It is outside the province of this paper to discuss the somewhat vexed question of the origin of the gild. Various theories have been vigorously championed, and a mere mention of them with a few facts as to the early appearance of the gilds will suffice. One theory maintains a survival from the Roman _College_, another as an analogue to the Germanic _guild_, and the third as an organization under the direction of the feudal lord. It is curious to note how in 1725 M. Félibién in his “Histoire de la Ville de Paris,” misinterpreted the origin of the _Livre des Métiers_ on the basis of this latter theory, attributing too much of the slow development of an _organism_ to the shaping hand of Boileau. He says: “E. B. _rangea_ tous les marchands et les artisans en differens corps de communautez, sous le titre de confrairies. Ce fut le premier _qui leur dressa_ des Statuts, qu’il fit ensuite approuver dans une assemblée des principaux bourgeois de Paris. Les prévosts successeurs de Boileau adjoustèrent de nouveaux réglemens aux premiers, et il en fut fait en recueil.”... The prevalent theory of the gilds’ origin is that they were born spontaneously from the needs of the people, that they were a natural line of development for youthful industry, in self-protection, to take. Charters or privileges claimed by the gilds date from the 11th century, though they are most abundant in the 13th. The most ancient charter published in the _Recueil des Ordonnances_ is that of the chandlers of Paris, dated 1061. This document, however, is now supposed to have been forged in the 15th century. From 1121 dates the first charter of the _marchands de l’eau de Paris_. In 1160, Louis the VII gave to Thèce, wife of Yrves Lacohe, and her heirs, the ‘mastery’ of five gilds which dealt with leathers, the tanners, the curriers, the shoe-makers, the leather-dressers, and the purse-makers. In 1162 come new privileges granted in regulation of the bakers. In 1183 Philip Augustus rented _a cens_ four houses which he had confiscated from the Jews, to the drapers’ gild. A lord in 1219 sold the confrérie of cloth-merchants a house, and gave them the leases of several adjoining houses.