Each had its peculiar title or blazon, as the Lily, the Marigold, or the Violet, with an appropriate motto.

By the year 1493, the associations had become so important, that Philip the Fair summoned them all to a general assembly at Mechlin.

Here they were organized, and formally incorporated under the general supervision of an upper or mother-society of Rhetoric, consisting of fifteen members, and called by the title of "Jesus with the balsam flower." The sovereigns were always anxious to conciliate these influential guilds by becoming members of them in person.

Like the players, the Rhetoricians were the brief abstract and chronicle of the time, and neither prince nor private person desired their ill report.

It had, indeed, been Philip's intention to convert them into engines for the arbitrary purposes of his house, but fortunately the publicly organized societies were not the only chambers.