obligation to perform all “reasonable” orders, and to serve only one master at a time, a journeyman was allowed to do sparetime work for others, with the important restriction, however, that he got his master’s permission.78 Several factors may have contributed to these differences between master-servant statutes and guild rules.The masters of the privileged themselves had great opportunities to promote selfregulation.A remarkable feature was the link between the guilds and the political-judicial institutions of the town.The magistrates supervised the guilds, it is true, but the town’s government, the local administrative machinery, as well as the court magistrates were in turn controlled by the most powerful masters.79 Furthermore, the ambition of the central government in Stockholm to control areas of economic activity in the small towns might have been reduced, since the latter normally concerned clearly restricted demographic and geographic areas of the country.The masters’ ambition to control apprentices and journeymen might have been reduced by the masters’ dual role as foremen and manual workers.While managing the work they participated in the labour process as representatives for the best skilled category among the workers. In several areas the journeymen’s prospects of becoming masters themselves were good. Due to their professional skill and the fact that they got the same vocational training as their masters, the journeymen might have been entrusted with greater independence and social status. In comparison with the rules for domestic and agriculture sectors, there is no doubt that this legislation meant a much looser control of the terms of the work contract. Significant parts of the lawmaking, adjudication and supervision over the skilled workers were left to be solved by collective self-regulation, before matters were brought to the central authorities. Furthermore, there is no question, that the law formally stipulated fewer far reaching p a r t 1 i , c h a p t e r 2 48 78 Skrå-Ordning för Handtwärckare, 1 Martii 1669, Art. 8:3. 79 Veneziani 1988, pp. 37-38; Adlercreutz, A1954, pp. 98-108.
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