Thieves' guild

A thieves' guild is an association of criminals who participate in theft-related organized crime, usually in a fictional context. A thieves' guild is a common feature of old-fashioned urban locations in various types of fiction.

A central feature of Cervantes' story "Rinconete y Cortadillo", set in 16th Century Seville, is the city's strong and well-organized thieves' guild built to the model of the medieval guild. As in any other profession, a young thief must start as an apprentice and slowly work his way to become a master craftsman--in this case, a master thief. No one could come into a city and start on a career as a thief without belonging to the local guild (as Cervantes' protagonists soon find out), which would have been in many cases true also for a medieval tailor or carpenter wandering into a strange city. And the thieves have their own church where they go to pray (shared with prostitutes)--which indeed was often the case with respectable professions in a medieval city.

Rinconete y Cortadillo is a picaresque novel - a work of satire. The 'Thieve's Guild' being analog of the ruling class - all the outer show of piety, respectability, even charity and ideals of justice, but robbing and killing all the same. Generally such fictional devices are used because the premise is absurd - 'respectable thieves'. Given this context any attempt to link this novel with a historical social reality is problematic.

The Medieval Underworld by Andrew McCall gives historical accounts of various historical criminal organisations. The closest to fictional Thieves' guild tropes arose in France - the Cours des Miracles. From this group the concept of the "King of Thieves" or "King of Beggars", who supposedly held power over all criminals in a given city, may have its origin.

Andrew McCall also gives a historical view on the life of a thief in the period. Such careers were mostly short due to the brutality of medieval justice. A first offender might be maimed or branded. A second offence (attested by the marks of the first) typically led to execution. A maimed man would often become a beggar. Beggars (histroical and contemptory) often formed social groups to protect good begging patches, and provide some mutual protection and companionship.

Modern fantasy fiction and role-playing games took up the concept extensively, starting with the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story "Thieves' House" by Fritz Leiber, in 1943, and further stories set in Lankhmar.

• Quest for Glory series has a thieves guild that the player can join, and plays a prominent role in completing the game, depending on the player's career path
• Ankh-Morpork Thieves' Guild (Discworld)
• The Guild of Thieves, a computer game exclusively about a thieves' guild
• Thieves Guild Board Game, a fantasy adventure board game about thieves guilds
• The Black Magician (novel series) involves a thieves' guild as a central plot element
• The Assassin's Creed video game also has a thieves guild
• The Elder Scrolls series has a thieves guild
• Gambit is a member and heir of the New Orleans thieves guild, adopted son to Jean-Luc LeBeau, the King of Thieves
• The Rattlebone Brotherhood, uniting "thieves, swindlers and cutthroats" is a major force in the society of Arvanneth—a New Orleans surviving thousands of years into the future of an Earth gripped by a new Ice Age, in Poul Anderson's novel, "The Winter of the World"

See also

King of the Gypsies