In other countries, they were called métiers ("craft bodies") in France, guilds in England, Zünfte in Germany, gremios in Castile, gremis in Catalonia and València, grémios in Portugal, συντεχνία in Greece, and with others denominations.
In Italy they had different names from region to region: Arts and Craft Corporations in Tuscany, fraglie in the Venetian hinterland, scole in Venice, paratici in various cities of Lombardy,gremi in Sardinia, society of arts in Bologna, colleges in Perugia.
The members of these corporations found themselves managing and administering large interests and managed to create commercial and financial relationships in many parts of the world; their economic primacy led them by the end of the thirteenth century to the leadership of the Florentine Republic.
In Flanders, in Ghent, Bruges and Liège, the corporations managed to obtain only a few seats in the city's cpirt, alongside those occupied by the old patricians.
The protection of the quality of manufactured goods, especially with regard to corporations dedicated to commercial activities; the internal regulations imposed strict control on the use of raw materials, work tools, processing techniques in a primitive form of property rights enforcement, i.e. those products that did not comply with the quality standards set by the associations.
Each corporation had its own statute and was structured according to representative bodies: The Corporal: it was the plenary assembly of members which initially met at close intervals and elected representatives called, depending on the case, consuls, priors, rectors, captains, etc.
; the consuls remained in office only for short periods and had the task of managing all the corporation's activities, including external public relations.
The bureaucratic apparatus: generally composed of a notary with the functions of secretary and protocol officer and a treasurer.
On the one hand, the ability to have sole access to markets meant that the business was encouraged (e.g., the ability to be an exclusive trader provided an incentive to the East India Company to accept financial risks in exploration) and the negative effects of competition were avoided (to take the same example, exclusive patents cut down on merchants sponsoring piracy).