The gild as it appears in Paris in the 13th century, M. Lespinasse in his Introduction to Étienne Boileau’s _Livre des Métiers_, defines as “a combination of individuals having the right to carry on an industrial profession, composed of masters, _valets_, and apprentices, and bound by oath to observe the prescribed regulations, and to respect the authority of the Jurés in their supervisory functions.” The gilds in documents of the time are called somewhat loosely _corporations_, _corps de métier_, _métier_, _commun du métier_, _ghilde_, and less correctly _charité_ or _confrérie_.[1] The gild was a fortress to which the workman rallied and from which he beat off assailants in the form of feudal lords or foreign trade competitors. Its primary function was to safeguard the rights of labor, at any period none too stable, and in the complicated social organization of the later Middle Ages, decidedly precarious. Privileges had to be fought for and wrested from the overlord of the community, be he king or noble, and a definite regulation, though still in its prescriptions onerous, was preferable to a haphazard system of ‘taxation,’ subject only to the sanity or rapacity of count, king or bishop. Foreign laborers and merchants, too, the narrow economic vision of the period pointed out as hostile to the well-being of the city-gild, and so exclusion by legislation is an important article in its “foreign policy.” Against enemies within their own ranks a sharp guard had to be maintained; ignorant practitioners or a superfluity of apprentices might sadly damage the gild’s reputation for work which was “good and loyal.” The organization of the 13th century gild seems to find its motives in the desire to establish a definite and firm control over the _métier_, and to establish, so far as custom and law would sanction it, a monopoly over the commodities produced. The question of the political significance of the gild may be set aside at the start. It has been a difference of opinion which came first, the gild or the commune, and whether there was a causal relationship between the two. The fact is that most of the gilds—as organizations—had no political share in such activities as elections. The gild was not the cause of the commune; the commune did not originate the gild. M. Fagniez[2] has said “Le mouvement communal ne fut pour rien dans cette émancipation de la classe ouvrière; elle était terminée quand il commença.” It is interesting to note, however, the prominence which, under the gild régime, certain _bourgeois_ and tradesmen attain. For example, the provost of the watermen of Paris came to rival in power the king’s provost of Paris.