THE CRAFT GUILDS OF FRANCE.
must have raukled
miuds of the sovereigns of France for in 1383 Charles YL, believing
after his defeat of the Flemish at Eoosebeck, abolished tlie municipality
in the
himself to be irresistible
;
sujij^ressed the
altogether;
187
prcvoM of the merchants, transferring the remnant of its jurisand forbade the craftsmen in
diction to the i^revot de Paris; interdicted all trade fraternities,
He had, however, overgeneral to have any other chiefs than those appointed by himself
estimated his power: the guilds did not disband; the butchers were the first to be legally
reinstated
in
the
1387;
others
followed suit;
and in 1411
the
municipality
was
itself
Ultimately the provost of Paris was suppressed, and the- provost of the merchants recovered the whole of his former authority, which, in spite of many temporary
reverses, continued in full force until the great revolution at the end of the eighteenth
restored.!
century.^
The
on the Seine and
Hanse
societies
to so prolonged
an existence.
tributaries established similar organisations as a counterpoise;
its
this led to constant bickerings,
know
Hanse were not destined
restrictive privileges of the
Otlier cities
reprisals,
and
law-suits, so that in
1461
tlie
privileges of all
As we
were annulled, and in 1672 the fraternity itself \vas abolished.^
existed for upwards of two centuries subsequently, this would
that the six corps
tend to bear out Levasseur's assertion that the Hanse and the six corps were separate
bodies; but on the other hand, they may have been one and the same body with two
distinctive
Hanse
functions,
which
of
one
only was suppressed.
preserved in the escutcheon of the city of Paris,
is
A
which
lasting
memento
carries a ship
of
the
under
full
sail in chief.
Under what
title
the earliest trade guilds exercised their authority it is now impossible
It may have been the inherent right in any body of men to settle
to accurately determine.
own
such conduct obtained the general approbation of their
Subsequently, in the feudal ages, the consent of the lord paramount was
absolutely essential to the validity of their statutes;* whilst, in the fourteenth century,
the trade guilds could not legally exist without the king's express approval of their
The first serious attempt to introduce order and uniformity into these
rules and regulations.^
their
fellow
line of conduct, provided
citizens.
corporations
was made
in the latter half of the thirteenth century
by Etienne Boileuu, provost
In his Livre des Metiers he has tabulated the usages
Many important guilds are missing, such as the butchers,
of Paris, during the reign of St Louis.
of a hundred craft guilds of Paris.
the tanners, glaziers, and others.
But
Still
it
affords
a comprehensive view of the internal
evident that, although this code treats solely of the royal
economy
domains, the king's authority was not even yet necessary to the letter of the statutes he
appointed a general master over each craft or group of crafts, who ruled in his name but
the statutes themselves, as given by Boileau, are merely affidavits of the workmen as to
of these bodies.
it is
;
:
their usages
and customs.
From
internal evidence
it
is
abundantly clear
(as
pointed out
method was to call before him representative
what had been usual and customary, which testimony was
In some cases the very
then recorded, and became the standard for future reference.
by Depping in
men
his introduction), that Boileau's
of each craft,
who
stated
1
Levasseur, Histoire des Classes Ouvrieres eu France, vol.
"
Depjiing, Livre
^
Ouin-Lacroi.x, Histoire des Anciennes Corporations d'Arts et Metiers, p. 5.
^
Lacroix et Sere, Le Jloyeu Age et la Eenaissauce, Article, " Mouteil, Corporations dc Metiers,"
ties
i.,
pp. 409-411.
Metiei-s d'Etienue Boileau, Introduction, p. 86.
'
Levasseur, vol.
i.,
p. 13.
p. 296.