The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

influence of new forces of change.' 29 The family created anew some of its
character : journeymen found it increasingly harder to become masters and
started to set up businesses outside the company's rules. In the same way the
role of women changed. They retracted completely into an 'inclusive productive
sphere', which was part of the household production.
In London and in Paris the companies applied different strategies in trying to
resist losing control over their trade. In London the Cordwainers' Company
recognised in the family structure a safe environment in which to exercise
control, trying to control the trade by flexibility, rather than by braking it. The
company promoted supervised access, rather than being overwhelmed by the
unregulated part of the market. New distributive and productive structures,
however, could only with difficulty be contained either inside the boundaries of
small-scale family businesses, or within the guild system. By the end of the
eighteenth century the Cordwainers' Company, in parallel with the experience of
other livery companies, retreated to a defensive rather than an active economic
role.' 3° In Paris the Compagnie was shaped by choices imposed by the political
authority. Control and imposition of rules prevented the creation of new and more
dynamic productive and retailing businesses. Only with the Revolution the
structure of the trade radically changed.
' 29 1K Ben-Amos, 'Failure to become freemen', cit., p. 165.
130 See G.D. Ramsay, 'Victorian historiography and the Guilds of London: the report of the
Royal Commission on the Liveries Companies of London, 1884', London Journal, X - 2 (1984),
pp. 155-66.
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