In my native Yorkshire back in the 17 and 18 hundreds there were numerous small workshops - not for kilts, though, casting and blacksmithing was more the thing, or carpentry and cabinet making - the owner and chief craftsman was called little mester - said 'meh-stah'.

I assume the title goes back before the vowel slide that altered mester to master.

There were mesters that had bigger works and small factories, and gret mesters who made huge factories and built whole towns to serve them.

I suspect that many of them were outside the Guild organisation as there simply wasn't time for the slow ascent through the ranks when there was experimentation and innovation everywhere, and a young man with ideas could find himself employed to assist or just to work out his own ideas for someone with money to invest in new technology.

If something new was developed then he could find himself unable to leave that employment in order to attain Guild qualifications as it would mean revealing the process to other Guild members.

These days I would take any craft type title with a pinch of salt if it was not fully explained just who it was awarding the title, as so many formerly powerful Guilds are now little more than voluntary associations of professional people, whilst others are little more than wishful thinking.

Anne the Pleater