history 8

HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY

CHAPTER VIII

THE COMACINE MASTERS

by H.L. HAYWOOD

THE theory that the Comacine Masters of Lombardy

constituted the Freemasonry of their day has been popular

because it appears to explain so many things that want

explaining. If true, it would supply a bridge between

Operative Masonry of the Middle Ages and the Roman

collegia; would throw light upon the ancient belief of

Craftsmen that the institution entered Europe from Palestine

by way of Greece; would provide an ancestral society

analogous in many ways to the modern Fraternity, and

explain that curious blend of metaphysical lore and

architectural practice which in some mysterious way has

come from the past into the present system of ritual and

symbols. It would be invaluable also in establishing Masonic

continuity, since it proclaims the existence, in the midst of

the confusion of the dark centuries, of an asylum in which an

esoteric and philosophical cult was able to maintain itself as

a thing apart, securely and serenely pursuing an

uninterrupted intellectual course and preserving a stream of

culture which otherwise must have been diverted into a

thousand channels.

Small wonder that this hypothesis has been urged so

passionately by certain Masonic writers! Yet, however

fascinating and useful a theory may be, it must be judged

before the bar of history solely on the basis of truth. This one

is still on trial; as yet, notwithstanding that it has received the

benefit of every reasonable doubt and the support of

persuasive argument, the case for it has by no means been

proved. On the contrary, dispassionate examination

discloses serious weaknesses in it - so serious, indeed, that

evidence as yet undiscovered must be presented before it

can be accepted as something of more substance than mere

speculation. To borrow Dr. Newton's phrase, the utmost that

can now be said for it is that the associations of the

Comacine Masters were prophecies of Freemasonry,

although Dr. Newton accepted them as having a more

definite connection with the institution, making that belief an

important part of his argument in The Builders.

These Comacine Masters were united into a guild, or

perhaps several guilds, of stone masons dwelling in the

Lombard State of Northern Italy. The Lombards, or

Longobardi, when Roman writers first made their

acquaintance, were a Germanic race dwelling in the lower

basin of the Elbe. Etymologically their name is taken to

mean Long-beards, and it is commonly supposed they were

so designated by the people of Italy because the men wore

long and heavy beards. One of their own legends, however,

gave another explanation. This was that they got the name

from the god, Wotan, because of an artifice practiced upon

him when women of the tribe passed themselves off as men

by draping their long hair across their faces in imitation of

manly beards.

Before the end of the fifth century they had migrated

southward into what is now Lower Austria. The emperor

Justinian invited them into Noricum and Pannonia to assist

him in his wars with other barbarous peoples. They appear

to have kept their part of the bargain in several important

battles, but when occasion served they were not disinclined

to make terms with the foes of the Byzantine empire. They

engaged in a protracted struggle with the Gepidae, another

Teutonic race, and in a final battle their king, Alboin, crushed

the Gepidae, slew their king, Cunimund, caused a chalice to

be fashioned out of his skull and compelled the slain

monarch's daughter, Rosamund, to drink the conqueror's

health from that gruesome cup. He then forced Rosamund to

become his wife, but this amiable damsel is said to have

obtained full revenge by bringing about the assassination of

Alboin some years later.

Uniting his own followers with the surviving Gepidae, Alboin

in 568 swept down through the mountain passes upon the

Italian plain at the head of the Adriatic. Northern Italy was

then in a condition of political chaos. Once before it had

been overrun by Goths, but the Gothic tribes had become

depleted by wars and famines. These made what resistance

they could, but the newcomers were not to be denied. To

hold the lands they won, the Longobardi adopted a system

which was destined to exert profound influence upon the

later history of Italy. They established, or occupied when

they could find them already established, fortified cities at all

important strategic points. Each became the seat of a local

chieftain or duke, of whom there were about thirty-five. The

capital was at Pavia, although for a long period it was capital

in name only, since each truculent duke was a law to

himself, yielding but a show of fealty to his overlord. In this

manner the invaders settled down into the region about Lake

Como and Lake Maggiori, occupied the fertile upland valleys

and seized some of the choicest lands of Northern Italy.

Surrounded by hostile forces and controlling a subject

population which despised them for their barbaric rudeness,

the Longobardi soon found their ducal system unwieldy.

Accordingly in 584 they chose Authari, grandson of Alboin,

as king. The monarchy thus established lasted almost two

hundred years, or until King Desiderius in 774 was

overthrown by the iron hand of Charlemagne.

As was characteristic of Germanic invaders, the Longobardi

rapidly absorbed the culture of those they had conquered.

They adopted the Latin tongue, embraced the Roman

Catholic religion, took Latin names, imitated Roman and

Greek fashions in dress, amusements and architecture.

They maintained desultory intercourse with Byzantium,

although the Byzantines appear to have had no more

affection for the Longobardi than did their other neighbors.

By the time of King Rothari, who died in 652, the Longobardi

- or Lombards as they may henceforth be called - had made

remarkable progress in the arts of peace. But they were in

constant danger from Frankish tribes to the west of them and

from Slavs and Huns to the east. Although King Liutprand,

who died in 744, promoted many works of piety, including

the erection of a church at Pavia, the Popes were always

hostile to the invaders and continually sought means of

dislodging them, or at least of reducing their power. Finally

Pope Adrian I invited the Frankish monarch, Charlemagne,

to enter Lombardy and possess it. This request

Charlemagne was not unwilling to accept. He smashed the

Lombard power, took King Desiderius prisoner and received

the crown of Lombardy at the hands of Adrian. Thus ended

Lombard reign over Northern Italy, which had endured for

two and a third centuries.

If Lombard political supremacy was speedily swallowed up

by the Carolingian empire, however, Lombard social

influence was destined to survive for many another day. The

city system continued, because the cities themselves

remained. Under the new regime they soon passed into the

control of bishops, but they never found the episcopal yoke

agreeable and always struggled more or less actively for

independence. In due course they actually became free,

self-governing entities, fostering the arts and commerce.

"Islands in a sea of turbulence," Dean R. W. Church has

described them. Later they were to send out missionaries to

bear their own culture over Europe. To quote again from

Dean Church:

"In England, at least, the enterprising traders and bankers

who found their way to the West, from the 13th to the 16th

centuries, though they did not all come from Lombardy, bore

the name of Lombards. In the next place, the Lombards or

the Italian builders whom they employed or followed, the

'Masters of Como,' of whom so much is said in the early

Lombard laws, introduced a manner of building, stately,

solemn and elastic, to which their name has been attached,

and which gave a character of its own to some of the most

interesting churches of Italy."

The earliest of those "early Lombard laws" to which the

Dean refers, and of which there is now record, appeared in

the reign of King Rothari. They are of such Masonic

importance as to deserve repetition, the translation herewith

given being that of Ossian Lang, Grand Historian, in a report

contained in the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of New

York in 1925:

Section 144. Of the Comacine Master - If a Comacine

Master with his associates (colligantes) shall undertake to

restore or build the house of any person whatsoever, after

an agreement shall have been closed as to payment, and it

chances that someone should be killed, by reason of the

house, through the falling of either material or stone, no

claim shall be lodged against the owner of the house, in

case the Comacine Master or those working with him

(consortibus) shall fall to settle for the death or the damage

done; because who after having contracted to do work f or

his own advantage, must assume, not undeservedly, the

damage done.

Section 145. Of masters called or brought in. - If any person

shall call or bring in Comacine Masters one or several - to

design a work or to daily assist his retainers (servi) at the

building of his house (domun aut casa), and it should

happen that, by reason of this house (casa), one of the

Comacines is killed, the owner of the house (casa) shall not

be held responsible. On the other hand, if falling timber or

stone should kill an outsider or cause injury to anyone, the

fault shall not be imputed to the Masters, but to him who

called them in, and he shall be responsible for the damage.

Later, under King Liutprand, additional legislation confirmed

to the Comacine Masters the privileges of freemen in the

Lombard State, and fixed the prices they were to charge for

various kinds of construction. Manifestly these regulations

concerned a group of persons who designed, built and

repaired buildings, the major part of their work being the

erection of the domun or dwelling house, and the casa or

cabin. Unlike many other workers, they were freemen and

not slaves; they could go about over the country; they could

enter into contracts within certain prescribed limits as to

fees; they could sue and be sued for civil damages rising

from the nature of their work. That they were one

corporation, or society, or fraternity, is not conclusively

shown by these early records. By analogy, however, it is

possible to infer that they probably formed themselves into a

guild, or guilds, as other groups of special workers did in

other cities. Certainly there can be no ground for doubting

they had much to do with the development of what is known

as the Lombard style of architecture as practiced in Italy,

parts of Germany and parts of France.

Their name itself indicates that they were identified either

with the ancient city of Como or Comum, or with Lake Como,

in Italy some thirty odd miles north of Milan. It has been

suggested that they got the name from an island in Lake

Como, a theory to be examined hereafter. The many fine

quarries in that region afforded sufficient reason for the

development there of groups of artisans especially

concerned with stone work. Ricci in his History of Italian

Architecture observes that - their guilds were made free of all

feudal restraints and the members were suffered to go about

at will, but no records substantiating that statement have as

yet been found in papal bulls or in the Carolingian laws,

although search for them has been thoroughly prosecuted.

Gregory II gave to Boniface permission to take with him to

Germany a following of monks skilled in the arts of building,

and lay brethren who were also architects. Italian chroniclers

have been quoted as saying that similar permission was

accorded by Gregory I to Augustine when in 597-8 he went

as a missionary to Britain. If anything is to be inferred from

these facts, it is that workmen were not free to travel at will

outside their own countries, or, at least, that Catholic

missionaries were not at liberty to take them without papal

authorization.

Whatever may have been the nature of their constitution, the

societies of Comacine Masters were lost sight of for many

centuries, although modern historians have glanced at them

with more than passing interest. To Giuseppe Merzario, an

Italian, must go the principal credit for the prominent place

they have come to occupy at the present time, although

Muratori, the Italian historian, called attention to the

important part they played in the development of the

architectural societies, which came to be known by the

generic name of Magistri Comacini, or Comacine Masters.

Merzario pursued the subject through all the manuscripts he

could find, and although he made more of it than his

predecessor had done, he still agreed with Muratori that the

name was a generic one for builders in a large part of

Northern Italy, and quotes with approval an older authority

which held that the name was derived from the bishopric of

Como.

In the early 1890's, however, the Masonic world Was excited

by a book which had recently appeared from the hand of

Mrs. Lucy Baxter, who wrote under the pen name of Leader

Scott. It was entitled The Cathedral Builders: The Story of a

Great Masonic Guild. This astonishing work, as appears

from internal evidence, was based largely on Merzario's

studies of the Comacine Masters and, indeed, first made that

work generally known to the English-speaking public. As it

has since been the principal basis for the Comacine theory

of Freemasonry, the major conclusions of Mrs. Baxter's book

may be summarized as follows:

That after Italy was overrun by barbarians, Roman collegia

were suppressed, but the college of architects at Rome

escaped the general doom and removed to the republic of

Comum;

That this college survived in a medieval Masonic guild

known as the Society of Comacine Masters, educating

young men in the arts and sciences and sending them out to

all parts of the world as missionaries of culture;

That many monks were Masons affiliated with this Society,

thereby qualifying themselves for architectural pursuits;

That Italian chroniclists testify architects and masons

accompanied Augustine to England, and from the Venerable

Bede's account of the settlement of Augustine's mission in

England it seems evident that he took Masonic architects to

that country with him;

That Gregory probably chose these from the Comacine

Order, as likelier to hold fast to the old Roman traditions of

building than would be the case with a Byzantine guild, and

that the works they did in Britain proved he was right in this

surmise;

That early Saxon carvings represented fabulous monsters

an d symbolical creatures which evidently were of Latin

origin;

That words and phrases in the edicts of Rothari and

Liutprand are to be met in the writings of Bede and Richard,

Prior of Hagustald, indicating that these writers were familiar

with terms of art used by the Comacine Masters.

The argument upon which these conclusions is based long

and interesting, recapitulating many of Merzario's theories

besides containing much new material resulting from Leader

Scott's own investigations and those of her brother, the Rev.

W. Miles Barnes, who contributed to The Cathedral Builders

a chapter on "The Origin of Saxon Architecture." But the

author goes further than Merzario did in many respects. For

instance, Merzario thinks their name a generic one, applied

to builders in many parts of Northern Italy, whereas Leader

Scott restricts them within the narrow bonds of a single

esoteric society. She supposes also that when the Roman

college of architects fled to the region of Lake Como they

found refuge on a small but strongly fortified islet known as

Comacina. There, safely locked within stout walls, she

believes they kept alive for centuries the traditions of classic

art, and developed various styles of Italian architecture

which subsequently they scattered through France, Spain,

Germany and England.

The effect of The Cathedral Builders upon Masonic thought

for the next quarter of a century was prodigious. Already

earlier writers had suspected that Freemasonry must look to

the Lombard guilds for its origin, and Leader Scott's work

gave strong confirmation to the notion; confirmation that was

the stronger because Mrs. Baxter was not herself friendly to

modern Freemasonry. Her own conclusions she summed up

in the sentence: "Though there is no certain proof that the

Comacines were the veritable stock from which the

pseudo-Freemasonry of the present day sprang, we may at

least admit that they were a link between the classic collegia

and all other art and trade guilds of the Middle Ages."

Adopting this conclusion in its general form, W. Ravenscroft

went to Italy in 1906 and spent many years investigating and

confirming as best he could its major implications.

Subsequently Dr. Newton took it up and, made much of it in

The Builders. In fact, Ravenscroft's The Comacines and

Newton's Builders remain today among the most widely read

of Masonic books, and justly so, for their almost religious

loyalty to Freemasonry and the excellence of their literary

construction.

Within the last decade or so, however, the Comacine theory

has been seriously attacked until now it is very much on the

defensive. Gould in his Concise History was among the first

to point out that even if the existence of the Comacine guild,

with all that is claimed for it, could be established, there

would still be the necessity of clearing up the mystery

involved in innumerable variations in the different schools of

medieval architecture - variations which could not have been

so extensive if one society had controlled the whole. A.L.

Frothingham, in the Dictionary of Architecture and Building,

went so far as to deny that a Comacine fraternity ever

existed. In justice to Leader Scott it should be noted that she

did not claim for the Comacines that they founded Gothic

architecture, or that all medieval architectural styles could be

traced to them. Conclusions to that extent are to be

attributed in the main to those who have accepted her

doctrines and enlarged upon them.

In a report on the matter to the Grand Lodge of New York,

Ossian Lang made a frontal assault upon he entire position

taken by Mrs. Baxter, Ravenscroft and Dr. Newton. He

attacked it at its weakest point - the alleged connection

between the Comacines and the builders' guilds of England.

Nothing can be clearer than that Speculative Masonry is an

offshoot of English Operative Masonry; hence if the

Comacines cannot be connected with Operative Masonry,

they cannot be connected with Speculative Masonry, and the

whole theory fails of historic dependability.

>From the writings of the Venerable Bede the author of

Cathedra Builders and her collaborator endeavored to show

that several early British churches were built of stone and

that, on this account, it was necessary to import masons

skilled in the use of that material. The theory is that the

masons thus imported were partisans of the Comacine cult,

which they carried with them and introduced into England.

But Bede - historian of the English churches of the early

eighth century - expressly states that one of these buildings,

at Lindisfarne, was built of hewn oak and covered with reeds

"after the manner of the Scots."

Nor does Bede substantiate further statements that British

ecclesiastical authorities made frequent demands upon

Rome for skillful workmen. He does speak of passings back

and forth between Britain and Gaul, but the Gaul of that day

was more Frankish than Roman. He reports that Benedict

Biscop, founder of the monasteries at Wearmouth and

Jarrow, crossed into Gaul in 675 and engaged masons to

build for him a church in the Roman style, but to infer that

these masons were Comacines, or even Italians, is pure

guesswork. They may or may not have been, but this thread

is far to slender to support the heavy weight imposed upon it

by the Comacine theory. The next reliable record of

importations of foreign builders into England comes down

into the Norman period, when Gothic architecture was

beginning to take form. Thus it will be seen that so far as

authentic written evidence of connection between the

Comacines and the early English builders is concerned,

there is none.

Ravenscroft has made an earnest effort to supply the

connection through details of sculpture and ornamentation.

He quotes W.S. Calverley as suggesting that scrolls and

interlacings on early scriptured crosses in Carlisle are

decorated with patterns then in vogue in Lombardy. He

remarks that the plan of Canterbury cathedral, as it existed

before 1076, "carried out the Comacine idea, even to the two

apses, one at each end and the campanili flanking the aisles

north and south." There is more of similar purport in his

argument, but what he suggests in regard to the Comacine

theory might be suggested with equal force in support of a

contrary theory - that the peculiarities noticed are only those

which belonged to the general Christian culture of the times,

as based upon and adapted from the general Roman culture

of preceding times. Latin bishops in the West continued for a

long period to prefer churches built in cruciform varieties of

the basilica; it is natural to suppose also that they favored

methods of ornamentation with which they were familiar. It

is, of course, possible that Ravenscroft is right in his

conclusions, although secular historians of architecture

apparently fail to agree with them; but so long as it is also

possible he may be mistaken, the historian can accept them

only as opinions and not as proofs.

At the other end of the chain, connection between the

Comacines and the Roman collegia is likewise weak. The

statement that a Roman college of architects found asylum

on the islet of Comacina appears to be without

corroboration. That it could have maintained itself there is a

romantic guess contrary to what is known about the

Longobardi. Those warlike invaders thoroughly and

mercilessly subdued the part of Northern Italy they made

their own. Lenient to conquered peoples who made full

submission, they crushed resistance and punished it with the

utmost ferocity. It is unlikely that the savage Alboin, who

made a king's daughter drink to him from her father's skull,

would have tolerated at the heart of his realm a stronghold of

local reaction and rebellion from which nothing could

conceivably radiate save hostility to Longobardi rule,

contempt for Longobardi knowledge and conspiracy against

Longobardi security. Elsewhere throughout Italy and Gaul

Germanic conquerors ruthlessly exterminated Roman

collegia, fearing them as seminaries of free Roman thought.

There is nothing to indicate the Longobardi did otherwise.

In such early records of individual Comacine Masters as

have come down, names are not preponderantly Roman but

are Teutonic. If the Masters were a Roman college, that

circumstance would be most strange. Where the conquerors

were so eager to Romanize their names it is scarcely to be

supposed that private citizens with honest titles to. Latin

patronymics would exchange them for new ones which to

Latin ears must have seemed harsh and barbaric.

A preponderance of evidence is to the effect that the

Lombard builders were much more strongly influenced by

Byzantine than by Latin culture. Even in the most important

of their churches, at Milan and Pavia, it is apparent they

were wrestling with the old Byzantine problem of adapting a

basilican groundwork. to the support of spacious vaultings,

and there is marked progress, in a Byzantine way, in the

architectural skill shown in the construction at Pavia over

that shown in the erection of its most recent predecessor at

Milan. Their later schools, both in Lombardy and on the

Rhine, as recently as the beginning of the eleventh century,

were still engaged, as a writer in the Encyclopedia Britannica

puts it, "in the task of covering with vaults large churches of

Basilican plan - the typical problem of the period."

It is not essential to an understanding of the rise of the

Lombard guilds to depend upon a romantic story such as

that of Roman architects marooned on an island in Lake

Como. The explanation is far simpler than that. What

happened in Lombardy in the seventh, eighth and ninth

centuries was precisely what has happened in the

development of all other urban civilizations of the Middle

Ages. The Germanic invaders came upon an old and

decadent civilization which moreover stood at the crossroads

between East and West, North and South. Here they

entrenched their power in strongly fortified cities. The chief

economic asset of their new domain was an abundance of

building stone of all kinds. It was characteristic of their

genius that they should make the best use of what they

found. They had a passion for the culture of all peoples

whose social and ethical advancement they regarded as

better than their own. They welcomed every missionary of

beauty, no matter whence he came.

Into these cities flocked artisans, architects, builders,

sculptors, carvers in wood, workers in gold and silver, dyers

and weavers. They came for the simple and obvious reason

that there was employment for them. The Longobardi were

the newly rich of the hour, hot upon expending the profits of

war and conquest for things of comfort and luxury. When

they became converted to Catholicism they displayed the

usual zeal of the proselyte and sought to express their piety

in the building of handsome churches. A subject population

which in its heart despised them was not disinclined to profit

by opportunities, then so abundant, of catering to whims, for

the gratification of which the barbarians were willing to pay

and to pay well. It should be remembered that the Lombard

State existed in a condition of relative strength and security

for almost a hundred years longer than the United States of

America have existed as a separate political entity, and that,

like Americans of the present times, the Lombards were

virile, energetic, progressive, ambitious and covetous of

spiritual as well as of material gain. Like modern Americans,

also, they did not hesitate to borrow useful ideas wherever

they might find them and, turning them into the hopper of

their own peculiar genius, to grind out of the mixture a

culture which was distinctively their own.

It was inevitable that workers at various trades should

sooner or later form themselves into guilds. It was equally

inevitable, since the quarries about Lake Como gave to that

region its richest material assets, that the mason guilds there

should attain to considerable importance. That these

societies were colored by the culture of their times goes

without saying. It is by no means impossible that when the

Lombards arrived they found vestiges of Roman collegia; it

is even credible that they absorbed these collegia into their

own system just as they absorbed many other things

Roman. It may be considered likely that, along with other

accretions from Byzantine sources, they incorporated

Eastern cult practices into their local societies. But

regardless of whether all or any of these surmises are

correct, the fact is that no positive affirmative evidence

showing them to be correct has as yet been discovered.

As to the exact organization of the Lombard guilds, little is

really known. From the edicts of Rothari and Liutprand,

Ravenscroft, following the ideas of Leader Scott, argues that

the Comacine Masters were at that time a "compact and

powerful guild, capable of asserting their rights, and that the

guild was properly organized, having degrees of different

ranks and Magistri" at their head. That interpretation reads

more into the edicts, however, than dispassionate criticism

can accept. In the first place, the statute of Rothari does not

speak of a guild but of certain Masters, with associates

(colligantes) and co-workers (consortes). That those Masters

belonged to a guild is to be inferred rather from the usual

customs of those days than from the wording of the edict.

Furthermore it is clear that the decree was intended to fix the

responsibilities not of a guild but of individual contractors and

of their employers. The regulation of fees by Liutprand would

seem to indicate that their capability of "asserting their

rights" was in fact sharply limited. Whether the words

magistri, colligantes and consortes refer to successive

grades or degrees comparable to those of a Masonic lodge

is pure speculation. They may mean that or they may mean

only that master workmen, authorized to make contracts for

building and repairing houses, took along their own

employees and assistants; it is clear from Section 145 of

Rothari's edict that the Masters did not refuse to do work

alongside the bondsmen of their employers.

Much has been made of the fact that the Comacines met in

a place which they called a loggia, and that they called their

chiefs magistri or masters. The evidential value of this as

tending to show Masonic connections is inconsiderable. The

word loggia is a derivative from the same Latin word from

which the English word lodge is derived, but a loggia was

simply a covered gallery where workmen placed their

benches, or whatever else they used, so they could be

sheltered from sun and rain. Blacksmiths, carpenters,

shoemakers and men of other crafts also worked in a loggia.

The title magister was a common one, used f or master

musicians, master painters, master professionals of all kinds.

To say that because a Comacine contractor was called

Master he must have been master of a Masonic lodge would

be as sensible as to say that because a man is nowadays

addressed by the title of Doctor he must be a practitioner of

medicine.

Undoubtedly the Comacine builders attained such

proficiency that their services were in demand outside their

own country as well as within it. They were more than

builders, for they were skilled in wood carving, painting,

sculpture and mosaic work. It is not improbable they

cherished literature and music. Rivoira in Lombardic

Architecture asserts that after the fall of the Lombardic

kingdom they re-formed themselves, as did other artisan

guilds, in the days of the free Italian cities. Merzario believes

they maintained their separate identity and were responsible

for the greater part of all works of art between the years 800

and 1000. Agostino Segredio is convinced they were a guild

of Freemasons, the theory held by Mrs. Baxter and

subsequent writers of that school.

Were they indeed Freemasons? In spite of the fact that

connections at both ends are broken, can the Comacine

Masters be regarded as a bridge between Operative

Masonry and some Roman college of artificers binding them

into one continuous society? The answer must depend

largely upon individual predilection. The theory is attractive

to those who desire simplicity and continuity, for it tends to

establish what many would like to believe. But the writers of

the present work have been forced to the reluctant

conclusion that evidence supporting it is fatally defective in

several important particulars. Perhaps the wisdom of future

ages may supply the deficiencies; perhaps in the stone of

some forgotten work the necessary confirmation may yet be

found. Meanwhile the Comacine Masters may safely be

regarded as an important part of the general cult system of

the Dark Ages, a system which had developed from earlier

forms and which in turn gave way to the later development

through which modern Freemasonry came into being.