FREEMASONRY: ITS HISTORY AND AIMS. 



257 



antiquity, it must be among the operative, and 

 not among the religious associations of those days. 



Such quasi-masonic societies we find in the 

 Collegia Fabrorum, which flourished both at 

 home and in the provinces under the Roman Em- 

 pire. These, which must not be confounded with 

 the centuries of fabri of the kingly period, were 

 voluntary associations of skilled mechanics. The 

 permission of the government being required for 

 their formation, and registration of their mem- 

 bers enforced, they held a recognized legal status. 

 We learn from Pliny (Ep. x., 35 [42]), that they 

 enjoyed privileges, probably of secrecy, which 

 were capable of abuse ; and that, like the Ma- 

 sonic guilds of the middle ages, they undertook 

 in their corporate capacity the erection of public 

 buildings. It is maintained, by Krause and oth- 

 ers, that they partook of a religious character, 

 and possessed a symbolic ritual ; by some, on the 

 other hand, they are believed to have been rather 

 of the nature of trades-unions. They had their 

 officers, magistri, decuriones, censors, treasurers, 

 secretaries, and keepers of the archives, three 

 orders of members, and a corporate seal. The 

 members were bound by oath to mutual assist- 

 ance, and when in distress received relief from 

 the funds of the collegium. Lay members, or 

 amateurs, were often admitted as " Patrons ; " 

 hut Pliny, in the letter cited above, undertakes 

 that none but bona-jide fabri shall be enrolled in 

 the collegium at Nicomedia, the establishment of 

 which he recommends. 



On the tombs of Roman Masons are found 

 not only the compasses, square, plummet, and 

 trowel, but occasionally a pair of shoes, on which 

 lie the half-opened compasses, an emblem strongly 

 suggestive of some symbolical allusion (Dallaway's 

 "Discourses on Architecture," p. 401). 



It is, however, to the Architectural and Ma- 

 sonic guilds of Germany that we must look for 

 the true origin of our order. The Roman's du- 

 ties and obligations were limited to his own col- 

 legium ; he had no passwords or signs by which 

 he could gain admission to a lodge on his travels ; 

 the idea of a universal brotherhood, nay, the very 

 name of brother, had its rise in the unselfish spirit 

 of Christianity, obscured though that religion was 

 amid the lawlessness and rapacity of the times. 

 Then men of the same trades and professions 

 formed themselves into guilds or fraternities for 

 mutual protection, and for the better maintenance 

 and transmission of the knowledge and art of 

 which they, in the absence of books, were the 

 living and only repositories. 



In the year 1000, the whole of Christendom 



89 



was possessed with the idea that the end of the 

 world and the day of judgment were at hand • 

 and when the dreaded year had passed, and the 

 panic had subsided, a great impulse to the build- 

 ing of churches arose throughout Central and 

 Western Europe. The buildings which were the 

 result of this impulse gave employment to large 

 numbers of artificers for periods of many years. 

 Working at first under the direction of the bish- 

 ops and abbots, they ere long acquired consider- 

 able independence. The " lay brethren," as they 

 had previously been styled, separating themselves 

 from their clerical superiors, as well as from the 

 common laborers, assembled in Bauhutten, or 

 wooden buildings near the site of the churches, 

 where they improved themselves in the principles 

 of their art, blending with mathematical and ar- 

 tistic studies a mystic philosophy of sacred sym- 

 bolism and Biblical allusions. 



They were divided into three classes, viz., 

 Apprentices (Lehrlingen), young men deemed 

 worthy of admission into the fraternity ; Fellow- 

 craftsmen ( Gesellen), who had so far advanced as 

 to be able to work alone on the details of the art, 

 and were bound to impart their knowledge to the 

 apprentices; and Masters, comparatively few in 

 number, who were competent to undertake the 

 design or direction of entire works, in the capa- 

 city of architects, surveyors, or master-builders. 

 The entered apprentice was intrusted with a se- 

 cret sign and password (Gruss), and bound on 

 oath to divulge to none but the initiated either 

 the knowledge he should acquire or the rites and 

 practices of his lodge. This method of mutual 

 recognition was a necessity when indentures and 

 diplomas were unknown, but, taken in conjunction 

 with the mystic philosophy inculcated and the 

 secret ritual practised within the lodges, it ac- 

 quired in time a solemnity and a sacredness which 

 could attach to no mere certificates of member- 

 ship or of proficiency. Further credentials were 

 provided in a set of questions and answers form- 

 ing a sort of catechism, orally communicated, 

 and guarded by the same sanction, by which the 

 "brethren," as they now called one another, 

 could give proof of their identity wherever they 

 might travel in search of employment, and 

 which are in all essential points preserved in the 

 " Lectures " of the three degrees of modern Free- 

 masonry. 



Bauhutten were permanently established in 

 most of the chief cities of the empire, and the 

 reputation which their masters acquired for gen- 

 ius and skill led to the engagement of German 

 architects in other countries, wherever cathedrals 



