Download or read book The Rites of Labor written by Cynthia Maria Truant and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rites of Labor is the only full account of the brotherhoods of compagnonnage, secret associations of French journeymen formed in the late medieval era and surviving into the nineteenth century. In this major contribution to French social history and the anthropology of work culture, Truant re-creates the compagnons? economic activities, their often violent clashes with one another, and the myths and rituals that sustained their bonds.