were exempted from paying the duties.  A few masters, such as the goldsmiths and the cloth-workers, had besides to pay a sum of money by way of guarantee, which remained in the funds of the craft as long as they carried on the trade.  After these forms had been complied with, the masters acquired the exclusive privilege of freely exercising their profession.  There were, however, certain exceptions to this rule, for a king on his coronation, a prince or princess of the royal blood at the time of his or her marriage, and, in certain towns, the bishop on his installation, had the right of creating one or more masters in each trade, and these received their licence without going through any of the usual formalities.

[Illustration:  Fig. 245.—­Staircase of the Office of the Goldsmiths of Rouen (Fifteenth Century).  The Shield which the Lion holds with his Paw shows the Arms of the Goldsmiths of Rouen. (Present Condition).]

A widower or widow might generally continue the craft of the deceased wife or husband who had acquired the freedom, and which thus became the inheritance of the survivor.  The condition, however, was that he or she did not contract a second marriage with any one who did not belong to the craft.  Masters lost their rights directly they worked for any other master and received wages.  Certain freedoms, too, were only available in the towns in which they had been obtained.  In more than one craft, when a family holding the freedom became extinct, their premises and tools became the property of the corporation, subject to an indemnity payable to the next of kin.

[Illustration:  Fig. 246.—­Shops under Covered Market (Goldsmith, Dealer in Stuffs, and Shoemaker).—­From a Miniature in Aristotle’s “Ethics and Politics,” translated by Nicholas Oresme (Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, Library of Rouen).]

At times, and particularly in those trades where the aspirants were not required to produce a chef-d’oeuvre, the installation of masters was accompanied with extraordinary ceremonies, which no doubt originally possessed some symbolical meaning, but which, having lost their true signification, became singular, and appeared even ludicrous.  Thus with the bakers, after four years’ apprenticeship, the candidate on purchasing the freedom from the King, issued from his door, escorted by all the other bakers of the town, bearing a new pot filled with walnuts and wafers.  On arriving before the chief of the corporation, he said to him, “Master, I have accomplished my four years; here is my pot filled with walnuts and wafers.”  The assistants in the ceremony having vouched for the truth of this statement, the candidate broke the pot against the wall, and the chief solemnly pronounced his admission, which was inaugurated by the older masters emptying a number of tankards of wine or beer at the expense of their new brother.  The ceremony was also of a jovial character in the case of the millwrights, who only admitted the candidate after he had received a caning on the shoulders from the last-elected brother.