REGULATING MARSEILLE’S MASTER BARBERS AND WIGMAKERS
[BARBERS.]
Statuts des maitres barbiers-perruquiers, baigneurs-étuvistes, royaux et héréditaires de la ville de Marseille, confirmés par lettres-patentes de sa majesté, enregistrées pardevant le greffe du parlement de Provence, le 9 Février 1697.
Marseille, Antoine Favet, 1777.
12mo, pp. 118, ix (table), [1, blank]; without divisional title ‘Lettres patentes’ (leaf B3, supplied in facsimile), royal arms to title, head- and tailpieces; some light foxing and toning; a very good copy in contemporary red morocco, gilt border to covers with floral and drawer handle tools, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, edges gilt, marbled endpapers; spine and joints rubbed, corners worn; interleaved with blank leaves from p. 32, ink notes in a late eighteenth-century hand to blanks facing pp. 44, 56, 91, and 98, and at head of p. 65.
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Statuts des maitres barbiers-perruquiers, baigneurs-étuvistes, royaux et héréditaires de la ville de Marseille, confirmés par lettres-patentes de sa majesté, enregistrées pardevant le greffe du parlement de Provence, le 9 Février 1697.
Very rare collection of statutes, regulations, and decrees governing the community of master barbers, wigmakers, and bathhouse workers – both men and women – of Marseille, with annotations referencing female guild members.
The detail here is fascinating: masters were forbidden from poaching the employees (both ouvriers and ouvrières) of another master; wigmakers were prohibited from manufacturing wigs anywhere other than on their premises; the use of old curly hair in new wigs was banned; masters were to paint their shops blue and put a white basin on their signs; there had to be at least one house between two masters’ premises; masters were allowed to sell powders, ‘opiates for teeth’, soap, pomades, perfumes, and handwash; and peddlers were banned from hawking hair and wigs in the streets. There is also much of interest on the rights of female hairdressers and of casual child workers. The text also describes the election of the community’s officers, the keeping of archives and accounts, the holding of meetings, the payment of subscriptions, apprenticeships, and regular visits to members’ premises by the authorities.
This interleaved copy clearly belonged to a member of the community. The manuscript notes record that Claire Besson was forbidden from running a bathhouse in 1774; that the masters Reinaud and Magaud and their shop boys had a run-in with the syndics in 1776; and that in September 1777 all female hairdressers were obliged to provide their addresses to the authorities.
No copies traced on OCLC. CCfr records only two copies (BM Avignon, BMVR Marseille). CCfr notes an earlier Favet edition of 1762.
