THE STONEMASONS OF GERMANY.
115
This guild comprehended
small crafts uniting to form one guild.
and cartmakers.^ It is, therefore, evident that
the masons, plasterers, carpenters, coopers,
serfs or bondsmen could and did form craft guilds,^ and it is not consistent with truth when
an instance,
also, of several
German masonic
more
writers claim that none but the freeborn could join a guild of any sort,
will presently appear, as well as
many
and
such a rule existed and was rigidly enforced
other restrictions but it did not primarily exist, as the
That
especially the stonemasons.
later on,
;
above instance of the Spinnewetters, which included the building trades,
is
alone suf&cient to
substantiate.
The above
charter to the butchers, a.d. 124S,
ten others already
have certain
twenty -three
When
existed.^
course difficult to ascertain
;
information.
the eleventh charter in Bale, showing that
Germany was formed
the earliest craft guild in
but there were others nearly two centuries
The
earliest
of
these
charters
earlier, of
And we
1106.*
is
of
which we
that
is
Germany)
(in
Worms, sanctioned by Bishop Adelbert
in
fishers
is
of the
bear of
another to the clothmakers of Quedlimburg by King Lothair 1134,^ but it is highly probable
that many guilds existed de facto before they considered it necessary to obtain a legal sanction
and that this was only sought for when they desired to impose their
and regulations upon recalcitrant members or new-comers, and therefore required a valid
to their constitution
rules
;
authority for their proceedings.
have come down
to us,
But although these appear
we have evidence much
least of a particular trade acting in unison,
to be the earliest
charters that
earlier of the existence of these guilds, or at
whence we may
infer that a guild existed.
For
mentioned in Mayence as early as 1099, and it is then stated that
the Church of St Stephen had been built chiefly by their subscriptions.® Of the standing
of the wool-weavers in Worms a document of Henry V., a.d. 1114, bears witness;^ and the
instance, the weavers are
charter of the Cologne weavers, confirmed in 1149, speaks of their having existed for a long
time.*
Berlepsch thinks that we may take the thirteenth century as the period when the
movement
of creating craft guilds
had
—
Germany
fully developed throughout
'*
;
and
Brentano.^'*
"
The time of the origin of the craft guilds in general may
basing himself upon Arnold, says
be said to extend from the beginning of the eleventh to the middle of the thirteentli century."
That already in the beginning of the thirteenth century the crafts had obtained great power
and extension, may be deduced from the fact that, at the Diet of Worms 1231, so many
of the towns and their
complaints were made, chiefly by the bishops, against the trade guilds
King Henry found himself under the necessity of totally dissolving all guilds,
without any exception, then existing in the German cities and this decree was confirmed by
The principal passage of this decree runs, "And
the Emperor Frederick II. in April 1232.
masters, that
;
we dissolve and declare suppressed
name it may bear." ^^
whatsoever
The guilds were, however, far too strong
equally do
decree
the
never had any
success,
although
I
Berlepsch, Chrouik der Gewerbe, vol.
v., jip.
3
Berlepsch, Chronik der Gewerbe, vol.
i.
«
Arnold, Verfassungs Geschichte, vol.
i.,
again
'
Berlepsch, Chionik der Gewerbe, vol.
p. 71.
confirmed
Arnold, Das
p. 54.
brotherhood, or guild,
summarily
by the
Aufkommen
Ibid.
'
p. 254.
i.,
thus
craft,
*
°
"
be
to
18, 19.
Berlepsch, Chronik der Gewerbe, vol. i., p. 50.
'"
Brentano, On the History and Development of Guilds,
and every
all
p. 50.
,
—
IbUl., p. 255.
suppressed,
Emperor
and
Ptudolf
des Handwerkers,
*
Ibid.
«
Ibid., p. 253.
ii.
28.