In 1383 the bailey and aldermen of Douai set out the rights and privileges of their crossbow guild. The guild should elect a constable on Trinity Sunday who should be ‘the most notable member of the serment’ and who should have been ‘sufficient’, and the constable should then be presented to the aldermen to take his oath for the year ‘as is the custom’. He was responsible for the guild's finances, and would be given money and wine by the aldermen to support the guild-brothers ‘being together in community’ on specified days for weekly shooting and for their annual papegay competition, for mass and for an annual meal. The detailed ordinance goes on to make clear that new members had to have a powerful bow, as well as suitable arms, and be skilled in shooting, as well as pay 36s to enter the guild. When the charter was confirmed by Philip the Bold in May 1400 a few additions were made, including the requirement that ‘the said crossbowmen will be companions of honest life and good renown’ and be bourgeois and residents of the town.

The Douai charter provides a huge amount of detail on what was expected of crossbowmen in the town, but it also raises a number of questions. How were guilds organised and run? How did one enter the archery and crossbow guilds? And, perhaps most crucially, who were the shooters? The first two questions will be answered with reference to sources from across Flanders and an effort made to consider geographical differences as well as commonalities across the region. In considering organisation and officials, the significance of unity and the strength of bonds formed within the shooting guilds can be appreciated. Such unity will be examined in more depth in the next chapter in considering the devotional and social internal workings of guilds. The focus here will be on the regulation and structure of guilds. In order to uncover what sorts of backgrounds the archers and crossbowmen came from, and in unpicking existing assumptions of elite or middle-class status, a case study is necessary. The second half of this chapter will briefly set out some regional patterns before turning to an in-depth prosopographical analysis of the archery and crossbow guilds of Bruges.