Editing Guild (section)

==== Russian Empire ====
{{Main article|Merchant guild (Russian Empire)}}
During the [[Kievan Rus']], merchants were referred to one of three names based on the scale of their operation: the international or foreign trading ''gosti'' (literally, ''guests''), the local merchant ''kuptsy'', and the small commodity dealing ''torgovtsy''. By the end of the 16th century, the ''{{Interlanguage link|Gosti (merchant class)|lt=gosti|ru|Гость_(купечество)}}'' were integrated into the Muscovite hierarchy as heads of large corporations with certain obligations owed to and privileges extracted from the tsar with regional and local trade operating outside the capital conducted by the ''gostinnaya sotnya'' (lit. ''guests' hundred'') and the ''sukonnaya sotnya'' (''mercer's hundred'') respectively.

From the reforms of [[Peter the Great]] at the beginning of the 18th century until the [[Decree on the Abolition of Estates and Civil Ranks|Decree on the Abolition of Estates]], these divisions were organized hierarchically into three classes registered with the state for a fee and enjoining privileges to trade in certain areas and goods. Membership was exclusive to men and was not automatically hereditarily conferred; relatives were afforded special recognition to conduct business on the behalf of the guild member until their death with adult male children having to earn their own membership. The Manifesto of March 17, 1775 further defined capital requirements for each rank.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baron |first=Samuel Haskell |url=https://archive.org/details/muscoviterussiac0000baro/mode/2up |title=Muscovite Russia : collected essays |date=1980 |publisher=London : Variorum Reprints |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-86078-063-2 |pages=VI}}</ref>