Part 26

Some years after, Christopher Columbus, the Genoese, more daring and more fortunate still, guided by the compass and impelled by his own genius, discovered a new continent, the fourth continent of the world (Fig. 199). This unexpected event, the greatest and most remarkable of the age, necessarily enlarged the field for produce as well as for consumption to an enormous extent, and naturally added, not only to the variety and quantity of exchangeable wares, but also to the production of the precious metals, and brought about a complete revolution in the laws of the whole civilised world.

Maritime commerce immediately acquired an extraordinary development, and merchants, forsaking the harbours of the Mediterranean, and even those of the Levant, which then seemed to them scarcely worthy of notice, sent their vessels by thousands upon the ocean in pursuit of the wonderful riches of the New World. The day of caravans and coasting had passed; Venice had lost its splendour; the sway of the Mediterranean was over; the commerce of the world was suddenly transferred from the active and industrious towns of that sea, which had so long monopolized it, to the Western nations, to the Portuguese and Spaniards first, and then to the Dutch and English.

France, absorbed in, and almost ruined by civil war, and above all by religious dissensions, only played a subordinate part in this commercial and pacific revolution, although it has been said that the sailors of Dieppe and Honfleur really discovered America before Columbus. Nevertheless the kings of France, Louis XII., Francis I., and Henry II., tried to establish and encourage transatlantic voyages, and to create, in the interest of French commerce, colonies on the coasts of the New World, from Florida and Virginia to Canada.

But these colonies had but a precarious and transitory existence; fisheries alone succeeded, and French commerce continued insignificant, circumscribed, and domestic, notwithstanding the increasing requirements of luxury at court. This luxury contented itself with the use of the merchandise which arrived from the Low Countries, Spain, and Italy. National industry did all in its power to surmount this ignominious condition; she specially turned her attention to the manufacture of silks and of stuffs tissued with gold and silver. The only practical attempt of the government in the sixteenth century to protect commerce and manufactures was to forbid the import of foreign merchandise, and to endeavour to oppose the progress of luxury by rigid enactments.

Certainly the government of that time little understood the advantages which a country derived from commerce when it forbade the higher classes from engaging in mercantile pursuits under penalty of having their privileges of nobility withdrawn from them. In the face of the examples of Italy, Genoa, Venice, and especially of Florence, where the nobles were all traders or sons of traders, the kings of the line of Valois thought proper to make this enactment. The desire seemed to be to make the merchant class a separate class, stationary, and consisting exclusively of bourgeois, shut up in their counting-houses, and prevented in every way from participating in public life. The merchants became indignant at this banishment, and, in order to employ their leisure, they plunged with all their energy into the sanguinary struggles of Reform and of the League.

It was not until the reign of Henry IV. that they again confined themselves to their occupations as merchants, when Sully published the political suggestions of his master for renewing commercial prosperity. From this time a new era commenced in the commercial destiny of France. Commerce, fostered and protected by statesmen, sought to extend its operations with greater freedom and power. Companies were formed at Paris, Marseilles, Lyons, and Rouen to carry French merchandise all over the world, and the rules of the mercantile associations, in spite of the routine and jealousies which guided the trade corporations, became the code which afterwards regulated commerce (Fig. 200).

Guilds and Trade Corporations.

Uncertain Origin of Corporations.--Ancient Industrial Associations.--The Germanic Guild.--Colleges.--Teutonic Associations.--The Paris Company for the Transit of Merchandise by Water.--Corporations properly so called.--Etienne Boileau's "Book of Trades," or the First Code of Regulations.--The Laws governing Trades.--Public and Private Organization of Trade Corporations and other Communities.--Energy of the Corporations.--Masters, Journeymen, Supernumeraries, and Apprentices.--Religious Festivals and Trade Societies.--Trade Unions.

Learned authorities have frequently discussed, without agreeing, on the question of the origin of the Corporations of the Middle Ages. It may be admitted, we think à priori, that associations of artisans were as ancient as the trades themselves. It may readily be imagined that the numerous members of the industrial classes, having to maintain and defend their common rights and common interests, would have sought to establish mutual fraternal associations among themselves. The deeper we dive into ancient history the clearer we perceive traces, more or less distinct, of these kinds of associations. To cite only two examples, which may serve to some extent as an historical parallel to the analogous institutions of the present day, we may mention the Roman Colleges, which were really leagues of artisans following the same calling; and the Scandinavian guilds, whose object was to assimilate the different branches of industry and trade, either of a city or of some particular district.

Indeed, brotherhoods amongst the labouring classes always existed under the German conquerors from the moment when Europe, so long divided into Roman provinces, shook off the yoke of subjection to Rome, although she still adhered to the laws and customs of the nation which had held her in subjection for so many generations. We can, however, only regard the few traces which remain of these brotherhoods as evidence of their having once existed, and not as indicative of their having been in a flourishing state. In the fifth century, the Hermit Ampelius, in his "Legends of the Saints," mentions Consuls or Chiefs of Locksmiths. The Corporation of Goldsmiths is spoken of as existing in the first dynasty of the French kings. Bakers are named collectively in 630 in the laws of Dagobert, which seems to show that they formed a sort of trade union at that remote period. We also see Charlemagne, in several of his statutes, taking steps in order that the number of persons engaged in providing food of different kinds should everywhere be adequate to provide for the necessities of consumption, which would tend to show a general organization of that most important branch of industry. In Lombardy colleges of artisans were established at an early period, and were, no doubt, on the model of the Roman ones. Ravenna, in 943, possessed a College of Fishermen; and ten years later the records of that town mention a Chief of the Corporation of Traders, and, in 1001, a Chief of the Corporation of Butchers. France at the same time kept up a remembrance of the institutions of Roman Gaul, and the ancient colleges of trades still formed associations and companies in Paris and in the larger towns. In 1061 King Philip I. granted certain privileges to Master Chandlers and Oilmen. The ancient customs of the butchers are mentioned as early as the time of Louis VII., 1162. The same king granted to the wife of Ives Laccobre and her heirs the collectorship of the dues which were payable by tanners, purse-makers, curriers, and shoemakers. Under Philip Augustus similar concessions became more frequent, and it is evident that at that time trade was beginning to take root and to require special and particular administration. This led to regulations being drawn up for each trade, to which Philip Augustus gave his sanction. In 1182 he confirmed the statutes of the butchers, and the furriers and drapers also obtained favourable concessions from him.

According to the learned Augustin Thierry, corporations, like civic communities, were engrafted on previously existing guilds, such as on the colleges or corporations of workmen, which were of Roman origin. In the guild, which signifies a banquet at common expense, there was a mutual assurance against misfortunes and injuries of all sorts, such as fire and shipwreck, and also against all lawsuits incurred for offences and crimes, even though they were proved against the accused. Each of these associations was placed under the patronage of a god or of a hero, and had its compulsory statutes; each had its chief or president chosen from among the members, and a common treasury supplied by annual contributions. Roman colleges, as we have already stated, were established with a more special purpose, and were more exclusively confined to the peculiar trade to which they belonged; but these, equally with the guilds, possessed a common exchequer, enjoyed equal rights and privileges, elected their own presidents, and celebrated in common their sacrifices, festivals, and banquets. We have, therefore, good reason for agreeing in the opinion of the celebrated historian, who considers that in the establishment of a corporation "the guild should be to a certain degree the motive power, and the Roman college, with its organization, the material which should be used to bring it into existence."

It is certain, however, that during several centuries corporations were either dissolved or hidden from public notice, for they almost entirely disappeared from the historic records during the partial return to barbarism, when the production of objects of daily necessity and the preparation of food were entrusted to slaves under the eye of their master. Not till the twelfth century did they again begin to flourish, and, as might be supposed, it was Italy which gave the signal for the resuscitation of the institutions whose birthplace had been Rome, and which barbarism had allowed to fall into decay. Brotherhoods of artisans were also founded at an early period in the north of Gaul, whence they rapidly spread beyond the Rhine. Under the Emperor Henry I., that is, during the tenth century, the ordinary condition of artisans in Germany was still serfdom; but two centuries later the greater number of trades in most of the large towns of the empire had congregated together in colleges or bodies under the name of unions (Einnungen or Innungen) (Fig. 202), as, for example, at Gozlar, at Würzburg, at Brunswick, &c. These colleges, however, were not established without much difficulty and without the energetic resistance of the ruling powers, inasmuch as they often raised their pretensions so high as to wish to substitute their authority for the senatorial law, and thus to grasp the government of the cities. The thirteenth century witnessed obstinate and sanguinary feuds between these two parties, each of which was alternately victorious. Whichever had the upper hand took advantage of the opportunity to carry out the most cruel reprisals against its defeated opponents. The Emperors Frederick II. and Henry VII. tried to put an end to these strifes by abolishing the corporations of workmen, but these powerful associations fearlessly opposed the imperial authority. In France the organization of communities of artisans, an organization which in many ways was connected with the commercial movement, but which must not be confounded with it, did not give rise to any political difficulty. It seems not even to have met with any opposition from the feudal powers, who no doubt found it an easy pretext for levying additional rates and taxes.

The most ancient of these corporations was the Parisian Hanse, or corporation of the bourgeois for canal navigation, which probably dates its origin back to the college of Parisian Nautes, existing before the Roman conquest. This mercantile association held its meetings in the island of Lutetia, on the very spot where the church of Notre-Dame was afterwards built. From the earliest days of monarchy tradesmen constituted entirely the bourgeois of the towns (Fig. 203). Above them were the nobility or clergy, beneath them the artisans. Hence we can understand how the bourgeois, who during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a distinct section of the community, became at last the important commercial body itself. The kings invariably treated them with favour. Louis VI. granted them new rights, Louis VII. confirmed their ancient privileges, and Philip Augustus increased them. The Parisian Hanse succeeded in monopolising all the commerce which was carried on by water on the Seine and the Yonne between Mantes and Auxerre. No merchandise coming up or down the stream in boats could be disembarked in the interior of Paris without becoming, as it were, the property of the corporation, which, through its agents, superintended its measurement and its sale in bulk, and, up to a certain point, its sale by retail. No foreign merchant was permitted to send his goods to Paris without first obtaining lettres de Hanse, whereby he had associated with him a bourgeois of the town, who acted as his guarantee, and who shared in his profits.

There were associations of the same kind in most of the commercial towns situated on the banks of rivers and on the sea-coast, as, for example, at Rouen, Arles, Marseilles, Narbonne, Toulouse, Ratisbon, Augsburg, and Utrecht. Sometimes neighbouring towns, such as the great manufacturing cities of Flanders, agreed together and entered into a leagued bond, which gave them greater power, and constituted an offensive and defensive compact (Fig. 204). A typical example of this last institution is that of the commercial association of the Hanseatic Towns of Germany, which were grouped together to the number of eighty around their four capitals, viz., Lubeck, Cologne, Dantzic, and Brunswick.

Although, as we have already seen, previous to the thirteenth century many of the corporations of artisans had been authorised by several of the kings of France to make special laws whereby they might govern themselves, it was really only from the reign of St. Louis that the first general measures of administration and police relating to these communities can be dated. The King appointed Etienne Boileau, a rich bourgeois, provost of the capital in 1261, to set to work to establish order, wise administration, and "good faith" in the commerce of Paris. To this end he ascertained from the verbal testimony of the senior members of each corporation the customs and usages of the various crafts, which for the most part up to that time had not been committed to writing. He arranged and probably amended them in many ways, and thus composed the famous "Book of Trades," which, as M. Depping, the able editor of this valuable compilation, first published in 1837, says, "has the advantage of being to a great extent the genuine production of the corporations themselves, and not a list of rules established and framed by the municipal or judicial authorities." From that time corporations gradually introduced themselves into the order of society. The royal decrees in their favour were multiplied, and the regulations with regard to mechanical trades daily improved, not only in Paris and in the provinces, and also abroad, both in the south and in the north of Europe, especially in Italy, Germany, England, and the Low Countries (Figs. 205 to 213).

Etienne Boileau's "Book of Trades" contained the rules of one hundred different trade associations. It must be observed, however, that several of the most important trades, such as the butchers, tanners, glaziers, &c., were omitted, either because they neglected to be registered at the Châtelet, where the inquiry superintended by Boileau was made, or because some private interest induced them to keep aloof from this registration, which probably imposed some sort of fine and a tax upon them. In the following century the number of trade associations considerably increased, and wonderfully so during the reigns of the last of the Valois and the first of the Bourbons.

The historian of the antiquities of Paris, Henry Sauval, enumerated no fewer than fifteen hundred and fifty-one trade associations in the capital alone in the middle of the seventeenth century. It must be remarked, however, that the societies of artisans were much subdivided owing to the simple fact that each craft could only practise its own special work. Thus, in Boileau's book, we find four different corporations of patenôtriers, or makers of chaplets, six of hatters, six of weavers, &c.

Besides these societies of artisans, there were in Paris a few privileged corporations, which occupied a more important position, and were known under the name of Corps des Marchands. Their number at first frequently varied, but finally it was settled at six, and they were termed les Six Corps. They comprised the drapers, which always took precedence of the five others, the grocers, the mercers, the furriers, the hatters, and the goldsmiths. These five for a long time disputed the question of precedence, and finally they decided the matter by lot, as they were not able to agree in any other way.

Trades.

Fac-simile of Engravings on Wood, designed and engraved by J. Amman, in the Sixteenth Century.

Apart from the privilege which these six bodies of merchants exclusively enjoyed of being called upon to appear, though at their own expense, in the civic processions and at the public ceremonials, and to carry the canopy over the heads of kings, queens, or princes on their state entry into the capital (Fig. 234), it would be difficult to specify the nature of the privileges which were granted to them, and of which they were so jealous. It is clear, however, that these six bodies were imbued with a kind of aristocratic spirit which made them place trading much above handicraft in their own class, and set a high value on their calling as merchants. Thus contemporary historians tell us that any merchant who compromised the dignity of the company "fell into the class of the lower orders;" that mercers boasted of excluding from their body the upholsterers, "who were but artisans;" that hatters, who were admitted into the Six Corps to replace one of the other trades, became in consequence "merchants instead of artisans, which they had been up to that time."

Notwithstanding the statutes so carefully compiled and revised by Etienne Boileau and his successors, and in spite of the numerous arbitrary rules which the sovereigns, the magistrates, and the corporations themselves strenuously endeavoured to frame, order and unity were far from governing the commerce and industry of Paris during the Middle Ages, and what took place in Paris generally repeated itself elsewhere. Serious disputes continually arose between the authorities and those amenable to their jurisdiction, and between the various crafts themselves, notwithstanding the relation which they bore to each other from the similarity of their employments.

In fact in this, as in many other matters, social disorder often emanated from the powers whose duty it was in the first instance to have repressed it. Thus, at the time when Philip Augustus extended the boundaries of his capital so as to include the boroughs in it, which until then had been separated from the city, the lay and clerical lords, under whose feudal dominion those districts had hitherto been placed, naturally insisted upon preserving all their rights. So forcibly did they do this that the King was obliged to recognise their claims; and in several boroughs, including the Bourg l'Abbé, the Beau Bourg, the Bourg St. Germain, and the Bourg Auxerrois, &c., there were trade associations completely distinct from and independent of those of ancient Paris. If we simply limit our examination to that of the condition of the trade associations which held their authority immediately from royalty, we still see that the causes of confusion were by no means trifling; for the majority of the high officers of the crown, acting as delegates of the royal authority, were always disputing amongst themselves the right of superintending, protecting, judging, punishing, and, above all, of exacting tribute from the members of the various trades. The King granted to various officers the privilege of arbitrarily disposing of the freedom of each trade for their own profit, and thereby gave them power over all the merchants and craftsmen who were officially connected with them, not only in Paris, but also throughout the whole kingdom. Thus the lord chamberlain had jurisdiction over the drapers, mercers, furriers, shoemakers, tailors, and other dealers in articles of wearing apparel; the barbers were governed by the king's varlet and barber; the head baker was governor over the bakers; and the head butler over the wine merchants.

These state officers granted freedoms to artisans, or, in other words, they gave them the right to exercise such and such a craft with assistants or companions, exacting for the performance of this trifling act a very considerable tax. And, as they preferred receiving their revenues without the annoyance of having direct communication with their humble subjects, they appointed deputies, who were authorised to collect them in their names.

The most celebrated of these deputies were the rois des merciers, who lived on the fat of the land in complete idleness, and who were surrounded by a mercantile court, which appeared in all its splendour at the trade festivals.

The great officers of the crown exercised in their own interests, and without a thought for the public advantage, a complete magisterial jurisdiction over all crafts; they adjudicated in disputes arising between masters and men, decided quarrels, visited, either personally or through their deputies, the houses of the merchants, in order to discover frauds or infractions in the rules of the trade, and levied fines accordingly. We must remember that the collectors of court dues had always to contend for the free exercise of their jurisdiction against the provost of Paris, who considered their acquisitions of authority as interfering with his personal prerogatives, and who therefore persistently opposed them on all occasions. For instance, if the head baker ordered an artisan of the same trade to be imprisoned in the Châtelet, the high provost, who was governor of the prison, released him immediately; and, in retaliation, if the high provost punished a baker, the chief baker warmly espoused his subordinate's cause. At other times the artisans, if they were dissatisfied with the deputy appointed by the great officer of the crown, whose dependents they were, would refuse to recognise his authority. In this way constant quarrels and interminable lawsuits occurred, and it is easy to understand the disorder which must have arisen from such a state of things. By degrees, however, and in consequence of the new tendencies of royalty, which were simply directed to the diminution of feudal power, the numerous jurisdictions relating to the various trades gradually returned to the hand of the municipal provostship; and this concentration of power had the best results, as well for the public good as for that of the corporations themselves.

Having examined into corporations collectively and also into their general administration, we will now turn to consider their internal organization. It was only after long and difficult struggles that these trade associations succeeded in taking a definite and established position; without, however, succeeding at any time in organizing themselves as one body on the same basis and with the same privileges. Therefore, in pointing out the influential character of these institutions generally, we must omit various matters specially connected with individual associations, which it would be impossible to mention in this brief sketch.

In the fourteenth century, the period when the communities of crafts were at the height of their development and power, no association of artisans could legally exist without a license either from the king, the lord, the prince, the abbot, the bailiff, or the mayor of the district in which it proposed to establish itself.