Life in a Medieval City by Frances Gies, Joseph Gies

“to treat him honorably as the son of a goodman.” Sometimes the apprentice receives a stipend—a small one. Sometimes the master also undertakes to educate the apprentice. Often he needs employees who can read and write and add and subtract. Twice a week the apprentice may go to the notary to learn his letters.
    An apprentice’s day is long and hard. His situation depends very largely on the personality and condition of his master. A kind master is a blessing; perhaps an even greater blessing is a prosperous master. A kind mistress may be important too. Since the apprentice’s labor is not restricted to the trade and he may be called on to do any kind of household chore, many apprentices find themselves more tyrannized by mistresses than by masters. Guilds often specify in their regulations that an apprentice should not be beaten by the master’s wife.
    Apprenticeship varies in duration, usually from four years to twelve; five years is common. The length of service is often related to the size of the initiation fee, as in the case of weavers, whose craft can be quickly learned and yet is remunerative. A weaver’s apprentice may become a master in four years by paying four pounds (livres), in five years by paying three pounds, in six years by paying one pound, in seven years without any payment. Brasswire makers require twelve years, or ten years plus a fee of twenty shillings (sous). Goldsmiths undertake a ten-year apprenticeship.
    An apprentice has five obligations to fulfill. First, he must supply a certificate to the officers of the guild, stating that he is “prudent and loyal.” Second, he must demonstrate that he knows the craft. In some guilds the emerging apprentice must produce a “masterpiece.” An apprentice hatmaker fashions a hat, a cake baker bakes cakes. Third, the apprentice must show that he has enough capital to go into business. Sometimes his capital is his tools, sometimes he needs cash. Fourth, he must swear on the saints’ relics to uphold the guild’s law and customs, which the officers read aloud to him, explaining and clarifying as they go. Finally, he pays a fee, which goes not to the guild but to the prince—in Troyes the count of Champagne—for guilds “belong” to the sovereign. In 1160 Louis VII sold five of his Paris guilds (the leatherworkers, pursemakers, baldric makers, shoe repairmen and dockworkers) to the widow of a wealthy burgher, who thereafter collected the dues formerly owed the king.
    On paying his fee, the apprentice becomes a member of the corporation, the inner body of the guild, that consists of the masters alone, or the masters and journeymen. His rise in status calls for a celebration—a round of drinks at the tavern, or possibly a dinner. Or he may merely pay five or ten sous to the corporation treasury.
    An apprentice’s ambition may even soar beyond acquiring the status of a master. He may dream of some day being an officer of the corporation. Officers are elected by the masters, or by the masters and journeymen, and the election is ratified by the count’s provost.
    Married apprentices are not unknown, and occasionally a master may even provide his apprentice with an allowance for taking his meals outside the master’s house. But such cases are the exception.
    A craft may make a man modestly rich. Of course it may also make him stoop-shouldered, but this is a hazard of any trade. A man repeats the same motion with hammer, with maul, with saw, with shears, with needle, with loom, ten, twelve, fourteen hours at a stretch, day in and day out, transmitting the energy of his hand, arm and shoulder into chalice, statue, vestment or article of furniture. Forty years of such effort can leave him bent and crooked. His servile forefathers, however, ended their days not only crippled and deformed by their labors but with nothing to show for it.
     
    In the old cité near the Abbey of St.-Loup is one of the crowded town’s most crowded districts. This is the