The History of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Chapter 15 - The French Guilds of the Middle Ages

An account has already been given in this work of the character of the English Craft guilds or corporations of workmen. I have not been able to concur in the views of Mr. Thorpe, nor in the qualified opinion of Brentano, that we are to look for the origin of these guilds, not in the Roman Colleges, but in the Scandinavian confraternities.

In Gaul and subsequently, with greater development, in France, we find the existence of similar guilds or corporations of workmen, and here we are able to trace them more directly to the Roman Colleges of Artificers, as their models, because, after the fall of the Empire and the invasion of the barbarians, the old inhabitants were not exterminated by the invaders. On the contrary, the Franks were well disposed to the Roman culture and civilization, accepted many of the Roman laws and customs, imitated the remaining monuments of Roman taste and skill, and finally adopted, in the place of their own rough Teutonic dialect, a modified form of the Latin language.

The Craft guilds or corporations of workmen which were in existence in Gaul at an early period after the decay of the Roman Empire, continued to exist with spasmodic interruptions until the 12th and 13th centuries, when they were fully developed in the Corporations des Metiers.

The writers of the exhaustive article on this subject in Lacroix's massive work on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, have advanced the theory that the guilds came into Gaul with the conquerors, and were therefore of Scandinavian or Teutonic origin, but in their subsequent investigations they appear tacitly to admit the fact that there was a very close connection between them and the Roman Colleges.

M. Aug. Thierry is of the opinion that the corporations, like the municipal communes, found their origin in the principles that governed the Roman Colleges. The guild, he says, was the moving power; the Roman Colleges the material on which it acted and out of which it was generated, and he thinks it would be interesting to examine how this motive principle as a new element has been applied to the ancient element of municipal organization which we historically know to have been of Roman origin and in what proportion it is combined with them.

In other words, he would seek to trace the connection between the Guilds and the Roman Colleges and to determine the influence of one upon the other.

Now this is the very investigation in which I propose to be engaged in the present chapter, as I have already pursued in the previous discussion of the early English guilds.

The theory that I have hitherto maintained, and which I have seen no reasonable cause to repudiate, is that the Guilds were the successors, as it were, by inheritance of the Roman Colleges.

Therefore, though the subject of these institutions has already been very fully treated, it will be expedient to introduce the history of the early guilds of Gaul and of their progress until they culminate in the 12th century in the Corporations des Metiers, by a brief recapitulation of what has been before said at length on the subject of the Colleges of Artificers of ancient Rome.

The corporations of artisans, which received the name of Collegia Artifum or Colleges of Artificers, are supposed to have been instituted by Numa, who first divided the artisans of Rome into nine colleges gave them regulations for their government, and prescribed peculiar rites and customs to be observed by them. They met in their course from the Kingdom to the Empire with many vicissitudes. They were abolished by Tullus Hostilius, re-established by Servius, again interdicted and anew instituted and enlarged in their faculties by the decemvirs. Under the republic they were a constant source of inquietude and danger; their turbulent members, misled by demagogues, repeatedly threatened the security of the state. They were, during the latter years of the republic, often dissolved and as often re-established. Finally, Caligula definitively re-constituted them and invested them with all their ancient prerogatives. Trajan and his successors showed the colleges but little favour; they were, however, tolerated because the artisans, deprived of consideration in the city, were much better received in the provinces, and could be retained at the Capital only by securing to them their privileges. At this epoch they had become very numerous both at Rome and in its provinces. A contemporary of Alexander Severus names thirty two colleges; Constantine designates thirty more, and the inscriptions preserved by Heineccius, their most reliable historian, enumerates many more.

The colleges required for their legal existence the authority of the law-in modern phrase it was necessary for them to be incorporated. Those which were not were styled illicit and their existence was prohibited.

Into each college, the artisans of only a particular profession or handicraft were admitted; slaves even might become members with the consent of their masters; and at length, persons cd distinction who were not of the profession practiced by the college were received as patrons or honourary members, and these became the protectors of the college.

Some of the trade, as for instance that of the bakers, were hereditary, and the practice of the trade descended from father to son.

No artist or handicraftsman was permitted to belong to more than one college.

Each college had the right to enact its own regulations for its internal government; for this purpose, and for the discussion of their common interests, the members frequently assembled, they elected their officers, and imposed a tax for the support of the common chest and decided these and all other questions by a majority of suffrages.

Each college had its patron deity and exercised peculiar religious rites of sacrifice and commemorative feasts, which sometimes degenerated into Bacchanalian banquets.

Such is a brief outline of the Craft guilds, as they may justly be styled, which prevailed in Rome at the time of the dissolution of the Empire, and which, for the reason already assigned, flourished with great popularity in all the provinces from southern Gaul to the northern limits of England, the evidence of which is extant in the numerous inscriptions which have been preserved commemorative of their residence and their labours in every part of Europe.

The writers of the article on the Corporations of Craftsmen, in the work of Lacroix, assert that under the conquering Germans, from the moment that Europe emerged from the government of Rome, without ever completely escaping from the influence of its laws, the confraternities of workmen never for an instant ceased to exist. The rare vestiges that we possess of them do not permit us to believe in their prosperous condition, but they attest at least their persistence. (1)

These fraternities of workmen were the Provincial colleges which the invaders found when they entered the countries whence they had expelled the former Roman masters. But the Teutonic tribes, whose invasion was for the purpose of a permanent settlement and not like that of the Huns, merely for temporary occupation and devastation, were not, as has been well observed, alien in mind and spirit from the Romans whom they had conquered. They had, to some extent, become familiar with the civilization which in the trial of strength they had overcome. Some of them had been soldiers in the imperial service or at the court, and many of them had likened to the teachings of Christian missionaries, and, though in an imperfect way, adopted Christianity as their religion. (2)

When, therefore, says Mr. Church, they founded their new kingdom in Gaul, in Spain, and in Italy, the things about them were not absolutely new to them. The influences of the Christian religion, which they imperfectly professed, of the Roman laws, which they did not altogether abolish, and of the Latin language, which they began insensibly to adopt, were exerted in producing a tolerance for the Roman corporations of workmen, as well as for many other Roman customs, and a facility for adopting the same system of organizing workmen, which led in time to the establishment of the guilds.

Of the regular progress of these guilds in the earlier centuries, as if they were a mere continuation of the corporations of the Roman colleges, we have sufficient, if not abundant, records.

Lucius Ampelius, a Latin writer of the 5th century, mentions,

(1) The article in Lacroix's "Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance," which treats of the Corporations de Metiers," was written by MM. Monteil and Rabutaux. To their researches I have been indebted for much that is contained in this chapter; but for the sake of brevity and convenience I shall cite authority under the general reference to Lacroix. (2) Church, "The Beginning of the Middle Ages," p. 46.

in his Liber Memorialis, a consul or chief of the locksmiths, whence we may infer an organized body of those craftsmen. Under the Merovingian kings, or the first dynasty of France, we meet with a corporation of goldsmiths. The bakers were probably organized under Charlemagne, as he took measures for their regulation, and in 630 they are distinctly spoken of as a corporation in the ordinances of Dagobert.

In Lombardy, which after its conquest by Charlemagne was in close relations with France, there were many colleges or corporations of artisans. We find in Ravenna, in 943, a college of fishermen, and ten years afterward a chief of the corporation of merchants; in 1001 a chief of the corporation of butchers. In 1061 Philip I. granted certain privileges to the Master chandlers.

The "ancient customs" of the butchers are mentioned in the time of Louis VII., in 1162; the same prince, in 1160, granted to the wife and heirs of one Yves Laccohre the faculty of practicing five trades, namely, those of the glovers, the purse-makers, the belt-makers, the cobblers, and the shoemakers. (1)

Under the subsequent reign of Philip II. similar grants or concessions are more numerous.

This monarch, whose military exploits had won for him the title of "Conqueror" and "Augustus," is said to have approved the statutes of several corporations; in 1182 he confirmed those of the butchers, and granted them several privileges; in the next year the skinners and the drapers were also the objects of his favour. (2) In all Europe, say the writers in Lacroix's work, toward the 12th century, Italy gave the first impulse to that restoration to splendour of the corporations which for some centuries had been diminishing in importance. The confraternities of artisans in the north of France also constituted themselves into corporations, whence they spread into the cities across the Rhine. In Germany the guild had for a long time preserved its primitive form, and therefore the German and the French corporations are not to be confounded, though they had a common origin.

The most important event that marked the reign of Louis VI. in the 12th century was the affranchisement of the inhabitants of

(1) "Et Boileau, Livre des Metiers." introduction by M. Depping. (2) Lacroix, "Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance."

the cities,' and the establishment of the Communes, or independent municipal governments. One of the results of this movement was the revived organization of the Parisian Hanse. This, which Lacroix calls the oldest and most considerable of the French corporations, was a company of the recently affranchised citizens of Paris under the name of the Merchadise de l'eau. It was a corporation to which was assigned the control of river navigation. A corporation similar in character had existed during the Roman domination, but in the lapse of time and under changes of government had become extinct. To this ancient corporation, however, it is probable that the new one owed its origin. The Parisian Hanse was always treated with great favour by the Kings. Louis VII. confirmed their privileges, and Philip II. increased them. At length it obtained the privilege of the navigation of the Seine and Yonde between Mantes and Auvern. Foreign merchants could not pass these limits and bring goods into Paris unless, they had affiliated with the Hanse, and associated in their mercantile gains a citizen who served as their guaranty. It presided over the disembarkation of all goods brought into Paris, and controlled all buying and selling. After a short time similar corporations were established in all the cities bordering on the sea or on rivers.

Previous to the second part of the 13th century several corporations of artists or Craft guilds had been authorized by different monarchs, but it is only in the reign of St. Louis, from 1226 to 1270, that we are to date the first general measures taken for the establishment of the communities in France, and of the corporations on a legal basis. Up to that time the Prevostship of Paris had been a venal office, which was sold to the highest bidder. Louis resolved to reform this abuse, and appointed Stephen Boileau to the office of Prevost of Paris.

Of Etienne, or Stephen Boileau, (2) French writers have not been niggardly in their encomiums. He was undoubtedly a magistrate worthy of the greatest praise. To him Paris is indebted for its police. He moderated and fixed the taxes and imposts which, under previous Prevosts, had been levied arbitrarily on trade and

(1) It was not until the 14th century that the stain of serfdom was removed from the peasants. (2) The name has been indifferently spelled, Boileau, Boyleau, Boleaue, or Boylesve. I have adhered to the most usual orthography.

commerce. But his most important act in relation to our present subject was the distribution of the merchants and artisans into distinct communities or corporations under the name of confraternities, with specific statutes for their government.

He collected from old records and other ancient sources the customs and usages of the various crafts, most of which had never been written; collated them, and most probably improved them in many parts, preserved them as monuments in the archives of the Chatelet, which was the Guildhall of Paris, and thus composed his invaluable work entitled Livre des Metiers, or the "Book of the Crafts." (1)

In his introduction to this work, M. Depping says that "it has the advantage of being for the most part the work of the corporations themselves, and not a series of regulations drawn up by the authority of the State."

The systems of corporations now began to enter into the regular framework of the social organization. Royal confirmations of charters, which had been rare during the 12th century, were multiplied in the 13th, and became a universal usage in the 14th century. (2)

As an evidence of the growth of these fraternities in cities neighbouring to France, it may be noted that in the year 1228 Bologna had twenty-one corporations of crafts; in 1321 Parma had eighteen, and in 1376 Turin had twenty-six.

The Livre des Metiers of Boileau contains the statutes or regulations of one hundred different corporations, and these were not all that were then existing in Paris. Some, for various reasons, had neglected or declined to have themselves inscribed at the Chatelet.

In succeeding reigns the corporations were greatly multiplied. Under the administration of the Chancellor Tellier, in the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., Sauval records in his Histoire des Antiquitis de la Ville de Paris, that he had counted 1,531 corporations in that city.

Some of these Parisian corporations possessed distinguished privileges. Such were the guild or corporation of Drapers, who held a preeminence over all others, the Grocers, the Mercers, the Skinners, the Hosiers, and the Goldsmiths.

(1) This work, long in manuscript, was first printed and published in 1837 in one volume quarto at Paris by M. Depping, who has enriched it with a learned Introduction. (2) Lacroix, "Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance."

Some of the corporations were held directly under the royal authority and some under certain high officers of the court.

In the first centuries after the dissolution of the Roman Empire the Roman law as to illicit or unauthorized corporations seems to have become obsolete or to have been wholly disregarded, and the corporations were constituted and organized at the will of their organizers. But subsequently, and more especially after the 12th century, the approval of their regulations by the King or other person, in whose jurisdiction they were, was required to impart to them a legal condition.

These corporations had their peculiar privileges conceded to them by the royal or other competent authority, and their statutes and regulations enacted, for the most part, by themselves. They were distinguished from each other by their coats of arms, which they displayed in their processions and on other public occasions.

Each of the corporations held its General Assembly, to which the members frequently came from a great distance. Absentees were often fined.

The number of craftsmen who attended was frequently great. For instance, in 136i, the General Assembly of the Drapers of Rouen was composed of more than a thousand persons. (1)

These Assemblies were generally convened by the officers of the King, who assisted at them either in person or by their delegates; but sometimes they were called together by the artisans without royal authority.

To render the attendance on them more convenient, artisans of the same profession usually inhabited the same quarter of the city, and even the same street. Sometimes this common residence was made obligatory as in the case of the booksellers of Paris, who were compelled to dwell beyond the bridges on the right bank of the Seine.

The writers in Lacroix assert that these communities or corporations were in possession of all the privileges that formerly attached to the Roman Colleges. They could possess property, sustain actions at law through a procurator, and accept legacies. They had a common chest, exacted dues of their members, and exercised

(1) Lacroix, ut supra.

a police jurisdiction over them, and, to some extent, a criminal one. They struggled to preserve and to augment their privileges, and took part in all the conflicts of those turbulent times and in the quarrels, which were by no means few, between the Masters and the workmen. Some of them even exercised a jurisdiction over artisans who were not members of the corporation.

In most of the corporations the officers were elected by the community, though in some cases they were appointed by the King or other extraneous authority.

The members of the corporation were divided into three classes: Apprentices, Companions, and Masters. The writers in Lacroix speak of these clasms as degrees, but evidently without attaching to the word the meaning conveyed in the modern Masonic use of it. They were simply ranks, or classes, the lower subordinate to the higher.

The duration of apprenticeship was from two to eight years, and in most of the trades the Companion had to undergo a considerable probation before he could become a Master. The Companion was usually called a varlet gaignant; that is, a man who earns wages equivalent to the English journeyman, or, as he was called in the old Masonic charges, a Fellow.

When the Apprentice, having completed his apprenticeship, or the Companion was desirous of being promoted to the rank of Master, he assumed the title of Aspirant. (1) He was subjected to frequent rigid examinations, and was requited to prove hs fitness for advancement by executing; some of the principal products of the trade or craft which he professed. This was called his chef-d'aeuvre, and in its execution he was surrounded by minute formalities. He was closely confined in an edifice or apartment specially prepared for the occasion; he was deprived of all communication with his relations or friends and worked under the eyes of officers of the corporation. His task lasted sometimes for several months. It was not always confined to the direct products of the trade, but sometimes extended to the fabrication of the tools used in his craft

The aspirant having successfully submitted to the examinations and trials imposed upon him, and having renewed his oath of fidelity to the King, an oath which he must have previously taken as an Apprentice,

(1) Lacroix, ut supra.

was required afterward to pay a tax, which was sometimes heavy, and which was divided between the King or Lord and the corporation. This tax was, however, remitted or greatly reduced in the case of the son of a Master of the Craft. From this usage has been, undoubtedly, derived the custom which still prevails in the Speculative Masonry of some countries, and which was once universal, of initiating a louveleau, or the son of a Mason, at an earlier age than that prescribed for other candidates.

The statues of every corporation exercised great vigilance over the private life and morals of the members.

Bastards could not be accepted as Apprentices. To be admitted to the Mastership it was necessary that the Aspirant should enjoy a stainless reputation. To use the modern Masonic phrase, he must be "under the tongue of good report."

If an artisan associated with heretics or excommunicated persons, or cat or drank with them, he was subject to punishment.

The statutes cultivated good feelings and affectionate relations between the members.

The merchant or craftsman could not strive to entice a customer to enter his shop when he was approaching that of his neighbor.

Improper language to each other subjected the offender to a fine.

In reference to religion, each corporation constituted a religious confraternity, which was placed under the patronage of some saint, who was deemed the special protector of the profession. Thus St. Crispin was the patron sent of the Shoemakers, and St. Eloy of the Smiths.

Every corporation possessed a chapel in some church of the quarter, and often maintained a chaplain.

The corporations had religious exercises on stated occasions for the spiritual and temporal prosperity of the community; they rendered funeral honors to the dead, and took care of the widows and orphans of deceased members; they distributed alms and sent to the hospitals the contributions which had been collected at their banquets.

The brethren received a strange workman in their trade when entering a city, welcomed him, provided for his first wants, sought work for him, and if that failed the eldest Companion yielded his place to him.

But this character in time degenerated, the banquets became debauches, conflicts took place between the workmen, and coalitions were formed against the industrial classes.

The law then interfered, and these confraternities or guilds were forbidden, but without much success.

It will be very evident to the reader that the details here given of the rise and progress, the form and organization of the mediaeval corporations or guilds do not refer to the Masons exclusively, but to the circle of the handicrafts of which the Masons constituted only one, but an important, portion. Before the middle of the 12th, or the beginning of the 13th, century, the corporations of Freemasons were not distinguished from the other crafts by any peculiar organization. They had undoubtedly derived a prominence over the other guilds in consequence of their connection with the construction of Cathedrals and other great public buildings; but "at that time," says Mr. Fergusson, "all trades and professions were organized in the same manner, and the guild of Masons differed in no essential particulars from those of the Shoemakers or Hatters, the Tailors or Vintners - all had their Masters and Past Masters, their Wardens and other Officers, and were recruited from a body of Apprentices, who were forced to undergo years of probationary servitude before they were admitted to practice their arts."

Mr. Fergusson draws incorrectly a deduction that the Freemasons were an insignificant body, and hence in his book, he pays no attention to them outside of Germany. He even underrates their constructive capacity, and thinks that the designs of the Cathedrals and other religious edifices were made by Bishops, who, taking as a model some former building, verbally corrected its mistakes and suggested his improvements to his builder. But history has shown that in France, as well as elsewhere, there were at art early period laymen who were distinguished architects.

The only legitimate inference that can be deduced from the fact that all the other handicrafts were organized on the same plan as the Masons, is that the guild spirit universally prevailed, and that there was a common origin for it, which most writers have correctly referred to the Roman Colleges, which were the most ancient guilds with which we are acquainted.

(1) "History of Architecture in all Countries from the Earliest Times to the Present Day." By James Fergusson, F.R.S., etc., London, 1867, vol. i., p. 477.

Having thus far treated of the guilds in general, or the corporations of all the trades, it is now proper to direct our attention exclusively to the Masonic Guilds as they present themselves to us in France during the Middle Ages.

Larousse, who has compiled the best and most exhaustive encyclopaedic dictionary in the French language, makes a distinction between the associations of Masons and those of the Freemasons in France, a distinction which has existed in other countries, but with more especial peculiarities in France. Like all the other crafts, they were divided into three ranks or degrees of Apprentice, journeyman, and Master. But I fail to find any evidence that there was a separate initiation or an esoteric knowledge peculiar to each rank which would constitute it a degree in the modern and technical sense of that word.

Larousse mixes the history of the French with that of the German Freemasons, but makes the Operative Masonic Guilds spring out of a jealousy or rivalry on the part of the Operative with the better-cultured architects.

He says that while the nomadic constructors of cathedrals and castles, that is to say, the Traveling Freemasons, who, springing out of Lombardy, were organized at Strasburg, at Cologne, and probably at York, formed a kind of aristocracy of the Craft, other Masons, attached to the soil and living, therefore, always in one place, formed independent and distinct corporations in the 15th century. I think, however, that such organizations may be found at an earlier period.

These Masons did not, like the German and English Freemasons, claim to be the disciples of St. John the Baptist, but placed themselves under the patronage of St. Blaise.

St. Blaise was a bishop and martyr who suffered in the 3d century, during the persecution of Diocletian. His legend says that he was tortured by having his flesh torn with iron combs, such as are used in carding wool. Hence he has been adopted by the wool-staplers as their patron. But it is inexplicable why he should have been selected by the Masons of France as their protecting saint, since there is nothing in the legend of his life that connects him with architecture or building.

The Guild or Corporation of Masons comprised Masons proper; that is, Builders, Stonecutters, Plaisterers, and Mortar Mixers. This we learn from the Regulations for the Arts and Trades of Paris, drawn up by Stephen Boileau and contained in the 48th chapter of his Livre des Metiers.

It will be interesting to compare these regulations of the French Masons, drawn up or copied as is said by Boileau from the older ones enacted by St. Eloy, with the statutes or constitutions of the English Masons contained in their Old Records. I have therefore inserted below a literal translation of them from the Livre des Metiers.

REGULATIONS OF THE MASONS, STONECUTTERS, PLAISTERERS, AND MORTAR MIXERS.

1. Whosoever desires may be a Master at Paris provided that he knows the trade and works according to the usages and customs of the craft.

2. No one can have more than one Apprentice and he can not take him for less than six years of service, but he may take him for a longer period and for money (a fee) if he has it. And if he takes him for a less period than six years he is subject to a fine of twenty sous of Paris, to be paid to the Chapel of St. Blaise, except only that he should be his son born in lawful wedlock. 3. A Mason may take another Apprentice, as soon as the other has accomplished five years of his service, for the same period that the other had been taken.

4. The present King on whom may God bestow a happy life has given the Mastership of the Masons to Master William de Saint Pater, during his pleasure. The said Master William swore at Paris in the lodges of the Pales before said, that he would to the best of his power, well and loyally protect the Craft, the poor as well as the rich, the weak as well as the strong as long as it was the king's pleasure that he should protect the Craft aforesaid and then Master William took the form of oath before said, before the Prevost of Paris in the Chdtelet (or town hall).

5. The Mortar Masters and the Plaisterers have the same condition and standing, in all things as the Masons.

6. The Master who presides overthe Craft of Masons, of Mortar Mixers and of Plaisterers, of Paris, by the King's order may have two Apprentices, but only on the conditions before said, and if he should have more, he will be assessed in the manner above provided for.

7. The Masons, the Mortar Mixers and the Plaisterers may have as many assistants and servants as they please so long as they do not in any point teach them the mystery of the trade.

8. Every Mason, every Mortar Mixer and every Plaisterer must swear on the gospels that he will maintain and do well and loyally to the Craft, each in his place and that if he knows that any one is doing wrong and not acting according to the usages and Craft aforesaid he will every time make it known, under his oath, to the Master.

9. The Master whose Apprentice has completed his time of service, must go before the Master of the Craft and declare that his Apprentice has finished his time well and faithfully; and the Master who presides over the Craft must make the Apprentice swear on the gospels that he will conform well and truly to the usages and customs of the Craft.

10. No one should work at the aforesaid trade on days when flesh may be eaten after nones have been sounded at Notre Dame (i.e., 3 o'clock in the afternoon) and on Saturday in Lent after Vespus have been chanted at Notre Dame unless it be on an arch, or to close a stair way or door opening on the street. And if any one should work after the aforesaid hours except in the above mentioned works of necessity he shall pay a fine of four derniers to the Master who presides over the Craft and the Master may take his tools for the fine.

11. The Mortar Mixers and the Plaisterers are under the jurisdiction of the Master aforesaid appointed by the king to preside over the Craft.

12. If a Plaisterer should send any man plaister to be used in a work, the Mason who is working for him to whom the plaister is sent, should by his oath, take care that the measure of the plaister is good and lawful; and if he suspects the measure he should measure the plaister or cause it to be measured in his presence. And if he finds that the measure is not good, the plaisterer must pay a fine of 5 sous; that is to say, 2 sous to the Chapel of St. Blaise, 2 sous to the Master who presides over the Craft and 11 (12?) deniers to him who has measured the plaister. And he to whom the plaister was delivered shall rebate from each sack that he shall receive in that work, as much as should have been in that which was measured in the beginning. But where there is only one sack, it shall not be measured.

13. No one can become a Plaisterer at Paris unless he pays 5 sous to the Master who, by the King's order presides over the Craft; and when he has paid the 5 sous he must swear on the gospels that he will mix nothing but plaister with his plaister, and that he wilt deliver good and true measure.

14. If the Plaisterer puts anything which he ought not, in his plaister he shall be fined 5 sous, to be paid to the Master every time that he is detected. And if the Plaisterer makes it a practice to do this, and will not submit to fine or punishment, the Master may exclude him from the Craft, and if he will not leave the Craft at the Master's order, the Master must make it known to the Prevost of Paris, and the Prevost must compel the Plaisterer to quit the Craft aforesaid.

15. The Mortar Mixer must swear before the Master and before other syndics of the Craft, that he will make Mortar only out of good limestone, and if he makes it of any other kind of stone or if the mortar is made of limestone but of inferior quality he should be reprimanded and should pay a fine of 4 deniers to the Master of the Craft.

16. A Mortar Mixer can not take an Apprentice for a less time of service than six years and a fee of 100 sous for teaching.

17. The Master of the Craft has petty jurisdiction and the infliction of fines over the Masons, Plaisterers, and Mortar Mixers, their assistants and apprentices, as it will be the King's pleasure, as well as over those who intrude into their trades and over the infliction of corporal punishment without drawing blood and over the right of clamor or immediate arrest and trial if it did not affect property.

18. If any one of the Craft departs before the Master of the Craft, if he is in contempt he must pay a fine of 4 deniers to the Master; and if he returns and asks admission he should give a pledge; and if he does not pay before night, there is a fine of 4 deniers to the Master; and if he refuses and acts wrongly, there is a fine of 4 deniers to the Master.

19. The Master who presides over the Craft, can inflict only a fine for a quarrel; and if he who has been fined is so hot and foolish that he will not obey the commands of the Master nor pay the fine, the Master may exclude him from the Craft.

20. If any one who has been excluded from the Craft by the Master, works at the trade after his exclusion, the Master may take away his tools and retain them until he pays a fine; and if he offers resistance, the Master must make it known to the Prevost of Paris who must overcome the resistance.

21. The Masons and the Plaisterers are liable to do watch, to pay taxes, and are subject to all the duties which the other citizens of Paris owe to the King.

22. The Mortar Mixers are exempt from watching, and also the stonecutters as the syndics have heard said from father to son from the time of Charles Martel.

23. The Master, who by the King's order presides over the Craft, is exempt from watching in consequence of that he does in presiding over the Craft. 24. He who is over sixty years old, or whose wife is dead, ought not to serve on the watch; but he ought to make it known to the King's Keeper of the Watch.

From these Regulations we learn that there was an officer who presided over the Craft in general, and who in many respects resembled the Chief Warden or Master of the Work of the Scottish Masons and the similar officer among the English, upon whom Anderson has gratuitously bestowed the title of Grand Master. He was appointed by the King, and in the Regulations is sometimes called "the Master who protects the Craft" (le mestre qui garde le mestier), and sometimes "the Master of the Craft" (le mesire du mesher).

At a later period he was styled "Master and General of the Works and Buildings of the King in the Art of Masonry," and still later "Master General of the Buildings, Bridges, and Roads of the King."

It is worthy of notice that one of these Regulations refers to a privilege as having been enjoyed by the Craft according to an uninterrupted tradition from the time of Charles Martel. This reference to the great Mayor of the Palace as being connected with Masonry, in a French document of the 13th century, and which is believed to have a nmch earlier origin, would authorize the hypothesis that the story of the connection of Charles Martel with Masonry which is attributed to him in the English legend was derived by the English Masons from those French builders who both history and tradition concur in saying brought their art into England at a very early period.

The confounding of the name of Charles Martel the Warrior with that of his grandson Charlemagne, the Civilizer - if confusion there was, as is strongly to be suspected - must be attributed to the French and not to the English Masons.

The statutes of the Community, Corporation, or Guild of Masons were confirmed by Charles IX. and Henry IV. in the 16th, and by Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. in the 17th century. A great many letters-patent and decrees of the King's council are in existence, which define the jurisdictional powers of the Masters-General of the Buildings, and which contain regulations that release the Masons from all judicial summonses and from all judgments pronounced against them in other jurisdictions, remitting them to the Masters-General of the Buildings as their natural judges.

Some of these letters-patent related to the police of the Craft. Thus those of 1574 prescribed that Apprentices should be received by the Warden (Maitre Garde), and regulated the fee which should be paid under various circumstances. By an edict of October, 1574, sworn Master Masons were appointed as assistants to the Warden, who were to visit and inspect the works in Paris and the suburbs. These were at first twenty in number, but they were subsequently increased to sixty.

The Master-General of the Buildings had two jurisdictions, one which had existed for several centuries, and the other, which was established in the year 1645. The seat of the former was at Paris, in the Chatelet; that of the latter at Versailles.

Three architects, says Lacroix, who bore the title of "King's Counsellors, Architects, and Masters-General of the Buildings," exercised their jurisdiction year by year. They decided all disputes between the employers and the workmen and between theworkmen themselves. Their courts were held on Mondays and Fridays, and there was an appeal from their judgment to the parliament.

In 1789 the Revolution in proclaiming freedom of labor abolished all corporative regulations and exempted the workmen from any sort of restraint, while at the same time they were deprived of all special privileges.

The Operative Masons of France, at the present day, constitute a large Confraternity, who have a kind of organization, but very singularly they are the only body of workmen who do not practice the system of compaganage or fellowship adopted by the other trades.

They have, however, their legend, and pretend that they are the successors of the Tyrians, who wrought at the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, calling themselves, therefore, the children of Solomon.

But they have no corporate existence and must be considered as working only on an independent and voluntary principle. There is, apparently, no similitude between them and the Compagnons de la tour, or brotherhoods of the other handicrafts in France. According to Larousse, they do not possess nor practice the topage, challenge, or formula of salutation by which the members of any one of these brotherhoods are enabled to recognize each other when meeting in a strange place.

From the sketch of the progress of architecture as a science and its practical development in the art of building in Gaul and in France, as presented in this chapter, we learn that the origin of the French Freemasons can not be traced as precisely as we do that of the German and British.

Rebold (1) says, very correctly, that the Masonic corporations never presented in France the peculiar character that they had in England and Scotland, and that hence their influence on the progress of civilization was much less than in those countries.

He further affirms that the custom adopted by the architectural corporations of affiliating men of learning and condition as patrons or honorary members, appears to have resulted in France, as it had in other countries, namely, in the formation, outside of the corporation, of lodges for the propagation of the humanitarian doctrines of the institution; and he adds that when the Masonic corporations were dissolved in France at the beginning of the 10th century, lodges of this nature appear then to have existed.

All this is, however, mere assumption - an hypothesis and not an historical fact. Rebold himself admits that there is no longer any trace to be found of these Speculative Lodges. (2)

(1) "Histoire des Trois Grandes Loges," p. 31. (2) Nous n'en trouvons plus aucune trace. Rebold, ut supra

In fact, there never was in France that gradual development of Speculative out of Operative Masonry which took place in England and in Scotland.

The Speculative Masonry of France came to it, not out of any change in or any action of the Masonic guilds or corporations, by which they abandoned their Operative and assumed a Speculative character. The Speculative lodges, the lodges of Free and accepted Masons, which we find springing up in Paris about that epoch, were due to a direct importation from London and under the authority of the Speculative Grand Lodge of England.

The history of the rise and progress of Speculative Masonry in France comprises, therefore, a distinct topic, to be treated in a future chapter.

But we must first discuss the condition of Masonry in other countries and at other epochs.

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