. The whole tenor of the books on market supervision, as well as the very recommendation just mentioned, prove that the artisans were not organized in corporations of their own which fulfilled the task of upholding professional standards. It is noteworthy that the most detailed work on market supervision from this period recommends the appointment of special supervisors or heads for only a very small fraction of the many professions treated.1 In the Geniza, too, the 'arīf, as such a chief was called, appears only very rarely and then, unfortunately, without an indication of the group headed by him. A Geniza document mentioning a contribution by the 'arīf al-naqqādīn, or chief of the money assayers, is from the thirteenth century.2
Regarding apprenticeship and admission to a profession, no formalities and no rigid rules are to be discovered in our sources. Parents were expected to have their sons learn a craft and to pay for their instruction. "How could you have let the boy leave the capital before he has learned a craft", writes a daughter from the countryside to her mother in Old Cairo concerning a younger brother. In a marriage contract with a divorcee, written in a town in the Nile Delta in 1110, the bridegroom undertakes to feed and to clothe the son of his future wife and to have him learn a craft. In a settlement between a husband and his wife, made in Old Cairo in 1244, the mother promises to pay the board and poll tax of their elder boy for two years, as well as for his training in the art of silversmithery. Wherever feasible, a son followed the profession of his father or his uncles and learned by working with them from his early youth. It will be shown, however, that this practice was by no means all comprising.1
Had there existed rigid grades of initiation into a profession, as was the case in the European guilds, the police handbooks referred to could not have failed to treat such an important subject. Their silence proves that there was no fixed system in this matter at all. To be sure the profession of a physician, which also was regarded as a ṣinā'a, or craft, could not be exercised independently, as a rule, except after the receipt of an official diploma.2 The Spanish police handbook mentioned above says that the ṣibyān, which should not be simply translated as "young men", but as "employees", "apprentices", should be held to say their prayers regularly. This injunction is illustrated by a Geniza letter in which an apprentice complains that he was kept so busy that he had no time even for prayer.3
The protection of the local industries from competition by newcomers and outsiders is richly documented by the Geniza records, but nowhere do we hear about a professional corporation fulfilling this task. It was the Jewish local community, the central Jewish authorities, the police, or influential notables who were active in these matters. On the one hand, we find that the largest single group of receivers of alms in the Geniza lists were foreigners, many of them being craftsmen. This seems to indicate that newcomers must have incurred difficulties in finding work. On the other hand, there is a complaint by a group of artisans against a local community, which, under the penalty of excommunication, did not permit them to exercise their profession. All this shows that there were no hard and fast rules in these matters comparable to those developed in the guilds of the later Middle Ages.4
The associations of artisans and traders in imperial Rome, or at least part of them, bore a religious character and were often connected with the local cult of the town from which the founders of an association had originated. Similarly, the Christian guilds of the late Middle Ages had their patron saints and special rites The fourteenth century was the heyday of Muslim corporations, especially in Anatolia (present day Turkey), which adopted the doctrines and ceremonies of Muslim mystic brotherhoods. One looks in vain for similar combinations of artisanship and religious cult in the period and the countries discussed in this paper. When we find mosques frequently called after the names of professions, we learn from the sources reporting these facts that the reference is topographical, designating the mosque as situated in a street or bazaar bearing the name of that profession. In the same way our sources would speak of the canal (or pipe) of the sievemakers, the needle-makers, the butchers etc., simply indicating its location.1
On the other hand we learn from a responsum given by Maimonides (around 1190) that Muslim and Jewish silversmiths and glass makers concluded partnerships, sharing even their implements in common. The Muslim received the gains made on Saturday, the Jew those of Friday, which—by the way——seems to indicate that at least some Muslim craftsmen must have adopted the custom of taking a day off, although Islam, unlike its sister religions, does not know of an obligatory day of rest.2
Our findings thus far suggest that the organization of the arts and crafts during the High Middle Ages, at least on the southern, western, and eastern shores of the Mediterranean, must have been markedly different from that of late antiquity or of later medieval times. The largely negative evidence presented in the preceding pages is fully substantiated by detailed positive information culled from the Geniza records.
Professional corporations, as we have seen, did not form the base of labor organization in the period and the area discussed in this paper. The employment of wage earners, to be treated later on, was of limited scope. Slave labor was of no importance, as far as the arts and crafts were concerned,1 Rather, contracts of partnerships, concluded on terms similar to those found in commercial associations, constituted the main form of industrial cooperation.
The nature and scope of those partnerships have been studied by the present writer in the second chapter, section two, of his Mediterranean Society, with the aid of twenty six documents. Twenty two of these have been preserved in the Cairo Geniza and four are referred to in queries written in Arabic and submitted to Moses Maimonides (died 1204) and to his son and successor Abraham (died 1237). In date, the contracts range between 1016 and 1240, in the sums invested between four and six hundred dinars2, and in the duration of the partnerships between six and a half months to almost a lifetime. The industries involved were the manufacture of glass, dyeing, gold- and silversmithery and work in the mint, metal work, silk treatment, weaving, tailoring, tanning, breadbaking, pharmaceutics, and two or three cases of sugar factories.
The mercantile character of these industrial contracts is evidenced by their great variety. Most of them differ from each other. Thus, it was not custom and tradition, but the specific economic circumstances of the partnerships concluded which prescribed the conditions agreed upon.
In case the partners contributed capital, work and implements in equal shares, the situation was comparatively simple. They would divide also prolit or loss according to their contribution and take out from the "partnership purse" certain sums for their lunch or supper.3 When partnerships of three or five lasted for years, they assumed the character of companies. In a query submitted to Maimonicles we read about a company of partners in a silk workshop in al-Maḥalla, an important town in lower Egypt, who opened a branch near the workshop of another such company in Old Cairo. The latter, fearing the competition, agreed to admit one of the silkworkers from al-Maḥalla into their company, while one of their own members would move to the provincial town and join the partners there. This was agreed upon, but the capitals of the two companies were not merged.1
Similarly when we read in letters about dealings with "the silk-workers" in Alexandria, "the pattern-painters" in Qayrawān, or "our coreligionists, the glass makers", we may assume that the references are to such companies, and not to families specializing in those professions. For in the three cases mentioned, the Arabic plural is used, while clans, like those of "the sieve makers", "the indigo dyers", "the scarfmakers" etc. are invariably referred to in the singular feminine. Additional material will probably enlighten us with regard to this detail.2
It is strange that one industry which by its very nature lends itself to the formation of companies, the private (as opposed to the government) overland mail service, was organized on a strictly individual basis, as must be concluded from the many references to the subject in the Geniza records. Ships, too, were, as a rule, the property of individuals. We learn that one out of fifty boats mentioned in the Geniza records was owned in partnership.3
Occasionally, all the capital invested in a partnership was borrowed from others. However, the normal way for an artisan with little or no cash was to associate with a fellow worker in the same profession who was able to contribute the necessary funds or materials. In a contract, dated 1217, two glass workers undertook to work together, one providing red (Beyrouth) and local Egyptian glass to the value of one hundred ninety nine dinars, while the other invested only six dinars together with a small quantity of material, costing approximately another ten gold pieces. In another such contract, dated 1134, one glass maker had no capital at all and even received a personal loan of ten dinars from his partner, who also contributed raw material valued at twenty dinars. The capitalist partner would work two days a week and the other—four days. Otherwise everything was divided equally: expenditure on fuel, on a journeyman and on small items taken out from the partnership, and finally the profit was to be divided at the termination of the contract. This particular partnership was foreseen for six and a half months only, presumably the period during which the debtor was able to earn the sum borrowed for himself personally.1
In general, it is somewhat surprising to find quite a number of such partnerships concluded for a comparatively short time, such as one year. This was natural for mercantile partnerships, for it was common practice to set out in spring with the first convoy of ships sailing to do business abroad during the summer and to sell the goods imported at home in the course of the following winter. However the full benefits of an industrial partnership could be earned only during a more prolonged period of cooperation. It stands to reason that, generally, the short time contracts were intended for periods of trial and were renewed, after satisfactory results had been obtained.
Finally, and this is highly characteristic of the age and area considered here, the commenda, the popular form of commercial cooperation, was transferred also to industry. In a commenda, one or more capitalists who provide the money associate with one or more agents who do the work.2 The same form of partnership was applied to the arts and crafts. In some cases we find the conditions imposed by the capitalist on the craftsman surprisingly generous, in others rather harsh. Again we meet that "freedom of contract", that absence of rigid traditionalism which is indicative of a competitive and individualistic society.
Some contracts of partnership state expressly that they were made for the manufacture and sale of the commodity concerned or even that in the common workshop also goods other than those made by the partners would be sold, as when a tailoring workshop offered textiles for sale. In case no further details are provided, we are often at a loss to know whether the name of an occupation derived from a product refers to its manufacture, or its sale, or to both. Thus a jabbān, or "cheeseman", could be a manufacturer of cheese or a trader in this commodity. In most cases lie would sell his own products, while the sale of cheese imported from Sicily or Crete to Egypt would normally be handled by merchants, of whom we positively know that they did not occupy themselves with cheese making.
These rather complicated relationships could be roughly summarized as follows. Professional merchants would never engage in a craft requiring manual work, except, of course, when, by some force majeur, they lost their capital, as when a clothier writes that, while he was out of business, he earned his livelihood as a tailor Contrariwise, artisans normally sold also the products manufactured by them, although the commercial aspects of the trades differed widely. Thus, in a contract of partnership with a weaver the latter is confined to "selling on the market", i.e. he is not permitted to use his workshop as a store for the sale of his fabrics, but is held to let them be sold by a market crier or an agent. Finally, there were craftsmen who worked as wage earners either because of lack of capital or standing or because this was required by the very nature of their profession, such as those of masons and carpenters working in the building industry.
An equivalent to the modern labor class, i.e. a large section of the population employed in the service of industrialists, is absent from the Arabic sources and the Geniza records related to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, just as we could not find in them guilds, the form of industrial organization of the later Middle Ages. With the possible exception of paper mills and sugar factories, production was confined to individual workshops: run by small or extended families or by partnerships often formed only for short periods. Paper mills, as may be mentioned in passing, had a history of their own. This was an entirely new industry, introduced into Islamic (and later Christian) countries after the capture of Chinese craftsmen in 751 A.D. and, from the beginning, was operated in large workshops owned by caliphs and governors. When the bourgeoisie took possession of this industry, it continued the form of its organization as it originally had been developed. At least this is the impression gained from a Geniza record where an enormous quantity of paper coming from Damascus bears the trademark of one factory, while wholesale merchants in textiles would regularly carry products from many workshops, obviously handpicked in the bazaars.1
Sugar factories, or rather some of them, also must have resembled modern industrial plants, as may be concluded from two interconnected facts: we sometimes find their owners being capitalists, not workmen—even in case of those operated in partnership—and the sums invested are far too large for small workshops. In addition, the sugar distilleries, as we know from the books of the Muslim antiquarians, were real landmarks in the topography of Old Cairo. The production of sugar, we remember, like that of paper, was a new industry which, originally brought from India to southern Persia, expanded in early Islamic times still further westwards. The novelty of the. industry made for capitalistic forms of organization unlike the long established crafts which stuck to their traditional ways.2
On the other hand, the government workshops, such as the mints or the houses for the manufacture of robes and other pieces of clothing embroidered with the name of the ruler, should not be regarded as industrial plants. For according to all we know thus far, the persons employed there were not laborers receiving fixed wages, but rather independent craftsmen who worked at piece rate. This applies of course only to the period under discussion.
Laborers, i.e. workers not operating a shop of their own, are represented in the Geniza records by three types: persons called "boy", or "young man" (ṣabī, ghulām), others designated as "hireling, employee" or simply "workman" (ajīr, ṣāni'), and finally those described as unskilled laborers (raqqāḥ, literally "runner", "errand boy" and similar expressions).3
The terms mentioned first designate basically a state of apprenticeship, but are used in the Geniza records in a general way for employees connected with an employer in a personal relationship of long standing. Such a "boy" could be described as "sheikh", elder, i.e. he would be addressed like any other respectable citizen. The two terms were applied also to slaves and freedmen. Only the names and other circumstances mentioned in connection with such persons would indicate that they were free born men. This nomenclature was applied equally in commerce and in industry and we would find a "master" (mu'allim, the word is used also in commerce) referring to the "education" (tarbiya) given by him to his former employee in more than one Geniza letter.
One or more laborers would be employed in the workshop of a craftsman. They are mentioned, for example, as contributing to a public appeal together with their master. It is, however, noteworthy that the letters and legal deeds of the Cairo Geniza refer to them very sparingly. More frequently mention is made of the "runners" and other unskilled laborers, especially those employed in the building trades.
As to wages and working conditions, we have to bear in mind that normally no contracts were made in writing for hiring a laborer. In some cases, however, especially when a longer period was envisaged and special circumstances accompanied the hire, a document was drawn up. By mere chance, fragments of both the draft and the final copy of such a contract of employment written in 1057 in Old Cairo have been preserved. Two glassmakers, partners in a workshop, hired another glassmaker, described as a laborer, to work on the melting furnace for the duration of one year. He received five silver pieces (dirhams) and lunch worth one dirham on any day he worked. During the period of the contract he could not work for others. A line of five gold pieces was to be paid by him to the chest of two specified synagogues in Old Cairo in case he violated any of these stipulations.1
More information about the subject can be gleaned from the statements on the expenditure of the Jewish community in Old Cairo, over a hundred of which have been preserved. In a number of these, ranging in date between 1040 and 1199, we find details about the wages paid to masons, carpenters, "boys" and unskilled laborers engaged in the building trades and to overseers controlling them. In a statement from 1199, the mason receives five dirhams and lunch equivalent to the value of 11/4 dirhams, i.e. almost the same emoluments as those obtained by the glassmaker in the contract of 1057. Throughout, the skilled craftsman receives a remuneration of 4-6 dirhams, as well as lunch, while the "boys" and laborers earn between 11/2 and 23/4 dirhams, but never—lunch. Even when a mason undertook repairs on a building lasting almost a month, and was not paid daily, but received a gross sum, the accounts listed lunch for him every day, but not for his assistants, who were paid on a daily basis. The "white collar worker" who supervised the operation and kept the accounts was paid least of all: he received two dirhams a day or even less.
Using the data about the cost of living known to us from the Geniza in other sources we arrive at the conclusion that an independent craftsman obtained a fair margin above the average of two dinars per month (cf. pp. 271 and 276) needed by a lower class family. The others averaged incomes falling far below this minimum.
The preceding discussion of both the technical and economic aspects of Mediterranean arts and crafts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries leads to the conclusion that the craftsmen did not form a unified and egalitarian "working class", opposed to a class of commercial and financial capitalists. Rather, the dividing line is to be sought between the masters of the higher crafts, who normally worked with their own capital or formed free and often short-term partnerships, and others with little or no means, mostly the pursuers of lower professions, the hired laborers and paupers in general.
The artisans of good standing, as we have seen, normally sold their own products and often also were partly traders and, we may add, even capitalists. Thus when we find a goldsmith also doing some business in flax, we have to remember that, in Egypt at that time, this commodity played the role of stocks and securities in our own society.1 The fact that a person was engaged in manual work did not in itself assign him to a special class. If his family was financially independent and if he had received, as was usual in such families, a proper education, he was "an elder", a respectable citizen.
Employment, on the other hand, as any form of dependence, whether in industry or in commerce, was regarded as humiliating. "I eat bread in the service of others; every minute of the day I gulp the cup of death because of my degradation and that of my children"—writes a merchant who had suffered shipwreck and was compelled to enter the service of another firm.1 This negative attitude towards employment did not, of course, apply to the transitory period during which a person learned a craft or a trade as "the boy", or servant, of another. We read above about such a "boy" who was addressed as an "elder". However, after that period no one would agree to the status of a "hireling" except when forced to do so by dire financial circumstances. The present writer has already encountered in the Geniza three cases in which an employee was indebted to his employer and worked under him in order to pay off his debt.
We do find in the Geniza references to tensions between social classes. The rule of the "elders'", the respectable citizens, was challenged by the ṣibyān, "the boys", or "the young men", as exemplified in letters from Alexandria by dyers, cobblers and oyster gatherers and in one letter from Old Cairo by potters. The members of these professions were singled out by the writers as examples of lower class people, not as representatives of the artisans in general. Particularly the Jewish oystermen from Alexandria must have had a bad reputation. In one letter they were charged with such offensive behavior as drinking beer in the Crusaders' taverns of Acre.2
The assertion that, in the period and area under consideration, manual professions as such did not confine their members to a self contained and closcly knit class is demonstrated by the spectacle of social rise richly attested to by the Geniza. Merchants of high priced goods and shipowners bear the names of craftsmen, such as comb-maker, spinner, potter or saddler. The phenomenon also appears amongst families whose pedigrees are included in the commemorative lists preserved. Such drastic occupational changes were possible because the Mediterranean society of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, not unlike our own, enjoyed a high degree of mobility and freedom of movement, which was in marked contrast to both the preceding and the following periods.
1 See above p. 246 and, in particular, below Chapter XIV.
1 "The Main Industries of the Mediterranean Area as Reflected in the Records of the Cairo Geniza", JESHO 4 (1961), pp. 168-197.
2 The article mentioned in the previous Note, p. 168, makes mention of two hundred and ten manual professions. However, since the writing of that study the present writer has had opportunity to scrutinize hundreds of unpublished Geniza records, Hence the difference.
3 Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, Būlāq 1270/1853, II, pp. 94-106.
1 N. Elisséeff, "Corporations de Damas sous Nūr al-Dīn," Arabica 3 (1956), pp. 61-79. There are some slight differences in the terms used in the Geniza and the literary sources referred to.
1 For these and the following details cf. the article mentioned on p. 256. Maker of hides; naṭṭā 'in UL Cambridge Or 1080 J 79 (N229). Maker of tongs: zanājilī. This profession had a street to itself, TS K 6, f. 118b.
1 The Geniza manuscripts and the Abraham Maimonides Responsa referred to here are discussed in A Mediterranean Society, chapter 11, section 2. For the Spanish handbook of market supervision cf. E, Lévi-Provençal, Séville Musulmane au début du XII Siècle, Paris 1947, p. 95. Arabic text in Journal Asiatique 224 (1934), P. 233, 11. 9-10, and Documents arabes... sur la vie... en Occident musulman... I, Cairo, 1955.
2 Cf. Bruno Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, I, Heidelberg 1920, p. 231.
3 Cf. Antoine Fattal, Le statut légal des non-Musulmans en pays d'Islam, Beyrouth 1958, pp. 144-160. E. Lévi-Provençal, Séville musulmane (cf. Note 1), p. 108, para. 153.
1 This explanation was first suggested to the present writer by Dr. Richard Ettinghauscn, the Head Curator of Near Eastern Art in the Freer Gallery, Washington, when we discussed the prominence of the glass industry in the Geniza records.
2 The source material for this subsection is to be found in the article quoted on p. 256.
3 Submitted to the senate of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in January 1963. The results of this important study will soon be published in a European language.
1 The subject of despised professions in Islam has been discussed with particular attention to its treatment in Islamic legal sources by R. Brunsch-vig, "Métiers vils en Islam," Shudia Islamica XVI (1962), pp. 4-60. Cf. also Farhat J. Ziadeh, "Equality (kafā'a) in the Muslim Law of Marriage," American Journal of Comparative Law 6 (1957), pp. 503-17.
2 Cf. S. W. Baron, A Social and Religions History of the Jews, IV, pp. 116/7, where also non-Muslim sources are reviewed.
1 Cf. B. Meissner (see p. 260), pp. 229-230.
2 This vast subject is treated in Chapter III of the present writer's Mediterranean Society and his book on the India trade, cf. the Bibliographical Note below.
1 The Geniza material for this and the following paragraphs is included in Chapter I (2) of Mediterranean Society. For the migration of artisans and craftsmen cf. R. Ettinghausen, "Interaction and Integration in Islamic Art", Unity and Variety in Muslim Civilization, ed. G. E. von Grunebaum, Chicago 1955, PP. 110-113.
2 See A. Mez, Die Renaissance des Islams, Heidelberg 1922, p. 434.
1 TS 12.133, line 28.
2 Cf. R. B. Serjeant, "Islamic Textiles", Ars Islamica XV-XVI (1951), pp. 47-48.
3 Cf. the present writer's paper "From the Mediterranean to India" Speculum 29 (1954), p. 192, Note 20.
1 The Ma'ālim al-Qurba, ed. Reuben Levy, Cambridge 1938, English summary p. 57 (physicians), pp. 89-92 (potters, needle-makers, henna sellers, oil merchants and sieve makers). The Spanish police guide mentioned above (p. 260), p. 119, para. 187, while speaking about the cattle market, expresses the pious wish that each profession should have a "prud'homme", amīn, watching over it. The wellknown study by Bernard Lewis, "The Islamic Guilds" in Economic History Review 8 (1937), pp. 20-37, deals mainly with the Akhī of Anatolia and does not contain material concerning the period studied here. For the Akhī cf. the article about them under this name in EI2 (by F. Taeschner).
2 Cf. Mediterranean Society, Chapter II (2), Notes 13-15.
1 The Geniza sources in S. D. Goitein, Jewish Education in Muslim Countries, Jerusalem 1962 (in Hebrew), pp. 121-3.
2 For details cf. the present writer's paper "The Medical Professian in the Light of the Cairo Geniza Documents", Hebrew Union College Annual 34(1963), pp. 177-194. See also the next note.
3 Séville (see p. 260), p. 119, para. 186. TS NS J 9, lines 13-14. This Geniza letter refers to an oculist who had not yet received his doctor's diploma.
4 For documentation cf. Mediterranean Society, ch. II (2), Notes 16-17.
1 Cf. Ibn Šaddād, Topographie Historique (Al-A'lāq Al-Haṭīra), ed. Sami Dahan, Damascus 1963, pp. 18-27, nos. 9, 23, 32, 47, 48, 75, 88, 107.
2 Moses b. Maimon, Responsa, ed. J. Blau, Jerusalem 1960, p. 360.
1 Cf. the present writer's "Slaves and Slavegirls in the Cairo Geniza Records", Arabica 9 (1960), pp. 1-10.
2 Because of the enormous difference in living standards between our own times and the eleventh and twelfth centuries it is extremly difficult to appraise the purchasing power of a gold piece of this period. Several sources indicate that a lower class family could live modestly on two dinars per month. The standard price for a simple thawb, the normal attire of a man or woman, which often lasted for a lifetime, was one dinar. For the same price one could buy three hundred pounds of bread. Thus the tentative equation of the actual value of a dinar with that of fifty dollars today is perhaps admissible.
3 About one and a half silver pieces, cf. below p. 276.
1 Maimonides, Responsa, pp. 177-8, "A company of partners in a silk workshop", jamā'at sharika (another ms.: shurakā') fi qā'at ḥarir. The word qā'a designates the ground floor of a house, which was often rented out for a workshop, cf. above p. 259. The two companies are referred to later in the letter as al-qā'atayn.
2 Cf. Mediterranean Society, Chapter II, section 2, Note 12, and section I, Note 13. "Pattern-painter" is a tentative translation of lawwān.
3 Cf. ibid., Chapter IV, sections 3 and 7. See below, p. 307.
1 New York, Jewish Theol. Sem. Geniza Misc. 27. Oxford Bodleian Library, ms. Heb. a 3 (Catal. 2873), f. 8. Both translated in Readings.
2 Cf. of late A. L. Udovitch, "At the Origins of the Western Commenda," Speculum 37 (1962), pp. 198-207, where further literature.
1 Cf. Mediterranean Society, Ch. II (a). Notes 2-4.
2 Cf. EI1 s.v. Sukkar, and Medit. Soc. Index s.v. Sugar—industry and trade.
3 As far as is not otherwise indicated, the documentation for the Geniza material used in this section is provided in Mediterranean Society, Ch. II, section 3.
1 The purchasing power of the dirham, as well as its relationship to the dinar (see p. 271) changed slightly from year to year and even from one city to another in the same year. Nevertheless we see the courts, in records dated between 1052 and 1169, awarding half a dirham per day as alimony for minors. The average ratio between silver and gold pieces during the eleventh and twelfth centuries was 1:36.
1 TS 16.148. Translated in Readings.