Such, briefly, was the constitution of the famous mediæval guilds, such were their faults and excellences. The record of these Cathedral windows helps us to realise their importance in the history of Chartres, and also enables us to imagine the state and the character of the old town’s trade. In spite of the exactions and taxes levied by bishop and count, chapter, monastery and viscount, the merchants of Chartres flourished mightily in the thirteenth century, and the fairs of the town held during the four feasts of Our Lady rivalled in importance even those of Brie and Champagne. Chartres was one of the seventeen towns in France where the trades were separate and distinct, and each trade had its statutes regulated and enforced by jurés in the manner I have sketched. She owed her commercial activity to the gatherings of pilgrims at the shrine of Notre-Dame, and when these gatherings ceased her trade drooped and dwindled away till once more, as in the Merovingian days, it was confined to traffic in wool and corn.
Take first, for instance, the window which gives us the story of S. Eustace, the third in the north aisle of the nave, and the third in the north clerestory of the nave, with its medallions of apostles and S. Thomas of Canterbury, that favourite saint of the Middle Ages. They were given by the furriers and drapers, the Bourgeois, as they were called, of the River, members of the renowned corporation known as the Métier de la Rivière. This métier included the professions of the woollen-drapers, combers and cleaners, felt-makers and dyers.
Six jurés were elected annually by the masters of the guild, whose duty it was to examine, and pass or reject every piece of cloth or wool-work made at Chartres or anywhere within a radius of three leagues. Latterly every piece approved was stamped with a leaden trademark. The trade flourished and brought great reputation to the town from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. But the wars with England, and plague and famine greatly affected its prosperity. These and other causes led to its gradual decay and final disappearance.
The tanners and cobblers who gave the third and fourth windows in the south aisle of the nave formed one corporation, and the curriers were for a long time included under the heading of tanners. The latter were attracted to Chartres by the excellence and quantity of the skins to be obtained there, and by the peculiar quality of the water of the Eure, which, together with the bark supplied by the trees of the neighbouring forests, was specially adapted for curing them. The tanners flourished exceedingly, and were accustomed to celebrate with great magnificence at the riverside Church of S. André the feast of their patron, S. Louis. The difficulty of procuring skins and other accessories had considerably injured them by the time of the Revolution, and their industry, like that of the shoemakers, has to-day no more than a quite local importance. But the river is still to some extent the scene of their labours. For though agriculture is now the chief industry of the department, and though the great fairs of May and September are great no longer in comparison with their splendid past, the commerce of Chartres is not altogether dead. There is a considerable traffic not only in corn and wool but also in sheep and horses, and a walk along the river banks between the Pont Neuf and the Porte Guillaume will
show you that the chief ateliers of the district are the wash-houses of the tanners and the wool-workers. Along the base of the mouldering wall which skirts the diverted arm of the Eure lie the backs of old houses with their adjoining tanyards. Many of them, too, are garnished with little wooden galleries, lavatories of the town’s soiled linen. ‘These galleries are filled with washerwomen, who crane over and dip their many-coloured rags into the yellow stream. The old patched and interrupted wall, the ditch with its weedy edges, the spots of colour, the white-capped laundresses in their little wooden cages—one lingers to look at it all.’[73]
Wine was another commodity for which Chartres was once famous. The author of the Book of Miracles tells us of a troubadour who left his companion to pursue his pilgrimage alone whilst he himself paid a prolonged visit to a cabaret.