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From German-speaking Catholics to French carpenters: Strasbourg guilds and the role of confessional boundaries in the inclusion and exclusion of foreigners in the eighteenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2008

HANNA SONKAJÄRVI
HANNA SONKAJÄRVI*
Affiliation:
Department of History, SFB 600/A 5, University of Trier, 54286 Trier, Germany
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Abstract

This article deals with the importance of religion as a factor influencing the inclusion and exclusion of foreigners from – and inside – the guilds in eighteenth-century Strasbourg. We consider the different notions of the étranger as socially constructed and circumstantial. Together with factors such as social status, family ties, gender, systems of patronage, wealth, language and the citizenship rights of a town, religious and denominational boundaries constituted a major factor for influencing the inclusion and exclusion of foreigners in the early modern society. The construction and preservation of such boundaries are explored here through the examples of the carpenters' and the shipmen's guild found in the eighteenth-century multiconfessional city of Strasbourg.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , August 2008 , pp. 202 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Instead of perceiving the early modern foreigner (étranger) as a first and foremost locally determined category,Footnote 1 the historiography of ancien régime France has tended to define the étranger in relation to the absolutist state. It therefore tends to focus on legal definitions and understands the concept to refer to the aubains, or ‘non-subjects’ of the French king.Footnote 2 Even recent studies, such as those by Jean-François Dubost and Peter Sahlins,Footnote 3 have centred on the opposition between foreigners (étrangers) and subjects of the French king (régnicoles), thus ignoring the importance of local practice. For instance, Peter Sahlins suggests in his book Unnaturally French that during the ancien régime, and despite the fact that a French nationality did not yet exist, lawyers dealing with the naturalization of foreigners were expressing a certain concept of French citizenship.Footnote 4 Sahlins employs the notion ‘absolute citizen’. However, the formal institutionalization and codification of what – paralleling the image of the absolutist state – might be considered the ‘absolute citizen’ does not say anything about the effect such a status would have had at the local level.Footnote 5 The questions therefore arise first how were foreigners defined at the local level? And secondly what did it mean to be identified as a foreigner? It was not only the state and the local authorities that interpreted the concept of a foreigner differently. Different individuals and groups tried (and from time to time succeeded in) advancing their own interpretations that defined someone as a foreigner and allowed them to be treated as such.

Significantly, the local practices of defining a ‘foreigner’ have received more attention from scholars in countries like Austria, Germany and Switzerland, where national citizenship was introduced late or remained incomplete.Footnote 6 Another notable exception is the work done by Tamar Herzog, whose work combines the study of juridical categories with that of social networks in relation to Castile and Latin America. Herzog argues that it was not the juridical categories which influenced social classifications, but rather social classifications that moulded legal consequences. Through a study focused on the process of defining local belonging, Herzog explores the ways in which local citizenship rights (vecindad) were defined according to the circumstances and the interests of the individuals and groups involved, rather than according to any juridical rule.Footnote 7

In early modern society, which was characterized by a diversity of status and privileges, jurisdiction served more as a means of confirming exceptions than as a coherent framework of regulation.Footnote 8 Recognizing this implies that instead of asking whether a concept of French citizenship already existed, we should actually ask how, when and why people would have interpreted a social experience in terms of foreignness, and who the agents were doing the identifying in any given situation. The focus is therefore shifted from juridical categories to the study of social practice.

The early modern concept of étranger thus appears to be a circumstantial category subject to the interaction of different individuals and groups whose interests could vary according to situation, moment and place. The difference between foreigners and the king's subjects was not necessarily a decisive factor in the everyday life of an individual. Other factors, such as social status, family ties, gender, systems of patronage, religion or denomination, wealth, language or the citizenship rights of a town, could be of much more importance in a given context and must therefore be taken into account. This is why we have opted for a wide-ranging definition of the term ‘foreigner’, understanding the term étranger to refer to both a ‘foreigner’ in the modern sense as well as to persons who come from outside the community, who might be termed forains. In accordance with the sociologist Alois Hahn, who considers ‘foreignness not to be a quality, nor even an objective relationship between two persons or groups, but rather the definition of a relationship’,Footnote 9 the concept of the étranger is here considered to be both a social and a historical construct.Footnote 10

Social status, family ties, gender, systems of patronage, wealth, language – or even the citizenship rights of a town such as Lille, Douai, Mons, Ath, Metz and StrasbourgFootnote 11 – are factors which can all be examined in relation to the different practices used to define foreigners in early modern France. However, religious and confessional boundaries only played a part in a small number of locations. In the eighteenth century, this was especially the case in Alsace.Footnote 12 The multiconfessional city of Strasburg was therefore unusual within the French context. Strasbourg, a biconfessional city of Lutherans and Reformed, turned triconfessional following the French annexation in 1681, as Catholics were once more admitted into the local citizenship. Parallels can however be found on the opposite side of the Rhine, in the Holy Roman Empire. In numerous German cities the rights associated with local citizenship were only accorded to individuals who were members of the same confession (Religionsverwandte).Footnote 13 However, the Empire also contained important cities like Augsburg and Mannheim, where Catholics and Protestants were able to co-exist.Footnote 14

In the city of Strasbourg, confessional boundaries played an important role at the local level, in relation to the everyday distinction drawn between different individuals, groups and institutions as part of the process used to identify individuals or groups of individuals as foreigners.Footnote 15 The drawing up and preservation of such confessional boundaries are explored here by an examination of the carpenters' and the shipmen's guilds. In both cases, confession is to be understood less as the actual reason for division than as an argument that was advanced by different parties in relation to the distribution of economic resources.

Until the time of the French Revolution, the city of Strasbourg formed a privileged unit inside the Catholic Monarchy. A capitulation treaty accorded by Louis XIV guaranteed the maintenance of local political institutions and territorial integrity.Footnote 16 The city therefore functioned according to its own constitution and political institutions, the maintenance of which were guaranteed by the magistracy and its sole jurisdiction over the inhabitants.Footnote 17 The population remained divided into three groups: (1) those who had citizenship rights, the Bürgerrechte, (2) the so called Schirmbürger, who enjoyed the protection of the city, but had no political rights, and (3) those who were merely tolerated as inhabitants. This system provided the magistracy with the opportunity to decouple domicile rights from political, economic or juridical rights. Thus even the Frenchmen coming to Strasbourg after the French annexation could be regarded as foreigners to the city, despite the fact that they were subjects of the same king as the Strasbourgeois.

The various confessional and religious groups found in the city had different legal standings. Before 1681, only Lutherans and Calvinists (with the latter being under certain restrictions which made them, for example, subject to higher fees and ineligible for municipal offices)Footnote 18 could be admitted to the local citizenship (Stadtbürgerrecht). The capitulation treaty of the city guaranteed the rights of these two communities.Footnote 19 However, the annexation of the city by the French opened up local citizenship to Catholics as well. JewsFootnote 20 had no residence rights in the city and even at the end of the eighteenth century the magistracy refused to give residence rights to the Jewish army supplier Cerf Berr, even though he had acquired naturalization letters from the French king.Footnote 21

Following the French conquest, the Strasbourg magistracy was forced by a royal order to open up the local citizenship rights to the Catholics. In 1686 both the intendant of Alsace and the préteur royal of Strasbourg received instructions from the secretary of war, Louvois, to reduce the entrance fees required of the Catholics to a third of that required from Lutherans.Footnote 22 The magistracy responded to this by providing an equal reduction for the Lutherans and by a general elevation of the minimum fortune required. In addition, in 1687 a royal ordinance established the Alternative, which required that the offices of the magistracy and the municipal administration were to be filled alternately by Catholics and Lutherans.Footnote 23 This triggered a wave of conversions amongst individuals who wanted to become eligible for the municipal offices and enter the ruling oligarchy of the magistracy.Footnote 24 The Strasbourg Catholics – who outnumbered the Lutherans by 1750Footnote 25 – were therefore at least nominally equal to the Lutherans. But did this in itself lead to equal treatment? Who would have been defined as a foreigner using arguments that rested on their belonging to a particular confessional group, and by whom, in what context and to what purpose would such distinctions have been drawn?

The city of Strasbourg belonged to the tradition of German guilds and continued to attract a significant number of journeymen from the German states even after it was annexed by the French. The political, social and economic system of the city was based on the guild system. Every citizen was obliged to join one of the 20 guilds, into each of which numerous crafts were grouped. The proportion of Catholics who were members of the guilds varied significantly depending on the guild in question. This was partly due to the resistance of the guilds, who were hesitant to accept Catholic or non-German newcomers. The influx of francophone and, in particular, Catholic migrants therefore led to the establishment of parallel guild organizations such as the ‘French’Footnote 26 and ‘German’ carpenters,Footnote 27 and also to marginalization within some of the corporations. In general terms, the guilds encompassing traditional crafts were those which offered the most resistance to newcomers.Footnote 28 The French annexation of the city was followed by the settlement of the bishop, the royal administration, the army and the French nobility, and this movement was accompanied by the immigration of Catholic artisans. The most significant groups were associated with crafts related to the construction industry and with new occupations related to providing a luxurious lifestyle for the rich.

However, many of the régnicole (subjects of the king) immigrants also belonged to privileged groups (for instance the royal administrators, members of the Catholic Church and army officials). These individuals had no interest whatsoever in becoming citizens or joining a guild, as this would have obliged them to pay municipal taxes and, even more importantly, placed them under the authority of the magistracy.Footnote 29

In tandem with the immigration of Germans, a number of carpenters qualified by the magistracy as ‘French’ were also attracted to the city by work opportunities such as the building of army barracks, the restoration of the churches rededicated to the Catholics, and the construction of buildings to meet the needs of the royal administration, the nobility and the church. These foreigners to the city exercised their craft without having completed a masterpiece, which was required for becoming a master artisan,Footnote 30 and without having registered with a guild. Having entered into a contract with the bishop or the army, they formed clandestine networks that were beyond the control of the carpenters' guild and the magistracy and managed to escape the municipal taxes.Footnote 31 Pressure from the carpenters' guild caused the magistracy to place pressure on individual illegal workers (called französische Pfuscher), by requiring them to complete a masterpiece according to the German tradition. In addition, the Strasbourg carpenters refused to acknowledge the status of master if it was attained in another city of the French kingdom. Thanks to the intervention of the intendant of Alsace, Mr de la Fond, and the royal syndic Obrecht, an agreement was finally reached in 1698. This required the French carpenters to complete a masterpiece which they could construct in the French way, but which would meet ‘the German requirements’. However, when the French carpenters' masterpiece, the altar of the chapel Saint-Laurent, finally was completed in 1701, the carpenters guild refused to recognize it. The reason was that the carpenters' guild believed that only one of the eight French carpenters involved had actually personally worked on the project. In fact, François Lévy-Coblentz suggests that from the beginning, the parties in conflict had a very different notion of what was meant by a masterpiece. In France, the form of the masterpiece could vary according to the applicant's social status,Footnote 32 whereas the German masterpiece was based on equal requirements for all candidates and was therefore to be completed individually by each applicant.Footnote 33 The refusal of the carpenters' guild to recognize the French altar piece as a masterpiece was thus justified by what was referred to by the guild as a lack of skill.Footnote 34

The carpenters' guild claimed that if the incompetent French carpenters were admitted the guild would lose its reputation and no German apprentices or journeymen would come to Strasbourg in the future.Footnote 35 The guild therefore recommended that the French carpenters establish their own community. As a result, the French formed their own separate corps, which was founded using the same statutes as the original ‘German’ guild,Footnote 36 which were translated into French and registered by the magistracy. For the magistracy, the advantage of this solution was that the newly established Communauté des Maîtres Menuisiers français de la Ville de Strasbourg fell under its jurisdiction.

Once the community of French carpenters had been created, it was still necessary to establish a boundary between the two communities of carpenters, and between the carpenters themselves and those who remained outside the guilds. Following demands from the German carpenters, the Council of FifteenFootnote 37 of the magistracy therefore decided in 1740 that the French community could only accept French carpenters as masters, or persons trained by a French master.Footnote 38 This rule was established because the French carpenters were attracting more apprentices and journeymen than the German carpenters, who were suffering because of a lack of applicants. The popularity of the French carpenters' community was in part the result of an expanding Catholic population; however, it was also the result of the fact that the French carpenters had employed a much less strict admission policy than the Germans during the first decades of the community's existence.

In fact, the membership of the two communautés was defined less by the geographical origins of the adherents than by their confessional status. Only 10 of the 48 journeymen who completed a masterpiece at the French community between 1728 and 1780 had a French name.Footnote 39 According to Ernst Polaczek, although some sons of local citizens were among the members of the French commmunauté, most of its members were of Hessian, Palatine and Swabian origin. The flow of French migrants into the city dried up in the early eighteenth century due to the economic difficulties caused by the War of Spanish Succession. However, this did not affect the membership figures of the ‘French’ carpenters, because the influx into the city of Catholics continued from the Catholic parts of the Holy Roman Empire.

Further evidence that the ‘French’ carpenters had turned ‘German’ is provided by the community's minutes, which were written in German from 1703 onwards, only a short time after the community was established. In fact, as a general rule, the community usually referred to as being ‘French’ was actually composed of German-speaking Catholics. The original ‘German’ community remained Lutheran, and contained only a small Catholic minority. The two communities continued to co-exist until 1781. By this date, these confessional divisions were in decline and mixed marriages between Lutherans and Catholics had been reintroduced by the Crown. This was done in order finally to allow the Catholics access to the resources of the ruling Lutheran municipal elite.Footnote 40

Inside the guilds, the co-existence of different denominations could under certain circumstances lead to conflict between the Catholics and the Lutherans. The Alternative which was practised in relation to the magistracy and the municipal offices (and which stipulated that official posts should be shared out equally between Catholics and Lutherans) was not applied to the guilds. Therefore, the conflicting parties referred to confessional status as a means of justifying discrimination. An example of such a conflict is offered by the Strasbourg shipmen's guild, and is considered below.

In June 1766, the shipmen of Strasbourg gathered to elect those shipmen who would have access to Umgang.Footnote 41 This right to transport merchandise was awarded according to the number of years of membership accrued by an individual and only to the shipmen in possession of ‘big’ ships, the size of which was defined by the guild itself. Those shipmen who were excluded had to content themselves with occasional sub-contracts and with the transport of people, which was much less lucrative. The practice seems to have been based upon the example set by the shipmen of Basel in the mid-seventeenth century,Footnote 42 with the aim of first reducing competition between the members of the same craft and secondly keeping prices both high and stable. Umgang was therefore a practice which was criticized by both the shipmen who were excluded from it, and by the merchants who were the clients of the shipmen who practised it.Footnote 43

In total, six Lutherans and two Catholics were elected in 1766 to replace eight colleagues who had passed away. Disappointed by this decision, six Catholic shipmen complained to the highest royal legal authority in Alsace: the Conseil souverain d'Alsace in Colmar. In 1767, the Conseil souverain annulled the election of July 1766 and ordered new elections to be held. The court considered that an equal number of Catholics and Lutherans should be chosen to fill the eight places.Footnote 44 Faced with this interference when it claimed to have exclusive rights of jurisdiction and exclusive authority over the guilds, the Strasbourg magistracy appealed to the Crown demanding that its privileges be confirmed. The magistracy obtained partial satisfaction, in that its monopoly over the control of the guilds was recognized and all efforts to apply the Alternative to the guilds were stopped. The Conseil souverain d'Alsace was forbidden to receive appeals in the matter until the Crown had pronounced its definitive intentions on this matter.

The conflict re-emerged in 1782, when the Catholic shipmen again complained. This time, however, they complained to the magistracy and its noble Stettmeister Bulach of being excluded from the Umgang by their Lutheran colleagues, as three Lutherans and no Catholics had been admitted to the Umgang. Of the 24 shipmen who were members of the Umgang, only four were Catholic. The Catholics made clear just how significant the economic stakes involved were when they stated that of the 24,000 livres that might be earned through the Umgang, the Lutherans would take 20,000 and Catholics only 4,000. This, they maintained, made it impossible for them to improve their economic situation. They claimed that eight of them were eligible to Umgang.Footnote 45

These disagreements between Catholic and Lutheran shipmen clearly illustrate that access to a guild alone was not enough to guarantee equal chances for its members. Confessional status was used as an argument to improve the distribution of economic resources. The excluded shipmen argued that because they belonged to the same guild it was unjust of the traditional Lutheran elite to retain for themselves the most lucrative contracts. Labelling the conflict a confessional one allowed for the Catholics to put their case before the royal Conseil souverain d'Alsace, instead of reporting the matter to the city's magistracy. The royal court would, so they hoped, extend the practice of Alternative to the corporations.

These two examples indicate that religion was an important means of social diversification in early modern society. Religion and denomination did not only count in terms of access to local citizenship and municipal offices; these categories were also used more flexibly as a criteria of exclusion, in cases where the actual stakes were economic in nature. Even in France, often considered the ‘absolutist state’ par excellence – and particularly so in the case of Strasbourg – the re-Catholicization policies of the Crown were not sufficient to ensure that Catholics superseded the Lutheran elite in terms of wealth and influence. This is precisely why the Catholic bishop of Strasbourg, Cardinal Louis-Constantin de Rohan, from 1759 onwards repeatedly demanded that mixed marriages between Catholics and Lutherans should be reintroduced in order finally to allow the Catholics to access to the resources of the ruling, still Lutheran, municipal elite:

On a remarqué que la plus grande partie des biens de Strasbourg est possédée par les luthériens; tant qu'il ne sera pas permis aux catholiques d'entrer dans leurs familles, jamais ils ne participeront à ces biens; la force, les richesses, la considération se trouveront toujours chez les luthériens et les catholiques de Strasbourg surtout dans la seconde, et troisième classe des habitan[t]s de cette ville y sera toujours d'une condition pire et dans un état inférieur et subordonné . . . D'ailleurs, aussi longtem[p]s que ces mariages seront deffendus, les catholiques et les luthériens seront à Strasbourg comme deux corps séparés, deux sociétés distinctes, qui penseront, qui agiront différemment, et qui ayant très peu d'interêts communs ne seront liés ni d'affection, ni de sentiment; le bien de l'État ne demande-t-il pas, que dans une même ville il y ayt plus d'union?Footnote 46

Mixed marriages were finally introduced in 1774;Footnote 47 however, the Lutheran elite remained very sceptical of such alliances.Footnote 48

If we consider the dynamics of the inclusion and exclusion of foreigners from local society, we must conclude that the boundary drawn by the French Crown between régnicoles and étrangers was only one factor among many that defined the place of an individual in early modern society. Competing, local definitions of a ‘foreigner’ co-existed with and, in the case of Strasbourg, even prevailed over the definitions laid down by the state. Furthermore, individuals would take advantage of and exploit different kinds of definitions according to their interests. Religion was at least as important as allegiance to the French king, or geographic origin, in determining an individual's place in society. Focusing on the social processes used to define the boundaries between different individuals and groups, instead of concentrating on a fixed, state-centred definition of the concept of ‘foreigner’, suggests that the concept of the ‘absolute citizen’ did not have much importance at the local level. In everyday life, the magistracy of Strasbourg and the citizens who made up the guilds were often less interested in whether someone was a régnicole than whether he was a Catholic or a Lutheran, a Calvinist, or a Jew.

References

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16 The best overview of eighteenth-century Strasbourg is offered by Livet, G. and Rapp, F. (eds.), Histoire de Strasbourg des origines á nos jours, vol. III: Strasbourg de la guerre de Trente Ans à Napoléon, 1618–1815 (Strasbourg, 1981)Google Scholar.

17 On the Strasbourg constitution, see Livet, G. and Rott, J., ‘En commémoration d'un demi-millénaire. La Constitution de 1482. Aperçu sur l'histoire constitutionnelle de Strasbourg jusqu'à la Révolution’, Annuaire de la Société des amis du Vieux-Strasbourg, 12 (1982), 17–22Google Scholar.

18 On the marginalization of the Calvinists, see Maeder, A., Notice historique sur la paroisse réformée de Strasbourg et recueil de pièces probantes, 2nd edn (Paris and Strasbourg, 1885)Google Scholar; H. Sonkajärvi, ‘L'étranger et le forain entre inclusion et exclusion; de la cité impériale à la ville de province: le cas de Strasbourg (1681–1789)’ (European University Institute Ph.D. thesis, 2006), 90–9.

19 Archives municipales de Strasbourg (hereafter AMS), AA 2118, Capitulation accordée à la ville de Strasbourg par Louis XIV, 30 Sep. 1681. It should be noted that the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was never applied to Alsace, since the Edict was never introduced there in the first place because Alsace was not part of the French kingdom in 1598. See Pfister, C., ‘L'Alsace et l'Édit de Nantes’, Revue historique, 160 (1929), 225Google Scholar.

20 Sonkajärvi, ‘L'étranger et le forain’, 122–8. On the Jews of Alsace, see Raphaël, F. and Weyl, R., Regards nouveaux sur les juifs d'Alsace (Strasbourg, 1980)Google Scholar. On the naturalization of Jews, see, for instance, Sahlins, P., ‘Fictions of a Catholic France: the naturalization of foreigners, 1685–1787’, Representations, 47 (1994), 85–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Szajkowski, Z., ‘The Jewish status in eighteenth-century France and the “Droit d'aubaine”’, Historia Judaica, 19 (1957), 147–61Google Scholar.

21 AMS, AA 2380, Copie de la lettre de M. le préteur royal de Strasbourg à M. le sieur Saint Germain, 13 Apr. 1776.

22 Service historique de l'armée de terre, Vincennes (SHAT), A1 773, sans f., Lettre de Louvois à M. de la Grange, 3 Jan. 1686; ibid., Lettre de Louvois à M. Obrecht, 18 Feb. 1686.

23 See Châtellier, L., Tradition chrétienne et renouveau catholique dans le cadre de l'ancienne diocèse de Strasbourg (1650–1770) (Paris, 1981)Google Scholar; Sarmant, T. and Lemoigne, H., ‘“Les douces violences”: Dominique Dietrich et la politique religieuse de la monarchie à Strasbourg, 1681–1694’, Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme français, 146 (2000), 367–90Google Scholar. On a more general level, and concerning the different confessions in Alsace, see Vogler, B., Histoire des chrétiens d'Alsace des origines à nos jours (Paris, 1994)Google Scholar.

24 This was particularly the case during the first three decades of the French rule, see Greissler, P., La Classe politique dirigeante à Strasbourg, 1650–1750 (Strasbourg, 1987), 245–6Google Scholar. Recent studies have underlined the opportunistic character of conversions. Hodler, for instance, speaks of religious belonging as an object of exchange, which could be exploited repeatedly in order to improve one's social standing, Hodler, B., ‘Konversionen und der Handlungsspielraum der Untertanen in der Eidgenossenschaft im Zeitalter des reformierten Orthodoxie’, in Schmidt, H., Holenstein, A. and Würgler, A. (eds.), Gemeinde, Reformation und Widerstand. Festschrift für Peter Blickle zum 60. Geburtstag (Tübingen, 1998), 281–91Google Scholar. See also Volkland, F., Konfession und Selbstverständnis. Reformierte Rituale in der gemischtkonfessionellen Kleinstadt Bischofszell im 17. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 2005), 139–87Google Scholar. For an example of conversions as a survival strategy for women from the lower social strata, see von Thiessen, H., ‘Konversionsbereitschaft als Lebensunterhalt. Der Fall der vermeintlichen Konvertitin Catharina Baumännin vor dem Freiburger Stadtgericht (1730/31) und seine Bedeutung für unser Verständnis der Konfessionalisierung’, Zeitschrift des Breisgau-Geschichtsvereins ‘Schau-ins-Land’, 119 (2000), 87–101Google Scholar.

25 The French conquest was followed by a Catholic immigration, so that in 1789 there were between 25,300 and 25,700 Catholics and 22,200 to 22,500 Lutherans in the city. The total number of inhabitants was 48,500. Only a minority of these Catholic immigrants were subjects of the French king. Most immigrants were of Alsatian origin and came from the regions surrounding the city. Other important groups of immigrants came from the Holy Roman Empire, Savoy and Lorraine. The French-speaking population did not account for more than 9% of new citizens in the period 1700–01 and for no more than 8% in the period 1785–86, see Dreyer-Roos, S., La population strasbourgeoise sous l'Ancien Régime (Strasbourg, 1969), 117–21Google Scholar; B. Vogler, ‘La pénétration française en Alsace au XVIIIe siècle à travers les testaments’, in Provinces et États dans la France de l'Est. Le rattachement de la Franche-Comté à la France, espaces régionaux et espaces nationaux, Actes du colloque de Besançon, 3 et 4 octobre 1977 (Paris, 1979), 196.

26 The case of the French carpenters (französischen Schreiner or menuisiers français) has been notably treated by F. Lévy-Coblentz, L'art du meuble en Alsace au siècle des Lumières, vol. II: De la paix de Ryswick à la Révolution (1698–1789) (Saint-Dié, 1985), especially 121–42, and by Polaczek, E., ‘Das Handwerk der französischen Schreiner der Stadt Strassburg’, Elsässische Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Volkskunde, 1 (1910), 321–30Google Scholar.

27 There also existed ‘German’ and ‘French’ saddlers and ‘German’ and ‘French’ bakers. The perruquiers only formed themselves into a community inside the guild Weinsticher (Gourmets) in 1716 after the French crown had introduced a purchasable status of perruquiers privilégiés du roi (1691), the establishment of which led to an enduring conflict between traditionally established barbiers et perruquiers and the new comers.

28 Whereas new crafts like those of upholsterers (90% Catholic), plasterers (100%), gilders (100%) and ‘french saddlers’ (100%) were dominated by Catholic migrants from Alsace and inner France, B. Vogler, ‘La vie économique et les hiérarchies socials’, in Livet and Rapp (eds.), Histoire de Strasbourg, vol. III, 204–5; Dreyer-Roos, La population strasbourgeoise, 132–4.

29 In fact, the number of Lutheran and Catholic citizens remained very unequal. In 1789, when the number of Catholic citizens was at its peak, 74% of the Bürger were still Lutheran as opposed to 24% Catholics. Among the Schirmbürger 22% were Catholic and 11% Lutheran. 52% of the Catholics belonged to the simple inhabitants (Dreyer-Roos, La population strasbourgeoise, 99–100).

30 The masterpiece (Meisterwerk/chef-d'oeuvre) was a demonstration of skill required for reaching the status of a master artisan and consequently becoming a member of a corporation. The master artisans could exercise their profession independently and were allowed to hire journeymen. The prerequisite for the completion of a masterpiece was that the aspirant had completed his years tramping (Wanderjahre). This obligation to tramp did not exist in France, even though many journeymen did leave for a Tour de France. The guild regulations gave detailed instructions on how the masterpiece was to be completed. To be admitted as a master, the candidate was to pay a mastership fee. He was to complete the work alone and at his own expense. The final product was examined by the guild, who established whether the candidate was to be granted the master's status or not. Every master artisan was to pay the citizenship rights of the town and thus became a full member of the local political community. The Strasbourg guilds would acknowledge the master's status attained in the Holy Roman Empire, the Baltic or Sweden, but they refused to acknowledge the same status attained in France.

31 The bishop of Strasbourg and the nobility continued, right until the end of the eighteenth century, to employ professionals who would not adhere to the guild system. For examples of carpenters and other artisans protected by the particular jurisdictions of the citadelle, the Catholic church and noble households, see Lévy-Coblentz, L'art du meuble, vol. II, 235; J.-D. Ludmann, ‘La vie artistique et l'urbanisme à Strasbourg au XVIIIe siècle’, in Livet and Rapp (eds.), Histoire de Strasbourg des origines à nos jours, vol. III, 473–8.

32 Lévy-Coblentz refers to Nicolas de La Mare's Traité de Police, 4 vols. (Paris, 1732–38), according to whom the Parisian Maîtres Huchers-Menuisiers knew five different groups of mastership candidates. The difficulty of the masterpiece was determined by the applicant's social status, Lévy-Coblentz, F., ‘La position des menuisiers français dans l'affaire de leur chef-d'oeuvre à Strasbourg, en 1698’, Annuaire de la Société des amis du Vieux-Strasbourg (1975), 94–6Google Scholar.

33 Lévy-Coblentz, ‘La position des menuisiers’, 94–6.

34 Because the notion of ‘skill’ is socially defined, it can be constantly redefined. Simonton, D., A History of European Women's Work: 1700 to the Present (London and New York, 1998)Google Scholar, has for instance shown how the notion of ‘skill’ was used to exclude women from certain crafts in eighteenth-century Aberdeen. In the case of the Strasbourg ‘German’ and ‘French’ carpenters, it should be noted that the two communities began to criticize each other for their styles of production and their admission criteria only once the boundary – sustained by the confessional division – had been established between the two communities.

35 In fact, numerous cities were boycotted by the journeymen of one or more crafts because they were perceived as failing to respect commonly accepted rules by tolerating illicit workers. On the importance of honour and reputation in relation to the guilds, see Griessinger, A., Das symbolische Kapital der Ehre: Streikbewegungen und kollektives Bewusstsein deutscher Handwerksgesellen im 18. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Vienna, 1981)Google Scholar. At the same time, holding rigidly to the ‘German tradition’ provided an efficient argument against any intervention by the Crown in relation to the Strasbourg guild system. The magistracy successfully prevented the opening up of the mastership to anyone who had completed a masterpiece in any other city of the Kingdom (1755) and Strasbourg was also exempted from the suppression of the guilds promulgated in 1776, Sonkajärvi, ‘L'étranger et le forain’, 134–40.

36 AMS, 2 R 105, fol. 148, Protocoll des Rats der XV, 15 Apr. 1701; AMS, 2 R 107, fols. 227–8, Protocoll des Rats der XV, 7 Sep. 1703. The great majority of the magistracy's proceedings before the French Revolution are written in German.

37 The Council of Fifteen was one of the three main councils of the Strasbourg magistracy. It consisted of ten commoners and five noble members and was responsible for the internal administration of the city.

38 AMS, XI 38, Extrait du protocole de la chambre des XV, 20 Feb. 1740.

39 Polaczek, ‘Das Handwerk’, 322.

40 Earlier efforts undertaken in 1750 to unite the two communities – again following the demands of the German carpenters' community, which was lacking members – did not have any concrete effect. This was partly because the French carpenters were in debt. However, and even more importantly, it was also the result of the fact that the ‘German’ carpenters refused to contribute to the Catholic mass at the Cathedral, which the ‘French’ had committed themselves to at the establishment of their confrérie, Polaczek, ‘Das Handwerk’, 327–8.

41 Archives départementales du Bas Rhin, Strasbourg, 3 J 45, Extrait des Registres du Conseil d'État du Roy, 4 Jul. 1767.

42 Hertner, P., Stadtwirtschaft zwischen Reich und Frankreich. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Straßburgs 1650–1714 (Cologne and Vienna, 1973), 67Google Scholar, dates the practice back to 1650. During the second half of the eighteenth century the guild of the shipmen, called the ‘Encker’, was in economic decline. These economic difficulties were related to customs fees and smuggling, as well as to competition from small farmers (who had taken over minor transport jobs) and improvements in transportation by land. Most damaging, however, was the fact that since 1681 the Strasbourg shipmen's monopoly of navigation on the Rhine had been contested by the margrave of Baden and the elector of the Palatinate. See Koenig, C., ‘Navigation et traités concernant la navigation sur le Rhin au XVIIIe siècle. Contribution à l'étude des relations entre Versailles, Strasbourg et les cours rhénanes (1681–1790)’, Revue d'Alsace, 105 (1979), 95–116Google Scholar; Livet, G., ‘Strasbourg et la navigation du Rhin. Contribution à l'étude des relations entre la Ville et le Magraviat [sic] de Bade à la fin du XVIIIe siècle’, in Duchhardt, H. and Schmitt, E. (eds.), Deutschland und Frankreich in der frühen Neuzeit. Festschrift für Hermann Weber zum 65. Geburtstag (Munich, 1987), 549–87Google Scholar; Löper, C., Die Rheinschifffahrt Straßburgs in früherer Zeit und die Straßburger Schiffleut-Zunft (Strasbourg, 1877)Google Scholar.

43 Hertner, Stadtwirtschaft, 67–8.

44 AMS, VI 680 n°16, Copie de la lettre du Préteur royal Gayot à M. le duc de Choiseul, 24 Apr. 1767.

45 AMS, AA 2081, fols. 138–9, Lettre du stettmeistre de Burlach concernant l'alternative à observer dans les élections qui se font au sein du corps des bateliers. – Griefs produits, à ce sujet, par les bateliers catholiques, 4 Apr. 1783.

46 ‘We have noted that the Lutherans possess most of the property in Strasbourg; as long as the Catholics are not allowed to enter into their families, they will never share in this wealth; the power, the richness, the esteem will always remain reserved to the Lutherans and the Catholics of Strasbourg, especially those among the second and third class of inhabitants in this city, will always be of a worse condition and have an inferior and oppressed standing . . . Also, as long as these marriages are forbidden, the Strasbourg Catholics and Lutherans will be like two separate corps; two distinct societies, that think, that act differently, and having few common interests, will be united neither by affection nor by sentiment; Does the interest of the state not require that there should be more union in one and the same city?’ (my own translation), Archives Nationales, Paris, H1 1639, n°31, Mémoire sur les mariages des catholiques avec les luthériens à Strasbourg, s.d.

47 de Boug, François Henri (ed.), Recueil des édits, déclarations, lettres patentes, arrêts du Conseil d'État et du Conseil souverain d'Alsace, Ordonnances & Règlemens [sic] concernant cette Province (Colmar, 1775), vol. II, 873–4Google Scholar, ‘Déclaration portant Révocation des défences faites, par l'Édit du mois d'août 1683, aux Sujets du Roi, en la province d'Alsace, faisant profession de la Religion catholique, de contracter des Mariages avec ceux de la même Province qui font profession de la Religion luthérienne’, 19 Mar. 1774.

48 According to C.-F. Boegner (Études historiques sur l'église protestante de Strasbourg considérée dans ses rapports avec l'Église catholique, 1681–1727 (Strasbourg, 1851), 51) 95 mixed marriages occurred between 1774 and 1784. However, Boegner does not reveal his sources. J.-G. Guth makes the point that the mixed marriages mainly concerned the categories of Schirmbürger and simple inhabitants (see ‘Les Protestants de Strasbourg sous monarchie française (de 1681 à la veille de la révolution): une communauté religieuse distincte?’ (Université de Strasbourg II doctoral thesis, 1997), vol. II, 898–908). Similarly, Dreyer-Roos notes that even during the first years of the French Revolution, from 1790 to 1793, the administrative personnel of the city remained predominantly protestant, even though Catholics formed the majority in demographic terms (La population strasbourgeoise), 136–8; only Germans and the Alsatians used the marriage as a strategic tool for obtaining the local citizenship rights; Marx, R., Recherches sur la vie politique de l'Alsace prérévolutionnaire et révolutionnaire (Strasbourg, 1966), 154Google Scholar). Similar prejudices against mixed marriages have also been noted for the city of Augsburg. Mixed marriages were rare, although the Catholic and Lutheran populations of Augsburg possessed equal rights and were much more equal in terms of wealth than their respective counterparts in Strasbourg (see François, ‘Protestants et catholiques’, 203–12).