THE CRAFT GUILDS OF FRANCE.
183
the church, and attained to public life and independence at that period when order comto be established in the relations between the commune, the feudal lord, and the
menced
Church."
1
"Koman
civil architecture, industry, art
perpetuated in France
serving their
they found
own
—in
Eoman
one word, the whole
tradition
was
Even the German
the tenth century.
conquerors, whilst prenational laws, customs, and usages, accepted the Gallic industry much as
till
^
it."
"The Middle Ages invented
nothing, but they gathered
together from the preceding
which they carefully preserved the memory and in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries the industries still flourished which had created the opulence of
Civilisation its traditions, of
;
Eoman
"
the
*
Gaul, generally in the very districts which had given them birth."
It would be possible to find traces of the goldsmiths' guild amongst the Gauls ever since
Eoman
*
occupation."
The above
taken from
quotations,
independent
may
sources,
be described as
fairly
representing the general opinion of all French writers who have devoted any special attention
to tliis subject
but entirely apart from the weight of their authority, the facts they adduce
;
must go
colleges
show the great probability of a virtual and direct descent from the Eoman
and municipalities to the French trades guilds and communes of the early Middle
far to
Ages.®
In corroboration of
view
this
it
may
be mentioned, that in France
many Eoman
edifices
mere ruins; showing that, in
spite of the incursions and conquests of the Gothic hordes, some cities were never destroyed,
or even deserted for a sufficient length of time to entail their decay.
At Eheims a triple
still
exist in a complete state of preservation; not, as elsewhere,
Eoman
used as one of the city gates, the Porte-dc-Mars ; Aries,
under Constantine the metropolis of Gaul, possesse.s, besides the ruins of the amphitheatre
and two temples, a Eoman triumphal arch in excellent preservation,