Donations, discipline and commemoration. Creating group identity in the transport workers guilds of mid fifteenth-century Riga

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the process of creating group identity in two transport workers’ guilds in mid fifteenth-century Riga, demonstrating the role of donations, discipline and commemoration in constituting both groups. The Beer Carters’ and Porters’ guilds experienced a ‘new beginning’ at this time: new resources had to be attracted, new traditions created and internal hierarchies established. Donations were an important element that helped these groups to establish their own spaces of piety – to create altars and chapels – and also to acquire resources for the celebration of communal meals. At both liturgical services and communal meals groups commemorated their deceased members, thus strengthening their identities. In the Hanseatic cities there was a bond between transport workers and merchants; in Riga as well, merchants became members of the two guilds, became involved in the processes of creating group identity, made endowments and helped the guilds gain status.