The Secret History of Freemasonry

Mason Corporations in France 157

The Brotherhoods

The trade or community remained coupled with a brotherhood, a
group that was assembled for religious or charitable purposes, placed
under the protection of one or more patron saints, and established in
the chapel of a church. The brotherhood was thus subject first and fore-
most to ecclesiastical authority. Long before the community, it was the
first form of trade organization, reflecting the craft's traditional and
spiritual elements. While labor retained the supernatural values it had
held since time immemorial, religious bonds closely committed the
members to God and their fellows in the fulfillment of their daily tasks.
We have seen that in many regions and for a long time there were
no trade communities, but only brotherhoods. These also remained the
sole professional organizations of the francs metiers. When both groups
coexisted, as was the case in Paris, they were no less distinct. They
sometimes shared the same directors, but ordinarily their management
and resources were clearly separate. Moreover, membership in the
brotherhood was obligatory, as was membership in the community.

The Builder Brotherhoods of Paris

In the same city, mainly Paris, a trade would often engender several
brotherhoods, who sometimes had different patrons. This was a result
of the distance separating some artisans from others. Another conse-
quence was that not all craftsmen were subject to the same statutes. In
Paris, some were connected to the community and placed under juris-
diction of the king's provost, while others were dependent on the
Temple or some other abbey or sovereign religious order.
In the provostship of Paris at the time of the Livre des Metiers, a
common brotherhood of masons and carpenters existed, placed under
the patronage of Saint Blaise (title XLVIII, art. 2). This patronage had
been adopted a good deal earlier and continued to be invoked for sev-
eral centuries. The seat of this brotherhood was the Saint Blaise-Saint
Louis Chapel on the rue Galande near Saint Julien le Pauvre. Another
Saint Blaise Chapel, connected perhaps to the same if not to another
brotherhood of masons and carpenters, also existed in the neighboring
Saint Benoit or Holy Trinity Church on the rue Saint Jacques. It is in