The Riga Merchant Guild, also known as the Large Guild of Riga or St. Mary's Guild () was a German merchant guild in Riga, the

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

n capital, which existed from 1354 to 1936.

Establishment

A precursor, the Heilig-Kreuz-Gilde (Guild of the Holy Cross) was founded around 1252. Riga became a member of the

Hanseatic League The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...

in 1282, and the German guilds became more prominent in the life of the city. In 1354, the merchants created their own separate guild, independent of the Heilig-Kreuz-Gilde, and called it St. Marien-Gilde. The counterpart of the Merchant Guild was the Small Guild of Riga, also known as The Guild of St. John (Die Kleine Gilde zu Riga, Sankt-Johannis-Gilde), a fraternity of master craftsmen which had separated from the other guilds in 1352.

References

History of Riga Medieval history of Latvia Guilds in Livonia 14th-century establishments in Latvia {{Europe-org-stub