 According to tax records, the wealthy bourgeois of Paris between 1250 and 1350 numbered just 140 families or about two thousand persons.Below this level were the artisans who possessed their own shops and their own tools.According to the "Livre des métiers" ("Book of Professions") published in 1268 by the Provost of Paris, the artisans of Paris were formally divided into about one hundred corporations and 1300 distinct professions, each with its own set of rules, largely designed to limit competition and assure employment.