Mason Corporations in France 163Another arret issued by Parliament on March 15, 1524, went even
further, broadly prohibiting all brotherhoods, banquets, and entrance
fees; that the holdings thus gathered should be directed toward feeding
the poor. Finally, brotherhoods were banned throughout the kingdom
by the law passed in 1539, on pain of corporal punishment for those
who defied this ruling. The law was initially put into effect and a cer-
tain number of brotherhoods were dissolved, but they were not long in
reforming. New coercive measures were taken in 1576 and 1579, but
the brotherhoods survived all of these condemnations, each of which
remained circumstancial at best. Starting with the seventeenth century,
the brotherhoods no longer dared rouse the suspicions of an absolute
authority and concentrated solely on their charitable aspects.
The CompagnonnagesThe compagnonnages* formed another kind of association existing on
the margins of the trade communities and brotherhoods.
Historically speaking, the compagnonnages responded to two dif-
ferent intentions. The first, and oldest, seems to have been to group
together in a kind of de facto federation all the artisans of one craft—
master, apprentices, and journeymen—above and beyond all geograph-
ical, political, administrative, and jurisdictional divisions. The term
guild was as of then unknown. Much more than an association, it
involved a state of mind, a bond, and a means by which workers shar-
ing a profession could recognize one another and thereby maintain the
unity and traditions of the trade.
The compagnonnages therefore fulfilled duties that were never
intended for the brotherhoods and communities. By ceasing to be
monastic organizations, the brotherhoods simulatenously lost the uni-
versal nature thay had shared with religious orders. At best they only
grouped together the craftsmen of one city. Furthermore, the trade com-
munity did not exist everywhere. As a result, the vast majority of work-
ers in the countryside remained isolated as individuals or small local
- [It is preferable to retain the French expression here, for the association has some fea-
tures that sharply distinguish it from the term guild, which is how this word is often
translated. —Trans.]