A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers.

Early guilds 300 - 600 AD

During the Indian Gupta-period (300 - 600 AD) Indian craftmen's associations, which may have had archaic antecedents, were known as shreni. ia and Benin, separate guilds developed for professional dancers, mask carvers, and musicians associated with egungun ancestral masquerade performances often regarded as the predecessor to the traveling Alarinjo theatre. Guild also can be seen in tantra. like: †eambisaya.

Guilds in the Islamic world 874 -1400

Islamic civilization extended the notion of guilds to the artisan as well — most notably to the warraqeen, or "those who work with paper." Early Muslims were heavily engaged in translating and absorbing all ilm ("knowledge") from all other known civilizations as far east as China. Critically analyzing, accepting, rejecting, improving and codifying knowledge from other cultures became a key activity, and a knowledge industry as presently understood began to evolve. By the beginning of the 9th century, paper had become the standard medium of written communication, and most warraqeen were engaged in paper-making, book-selling, and taking the dictation of authors, to whom they were obliged to pay royalties on works, and who had final discretion on the contents.Ziauddin Sardar, Introducing Islam, 3rd ed. Icon Books, 2004. pp.78-83. The standard means of presentation of a new work was its public dictation in a mosque or madrassah in front of many scholars and students, and a high degree of professional respect was required to ensure that other warraqeen did not simply make and sell copies, or that authors did not lose faith in the warraqeen or this system of publication. Thus the organization of the warraqeen was in effect an early guild.

Local guilds also served to safeguard artisans from the appropriation of their skills: The publication industry that spanned the Muslim empire, from the first works under the warraqeen system in 874 and up to the 15th century, produced tens of thousands of books per year. A culture of instructional capital flourished, with groups of respected artisans spreading their work to other artisans elsewhere, who could in turn copy it and perhaps "pass it off" as the original, thereby exploiting the social capital built up at great expense by the originators of techniques. Artisans began to take various measures to protect their proprietary interests, and restrict access to techniques, materials, and markets.

European history

In the Early Middle Ages most of the Roman craft organizations, originally formed as religious confraternities, had disappeared, with the apparent exceptions of stonecutters and perhaps glassmakers. Gregory of Tours tells a miraculous tale of a builder whose art and techniques suddenly left him, but were restored by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a dream. Michel Rouche remarks that the story speaks for the importance of practically transmitted journeymanship.