ABOUT CARPENTERS. 241 



Hundreds of those craftsmen, forced by want, swelled the companies of 

 marauders known in history as the "Routiers," " Cottereaux," and 

 " Brabancons." Owing to this reenforcement, their plunderings grew 

 to frightful proportions. 



Between the years 1180 and 1182, a pious carpenter of Puy, named 

 Durand, in an outburst of honest and patriotic indignation at sight of 

 the disorders committed by his fellow tradesmen, declared that he had 

 been intrusted by the Lord with the mission of restoring peace. Such 

 was the enthusiasm aroused by his preaching a crusade against the Bra- 

 bancons, the most terrible of those adventurers, that in a short time he 

 gathered around him a powerful army which were called the " Broth- 

 ers of the Peace." The Brabancons were exterminated, the other 

 companies having disbanded on learning the successes of the " Pacifies." 

 Durand was hailed as a hero, and the savior of his country. But fa- 

 naticism and ambition engendered excess ; the Brothers of the Peace 

 became a cause of dread to the community ; and France, which, during 

 this moral ebullition, had rejected a part of its impure elements, now 

 cast aside the others, by dispersing the chiefs of the Brotherhood of 

 the Pacifies. Durand, as was often the case under similar circumstances, 

 met with death by order of the powerful lords, for the safety of whom 

 he had worked. 



With the organization of commons, carpenters organized themselves 

 in various brotherhoods. Every community was independent, had its 

 peculiar privileges, laws, traditions, and usages. An officer called 

 " Master Carpenter of the King " presided over each one of the French 

 brotherhoods. He was as a brake put to the wheels of the organization 

 by the shy despotism of the monarch. The Church, too, of course, 

 interfered and gave them the character of religious associations. 

 According to the statutes of the Paris brotherhood, carpenters were 

 bound not to work from nine o'clock on Saturday night till Monday 

 morning. The brothers were apprentices or masters. The apprentice- 

 ship lasted four yeai*s, in the first of which the apprentice was forced to 

 pay his master from one to three farthings per diem. A carpenter could 

 not be compelled to work in the night, except for the royal family and 

 the Bishop of Paris. Every corporation had jurors who were selected 

 among masters having at least ten years' experience, and whose busi- 

 ness was to settle, as referees, all questions arising in business transac- 

 tions. As the choice of materials was of paramount importance for 

 the security of the community at large, it was the jurors' duty to exam- 

 ine all wood before it could be used ; the use of wood upon which the 

 jurors had not thought fit to put their seal entailed heavy fines and 

 even the suspension of the transgressor. The purchases of wood made 

 in advance did not bind the carpenter, if the jurors failed to find it 

 satisfactory ; on the arrival of the merchandise, too, the purchaser 

 could not take possession of the whole cargo, if his brother- tradesmen 

 were not provided with sufficient materials to go on with work in hand.. 



VOL. XVII. 16 



