Artisan Life
The children of artisan families are allowed to play and roam at liberty until they reach the age of seven. Then they are apprenticed to a master, usually a friend of the father. The father and the master sign a written contract, and the child goes to live with his new master. As the oldest son will inherit the workshop, other sons are sometimes apprenticed to masters of a different craft, especially ones who lack sons of their own. Sometimes artisans take their own children as apprentices.
Less commonly, an artisan's son may be entered into school to become a man of the robes: a clerk, lawyer, herald, cleric or some such. This is rare, as schooling is expensive, but it is the favoured way for well-to-do masters to give their younger sons a way up in life.
Apprentices (Status -1) do menial work, clean, run errants, fetch and carry, and generally handle the simple and boring tasks around the workshop. Intermittently they are given instruction, but learning is often by observation, and by trial-and-error learning. Apprentices must also help with the housekeeping of their master's wife, but may not be used as servants.
Guilds often have their own schools, to teach apprentices the rudiments of literacy and arithmetic. Guild rules and lore is learned informally, and on the job.
When an apprenticeship is done (the guild sets the length of the apprenticeship), the young man is considered to have come of age. He leaves the home of his master and goes forth into the world as a journeyman (Status 0), carrying with him a letter of recommendation from his apprenticehood master. A journeyman seeks work with different masters, going from town to town to learn different techniques and refine his skill, getting further letters of recommendation from his journeyman masters. A journeyman may live with his temporary master, or at a special hostelry at the city guilds.
Some journeymen lack the skill or the means to become a master, and have their own business and household. They remain journeymen, serving a master, for all their lives. Most of them also remain bachelors.
Usually, a man spends seven years as a journeyman, if he is mpetent and of a good family, if he is not, it may take much longer. When his craft is sufficiently improved, he chooses a town to settle down in. Usually, but not always, this will be the town of his birth. He seeks admittance to the local guild as a master. To be admitted as a citizen and a master, he must find a wife, and have a workshop, or show the means to start one.
Journeymen often marry the daughthers of their masters, whether from convenience or emergency.
Lastly, to be granted master status, a journeyman must craft his master piece, a finished product that shows his very best skill, and is usually made from fine materials. A guild often requires the master piece to be made within a limited time.
The letters, the master piece and the artisan are all examined by the guild masters, who decide whether to admit him or not.