We know that the surname Carpentier began about the 12th century in
Flanders. What could "carpentier" have meant at this time? I would like to
make some suggestions. Firstly, I was reading an interesting book entitled
TRADE AND INDUSTRY IN THE MIDDLE AGES, vol. II, ed. by Postan and Miller
(Cambridge, 1987) There the author of the section Building in Stone in
Medieval Western Europe (Gwilym Peredur Jones), explained that:
"It can be shown that at least as early as the thirteenth century there
existed a kind of architect quite distinct in pay and status from the
craftsmen who worked under his eye…….Such architects were called masons or
CARPENTERS, though they were commonly distinguished by the title magister or
an adjective, principalis or capitalis (p. 776)."
Jones went on to discuss a sketch book of a 13th century Villard de
Honnecourt who he thought was "a protege of the Cistercian house of
Vaucelles. This was a coincidence because the Carpentiers were also proteges
of the Cistercian house of Vaucelles at the same time. What is important to
keep in mind about the Cistercians was they were something of 'an economic
religious order', most well known for raising sheep all over Europe and
probably pioneering the technology to process the wool. When the Carpentiers
moved into England in the 1200s there was a relationship pattern between
them and abbeys. Carpentiers and Cictercians?
Bruce Carpenter