Linen weaving was for many years the most thriving trade in Ried. Around 450 years ago, 900 people worked in the trade. 100 years later, 600 people were still making a living from it. 

The old linen weavers’ guild house was situated on the western Vormarkt, at what is today number 11, Rainerstraße. The building also provided temporary lodging for journeyman linen weavers, the “Knappenschaft”, or brotherhood. The master weavers met every fortnight in the guild house on “ordinary meetings”. Quality control was undertaken in the inspection chamber. Only perfect products were awarded a seal and released for sale. The guildsmen made up the brotherhood of St. Ulrich.

The many linen weavers were dependent on relatively few traders. The disputes between linen traders and weavers in Ried are evidence of the social divide between production and trade. Linen traders were some of the wealthiest and most eminent citizens in the district. Ried linen was traded throughout most of Upper Austria and also as far afield as South Tyrol, Passau, Regensburg, Nuremberg and Würzburg.