THE CRAFT GUILDS OF FRANCE.
to the loss of their privileges
207
and statutes which have become mislaid and
lost during the
wars and troubles which have been in this country also the request made by them for the
authorisation of the said privileges under the good pleasure of the king also the conclusions
;
;
of the king's ^rocjirewr; also the regulations and privileges of the confraternity of their said
guild in the church of St Guillen and the suburbs of the said MontpelUer authorised in our
8th February 1508, and signed Durant, chief judge, and Duranty, notary and
written on five leaves of parchment and having weighed and considered everytlung
registrar,
according to the advice and deliberations of the said council, we have said and ordained, do
said court,
;
say and ordain that the said statutes and regulations, saving the pleasure of his majesty, are
and we have published the same and authorised them, to be kept and observed
inviolably by the said master-masons and their successors, whom we have enjoined and do
received,
enjoin to observe and maintain the
and
of the said court
masons
office of
same
;
the domain
;
and ordered that they be registered in the register
the whole provisionally, and until the said master-
have obtained from his said Majesty letters patent in form of charter of the said
privileges, the which they shall do within one year next; and our present ordinance shall
be intimated and signified to all whom it may concern, in order that they pretend not
shall
{Signed) Eochemaure, lieutenant rapporteur, de Clerc, Calvet, de Sollas, Massillan,
ignorance.
Danches, treasurer."
Pronounced in presence of the said lieutenant principal, at the morning council, petitioner
Master Chirac, mason, and in presence of the advocate of the King, the twenty-second of June
Feines, J.
"
one thousand
From
five
hundred fourscore and
five."
and 11 of the preceding, it is apparent that the craft as a guild,
same body as a fraternity indeed, a hasty perusal might
recognised many
almost warrant the conclusion that in this case at least the codes of the two corporations (the
craft and the candle) were fused.
That such was not the case is evidenced by the enumeraarticles 8, 9, 10,
of the duties of the
;
documents vised by tlie king's Lieutenant, Eochemaure, one of which is " the
regulations and privileges of the fraternity of the said guild in the church of St Guillen,"
tion of the
date " 8 Febry. 1508."
It
would be a tedious
and of
task,
little assistance in
our present inquiry, to detail the various
—
laws that have been passed in France by its princes and rulers permitting, encouraging,
controlling, curtailing, and suppressing in turn both the trade guilds and the trade fraternities,
as well as all other fraternities whatsoever.
a permission granted to-day
AMiat was done one year was undone the next
sometimes the guilds were established,
was revoked to-morrow
;
;
then came special exemptions, tiU in a year or two everything
In a word, the state, although often aware in a fitful
footing.
exercised by the craft guilds, and sustained by their allies the
monopoly
but the fraternities forbidden
;
was once more on the old
manner
of the gi-oss
and what the artisans could not
fraternities, was reaUy quite unable to cope with them
accomplish by stolid resistance was always ceded to them (for a consideration) when the
treasury required replenishing, or the king felt the necessity of support in his struggles with
;
the nobility.
The
edicts of
1212 and 1308 against the Confrirics have already been mentioned.
The
After the plague of 1348, which decimated
law of 1350 demands more careful consideration.
whole towns and
villages, the scale o `