The stubborn miller

The story of the Maastricht miller's cartel and how it ended with the man and his horse who threatened to break the miller's cartel.

In the Middle Ages all trades were organised into crafts (guilds). So was that of the millers of Maastricht. With the growth of such guilds and the privileged citizenship of the craftsmen, cities like Maastricht arose in the 13th century. In order to claim the rights of the privileged citizenship you had to live within the city walls. For millers, there was an exception to this. There were millers located within the city walls in the Jeker quarter, where they could use the flowing water of the river Jeker. But this exception also allowed the millers of St. Pieter's and the millers along the Jeker south of the city toward Kanne to be included in the millers' guild and thus subject to the statutes of the guild and the economic order determined by the city council.

The importance of millers to the city did warrant an exception. After all, the millers provided the flour from which the privileged city dwellers baked bread and the malt needed to brew their beer. The privileged city dwellers depended on the millers for their beer and bread. If the millers went on strike, there was no bread and no beer, and that was catastrophic for the privileged city dwellers and for the city government at a time when there was hardly any clean drinking water. Hence the city government interfered firmly in the practice of the miller's profession.

For the miller's profession an economic order was devised by the city government that severely curtailed the free market and the miller's scope of action. Among other things, a craft coercion was imposed under which the miller's profession could only be exercised in Maastricht if someone was a member of the miller's guild. Free milling was thus restricted by the city government. A further restriction of the miller's scope of action was that as a miller you were not allowed to engage in any commercial activities other than grinding the grain offered to you. Thus, you were not allowed to purchase your own grain at the corn market, except for the feed grain for your milling horses.

The city government was watching this grain trade very closely for several reasons. First, in case of sieges of the city or crop failures, there had to be sufficient grain supplies to continue feeding the population. For this, sufficient grain had to remain available to the population on the open market so that the privileged city dwellers could continue to bake their bread at home for the needs of their families. To ensure this, the privileged city dwellers were allowed to buy grain on the grain market first and only then (one hour after the market opened) the brewers and bakers of Maastricht could do so. Especially in times of scarcity speculation with grain also had to be prevented. In order to maintain the grain supply, the city government prohibited the export of grain in times of scarcity if necessary. Furthermore, the city government wanted to prevent excessive grain being used for brewing beer instead of baking bread. It may be difficult for Maastricht people of today to understand that such restrictive regulations applied at the time even during the annual Carnival .

The city government also wanted to prevent the evasion of grain excise payments by millers. For this reason, before the grain was milled by the miller, it first had to be taken to the malt or to the gristmill. There city officials took care of registering it and settling excise taxes. Excise and milling fees provided the city with important revenues. This was to prevent grain being traded without the knowledge of the city government and thus evading excise taxes.

The millers were not the only ones being watched by the city government for the purpose of the fair payment of excise, but the city's bakers and brewers were also looked at by the city government with a crooked eye. They too were suspect in the grain market because of their trades, so they were watched by the city government to prevent black-market grain trade.

As explained in the article on the bicameral rule of Maastricht, a further complication in the local mill market was that there were two lords in Maastricht, the bishop of Liege and the duke of Brabant. Consequently, there was a bishop's mill in the Liege part of Maastricht and a duke's mill in the Brabant part of the city. Competition between these two mills was also restricted. In a charter from 1285 (charter no. 53), the Duke of Brabant obliged his Maastricht subjects to have their grain ground at his duke's mill. According to the charter, this was the way in which he wanted to ensure that the people who inherited this mill (the miller's family) could enjoy the fruits of the miller's cartel. However, the duke also had his own agenda, because prohibiting the offering of grain to the bishop's mill prevented the loss of excise to the bishop of Liege through the grinding of ducal grain at the bishop's mill. In that charter the duke asks the bailiff and the city council to enforce the miller's cartel, meaning the market division between bishop's and duke's mills, and if necessary to act without further injunction by seizing goods, which the offender must then buy back.

The city council acted against adventurers. This was evident when the bailiff tackled an out-of-town miller associated with the Servaas Chapter (no doubt this was the miller of the mill on the river Jeker near Neercanne). This miller evaded the craft duty and excise system of the city government. The city government immediately took action. The gatekeepers of Maastricht were forbidden by the city council to have grain and malt ground by this miller any longer. The miller was not to be deterred and was of the stubborn sort. He was caught by the bailiff when he did go into the city to collect grain from Maastricht gatekeepers for grinding. The curious part of the story is that subsequently not the miller himself was arrested by the sheriff, but only his accomplice quadruped, his horse. The miller had to become a citizen of Maastricht, if he wanted to remain active as a miller in Maastrich He had to join the miller's guild and had to reimburse the bailiff's expenses in exchange for his horse. The miller refused to buy back his horse and turned to the chapter of St. Servaas. Fortunately, the matter ended well for man and horse. The chapter of St. Servaas stood up to the city council for its miller and his horse. The chapter appealed to the city council for its privileges and wanted to take the matter to court. Thereupon the case was settled amicably. The horse got off scot-free and was allowed to return to its master after a few anxious days. The miller's cartel, too, was thus saved for the time being. It would continue until 1795.