Guild crafts and trades were the backbone of early modern urban life. Their exponents made up over a third of urban inhabitants, and in more industrialized towns of England, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, the figure even exceeded half, with by far the majority of full citizens. Even where manufacture flourished, as in the Paris of the Colbert period (1665-1683) or in Berlin during the reign of Frederick the Great (1740-1786), guild masters and journeymen still outnumbered l…