and Oilmen.  The ancient customs of the butchers are mentioned as early as the time of Louis VII., 1162.  The same king granted to the wife of Ives Laccobre and her heirs the collectorship of the dues which were payable by tanners, purse-makers, curriers, and shoemakers.  Under Philip Augustus similar concessions became more frequent, and it is evident that at that time trade was beginning to take root and to require special and particular administration.  This led to regulations being drawn up for each trade, to which Philip Augustus gave his sanction.  In 1182 he confirmed the statutes of the butchers, and the furriers and drapers also obtained favourable concessions from him.

According to the learned Augustin Thierry, corporations, like civic communities, were engrafted on previously existing guilds, such as on the colleges or corporations of workmen, which were of Roman origin.  In the guild, which signifies a banquet at common expense, there was a mutual assurance against misfortunes and injuries of all sorts, such as fire and shipwreck, and also against all lawsuits incurred for offences and crimes, even though they were proved against the accused.  Each of these associations was placed under the patronage of a god or of a hero, and had its compulsory statutes; each had its chief or president chosen from among the members, and a common treasury supplied by annual contributions.  Roman colleges, as we have already stated, were established with a more special purpose, and were more exclusively confined to the peculiar trade to which they belonged; but these, equally with the guilds, possessed a common exchequer, enjoyed equal rights and privileges, elected their own presidents, and celebrated in common their sacrifices, festivals, and banquets.  We have, therefore, good reason for agreeing in the opinion of the celebrated historian, who considers that in the establishment of a corporation “the guild should be to a certain degree the motive power, and the Roman college, with its organization, the material which should be used to bring it into existence.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 202.—­Craftsmen in the Fourteenth Century—­Fac-simile of a Miniature of a Manuscript in the Library of Brussels.]

It is certain, however, that during several centuries corporations were either dissolved or hidden from public notice, for they almost entirely disappeared from the historic records during the partial return to barbarism, when the production of objects of daily necessity and the preparation of food were entrusted to slaves under the eye of their master.  Not till the twelfth century did they again begin to flourish, and, as might be supposed, it was Italy which gave the signal for the resuscitation of the institutions whose birthplace had been Rome, and which barbarism had allowed to fall into decay.  Brotherhoods of artisans were also founded at an early period in the north of Gaul, whence they rapidly spread beyond the