Mason Corporations in France 159the Templars as well as the Hospitallers, the two Saint Johns—John the
Baptist and John of the gospels, the announcer of and the witness to the
Light, respectively—were worshipped together by all free and enfran-
chised craftsmen of the Templar Commandery. This is the reason for
the tradition, in existence until the Revolution, of erecting a huge bon-
fire on the eve of Saint John the Baptist's feast day in the large court-
yard of the Temple.^14
The Brotherhoods in the ProvincesIn the north the brotherhoods were known as bannieres. In the Midi
region they were called charites. In Montpellier, for example, benevo-
lent institutions that gave assistance had developed rapidly starting in
the thirteenth century. Each trade had two ordinary centers consisting
of a chapel and an office. Ceremonies and common prayer took place
in the chapel, while the office was used for discussing the organization's
business activities and for distributing aid to its needy members. The
charities had at their disposal the resource of taxes deducted from
apprenticeship fees as well as what they took in from various dues.
From this fund they gave assistance to the poorer members of the trade
and celebrated Masses for their dead. All the trades of Toulouse had
their own brotherhoods during the thirteenth century, each established
in a different church in which a symbolic lamp, perpetually lit, was
placed before the altar.
The community and brotherhood of the carpenters of Angers was
undoubtedly of ancient origin. In fact, the statutes of 1487 made men-
tion of the long period of time this craft had been a sworn trade. It
elected the two masters that guided it on the feast day of Saint Joseph,
and on that same day each master paid the brotherhood the sum of
eight sols and four deniers. Each journeyman gave one denier per week
to the community. The group's statutes included contingencies for
granting brotherhood assistance to indigent foreign journeymen: "For
the honesty of said trade, if it should happen that anyone traveling
through the region, as long as he is a worker of this trade, finds himself
in need and gives his sworn oath that he lacks the wherewithal to meet
his travel expenses, the sworn members will be bound to administer to