Mason Corporations in France 147between the religious and charitable organization—the brotherhood—
and the professional organization that the Livre des Metiers calls the
trade, the trade body, or the regular tradesmen. Later, in the seventeenth
century, trade was denoted in France as the trade community, then in
the eighteenth century, as the corporation. "This word is not used in
official acts before the memorandum of January 1776 in which Turgot
presented to the king the edict that would abolish, over the following
months, mastery associations and oathbound groups."^1 So this term
can be employed only in the broad sense, which is how we will use it:
to designate the former professional organization.
We will examine in succession these organizations in France,
Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and in Great Britain, concentrating partic-
ularly on those of masons and builders.
The Origins of Mason Corporations in France
As we have seen, guilds and secular brotherhoods of craftsmen appeared
during the twelfth century. Though the statutes of these sometimes make
reference to earlier guilds, their existence is not certain.
These guilds and brotherhoods gradually organized into trade com-
munities under a sovereign authority, generally the king. We know that
Flanders, Picardy, and the Artois region witnessed the organization of
craftsmen into corporations very early on and we have determined the
synchronism between this organization and the establishment of the
Templars. In Rouen the cobblers guild was confirmed by a charter
granted by Henry I of England (1100-1135) while those of the tanners
and furriers were confirmed by Henry II (1154-1189). The origins of
crafts in Caen and Coutances go back to a date in the remote past.
The oldest statutes for a community of builders are those we have
already cited, coming from the common cloister of Montpellier, which
date back to 1196 and which were sanctioned by Guillaume VIII, lord
of Montpellier.* The names of several particularly skilled architects of
this "mastery association," such as Bertrand, maistre de piera, and
Guillaume Alesta, magister lapidum in 1273,^2 have been preserved
It seems that the masters of stone (magistris lapidum) of Nimes
- These statutes were reformed in 1284.