Musee du Compagnonnage Tours

One museum in Tours I would wholeheartedly recommend was the Musée du Compagnonnage (Trade Guild Museum).

My immediate reaction, as I read through the guidebooks on the area, was “Trade guild museum, perhaps, at least it’s a place to go if it rains.” It turned out it didn’t rain during the day while we were in Tours but we still went to the museum on our last day of the visit, and wow, was it worthwhile.

The museum itself is inside the chapter house of the adjoining St Julien Abbey, a wonderful building in itself. Although this part of Tours was badly bombed & damaged during the last world war, this building has been beautifully restored with a wonderful wood roof.

As for exhibits I was expecting a rather dry tale of mediæval trade guilds, I found something quite else. Needless to say those were the times the tale began.

One of the first thing that struck us was the recurrence of the same symbols, the square & compasses.  These are the symbols are freemasonry as far as I’m concerned. At first we thought it must be a museum of freemasonry rather than of guilds. Had we somehow mistranslated it? Then it occurred to us that the freemasonry movement almost certainly grew out of the mediæval guilds & so retained the same symbols. It also dawned upon me the various French societies for various foods had the same imagery. Sure enough culinary crafts had their own guilds & were part of the same movement.

We continued round & then we discovered that the present day trade union movement also has its roots in the mediæval guilds. The whole point of the guilds was to provide training for apprentices, social support for members in times of hardship, recognition of the great skills of some of its members. They fought for standards of pay & work conditions for their members. All the sort of thing the modern day trade union does.

It is the great skills of the various craftsmen that the museum celebrated. To become a full member, it is necessary to produce an exceptional piece illustrating your skills. Here there were masterpieces galore. Here were competition winning model buildings, all beautifully put together. One memorable exhibit was Beaune’s Hôtel-Dieu with its magnificent multi-coloured roof & delicate pinnacles & lacework, only this was entirely made from cake & sugar.

Illustrating skills with wood

Also showing skills with wood

The journeyman travelling the country to learn new skills

A modern day Tower of Babel

Altogether this turned out to be a fascinating museum, full of wonder & very thought-provoking. 

Even after our return home, we were at the golf club one day, when someone mused as to why the juniors at the club were called “rabbits”. I can’t help wondering if it isn’t linked to the guilds where rabbits was the name given to the apprentices.