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What is the earliest instance of an "Adventurers' Guild" in fiction?

It doesn't have to be called an 'Adventurers' Guild', but the basic requirements are:

  1. It's a organization that expands and has some organizational structure.

  2. Most members of the guild have regularly fighting monsters as part of their job description, where monsters are non-sentient, hostile, fauna.

  3. The 'Guild' owns and occupies buildings with their members, in most major cities... Like 'home bases', 'guildhalls', and 'headquarters', and 'branch office' for instance...

The Elder Scrolls' Fighters Guild and Mages Guild fits the description...

As does the Kate Daniels Mercenary Guild.

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This is a bit tongue in cheek, but how about the crew of the Nautilus in "20 000 leagues under the sea" ? They are an organization (both as a ships crew and as supporters of the Cretan revolt), they expand (at least temporary by picking up Prof Arronax, Conseil and Ned Land) and they fight monsters like sharks, giant (presumably non-sentinent) squid and similar.

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  • Well, I just changed the question, 'cause your answer helped me figure out something I was missing. "Guilds have buildings."
    – Malady
    Jul 28, 2015 at 20:24
  • Well, the Captain Nemo has it's own hollow volcano complete with a coal mine :-) (don't worry, I won't press my point :-) ).
    – Eike Pierstorff
    Jul 28, 2015 at 20:41
  • If a ship counts as the guild hall, then mythology.stackexchange.com/a/628/197 is an older example.
    – b_jonas
    Jul 28, 2015 at 20:44
  • @b_jonas - Guildhalls should be in large population centers, a.k.a cities & towns... ... Or are you trying for humor?
    – Malady
    Jul 28, 2015 at 20:47
  • Hmm... the Argo did visit some large population centers, didn't it? Oh, I see zipquincy had already suggested this earlier, though that was before the edit about buildings.
    – b_jonas
    Jul 28, 2015 at 20:55

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