138 THE ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE MIDDLE AGESdes Maillets (House of Mallets) that was to have faced the rue Saint
Jacques and a Hostel de la Palastriere.^54
As for the rue Platriere that now forms part of rue Serpente and is
known to have existed as early as the thirteenth century,^55 it connected
the rue Hautefeuille (whose upper half was called rue des Veieils
Plastrieres or Ville Plastriere from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries)
and rue Cauvain (rue de l'Eperon).
The rue des Masons was part of Saint Benoit or Holy Trinity parish,
whose church was located on the rue Saint Jacques, near the Palais des
Thermes. Saint Benoit Church housed a chapel dedicated to Saint
Blaisel, the patron saint of masons and carpenters, and two chapels to
Saint Nicholas, two to Saint John the Evangelist, and one to Saint John
the Baptist.^56 This veneration of the two Saint Johns was primarily-
related to printers and booksellers, who also resided in this quarter. We
know that patronage of Saint John was also invoked by sculptors and
engravers, the ancient "ymagiers" who worked with stone and plaster.
The rue de la Bucherie dates from the twelfth century and owes its
name to the numerous merchants who lived there during the Middle
Ages and sold wood for both heating and building purposes. The wood
was floated on the Seine to Paris, where it was received and collected
on the Left Bank at the spot called the port aux buches. The thirteenth
century Livre de la Taille provides the names of numerous buchiers,
carpenters, masons, and joiners who lived in this area.^57
The greater portion of this Templar quarter on the Left Bank was a
dependency of Saint Julien le Pauvre Parish, which later became Saint
Severin Parish. It was also placed under the protection of Saint John in
memory of an old baptistery that once existed near the original church
built in the eighth century by Saint Julien the Hospitaller (or Saint
Julien the Poor), bishop of Brioude. The current church called Saint
Julien le Pauvre is the the chapel of the small priory that was erected on
this site in the twelfth century by the Benedictines of Notre Dame de
Longpont (near Montlhery).^58
Formerly on rue Garlande (Galande) near Saint Julien Church was
Saint Blaise of the Masons and Carpenters Chapel, situated on the site
of the old refectory of the Benedictine Priory. According to Breul, the
old confederacy of masons and carpenters, which existed prior to 1268,