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The Confrérie Saint-Jean-l’Évangéliste was the main Paris book trades brotherhood from 1401 to 1791. This meeting point of trades, each with its own personality, has rarely been documented in print. Drawing from archival and manuscript sources, this study describes the main stages in the brotherhood’s history during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries. Complementary materials feature a table of the acts drawn up by the brotherhood in the sixteenth century, as well as the list of its masters and governors from 1592 to 1700. In the sixteenth century, the Church and secular authorities had grounds to be suspicious of the brotherhoods. The reviving of the Confrérie Saint-Jean-l’Évangéliste at various dates (in 1467, 1549, 1582, and after the Holy League) show the trades’ attachment to this religious solidarity, restored and developed as soon as healthy economic conditions permitted. But the brotherhood can also be seen as an observatory of interprofessional relationships—depending upon economical interests convergence. In 1401, the founders were writers, illuminators, booksellers and bookbinders. By the end of the sixteenth century, we notice that the manuscript trades are leaving. Parchment makers, illuminators and writers go another way. The Confrérie Saint-Jean-l’Évangéliste becomes the brotherhood of the booksellers, bookbinders and papermakers, with a seemingly low membership of printers. With statutes and resources, the brotherhood is a professional parish organizing its patron saint feasts; it is a social place bringing together masters, wives and widows; it stresses the trades’ presence in the city, which makes it a place of power. In the sixteenth century, the brotherhood is run by representatives from the university trades organization. Each participating group elects a governor. But the first of the masters and governors is always a university libraire-juré. A Louis XI ordinance had entrusted those sworn persons with upholding the statutes of the “Confrérie Saint-Jean-l’Évangéliste”. In the seventeenth century, the civil authorities establish the Paris community of booksellers, printers and bookbinders. It soon frees itself from the supervision of the university, whose inspection and jurisdiction rights it takes over, deleting the role of the “libraires-jurés”. When the royal power reinforces the young corporation in the 1630s, the latter applies itself to checking the accounts and elections of the religious brotherhood. In a second stage, the dominant trades, booksellers and printers, take over the government of the brotherhood, at the expense of the papermakers and, later on, of the bookbinders. As soon as 1640, and all the more so after 1670, the life of the Confrérie Saint-Jean-l’Évangéliste bears the mark of the community. The brotherhood’s internal workings, its resources, its ceremonies, and its religious and social role will be the subject matter of a second study.