THE STONEMASONS OB GERMANY.
ill
an iucouvenient
If
we
common
precedent, and gradually withdrew from
the
also take into consideration the invention of
printing
and
adopted a
inajority,
meetings of the craftsmen.
173
the resulting increase of knowledge,
enabling an architect to study elsewhere than in the
lodge, all the materials are present for a practical dissolution of the fraternity as
learned to know it.
The
we have
scattered remnants of the stonemasons found themselves insufBcient to maintain a
separate existence, and amalgamated in general with cognate crafts, such as the masons
and bricklayers, the carpenters, the smiths, etc. These joint fraternities had meetings in
common, and a common treasury; but maintained, possibly, separate ceremonies of afiiliation
and
At
legitimation.
period must have arisen the two descriptions
of masons now
Grussmaurer or salute-masons, and Briefmaunr or
former probably the descendants of the stonemasons, who on their
this
or lately existing in the Fatherland, viz.,
letter-masons
the
;
make use of a variation of the old greeting in order to legitimise themselves;
whilst the latter, the descendants of the rough masons, merely produce as credentials their
demit pass or diploma.
It is impossible to fix the precise moment at which the fusions
travels still
commenced, without a more protracted search than the importance of the matter would
warrant; but they began very shortly after the publication of the Brother-book in 1563.
For instance, in 1602, we find the masons and stonemasons amalgamating in Dresden,
and obtaining a code of Ordinances from their prince,^ and a like occurrence at Vienna
We
have already seen that to some extent this had taken place much earlier
at the cathedral were carried on very fitfully.
As an example of the ultimate degradation of the stonemasons, a statute of the kingdom
"
of Wiirtemberg may be usefully quoted
No stonemason, joiner, or other craftsman
in 1637.^
where indeed the operations
in Cologne,
—
shall carve gravestones, coats of arms, faces, stagheads, and such like
image-makers' work;
nevertheless the joiners may execute carvings for their own work, and the stonemasons
may smooth
Yet
tombstones, together \vith the inscriptions thereon."^
regular
lodges
undoubtedly continued to exist in various parts of Germany, chiefly in the neighbourhood
of the cathedrals, which furnished constant employment for small numbers, and of the
But the
quarries, for instance, at Eochlitz.
greatest blow of all to the
German
fraternity
was the capture of Strassburg by the French a.d. 1681. In consequence of this event it
became a matter of policy with the German Emperors to break the dependence on StrassA decade previously,
burg of the German lodges, and measures were taken for that purpose.
on the 12th August 1671, the Diet had passed a resolution that the supreme authority of
Strassburg over the stonemasons of Germany was injudicious, and should not be allowed;* and
viz.,
subsequent events induced the Emperor to give
at Eatisbon,
when the supremacy
confirmed on the 13th
May
of Strassburg
efiect to this resolution
was
finally abolished.
on 16th March 1707
This statute was again
Nevertheless, in 1725, the Eochlitz lodge
1727.^
still
acknow-
ledged the authority of Strassburg, by requesting a copy of the Brother-book, and by paying
its
annual tribute
;
and as
late as
1760 Strassburg claimed this
found in the EochKtz chest, but with what success
'
'
'
Fallou, Mysterien der Freimaurer, p. 343.
Jos. Fr. Ch. Weisser,
Das
Reclit der HanJwerker, p. 279.
•*
KIoss, Die Frcimaurerei in ihrer
°
Kloss (pp. 265-2 cr