Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › The arts and crafts book of the worshipful Guild of violin-makers of Markneukirchen, from the year 1677 to the year 1772, 1894 › scan 37

Scan 37

The arts and crafts book of the worshipful Guild of violin-makers of Markneukirchen, from the year 1677 to the year 1772, 1894

2 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 29. See the scan on archive.org.

1It appears, from the records found in the registers of the Guild, that, on the admission of the later masters, the rule of the Charter of the Guild requiring that the applicant should have passed two years as a journeyman was relaxed, and higher fees were demanded for the Guild Treasury in lieu of service. In this matter violin-making stood on a different footing to other trades, and such a dispensation was not only unproductive of harm to the art, but often, especially in the case of masters' sons, demonstrably advantageous. Sons of families whose head members undertook trade journeys, had always the opportunity thus afforded them of learning new things whereby they could enhance and improve the status of their handicraft. It was certainly different where new comers were concerned, men who had no connection with the older families and who were obliged to content themselves with their own imitations of existing models and the amount of manual dexterity which their instructors had taught them. In such a case it was necessary to obtain the assent of the Head Authority of the State (the Landgrave) before the candidate to mastership could forego the years of probation as a journeyman. An instance of this happened at the admission of Adam Braun in 1697, but with regard to the enforcement of the two years' probation they seem, later on, to have exercised great indulgence. In 1748 a return was made to the strict observance of the articles of the Guild's charter as far as the formalities of admission were concerned. Hitherto it had been frequently regarded as an unnecessary loss of time to let the three

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