Handicraft Industry and Workers

Those who did not work on the land in early modern Europe were mostly involved in manufacturing, which took place primarily in cities and towns. Such work, prior to 1800, was almost all handicraft -- that is to say, the main source of power was the worker's muscle power and the main technology was the worker's skill. Such workers are called artisans, and any tools or machines used by an artisan were less important than muscle and skill.

Artisans worked in small workshops and, for the most part, artisans worked on all aspects of their craft. For example, a shoemaker would assemble the materials and build each shoe that he worked on entirely by himself cut and shape the leather, then attach the wooden sole and metal buckle rather than making only one part of many shoes.

Artisans generally produced goods on a "bespoke" (or what we might think of as special order) basis. So, our shoemaker would make only the number of shoes that were ordered ahead of time by his customers, rather than making many and hoping to sell them later. This was because, in part, artisans had little capital -- other than their tools and their skills. So they could not afford to produce shoes ahead of time and then keep them in stock to sell to customers; they had to wait for someone to order an item before they could acquire the raw materials to produce it. This limited artisans to producing primarily for local demand. This meant producing for those customers who lived nearby, in the same town or village, rather than producing goods that could be shipped elsewhere to be sold.