The Craft of the Late Medieval and Modern Times in the Academic Writings of Maria Bogucka

Abstract

Maria Bogucka (1929–2020) is one of Poland’s most outstanding representatives of historiography in the period after the Second World War. She dealt with a myriad of areas, such as the history of trade, everyday life, the problem of the position of the bourgeoisie in the social structure of pre-partitioned Poland and various aspects of the history of early modern culture. In the earliest period of her academic career (the 1950s and 1960s), under the guidance of Marian Małowist, she took up the subject of the development of crafts in the late Middle Ages and early modern times, with her research focusing primarily on Gdańsk, the largest city in pre-partition Poland. In her research, she sought to isolate the features of early capitalism in the relations of production of the city’s craftsmen, and she also focused her interest on artisans operating outside the guild system. Bogucka explained the changes in the economic situation in crafts, examining the relationship between this form of production and agricultural production and trade development.