We must not look in the early history of the Germanic tribes for that gradual and uninterrupted growth of architecture and its cultivation as coming down to them in a direct line from the Roman Colleges. First heard of in the time of Caesar, the barbarians who occupied the vast region comprised within the Rhine, the Danube, the Carpathian Mountains, and the Baltic Sea, were described by Tacitus as an illiterate and warlike people, whose religion was a gross superstition, who had no knowledge of the arts or of architecture.

The Roman Colleges, which had sent their branches with the legions into Spain and Gaul and Britain, were never planted in Germany. While those provinces were enjoying the advantages of Roman culture and civilization, Germany, overspread with forests and morasses, was inhabited by warlike tribes of barbarians, to whom the arts of peace were unknown. As late as the end of the 3d century, Germany was an unconquered province, and the Roman emperors were engaged not in colonizing the wild region north of the Danube and east of the Rhine, but rather in striving to avert the southern progress of the barbarous tribes of the Allemanni from the invasion and occupation of Italy. The Romans built, it is true, several towns of some note on the banks of the Rhine, but in the vast interior region which extended from that river to the shores of the Baltic Sea, there was hardly a single city previous to the 9th century. *

To the history of architecture or of its connection with the Roman Empire, as in the case of the other provinces, there is no early German contribution.

(* Robertson, "History of Charles V.," vol. i., P. 217.)

It was in the beginning of the 5th century that the Franks, a confederation of German tribes, began to take a place in the history of Europe. We need not dwell on the progress of their conquests. Sufficient to say, that having invaded the province of Gaul, they settled in it permanently and established the kingdom of the Franks which, in the course of time, became that of France. The Franks were, of all the Teutonic tribes, the most intelligent, and though the most warlike, were the least ferocious. Hence in invading and in settling a Roman province, they readily adapted themselves, in great measure, to Roman habits and customs, and were very willing to accept and to practice the civilization of the more cultivated inhabitants of the country which they had invaded and had made their home. The result was that from the time of Clovis, the first of the Merovingian race of kings who reigned at the end of the 5th and beginning of the 6th century, and who has been deemed the founder of the Frankic kingdom, the Franks imparted to the Germans the civilization they had attained by their conquest of a civilized people. Hence the introduction of architecture, and any Operative Masonry, beyond the building of mere dwellings, into Germany is to be attributed principally to the Franks.

We find very few monuments of the work of Roman builders in Germany, and therefore we can trace the progress of architecture, not by any regular descent from the Roman Colleges of Artificers, but only through the indirect operation of Frankic artists. Indeed, according to Moller, * the authentic History of German architecture begins with the reign of Charlemagne, but the only monuments remaining of that period are the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle and the portico of the Convent of Lorsch near the city of Worms.

(* George Moller, "Denkmaler der Deutschen Beuenkunst," 4tO. Darmstadt, 1821, cap. iii., s. 6.)

Rebold * says that architecture flourished greatly under Charlemagne, who introduced into Gaul architects and stonecutters from Lombardy. Rebold does not always found his assertions on well authenticated facts, but in this case he has the concurrent support of other historians, more scrupulously correct in their statements. The efforts of Charlemagne, who was a legislator as well as a warrior, to promote the civilization of the Germanic nations which he governed, led him, ** after the subjugation of Lombardy, to draw materials from that comparatively cultured kingdom to advance his projects, and to introduce among his Teutonic subjects some taste for architecture, in which the Lombards at that time excelled the rest of the world. Moller shows very plainly the evidence of this transmission of architecture into Germany from the south - that is, from Italy.

(* "Histoire Generale de la Franc Maconnerie," p. 104.)

(** See Sismondi, "Republiques Italiennes," tom. i., p. 20.)

He tells us that in the beginning of the practice of architecture in Germany there were two styles of building which materially differed from each other. The earliest was a foreign style, evidently imported from the south - that is to say, from Italy or Lombardy - and a more modern one, which Moller says was invented by the Germans themselves. This was a modification of the first, and was intended to accommodate the building to the nature of a northern climate. It is in this style that we find the grandest monuments of architecture which Germany possesses. *

(* Moller, "Denkmaler," ut supra.)

The leading form of the churches built during the 10th and 11th centuries was the same, says Moller, as that of the churches built at the same period in England, France, and Italy. Here are two propositions, each of great importance in a train of reasoning for the purpose of tracing the history of early German Freemasonry through the progress of its groundwork, architecture. First we have a confirmation of what has already been said, that the first architecture and, of course, the first Masonry of Germany were derived from Lombardy. It is true that Moller (whose authority on the history of German architecture is not to be despised) thinks it erroneous to ascribe to the Lombards any material influence upon the architecture of the west and north of Europe. But almost in the same breath he admits that in the beginning German architecture was introduced from Italy, and confesses, also, that the Lombards were in the habit of building a great deal, and appear to have quickly attained a higher degree of civilization than the Goths. *

(* "Denkmaler," cap. ii., s. v.)

Accepting these admissions as strictly and historically correct, I am prepared to accept the theory of Mr. Hope, that the Lombards, the Magistri Comacini, the Traveling Freemasons from the school of Como, in the 10th century, introduced their system of architecture into Germany at that early period of time. Secondly, in the statement that the style of building then practiced in Germany was the same as that used in England, France and Italy, we have a further confirmation of the theory so ably developed by Mr. Hope, that the Traveling Freemasons who perambulated Europe, and under ecclesiastical supervision erected cathedrals and monasteries were a secret organization, distinguished by an identity of principles in the construction of edifices in all countries from the south of Italy to the north of Scotland.

While dwelling on this period we must not neglect to advert to the influence of religion, which seems to have played a very important part in the propagation of the science of architecture, a part which it is well worth considering. Christianity was introduced into Germany, and the gradual civilization of the people proceeded with a few exceptions from the south and west parts of the country - that is, from those parts which were contiguous to Italy and Gaul. It is there where the clergy, as the ministers and missionaries of the new religion exercised the greatest influence and were engaged in directing the construction of churches and convents, that we must look for the first appearance of architecture.

Architecture, whose boldest conceptions are exhibited in the construction of houses for worship, is very closely connected with religion. Hence, after the diffusion of Christianity, it became a necessary art, and we may trace its growth as concurrent with that of the new faith in Germany. Therefore, it is that we find so learned a writer as Moller ascribing the origin of the German building art in Germany to the time of Charles the Great, and to those countries bordering on the Rhine and in the south, where Roman culture and religion had been first introduced. *

(* "Denkmaler," cap. iii., s. vi.)

With these preliminary remarks, which were necessary to show what was, in the early period of German history, the condition of architecture, of which the principles were almost always practically enforced in the form of organized Operative Masonry, we may proceed to investigate its gradual development until we reach the era of the organized Stonecutters' Guild. It is not until the 10th century that we find the Operative Masons of Germany assuming anything like an organized condition. It was in the reign of Otho the Great (crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in 936), who has been called the Civilizer of Germany, that Roman culture began to be introduced into that country.

The Germans, possessing no native or original architecture, readily, when the way was opened to them by the increase of intercourse, copied the monuments of Roman civilization. In Germany, as in Gaul and in Britain, the arts were at first cultivated by the ecclesiastics, and the monasteries were their workshops. Especially may this be said of architecture, and still more especially of ecclesiastical architecture or the construction of religious edifices. Sulpice Boisseree, who has furnished a most exhaustive treatise in his Histoire et Description de la Cathedrale de Cologne, gives so lucid a view of the motives which led these old Stonecutters to unite in a fraternity and to connect themselves closely with the clergy, that I am tempted to translate it, though it be at the expense of some repetition of what has already been said in other parts of this work. But we can not too often call the attention of the student and the disciple of Speculative Masonry to the remote origin from which the ponderous institution of the present day has sprung.

In those early, day, when Masonry was beginning to take its place in Germany, whoever wished, says Boisseree, to assume the profession of an architect must begin by learning to cut stone. When he had become a Master in that art, there grew up between himself and his former companions a sort of fraternity which was wisely maintained by the customs and statutes of the Order, and which was especially observed among those who devoted themselves to the building of houses of worship. As they were persuaded that this work of erecting houses of God was a very noble and a very pious occupation, and as even the secular labor of constructing, for this purpose, monuments of solidity, elegance, and perfection required men formed by experience and united by sentiments of honor and fidelity, they, by their union, established a confraternity or private community, which was distinguished from the common body of craftsmen by being exclusively devoted to ecclesiastical architecture and the building of churches. This fraternity preserved, in all their purity, the rules and practices of the art which they transmitted as a secret to the depository of succeeding generations. This fraternity had an organization similar to that of the Hanseatic League.

The Masters and workmen employed on edifices of less size or importance were subordinate to the architects of the principal fabrics, and the fraternity was, in the course of time, divided into districts which extended over all Germany. But this large development belongs to a later period, that of the 12th and 13th centuries, when the Stonemasons adopted that distinct organization as a Guild, which was first exhibited, or, at least, of which we have the first authentic records, in the labors of the workmen who produced those wonders of architecture, the cathedrals of Cologne and Strasburg. This subject will be treated in the succeeding chapter. At present we must restrict our investigations to the architects and Masons of the earlier period. The building of churches was, therefore, of course, under the care of ecclesiastics. The monasteries, says Findel, were the nurseries of science and civilization, the center of all energy and zeal in art, and the fosterers of architecture. *

(* "History of Freemasonry," Lyon's Translation, p. 51)

Fergusson thinks that in the Middle Ages, in the construction of religious edifices, the designs were made by bishops, who, taking as a model some former building, verbally corrected its mistakes and suggested his improvements to the builder. *

(* "History of Architecture in all Countries," etc., p. 80.)

He thus impliedly admits the existence of two classes, the clergy and the laity, both of which were engaged in the pursuit of architecture, and of which classes the former greatly predominated in the infancy of the art. Fergusson, who is not always right in his conclusions, here at least is correct. It will be found, as we pursue our history, that architecture as a science and Operative Masonry as an art began under ecclesiastical auspices and were confined to monks and monasteries. Michelet, in his Histoire de la France, speaking of the wonderful architecture of the Middle Ages and of the science of mystical numbers which occurs in all the churches of that period, which he considers as the secret of the medieval Masons, attributes this mystical knowledge to the Church.

"To whom," says he, "belonged this science of numbers, this divine mathematics? To no mortal men but to the Church of God. Under the shadow of the Church, in chapters and in monasteries, the secret was transmitted, together with instruction in the mysteries of Christianity. The Church alone could accomplish these miracles of architecture." But in time, and indeed at an early period after the renaissance of architecture in the 10th and 11th centuries, the practice and eventually the control of architecture passed away from the ecclesiastics as an exclusive possession and began to be shared by the laymen.

There were then, in the history of medieval architecture in Germany (as well as in other countries), three distinct epochs or periods. First, when the science of architecture and the art of building were wholly in the hands of the clergy; second, when they were shared by the clergy and the laity; and third, when the science and the art passed away entirely from the clergy into the hands of the laity. It was in the third period that bishops ceased to be "Masters of the Work" (Magister Operis) and the position was assumed by wholly professional lay artists. The second period may be styled, if we borrow an expression from geology, the "transition period" of medieval architecture. In Germany this transition time is marked by the organization of the Steinmeizen, and the establishment of the workshops known as the Bauhutten. The Steinmetzen * (literally the Stonecutters) of Germany were builders or architects or both, who in the Middle Ages, dating from the 9th century at least, associated themselves together in fraternities and were engaged, sometimes alone and sometimes in connection thinks that the last syllable in Steinmetz comes from masa, mets, or mess, signifying a measure, and conveyed the idea that the chief object of a laborer in stone was to form his stone according to a just measure of proportion. Hence a Steinmetz would signify, literally, a stone-measurer. But I prefer to adopt the generally accepted etymology and derive the word from the obsolete verb, metzen, to cut. The Steinmetzen were the Stonecutters. with a monastery or under a bishop or other prelate of the Church, in the construction, principally, of religious edifices. **

(* Dr. Ekause Orei ahest kunst, iv., 362)

(** As in narrating the early history of Masonry in Scotland I was compelled to depend on the laborious researches of Bro. Lyon, so, in treating of medieval Masonry in Germany, I have not hesitated to draw liberally from the invaluable pages of Bro. Finder's "Geschichte der Freimaurer," using, for convenience, the able translation of Bro. Lyon. But I have not omitted to consult also the works of Krause, Kloss, Steiglitz, and many other writers, both Masonic and profane.)

Fallon, in Mysterien der Freimaurer, cites various customs practiced by the Steinmetzen which would seem to indicate that there was a close connection between them and the modern Speculative Freemasons, who sprung up in the 18th century. The most important of these customs may be enumerated as follows:

1. The German Steinmetzen divided their members into three classes, Meister, Gesellen, and Lehrlinge, answering to the Masters, Fellows, and Apprentices of the English Masons. But there is no evidence that these were degrees in the modern sense of that word. As has already been shown in England and Scotland, they were ranks, promotion into which depended on length of service and skill in labor.

2. The existence of some esoteric knowledge, some peculiar ceremonies, and some form of initiation in consequence of which strangers were excluded from the association.

3. The adoption of secret modes of recognition, by means of signs, tokens, and words, by which a strange member could make himself known.

4. Their establishment as a confraternity or brotherhood, in which each member was bound by solemn obligations to afford relief to his poorer brethren.

5. Laws and usages were adopted which resembled in many respects those of the modern Speculative Masons. Some of these were the natural result of their organization as a brotherhood, but others, such as their usages at banquets, the prerogatives of a Master's son over other persons, and some others, were peculiar, and were adopted by the Freemasons of the 10th century, and have been perpetuated in the modern Lodges.

The increase in the number of churches and other religious edifices naturally caused a proportionate increase in the number of workmen. The monks, not being able to supply the requisite number, the laity were admitted to a participation in architectural and Masonic labors. Still they were for a long time kept in strict dependence on their ecclesiastical superiors. Hence the lay craftsmen lived in close connection with the monasteries and assisted the monks in their labors as builders, forming, for this purpose, associations among themselves and living in huts near the monastery or other building which they were erecting. To this usage Findel, with much reason, attributes the rise of the "Bauhutten." *

(* Findel, "History," p. 52.)

Hutte is defined as meaning a hut, cottage, or tent. Bauhutte, which is literally a building-hut, was the booth made of boards erected near the edifice which was being built, and where the Steinmetzen, or Stonecutters, kept their tools, carried on their work, assembled to discuss matters of business, and probably ate and slept. *

(* Ibid., ut supra, p. 54.)

It will be remembered that Sir Christopher Wren, in the Parentalia, describes a similar custom among the English Masons of erecting temporary places of habitation near the buildings which they were erecting. These they, call "Lodges," a word which has about the same signification in English that the word Hutten has in German. The Bauhutten were therefore the Lodges of the German Steinmetzen in the Middle Ages. The word continued to convey this meaning until the 18th century; the English expression Lodge modified into Loge was substituted for it, by the Speculative Masons who received their charters from the Grand Lodge of England. Findel says that the real founder of the Bauhutten was Wilhelm, Count Palatine of Scheuren and Abbot of the Monastery of Hirschau. For the purpose of enlarging the monastery he had brought workmen together from many places.

He had incorporated them with the monastery as lay brethren. He instructed them in art, regulated their social life by special laws, and inculcated the doctrine that brotherly concord should prevail because it was only by working together and by a loving union of their strength that they could expect to accomplish the great works in which they were engaged. *

(* Ibid., ut supra, p. 54)

The Bauhutten or Lodges flourished for a long time, principally under the patronage of the Benedictine order of monks. But at length the transition period of which I have already spoken began to pass away and the third to arrive, and the Master Builders who had received their architectural knowledge from the monks separated themselves from them and established independent Lodges.

As early as the 13th century there were many Lodges which had no connection with the monasteries, but were bound together in a general association that included all the Stonecutters of Germany. Until the 12th century our knowledge of the Masonic associations, other than the schools of architecture which were established in the bosom of the monasteries, is unsupported by any documentary evidence. Indeed, the first written Constitution of the German Freemasons which has reached the present day is that of Strasburg, in the year 1459, which purports, however, to be a revision of the Regulations of the Stonecutters founded at that city in 1275.

Of the latter there is no copy extant. But as Winzer, who wrote on the German Brotherhoods of the Middle Ages, * has remarked, such regulations may have existed long before they had written constitutions, the necessity of which could have been felt only when the craftsmen had obtained a formed recognition, and when their laws were committed to writing to give them, as it were, a superior sanction. Though this is but a hypothesis, it is not without the support of great probability. In the 11th century the Traveling Freemasons from the celebrated school of Lombardy had entered Germany and begun to propagate the principles and the practice of their art. **

* Cited by Findel, "History," p. 57)

(** En 1060 les conferies maconniques de la Lombardie se repandent en Allemagne, en France, en Normandie et en Bretagne. Rebold, "Histoire Gen. de la Franc-Maconnerie," p. 109.)

Of this fact we find abundant evidence in the construction during that century of numerous cathedrals in Germany. Such were those of Bamberg, finished in 1019; of Worms, in 1020; of Spire, in 1061; of Constance, of Bonn, in 1100; and a great many others. *

(* Mr. Hope especially cites the cathedrals of Spire and Worms as specimens of the Lombard style of architecture.)

Until we approach the period when the Lombard architects diffused the principles of their art in Germany, under the peculiar form of an association of Freemasons, which was not until about the 11th or 12th century, the history of Masonry in Germany is really only that of the Operative art in its simplest form, and deriving what little there was of it in common with the Masonry of other countries, principally from France. To the Franks coming from Germany and invading Gaul was France indebted for its political character. To the same Franks, returning in the time of Charlemagne and his successors, to communicate a portion of the culture and civilization that they had acquired from mingling with the native inhabitants of the conquered Roman province, was Germany indebted for all the architectural and Masonic character that it had, until the peaceful invasion of the Lombard Freemasons in the 11th century.

From that time the Freemasonry of Germany began to assume a new modification as a Guild or Corporation of associated workmen, like those which we have already seen existing in Britain and Gaul. To the German Freemasonry of that period we must therefore now direct our attention.

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