What Are The Effects Of The Great Cat Massacre

Robert Darnton’s Great Cat Massacre took place in the 1730s, and shows the angst the local journeymen had against the social system they lived in. The cat massacre was awful in its own right, but represented the disenfranchisement between the journeymen and the entrenched masters. The Cat Massacre was a sign of the changing times as the guild system of the late medieval and early, Early Modern Period when the journeymen would advance to become their own master was replaced with a monopoly system where few a masters were in control and most journeymen had no hope of advancement in society. In the Medieval period and part of the Early Modern period, workers in a trade would enter a guild as an apprentice, rise to journeymen, and finally to master to start their own workshop. It was a way for men to make their own way in the world and have a means for supporting a family. This system was still in existence when the Great Cat Massacre occurred. However, the system had changed in that the relationship between master and journeymen ceased to be one of a teacher and student, but one of bourgeois and oppressed worker. The journeyman was no longer a temporary step to master, but a permanent

That is because the social system in Europe had solidified. Early Modern Europe in previous centuries had a relationship where the master almost adopted the journeyman as a family member. They would work together, learn together, and the master would guide the journeyman to create his own masterpiece and move into adulthood. It is clear that the relationship does not exist in this 1740s print shop. The master had many journeymen, and the situation was described more as a factory where a foreman oversaw the workers, while the master was rarely seen in the shop. The system used still existed, but the personal relationship did