THE CRAFT GUILDS OF FRANCE.
—
guild system to something pre-existing
to the corporations or colleges of
185
workmen
of
Roman
*
origin."
In Paris the
—
rise of the
municipality is characterised by a singular feature the government of the city being vested not in the delegates of all the guilds, but in the officers of
one huge guild only, that of the Parisian Haiise. It is, however, well to bear in mind that
Hanse was not only the chief source of the opulence and prosperity
time came to include all the well-to-do citizens.
the
of the capital, but
also in course of
At
with
the period
under the
when
name
history first affords us
Marchands dc
definite picture of this association,
any
and
we meet
simply as Marchands de
Veau, and it possessed a monopoly of the commerce of the Seine within certain limits above
and below the city. No ship could enter this territory without taking into partnership, and
it
of the
I'eau de Paris,
later
under the protection of, one of the members of the company otherwise all its cargo
In return for lending his name, the Paris merchant had the option either of
over half the freight at cost price, or of selling such goods as were intended for Paris
taking
under his own auspices, and halving the iiett profits.
Furthermore, no goods were allowed to
sailing
was
;
confiscated.
if the Paris merchants thought them suitable, and
required in that
Such an arrangement appears absolutely impossible to our present ideas no wonder the
city.
Paris merchants grew rich
They were enabled to secure all the profits of extensive trading
proceed beyond Paris,
;
!
without the risk attending
this association
was
functions of a
mayor
(1226-1270).
considering
it
it,
their
own
capital not being called into requisition.
called the provost of the merchants,
The head
and he very early assumed
all
of
the
of the city, even collecting the taxes until the reign of Louis IX.
For this guild the French writers also claim a Eoman origin, and all agree in
the direct successor of the Nautoe Parisiacl
The only grounds, apparently, for
this belief being its great antiquity, many acts mentioning "that man's memory runnetli
"
not to the contrary
and the fact that a corporation of
{qu'il nest mimoirc du contrairc)
Nautse did exist under the Romans, also that in the reign of Tiberius Caesar they erected an
;
altar to Jupiter,
which was found, in the eighteenth century, on the spot now occupied by
the Hotel de ViUe.
It bears the following inscription
"
TIB
C^SARE
.
^
:
•
AVG lOVI OPTViM
MAXSVMO
M
.
.
NAVT^
I'VBLICE
.
.
.
POSIEEV
•
The
earliest
document
in
which
this
.
PAEISIACI
company
TX"
is
legally recognised bears date a.d. 1121,
wherein Louis VI. grants certain privileges which had previously vested in him, and in which
treated as an already ancient institution.*
These privileges were confirmed in 1170 by
it is
Louis VII., and once more in 1192 by Philippe Auguste.^
'
'
This society appears shortly
Lacroix et Ser^, Le Moj-en Age et la Renaissance, Article, " Mouteil, Corporations de Metiers," p. 5.
Introduction by G. C. Lavergne (1879) to llemoire k Consulter sur I'Existence des Six Corps, etc., by Dilacroix
(1776).
2
'
Levasseur, Histoire des Classes Ouvrieres en France, vol.
i.,
Lavergne, Introduction to Delacroix, Memoire a Consulter sur I'Existence des Six Corps,
2
A
*
p. 22.
p. 7.
Ibid., p. 193.