The manuscript deals with the question of artisan migration in the 18th and 19th centuries, and, in particular,
investigates migration towards Vienna. My starting-point is that artisan trades should not be interpreted as some
kind of fossilised relic from the past, but should instead be understood as a flexible and ultimately very efficient
means of regulating social mobility and dynamism. Generally speaking, the world of small enterprises was a world
in motion. In the first place, it was very much a world of spatial movement, because urban artisans were - up until
the 20th century - largely recruited from outside the towns in which they worked. Artisans` migrational behaviour
varied according to sector and the status that a particular trade enjoyed in the guild hierarchy. Likewise, migrant
destinations underwent manifold changes in the period under investigation. However, that should not be taken to
imply that an artisan`s final destination was chosen at random: on the contrary, individual routes were carefully
worked out according to a combination of supra-regional communications networks, favourable travel routes, the
existence of attractive urban centres and the promise of work in a particular sector. Spatial migration was - and is -
an extremely selective procedure. Migration routes are closely connected to a multiplicity of relationships and
interactions between people: individuals made - and make - their decisions within the context of whichever society
they live in. If we view spatial mobility as an important and integral feature within the comparatively stable social
and economic environment of the 18th and 19th centuries, then there is no longer any need to search for the general
causes of migration: given that migration was the rule, rather than the exception, we do not need to find any
specific explanation for migrational activity. People act within a set of networks defined by the state,
neighbourhoods, friendships, family, occupation, religion and culture; the individual`s entry into these networks and
the specific use that he or she makes of them will vary according to the historical period, geographical location,
gender, social status, age and so on. For this reason, I prefer to employ the term `network` as a kind of metaphor for
the multiplicity of relationships into which a person enters during his or her lifetime. In other words, the network is
something constructed by individuals, and is something that changes with each new decision that the individual
makes. From this point of view, migration leads to the formation of new relationships which are already tied into
existing networks. These new relationship can thus expand the range of possibilities open to individual action, but
simultaneously may also dissolve other ties. Vienna was the most important economic centre in the Habsburg
Monarchy in the 18th and 19th centuries, and was home to numerous small enterprises. In 1820, for example,
Vienna and its suburbs counted 159 trade corporations, of which 150 were civic guilds and 9 specially privileged
committees.