148 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING
formed a community at a very early date. In 1187 Raymond V, count
of Toulouse, granted them jurisdictional privileges in return for certain
fees and for personnel to give military service aiding in the demolition
of enemy castles.^3
In Paris the oldest brotherhood, that of the mercatores aquae
[water merchants], is first mentioned in 1121. It maintained its seat at
the church of Saint Mary Magdalene. Royal certificates from 1162
mention the privileges enjoyed by butchers of the La Grande Boucherie
Parisienne. These privileges were confirmed by patent letters issued
from 1182 to 1183 by Philip Augustus. The drapers had established
themselves in the community in 1183 and in 1188 they founded the
Brotherhood of Saint Peter in the chapel of Saint Mary the Egyptian. In
all the relevant documents of this era the members of this Parisian
brotherhood are called fraters, which is exactly the case in a 1219 char-
ter, conserved in the city archives of Paris, concerning the acquisition of
a house sitting behind the butcher shop of the Petit Pont next to the
brotherhood of drapers.
Everywhere, just as single individuals were, these groups of mer-
chants and craftsmen remained subject to the public authority of the
land—that is, to the lord chief justice. Thus in a city such as Paris that
was under the jurisdiction of several chief justices, we can see the devel-
opment of several different communities according to the rights they
were able to enjoy in their respective jurisdictions. This subordination
is often displayed by a very clear feature: in Paris, for example, the king
quite frequently "sold the trade," meaning he levied a tax on the mer-
chant or craftsmen who was setting up in his trade. But all the dis-
memberments of public law that were so skillfully enacted during the
Middle Ages had an effect on the rules and policing of trades. As was
quite often the case, in order to better establish legal autonomy of a
trade, a lord would entrust jurisdiction of it to a master of that trade.
In Chartres, the post of master of taverners designated by the count had
been in existence since 1147. In that same year, Louis VII gave the bak-
ers of Pontoise a monopoly on the making of bread and in so doing put
them under the authority of a master he had chosen. The master was
often a king's officer whose domestic duties had some connection to the
corporation in question. He might be the head of the corresponding