162 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING
however, the king reauthorized the brotherhood of water sellers and the
other brotherhoods reformed shortly thereafter. Following the distur-
bances and riots of 1380-1382, an ordinance issued on January 27,
1382, suppressed the brotherhoods again, but again, only temporarily.
Through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the brotherhoods
seemed to have become merely pretexts for holding feasts funded by
monies taken in to assist the poor.* In 1524, the Council of Sens
declared that these trade communities existed only to encourage
monopolies and base debauchery. On several occasions judicial author-
ities found themselves forced to intervene. An arret of Parliament
enacted on July 28, 1500, forbade the king's provost to authorize any
new brotherhoods and ordered him to open an investigation of those
that existed.
Another arret of Parliament enacted on July 13, 1501, with the
force of legislation behind it, forbade all gatherings of masons and car-
penters under the pretext of brotherhoods.
For several plaintiffs who have come before the Court each day
regarding the great faults and abuse that masons and carpenters of
Paris, in the provostship and suburbs thereof, have committed and
continue to commit as witnessed by said plaintiffs, as by others of
their peers and for any other causes for which they are responsible,
the Court has suspended and suspends the brotherhoods of
masons and carpenters of this city of Paris, and has forbidden and
forbids them, under penalty of imprisonment, confiscation of
property, and denial of their right to continue in their profession,
or otherwise punished as deemed fit in each individual case, that
under the cover of brotherhood, or Masses, divine or of any other
cause or color, whatsoever it may be, can no longer convoke until
this Court has otherwise so ordered...- "It is said that these banquets have become the sole reason these brotherhoods exist.
It is certain that among the majority of those that remain, if one were to end the feasts
held by these artisans and their companions, one would remove at the same time all their
devotion and worth." (La Poix de Freminville, Dictionaire de la Police Generate, 245.)