THE STONEMASONS OF GERMANY.
174
that this gave rise to tlie demand of the Saxon government
of the 1563
mason's code in 176G.^
Again, the entries of the Frankfort lodge, at the end
so that well into this century the fraternity
Brother-hook, extend to 29th October 1804;
for a revision of the Eochlitz
maintained
many
existence of a
of
its
craft guild
forms and usages, although nearly a century before the very
was in itself an illegality. "We have seen that the Ordinances
were designed to ensure a control over all trade matters and to such an extent had this
Their
been carried, that the fraternities had become a serious annoyance to the State.
their practice of taking a holiday on Mondays
restrictions as regards birth were monstrous
;
;
was, to say the least, inconvenient
;
if
a traveller
made
a small verbal error in delivering
the greeting, he was sent back to his former residence to learn better and strikes for any
Some of these strikes were not
or for no reason had become an everyday occurrence.
confined to one town, but extended to large tracts of country; and the celebrated strike
;
Augsburg shoemakers even led to bloodshed, the journeymen retiring in a body
a neighbouring village and reviling the masters throughout Germany.- This strike, in
of the
to
conjunction with the before-quoted abuses, was the immediate cause of the Edict of 16th
August 1731. This Imperial Edict prohibited all affiliation ceremonies, all restrictions as
to birth,
was
all
No difference
carrying of weapons or swords, Blue Mondays, and greetings.
made between the salute and the letter mason, all brotherhoods of
in future to be
journeymen were forbidden, and lastly, all oaths of secrecy were not only forbidden, but
Thus the very existence of a craft brotherhood became
existing vows were cancelled.'
illegal
;
we need
wards.
but in view of the persistency with which the lower classes maintain their customs,
feel no surprise if these usages continued in practice for more than a century afterThis last decree had already been proposed in 1671, and was once more confirmed on
the 30th April 1772.*
That some of these
vouched
for
extinct,
and
unions of
fraternities existed within
the
memory
of the present generation
is
^
by Kloss and others. It is probable that at the present day they are not utterly
in some cases they may even have formed the foundation of the existing trades
Germany
and although
;
but we need not inquire into this matter, as
would require very patient
it is
foreign to our purpose,
however, obvious that
the Ordinances contain the germ of every regulation of the trades unions of to-day.
One or two traditions of the craft remain to be noticed.
At p. 146 of Steinbrenner's
work,*
first to
we
interesting,
research.
It
is,
an examination of a travelling salute-mason. Fallou seems to have been the
attach any great importance to this catechism, which he declares to be still in use on
find
the seaboard of North
Germany
;
and he professes to find in
it
a great resemblance to the
examination of an entered apprentice /^rcmason, and a clear proof of the early existence
in Germany of speculative masonry.
Steinbrenner goes even further, and claims that it was
used by the stonemasons of the Middle Ages. Here he
not even Fallou, claims for it any great antiquity, but
is
all
clearly in error, as
no other
writer,
catechism as tending to
Fallou no doubt got it from
cite tlie
prove the former existence of something more to the purpose.
Krause or Stock; but it seems to have been first published in 1803 by Schneider in his
'
Kloss, Die Freimaurerei in ibrer wahren Bedeutung, p. 257.
'
Berlepsch, Chronik der Gewerbe, vol. iv., pp. 142-153.
^
Kloss, Die Freimaurerei in ilirer
'
Ibid., p. 256.
wahren Bedeutung,
5
ihui,
p. 257.
pp. 267-269.
"
Also Findcl,
p.
660.