Guilds and politics in the village: Migrations of skilled craftsmen and social differenciation in Altare from the 16th to the 19th century

This article belongs to a new movement of studies about the migration of specialists of modern time. The glass blowers of Altare - bourg of Montferrat with about 1000 inhabitants - are in fact known since a long time for their role in France as glass blowers in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, their migrations were most often punctually studied without relation with the community of origin. This article reconstitutes the structure of the Altare community and analyses the link between community and the glass industry. It studies the role the guild (founded in 1495) played in these migrations and whos that belonging to the guild tends to determine little by little the social and political status of people. It finally shows the revendication of the nobility by the members of the glass blowers guild, constituting an active resource at the end of the 18th century after internal conflicts in the community, which provoked the intervention of the State, and therefore due to this the abolition of the guild (1825).