164 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING
groups. The compagnonnage was in fact a response to the necessity of
uniting. In this regard it was the continuation of the ancient collegia.
This role played by the compagnonnage diminished in exact pro-
portion to the spread of the sworn community, which maintained the
sole right everywhere to represent the trade. With respect to spiritual
and moral interests, it was the king and Church's intention to see that
these were managed solely by closely supervised brotherhoods. This
meant that the original and spontaneous form of the compagnonnage
soon lost its reason for existing. As a group whose purposes were self-
contracting, and as a de facto association in headlong collision with
associations that had the full backing of law and civil and religious
authorities, it could only disappear or become almost clandestine.
But economic and social evolution soon gave the compagnonnages
a new purpose. More and more, the exercise of a trade was becoming
the privilege of masters and their sons. The journeymen could no longer
move up to the status of master nor buy their craft. They were con-
strained to remain salaried employees forever. They also lost what few
rights they did have—mainly in Paris, Rouen, Reims, and Arras—to
take part in trade administration, such as that pertaining to writing
statutes or nominating sworn members.^19 It was then that the com-
pagnonnages transformed from simple de facto connections into verita-
ble organizations whose membership was restricted to valets or
journeymen determined to defend their class interests.
This is the reason compagnonnages became more or less prohib-
ited. The sworn or regulated craft, the sole organization of a public
nature, had to suffice to promote the legitimate interests of members of
the profession. The coalition formed for the sole purpose of increasing
prices or salaries was forbidden because it carried the risk of a work
suspension that would run counter to the public interest. Beaumanoir,
in his Coutumes de Beauvais (written around 1280), considered it a
serious crime to ally against the common good for the purpose of
demanding a higher salary. Going on strike was punishable by prison
and a fine of 60 sols. A law passed on March 18, 1330, mandated the
severe punishment of journeymen who, by banding together, had suc-
cessfully obtained several additional hours of leisure from their masters
while still earning the same pay.