Basoche

The Basoche was the guild of legal clerks of the Paris court system under the pre-revolutionary French monarchy, from among whom legal representatives (procureurs) were recruited. It was an ancient institution whose roots are unclear. The word itself derives from the Latin basilica, the kind of building in which the legal trade was practiced in Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages.

It dated from the time when the profession of procureur (procurator, advocate or legal representative) was still free in the sense that persons rendering that service to others when so permitted by the law were not yet public and ministerial officers. For this purpose there was established near each important juridical centre a group of clerks, that is to say, of men skilled in law (or reputed to be so), who at first would probably fill indifferently the rôles of representative or advocate. Such was the origin of the Basoche of the parlement of Paris; which naturally formed itself into a guild, like other professions and trades in the Middle Ages.