Thats my question.
I misread that as "Did thieving beggar guilds exist?’ and I was all set to answer “No. Politicians have never unionized, and no apprenticeship was ever required before taking office.”
(sigh) There are a few other occupations that would fit, too.
They exist now. Why would you suspect that they didn’t exist at some unspecified time in the past?
The “court of miracles”, gathering thieves and beggars of Paris, and featured in “Notre-Dame de Paris”, did actually exist during the middle-ages.