242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Strange as it may appear, this provision was very wise, as it placed 

 public utility above personal interest and prevented monopoly. They 

 had a chapel of their own, where, besides religious affairs, all the busi- 

 ness concerning the brotherhood was transacted. There the apprentice 

 aspiring to mastership underwent the practical and theoretical exami- 

 nation on which his fate depended ; the work executed by him on the 

 occasion was consecrated to the patron saint of the community. 



In connection with the bridge-makers there are some details that 

 we can not afford to omit. These carpenters, during the middle ages, 

 were a kind of nomad tribe, who traveled in companies and pitched 

 their tents wherever their work was required ; bridges were built at 

 their risk, and they had no claim to payment until their work had with- 

 stood the test of the winter floods. Originally they came from north- 

 ern Italy, but in the twelth century a similar association was formed 

 in Germany, which shortly monopolized the trade in northern Europe. 



During the thirteenth century, masonry and blacksmithing con- 

 tinued to invade the sphere that carpentry had previously appropriated 

 to itself ; the reign of carpenters was over, yet the share of work re- 

 maining in their hands was sufficient to enable them to keep step with 

 the artistic and industrial movement of the time. Gunpowder being 

 invented, carpentry, for some time, enlarged its province. The first 

 guns were made of wood, strengthened by bands of iron ; new engines 

 were also invented ; the reader can imagine who were the first gunners, 

 the first pyrotechnists, and the managers of the GriUe, as well as of 

 all similar new contrivances. 



People acquainted with history will readily understand that a great 

 change must have been operated in carpentry by the civilization of the 

 fourteenth century. In obedience to the laws of evolution and progress 

 that rule the moral as well as the physical world, some provinces of this 

 art were absorbed by superior arts and sciences : some passed under 

 the control of sister arts, others expanded themselves and gained new 

 ground. The carpenter whose bodily strength was overbalanced by 

 the power of his mind was hailed as an engineer or as an architect ; the 

 average carpenter remained workman and carried out the ideas of his su- 

 periors. This was apparently a fall ; yet carpenters made another step 

 forward in the path of progress. The frequent festivals afforded them 

 opportunity to display new talents and skill ; descriptions of the festi- 

 vals of the time may be found in ar-y historical book, which resemble 

 more the tales of the " Arabian Nights " than accounts of real events. 

 During the reign of Louis XIV., a new building the theatre was 

 erected ; it was made almost entirely of wood, and though in a wholly 

 different order of ideas, carpenters seemed to be inspired in working 

 out the new construction, according to the lofty conceptions by which 

 church-building had been formerly distinguished. Stage carpenters 

 too, accomplished wonders ; the illusion was so complete as to make 

 some one say that " stage-carpenters lived an ideal life." TJndoubt- 



