1
THE CRAFT GUILDS OF FRANCE.
84
fully realised under Charlemagne.
obliged, equally with the chieftains of the
The towns were
submit to the supreme control; and although they preserved their internal
barbarians, to
organisation and
still
exercised the municipal authority,
it
was only
in subordination to the
royal lieutenants and governors, to whom was entrusted the dispensation of all the highest
The trade guilds retained the greater part of their
functions of government and justice.
But Charlemagne, with the
and were deftly woven into the new fabric.
previous importance,
his empire, had laid the foundations of the Feudal
appointment of lieutenants throughout
system
it
;
only needed a
functions which
the
weak hand
at the
rudder for these
officers to arrogate to
they had previously exercised in the king's name; and
Under
occurred on the death of Louis the D^bonnaire, 840.
system sprang into existence with wonderful celerity
was everywhere necessary, we
;
themselves
this really
his feeble successors, the feudal
and, as under this system a feudal lord
find the cities subject either to the bishop or the lord
paramount.
Gradually a series of struggles began on the part of the municipalities to recover their former
independence
their
lord
—struggles
in which the citizens were sometimes aided
by the clergy against
paramount, sometimes by a neighbouring potentate against their bishops, and
sometimes by the royal power against both.
Philippe le Bel (1285-1314) notoriously made use of the communes to check the power of
the nobility, and with such success, that in the thirteenth century we find the cities every-
where possessed of their privileges
— self-governing,
self-taxing, but subservient to the royal
authority, represented by the king's lieutenants.
The
craft guilds also
their ancient privileges,
feudal lords are
about this time are able to produce documents confirming and settling
and the various fees and fines which had previously accrued to the
now
payable to the king.
these struggles in the eleventh century.^
But
Levasseur places the
"
beginning of the end
"
of
have already pointed out, this general sketch of the rise of the municipalities,
craft guilds, would probably not apply to every city of the empire.
In
the north especially, where the German element was strongest, many modifications might be
as
I
and therefore of the
expected
;
and
still
more
so in
in the ninth century,
Normandy, which,
incidents of a fresh invasion of the barbarians.
German
In these
—
was exposed
to all the
districts it is possible that the
—
mutual support the guild system may have much influenced
the development of the handicrafts and municipalities but whether this spirit had Eoman
traditions or not to build upon, the ultimate effect was the same.
The craft guilds of the
spirit of association for
;
north are not to be distinguished in the thirteenth century from those of the south, but differ
in many important respects from those of Germany
the institution of craft consuls, provosts,
and prud'hommcs being one of the most striking.
All these officers appear in Germany to
—
'
'
have been replaced by one sole master, who was elected annually, and their functions and
duties bear little or no resemblance to his.
Amongst the cities in the north which, at an early
date, achieved a virtual independence,
may be mentioned Le Mans, 1072; Cambrai, 1076; and
This complete agreement in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries between
the institutions of the north and south (except in minor and unimportant matters), in spite of
the differences of nationality and even of language, can
a continuous
only be accounted for
Beauvais, 1099.2
by
and render the words of Aug. Thierry most
"The corporations arose equally with the communes from an application of the
and gradual reaction of one
apposite,
'
—
Levasseur, Histoire
ties
district
on the other
Classes Ouviieres en France, vol.
;
i.,
p. 192.
2
Ihid., p. 180.