Thieves' guild

A thieves' guild is a trope consisting of a formal association of criminals who participate in theft-related organized crime in works of contemporary fantasy fiction, such as the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story "Thieves' House" by Fritz Leiber,, and similarly-themed fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.

A central feature of Cervantes' story Rinconete y Cortadillo, set in sixteenth-century Seville, is the city's strong and well-organized thieves' guild built to the model of the medieval guild. As in any other profession, a young thief must start as an apprentice and slowly work his way to become a master craftsman—in this case, a master thief. No one could come into a city and start on a career as a thief without belonging to the local guild (as Cervantes' protagonists soon find out), which would have been in many cases true also for a medieval tailor or carpenter wandering into a strange city. Thieves also have their own church where they go to pray (shared with prostitutes).

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