It dated[a] 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.
[1] But this organization eventually became disintegrated, dividing up into more specialized bodies: that of the advocates, whose history then begins; and that of legal representatives, whose profession was regularized in 1344, and speedily became a saleable charge.
It was called the "kingdom of the Basoche," and for a long time its chief, elected each year in general assembly, bore the title of "king."
In early days, and until the first half of the 16th century, it was organized in companies in a military manner and held periodical reviews or parades (montres), sometimes taking up arms in the king's service in time of war.
Of this there survived later only an annual cavalcade, when the members of the Basoche went to the royal forest of Bondy to cut the maypole, which they afterwards set up in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, to the sound of tambourines and trumpets.
The clerks of the procureurs at the cour des comptes of Paris had their own Basoche of great antiquity, called the "empire de Galilée."