Although silk textile activity is known to have existed during the 13th and 14th centuries and represented a significant sector within Barcelona’s economy, silk professionals never organized themselves as a guild nor took part in the city’s institutions, since most of the people who practiced silk-related trades were members of the city’s Jewish community.
In the 15th century, free from corporate impositions and with the participation of Valencian and Italian masters, the silk industry experienced a revival through the development of commercial contracts, factories, and companies. The outbreak of the civil war disrupted this trend. At the end of the 15th century, and during the 16th and early 17th centuries, the silk trade corporations of Barcelona were established: needle barreters (1495), perch makers (1509), veil weavers (1533), velvet makers (1548), passementiers (1572), twisters, and dyers (1619).
Together, they contributed to the enrichment and structuring of Barcelona’s labor, social, and political spheres. In Catalonia, as in the wider Crown of Aragon, confraternities or guilds participated in municipal governments, which in turn acted as governing bodies for the trade corporations. In this context, the Consell de Cent of Barcelona exercised control over professional groups, a situation that persisted and evolved until 1714. From that date, guild entities lost their capacity for institutional and political representation in the city’s government.
Their governing bodies were transferred to the Royal Audience and the Council of Castile. The limited self-governance the guilds retained improved with the creation of the Royal Particular Board of Commerce of Barcelona (1758–1847), an institution with economic and commercial authority and serving as an advisory body to the Royal Audience of Catalonia on guild matters.
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