Apprenticeship and Knowledge Transfer

Craft skills demanded special knowledge that had to be learned through experience. Thus, the technical knowledge of craftsmen was largely experience-based and shared through face-to-face communication (Epstein 2013, 27–31).

There were only a few regulations concerning rural crafts and their apprenticeship practices. From 1686 onwards, rural artisans had the right to employ apprentices, but an official permit had to be sought for this. However, the general guild order,12 which was designed for urban craft guilds, affected rural artisans and their apprentice practices, life, and work culture. For instance, the order specified the apprentices’ minimum enrolment age to be fourteen and outlined a maximum trial period of two months. It also stated the master craftsman’s responsibilities towards his apprentices more generally. For instance, it prohibited the dismissal of apprentices before the agreed apprenticeship period was complete (Vainio-Korhonen 2010, 232–233).

In the eighteenth century, rural artisans’ trainees were designated according to their age and apprenticeship time. Boys who were still apprenticed were called läropojkar, and the older assistants who had finished their initial training but were still in the service of a master were referred to as lärodrängar. As there were only a few applications for permission to take an apprentice,13 it is probable that in practice, permission was only needed for taking on older assistants (Uotila, forthcoming).

If an artisan’s son was brought up in his own family—that is, the artisan taught his own son, or an older brother taught his younger brother—the boy was not registered as an apprentice. He was simply designated in the records as an artisan’s son or brother, and his skill in the craft is revealed in the records only when he started his own career (Laakso 1994, 76; Uotila 2014, 221). This makes it difficult to determine the details of the training careers of artisans’ sons. For example, as the boys were generally thought just to grow up with the profession, there is no record on the starting age or the length of training. The situation was similar in towns.16 This put artisans’ own sons in a favourable position compared to apprentices; they could benefit from their fathers’ status, network, tools, and reputation. It was simply easier for them to achieve the status of master artisan (De Munck and Soly 2007, 18–19; Vainio-Korhonen 2010, 237–238; Epstein 2013, 29).

The artisan’s trade was a family business. Apprentices were a part of an artisan’s household; they boarded in their masters’ homes both in towns and in the countryside.17 The master artisan usually provided shelter, food, and clothing for his apprentice according to what was agreed in the private contract between the master and apprentice.18 Apprentices were to witness and emulate the honourable conduct of their masters in order to follow in their footsteps (De Munck and Soly 2007, 11). This adaptation was facilitated by the young age of the boys and the many years they spent in the master’s household. As the head of the family, the artisan had a master’s authority and the responsibility to educate and supervise his son’s and apprentice’s upbringing.

As the head of the family, the artisan was also responsible for discipline.19 It was generally accepted that apprentices were obliged to take part in their masters’ household duties and chores—but only to a reasonable extent. Even in towns, apprentices were obliged to run errands that had little to do with craftwork.20 By taking part in everyday or otherwise necessary housekeeping chores, the boys participated in the household’s well-being. In rural areas, chores usually related to agriculture, taking care of animals, harvesting, haymaking, and logging. The boy’s contribution might have been crucial because rural households did not usually employ purely domestic servants; there were no housemaids or farmhands present.

Masters were obligated to teach their sons and apprentices all they knew of their craft. How this happened—that is, how they actually transferred knowledge related to craft skills to next generation—remains largely unknown. Apprenticeship is often called ‘learning by doing’, and it is occasionally stated that apprentices simply copied what they saw or learned to ‘steal with their eyes’ (De Munck and Soly 2007, 14–15; Vainio-Korhonen 2010, 234). There were few textbooks or written manuals (Prak 2013, 144–148, 152). It is probably the case that youngsters started with simple tasks and were gradually given more difficult and demanding duties. Education was a trial-and-error process in which apprentices and sons were given hands-on exposure to the craft’s own materials, style, and work culture. The apprenticeship period was also an initiation into the cultural context in which apprentices and sons were acquainted with the artisan’s position in the community. They were to adopt an artisan’s social and occupational identity (De Munck and Soly 2007, 13–16; Wallis 2008, 247–251; Epstein 2013, 29–32).

Not all apprentices had the ability to become master artisans. Sometimes this was true even of the master’s own sons. There was usually a trial period before enrolment, during which the boys’ behaviour, skills, and suitability for the trade were tested. According to Swedish legislation, the trial period was limited to two months. Even though such trial periods were likely used in the countryside, there is no definitive evidence. Overall, the length of the training period varied between trades and depended on the skills demanded; the apprentice’s age and prior experience; and whether the apprentice had to compensate his master for the cost of the training, either by working for him for a lengthy period of time or by paying a premium (Epstein 1998, 690–691; De Munck and Soly 2007, 12–14; Minns and Wallis 2013).21 Sometimes sons who had received training from their own father fine-tuned their skills with short, additional training periods at another artisan’s shop. This journeyman-like behaviour—where basic skills were acquired with the initial master (here the father) and afterwards with another artisan—has sometimes been recorded (Uotila 2014, 234, forthcoming).

Not all artisans had apprentices. Especially in the smith’s trade, the tradition of training and setting up their own sons first led to a low number of smith apprentices. A smith expecting to be succeeded by his own son was naturally less willing to train others to compete with him. Occasionally, an artisan stopped training apprentices when his own son was old enough to start his training—this practice was more typical in tailors’ families. In addition, only artisans who were skilful and had sufficient work assignments could act as instructors, and a large number of apprentices can be seen as an indicator of a master’s good reputation, skill, and prosperity (Laakso 1974, 69–70; De Munck and Soly 2007, 20). Most of the craftsmen who had apprentices were official parish artisans. Therefore, having apprentices can be regarded as a mark of a parish artisan’s occupational identity—it came with the official position to have at least one apprentice over one’s career (Uotila 2006, 137; Uotila 2014, 286–287).

The burden of supporting the hired help was alleviated by traditional custom: shoemakers and tailors led an itinerant way of life, going from one customer to another, living at their expense while carrying out their work assignments. The customers also had to feed the apprentices.22 This is one reason why tailors in particular could have many apprentices, possibly at different skill levels. They gained assistants whose work they could rely on. Blacksmiths typically had a few or just one apprentice because there was usually room for only one assistant at the time at the forge. As noted, often this assistant or work partner was the smith’s own son.