What was the significance of guilds to the way people lived and worked in the Kingdom of Benin?
Imagine living and working only with people that do the same job as you. That’s how society was structured in the Kingdom of Benin.
A guild was a group of people who lived and worked together in the same industry. In Benin, there were over 40 guilds; from acrobats, to potters, to blacksmiths.
To get to grips with the benefits of the guild system, we were set some tricky challenges to complete on our own. Then, we were allowed to team up with others completing the same challenge and work together. It was clear how much easier it was to work alongside people on the same task to share ideas and help each other.
We also discussed the hierarchy of power in the kingdom, sharing ideas about why certain people were deemed more important than others.
