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Butcher, quite a story

There are few trades older than butchering, and there are also very few that have resulted in more regulation, especially in the interest of public health. It is thought that the organisation of butchers in France dates back to the Gallo-Roman period. During the Middle Ages, the very selective butchers’ guild had only a small number of representatives. As meat has always been a highly regulated profession for health reasons, only people with a white paw could practise it. As an example, it is thought that under the reign of Philippe-Auguste, there was only one butcher’s shop in Paris at the beginning of the Middle Ages near Notre-Dame.

From this period we know in Paris the famous Saint-Jacques Tower, witness of the epic of the Parisian Butchery, which is the last vestige of the Church of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie. This building, built in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 16th century in a Gothic style, is so called because the corporation of Parisian butchers operated in this area and would have built a chapel there.
The butchers are therefore a corporation recognized since the charter of 1162 under the authority of a master butcher and it will judge its members in case of embezzlement, theft or violence. The profession of butcher was structured and in 1381 it was recorded that “no one can be a butcher of the Paris butcher’s grant, no one can make a butcher and butcher’s shop if he is not a butcher’s son of a butcher’s ycelle” Similar customs can be found in the statutes of the other large cities of the kingdom.

The strong and assertive character of butchers is well known to such an extent that the parliament of Paris will take a decree which, under penalty of punishment, will “deliberately forbid all butchers, butchers, retailers, their servants and others, selling and cutting up flesh both at the Grande Boucherie and elsewhere, to insult, insult, insult, or say any blasphemy to persons who buy from them, be they men, women, girls, servants or chambermaids, or any other persons whatsoever”;

These regulations remained in force until the French Revolution, at which time the corporation of Butchers, like all the others, was abolished.
Napoleon by an act of 1810 prohibited private killings and opened five large public slaughterhouses in the Paris region (Montmartre, Ménilmontant, Roule on the right bank; Grenelle and Villejuif on the left bank). This measure will separate the two professions of the butchery, namely: the purchase and slaughter of animals, which will be carried out by the butchers (wholesale butchers) and the cutting and sale of meat, which will be carried out by retailers (retail butchers). Today, French butchers are fortunate enough to benefit from an efficient agriculture which allows them to benefit from exceptional breeds.
Today, the Boucheries Nivernaises, want to continue the long history of the Butchery made in France concerned about delivering the best taste to its customers.