THE ROMAN COLLEGIA.
38
was obtained, than we find a collcrjium in our own
And this was while Claudius was still emperor.
civitas Ecgnorum—a, collegium fahrorum}
The colleges of course multiplied and spread throughout our island, remaining during the
modicum
Britain begun, and a
whole of the imperial
rule,
of territory
and surviving, with our provincial ancestors, the various barbarian
conquests."
"When
these conquests were completed, the Anglo-Saxons, who, unlike their brethren
of Germany, did not interfere with the habits of the vanquished, left their new subjects to
As the German
the possession and enjoyment of this most powerful means of self-protection.
and hated the colleges, proMhitcd their very eodstence
conquerors of Gaul and Italy, who feared
under
the harshest penalties, because they
must suppose that
tendency, or
is
knew them
seminaries of free
to he
Roman
thought,^
we
Anglo-Saxon arose either out of ignorance of their
But whatever was the ground of this toleration, it
though under another name, continued to exist and maintain
this leniency of the
contempt of their effe ct.
quite clear that the colleges,
themselves.
"
under the barbarous name of gild when our historic notices
which the colleges
begin to tell us of them. This trivial word, due to the contributions upon
had from aU time subsisted, betrays their constitution and we find them also where we
are masqued,
They
it is true,
—in the Eoman
of
ought
—characterised by the
The view just presented
to expect
them
;
Britain."
cities
^
"
JSTorman Conquest
learned author of the
—
" *
"
"
has been further examined by Mr
England as very ingenious but very fallacious
Freeman in some slighter historical sketches published in 1870.* Contrasting the Etiglish
settlement in Britain with the Teutonic settlements which took place in the continental
of
"
"
the conquerors and the conquered mingled the
the laws, the speech, the religion of
fabric of Eoman society was not wholly overthrown
In Britain a great
the elder time went on, modified, doubtless, but never utterly destroyed.
provinces of Pionie
;
elsewhere," he says,
;
;
gulf divides us from everything before our
own coming.
Our laws and language have
in
been greatly modified, but they were modified, not at the hands of the conquered
but at the hands of the conquering Normans. Elsewhere, in a word, the old heritage,
Britons,
the old traditions of Eome still survive here they are things of the dead past, objects only
later times
;
of antiquarian curiosity."
"
opinion expressed by so renowned an historian as Mr Freeman must carry with it
great weight, yet, if we disregard authority and content ourselves with an examination of the
arguments by which this writer and Mr Coote have supported their respective positions,
Any
many
unsatisfied doubts will obtrude themselves, as
we
incline to the reception of either
one or the other of the theories which these champions have advanced.
" the first notice that occurs of an
AccorJing to Dallaway,
associated body of artificers, Eomans, who had established themselves in Britain, is a votive inscription, in which the
"
College of Masons dedicate a temple to Neptune and Minerva, and the safety of the family of Claudius CiEsar (Historical
•
Coote,
The Romans
of Britain, 1878, pp. 383, 396.
Account of Master and Freemason, 1833,
See, however, Horsfield, History of Sussex, vol.
p. 401).
i.,
p. 41,
which gives
Horsley, Britannia Romana, p. 332, for the restoration by Roger Gale, which has
been adopted by Dallaway; Coote, p. 396, note 1 and pp. 41 (note 2) ante, and 44, ^ms<.
'
It will be- observed that this argument is designed to prove the greater probability of a direct descent from colleges
the inscription in
its
existing state
;
;
to guilds
'
*
— in Britain than elsewhere.
Coote,
The Romans
*
in Britain, pp. 396, 397.
Freeman, The Origin of the English Nation, Macmillan's Magazine, 1870,
vol. xxi.,pp. 415, 509.
Vol. v., p. 887.
^
Ibid., p. 526.