258 



TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELT.— SUPPLEMENT. 



or churches were being erected on a scale of more 

 than ordinary grandeur. 



At first the several lodges worked independ- 

 ently of one another ; but in the fifteenth cen- 

 tury the necessity of further union began to be 

 felt, and on April 25, 1459, a gathering of the 

 Master Masons of Central and Southern Germany 

 was held at Itatisbon, when the regulations of the 

 different lodges were revised and consolidated. 

 In 1492 a second and more general assembly was 

 held, at which the whole of the Masons of Ger- 

 many were represented, and united into a single 

 brotherhood, of which the chief of the lodge of 

 Strasburg, which had long been recognized as a 

 last court of appeal, even by the lodges of Austria 

 and. Switzerland, was declared perpetual Grand 

 Master. The statutes then drawn up received in 

 1498 the confirmation of the Emperor Maximilian 

 I., whose example was followed by several of his 

 successors. 



After the Reformation a period of transition 

 began ; the building of churches declined, and in 

 the following century the German princes natu- 

 rally looked with suspicion on a vast and well- 

 organized association of men bound together by 

 the closest ties, and owing allegiance to an au- 

 thority which by the loss of Alsace had passed 

 under French dominion. 



In 1707 all communication with the mother 

 lodge of Strasburg was prohibited, and attempts 

 were made to establish a grand lodge on German 

 soil ; but these failing, through the mutual jeal- 

 ousies of the petty states of the empire, the most 

 persistent efforts were made for the entire sup- 

 pression of the order. But, although proscribed, 

 it could not be exterminated ; the lodges still met 

 in secret, admitted new members, and maintained 

 their existence and continuity, until the new Free- 

 masonry, which had meanwhile arisen in England 

 on the ruins of the old, held out to its German 

 brethren the right-hand of fellowship, and, in once 

 more raising them to liberty and honor, did but 

 repay the debt which our country owed to its 

 Continental sister. 



German Masons, as we have said, carried their 

 art and knowledge into England at an early pe- 

 riod, but their lot in this country was not a happy 

 one. The ecclesiastics, whom modern Freema- 

 sons with pardonable vanity claim as patrons or 

 as masters of the craft, appropriated to them- 

 selves all the credit of the buildings erected under 

 their auspices, and treated the members of the 

 craft with harshness and suspicion. 



The fraternity was viewed in the light of a 

 trades-union, and several statutes were enacted 



in which Masons were coupled with laborers, etc. 

 Statute of 1360-'61, after prescribing that wages 

 shall be paid daily and in no other way, adds that 

 "all alliances and covines of masons and carpen- 

 ters, and congregations, chapters, ordinances, and 

 oaths betwixt them made, or hereafter to be made, 

 shall be from henceforth void and wholly an- 

 nulled." This was reenforced by 3 Henry VI. 

 (1425), and by 15 Henry VI. (1436-'37)— "The 

 masters, wardens, and people of the guilds, frater- 

 nities, and other companies incorporate, dwelling 

 in divers parts of this realm," are warned not to 

 "make among themselves unlawful and unreason- 

 able ordinances for their singular profit and the 

 common damage of the people." 



The statute of 3 Henry VI. seems, however, 

 not to have been always enforced, for in 1429 a 

 lodge was held at Canterbury under the patronage 

 of the archbishop himself, as we learn from a 

 MS. of William Morlat, the prior, 1 in which occur 

 the names of the master, wardens, and other mem- 

 bers of the lodge ; and the fabric rolls of York 

 Minster 3 show an unbroken line of Master Masons 

 from 1347. 



The constitutions, rites, and secrets of the 

 English Masons were borrowed from their Ger- 

 man instructors, with such variations as might 

 be expected from their different circumstances. 

 Struggling under opposition, they demanded of 

 their candidates a greater strength of character, 

 and an even stricter morality; the period of ap- 

 prenticeship was increased from five to seven 

 years, but the necessity for foreign travel was 

 dispensed with. In their societies great atten- 

 tion was paid to moral and mental cultivation, 

 and the lodges met secretly at sunrise. 



At this early period few written documents 

 existed in connection with the society. The most 

 important of the older authentic documents of 

 English Masonry is a parchment MS. in 12mo, 

 discovered by Mr. Halliwell, in the British Mu- 

 seum, the date of which has been fixed by Dr. 

 Klosz on internal evidence as not earlier than 

 1427, nor later than 1444-45. It contains the 

 legend of the craft, the old constitutions, a num- 

 ber of later laws and resolutions, with other mat- 

 ter of the nature of moral instruction. 



The Constitutions of the York Masons, cer- 

 tainly authentic, are still more ancient, bearing 

 the dates of 1370 and 1409 respectively. The 

 Cooke-Baker MS. must have been written between 



1 Liberatio generalis Dom. Gul. Morlat Prioris ec- 

 clesirc Chriati Cantuar. erga festum natalii? Dora. 1429. 



2 Browne's "History of York Cathedral," pub- 

 lished 1838-M7, and by Surtees Society, 1859. 



