Ferd. Pitou, author of the fine monograph on the Cathedral of Strasburg, confirms the presence of Italian builders in Germany, not only in the time of the Carlovingians and the line of Otho, but also in the later times of the Swabian dynasty. He says, when speaking of the works at Strasburg, that "colonies of artisans, chiefly sent from Lombardy and other parts, where church-building was prevalent, accompanied the monks and ecclesiastics who directed the work. These spiritual leaders, however, had all the glory of the buildings up to about the end of the twelfth century, when ogival architecture arose. These Lombard colonies pushed on beyond the Rhine, to the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula, and even penetrated to the forests and lands of Sarmatia and Scythia."

There seems little doubt that the German lodges founded by the Comacine emigrations took root, and became in time entirely national. Traditions are many, and most of them point back to Italy. For instance, legend says a brotherhood of stone-carvers existed in Spires and Bamberg from the time when those cathedrals were begun. Others say that Albertus Magnus on his return from Padua formed the first Masonic association in Germany, making special laws and obtaining especial privileges for the immense number of builders he collected to put into execution his cathedral at Cologne.[100] Again, L' Abbé de Grandidier, writing to a lady in November 1778, tells her that he has discovered an ancient document three centuries old, which shows that the much-boasted society of the Freemasons is nothing but a servile imitation of an ancient and humble confraternity of real builders whose seat was anciently in Strasburg. Hope, however, says that the Strasburg lodge, which was the earliest acknowledged German one, was first recognized by a legal act executed at Ratisbon in 1458, and that the Emperor Maximilian ratified and confirmed the act by a diploma given at Strasburg in 1498.

My theory is this, that in their early emigrations the Comacine Masters founded the usual lodges; that the Germans entered their schools and became masters in their turn; that in the end the German interest outweighed the foreign element in the brotherhood, and the Germans, wishing to nationalize an art which they had so greatly developed, split off from the universal Masonic Association, as the Sienese builders did in Siena in the fourteenth century, and formed a distinct national branch: that this decisive break probably took place at Strasburg, and that other lodges followed suit and nationalized themselves in their turn. No doubt some German searcher into archives may arise, who will do for Cologne and Strasburg what Milanesi has done for Siena, and Cesare Guasti for Florence, and so throw light on the complicated organization of patrons, architects, builders, and sculptors which banded together under one rule, to build the multiplex and grand old cathedrals.

CHAPTER III
THE ORIGIN OF SAXON ARCHITECTURE (A SUGGESTION)
BY THE REV. W. MILES BARNES[101]

Wherever the Romans planted colonies, there they established Collegia; without its colleges Roman society was incomplete; the Collegium was an element essential to Roman life.

The Collegium was a corporation or guild of persons associated in support of a common object; there were colleges of artists, of architects, builders, and artisans, as well as colleges associated with the administration and government, with religion and law.

The Collegium consisted of Collegæ or sodales (fellows, as we should term them), with a president who was styled "Magister"; the Collegium was recognized by the State, which confirmed the regulations made by the members for the government of their body, provided they were in conformity with the laws of the land. There is evidence that Roman Collegia were established in Britain shortly after its conquest by the Romans, and there was certainly a Collegium fabrorum in Britain in the reign of Claudius, the first Roman emperor to whom the island was subject. Under the direction of the Roman college, the Britons as builders reached a high degree of excellence in their craft, "so that when the cities of the empire of Gaul and the fortresses on the Rhine were destroyed, Constantius Chlorus, A.D. 298, sent to Britain for and employed British architects in repairing and re-edifying them" (Archæologia, vol. ix. p. 100).

Mr. Coote affirms that Collegia existed here after the final departure of the Romans from the island, and that the Saxons found them here, and did not interfere with them. Now if Collegia fabrorum, which certainly existed in Britain throughout the Roman occupation, were still in existence during the Saxon occupation, it needs explanation why the earliest missionaries to the Saxons had to bring or to send abroad for workmen to build churches.

On the Continent the barbarians who overran Italy dreaded the influence of the Collegia, and vigorously suppressed them, prohibiting them everywhere under the hardest penalties; under such circumstances we can understand that the societies in Rome could scarcely escape observation, and we shall be prepared to hear that the college of architects and builders in that city removed from thence and took refuge elsewhere. According to tradition they settled at or near Comum, where in mediæval times, under the title of Comacine Masters, they gained fame as architects, and their services were in much request throughout the Continent and beyond it. Had the barbarians, however, treated the Roman colleges with the same indifference as the Saxons are reputed to have shown towards them in England, all guilds of artists and artisans must, for a time at least, have ceased to exist, or have removed from Rome, where there was no longer any appreciation of art, or demand for their services.

It is true there is no documentary evidence to prove the continuous existence of the Collegia from Roman to mediæval times, or to show that the Roman college, which removed to Comum, was identical with the Comacine Guild which emerged from the darkness which shrouds the history of those early times;—there is, however, such evidence as can be derived from the similarity of the institutions, in their aims and constitutions. In the latter institution even the title of Magister was retained, though the use of the term was no longer limited to the president of the body, every competent and fully instructed member of the society was admitted to the order of Magistri,[102]—possibly because these members formed the governing body—and the president became a Grand Master. The members generally were called Liberi muratori—Freemasons—because they were not subject to the sumptuary and other laws which regulated the work and pay of ordinary workmen.[103]