Exact hours for work were not set down; the time of the world in which the artisan lived was too entirely dominated by the custom of the Church to permit of hours being designated as 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. “No one of the gild,” we read, “ought to work on holy days which the people of the city keep, nor on Saturdays during _charnage_ (i.e. the time during which it was permitted to eat meat) after Vespers, nor after Compline on Saturdays during Lent, nor at night at any time of the year.” During Lent, Vespers fell at 6 o’clock, and Compline at 9. _Charnage_ was used loosely to mean not only the period during which meat could be eaten, but also the period of short days, while _Carême_ meant the period of long days. Night work was expressly forbidden for goldsmiths, sheath-makers, weavers, braid-, chest-, buckles-, beads-makers, pewterers, lamp-makers and locksmith’s, “for the light at night does not suffice for the trade[s] aforesaid.” Millers and brewers could work day and night, and it was permitted to all farriers (but not to locksmiths and cutlers), to goldsmiths, lamp-makers, brass-wire drawers, to cast, if need be, during the night, inasmuch as the process sometimes lasted a day or a week. The restriction upon night work was ineffective if the work were for the household of the King, the Queen, the Princes of the blood, the Bishop of Paris, and other great Lords. The Church’s observance of Sundays and fast-days (holy days) caused among the gilds much cessation from work—_chômage_. The eve of Sunday and important holy days, work was stopped at _Nones_ or _Compline_. On Sunday the baths were not heated, on Sunday the bakers did not make bread, and kept, besides, twenty-six fast-days and the day of their Patron Saint. The goldsmiths, the haberdashers, the felt-hat makers, took turns within the gild in keeping their shops open on Sunday. The _barilliers_ and the armorers worked without restriction on the ground that their work was vitally important to noblemen. A saddler could repair a shield or a harness on Sunday, and rose-chaplets could be made at any time “during the season of roses.”