140 THE ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE MIDDLE AGES
Masons and builders must have been numerous in the Templar
Quarter on the Left Bank, although the epitaph records have only
passed down a handful of their names. At Saint Yves Chapel we find
only Jacques Dyche, house roofer and bourgeois of Paris (1400) and
Jeannette, his wife. At Saint Severin there are only a master mason,
Austicier (May 28, 1615), and his wife Marie Foliot (February 17,
1601). Saint Benoit lists the famous Claude Perrault, architect (October
9, 1678), and Mathurins Chapel has Claude Roman, architect and
entrepreneur of buildings (1675).
This brings us to the end of our excursion through the old Paris of
the Templars. It seems, from the evidence we have encountered, that dur-
ing the entire time of the Ancien Regime it was also the Paris quarter of
masons and carpenters. Here they had their homes and their religious
and charitable foundations; here they enjoyed exceptional rights and
privileges. Royal authority definitely sought to restrict them and limit
them ratione loci to the area of the Enclos and its immediate dependen-
cies, such as the Old Temple, near Saint Gervais. Elsewhere, in fact, the
necessity of police and the maintenance of public order strictly prohib-
ited the overlapping of authority. Nonetheless, the singular legal system
instituted by the Templars during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
survived inside the Enclos until the Revolution; throughout the rest of
the former commandery, it survived in the form of traditions.
To be absolutely thorough and give this demonstration all its con-
clusive value, it is important not only to establish, as we have done
here, the bonds that existed between the Templars and craftsmen
builders, it is also necessary to demonstrate that there are no profound
traces of masons and carpenters having settled outside the boundaries
of the Temple's former jurisdiction. In other words, it is just as impor-
tant that we look closely at the other neighborhoods of ancient Paris for
signs of populations of builders. Having researched fifty-eight of the
main churches of Paris during this same time, here is what we can con-
clude: To be precise, there were neither evocative street names nor
chapels or brotherhoods of masons and carpenters in any other areas of
the city. The epitaph records rarely reveal any names of builders. Notre
Dame and its dependencies and Saint Louis en l'Isle, the Blancs
Manteaux, Sainte Croix de la Bretonnerie, Sainte Opportune, Saint