Mason Corporations in France 165In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, incidents of this kind were
numerous, accompanied even by incidents of collective revolt by jour-
neymen against their masters. These flare-ups, however, involved cir-
cumstancial coalitions, not permanent associations. The guild, properly
speaking, did not appear prior to the beginning of the sixteenth century
and it was immediately characterized by its spirit of protest, as illus-
trated by journeymen rising up against their masters or by all the arti-
sans of a trade joining together against the authorities.
Even the journeymen brotherhoods transformed into centers of
revolt that could incite popular fanaticism. In Lyon, the printers elected
a captain, a lieutenant, and ensigns and put together a large league com-
prised of all the craftsmen in the city. This league was the soul of the
revolt of 1539—nor did the repression it unleash stop new plots and
new disturbances from occurring. The Villiers Cotterets ordinance of
1539, which prohibited brotherhoods, also banned coalitions. A decree
of December 28, 1541, also forbid journeymen from "swearing any
oath or monopoly, having any captain or group leader, assembling out-
side the houses of their masters, or bearing swords or daggers." Despite
these general and individual prohibitions, the brotherhoods of
Lyonnaise journeymen and others continued to intrigue, as is shown by
patent letters from 1561.
More judicial decisions forbidding the compagnonnages were handed
down in the seventeenth century, such as the council arret of June 19,
1702, prohibiting journeymen printers from forming "any communities,
brotherhoods, associations, or common exchanges."
Despite the general ban on coalitions, however, and taking into
account evolution, the police eventually began tolerating the com-
pagnonnages as long as their actions did not pose any threat to public
order. The civil authorites were in fact forced to acknowledge that these
associations responded to legitimate concerns that were not being sat-
isfactorily addressed in the conventional organizations of sworn crafts
dominated by masters.
As a matter of fact, the compagnonnages survived only in certain
trades—stonecutters, masons, carpenters, cabinetmakers, and so
forth—those organizations in which journeymen were naturally
nomadic and loved making the "Tour de France" while they were