THE BUILDER DECEMBER 1926

The Comacines and the Traveling Gilds

By BRO. W. RAVENSCROFT, England

THE position in which the authors of the article in THE BUILDER for
May courteously place me as a Comacine advocate, permits, and I
think, encourages, the pleasure of some further remarks in reply to
their article, relieving me also of the responsibility of apology
for doing so.

It seems to me, then, if I rightly read what they have written,
that the outstanding point to be dealt with is involved in the
question, "What do we mean by the 'making of Masons' or rather
'builders' as applied to the Operative Masonic Gilds of the Middle
Ages ?" If such was nothing more than the conferring of degrees,
secrets and occult knowledge to be accompanied by festivities and
other functions, religious and otherwise, then one must admit that
these lodges may have been semi-permanent, ephemeral, accidental,
etc. But I am going to claim that while such initiations are
admitted, and I suppose nowhere denied, the Gilds of the Middle
Ages were much more than that. And I make this claim upon what I
regard as the surest foundation, viz.: the evidence written down in
stone and wood, but, of course, more particularly the former;
evidence which cannot be and is not subject to being tampered with
as so much of that put down on paper may be. Permit me to note,
then, the following:

First: Up to the 12th century there was from the downfall of Rome
such remarkable correspondence in the development of plan, detail
and ornament in work done throughout England from the North to the
South with that of the Comacine builders as to make the conclusion
inevitable that some rule, authority or custom controlled design
and that, especially bearing in mind the difficulties of transit
and other communication, nothing short thereof could produce such
result and that the education which produced this must have been
the principal item in the making of Masons.

And it is a remarkable confirmation of this that down to the
village church, and in later days, the barn and the cottage, down
to the simplest buildings which had any pretense at architecture,
as well as to the cathedral, stronghold and more important
buildings, an influence is so apparent that to an expert it is not
difficult to discern from a single stone with any moulds or
ornament upon it within almost a quarter of a century to what
period it would belong. And this is the more remarkable since it
does not follow that because the evidence of "style" is present the
workmanship is skilled. One could give numbers of instances to show
that while the design was, so to speak, authorized, the workmanship
was clumsy and bad; the work, in fact, of an inadequately trained
craftsman.

Second: The foregoing remarks as to some authority under heading 1,
apply equally to the periods which followed, viz.: the Gothic
period and that of the Renaissance and I have purposely divided
them into these periods because between each there came an
important revolution. I refer to the incoming of Gothic
Architecture at say about the beginning of the 13th century and the
"revival of learning about that of the 15th century." The change
from Norman work to Gothic work during 50 years was radical in
construction, design and ornament. So was that at the time of the
Renaissance, but contrary to what might have been expected, there
was no sudden abandonment of one style for another but periods of
development during which with precision transition intervened until
one style had disappeared before the incoming of the successor and
all through the various changes within the Gothic time the same
remark applies and at the Renaissance upheaval the old was
gradually merged with the new until quite lost--witness the
Elizabethan and Jacobean mansions and other structures.

Third: After the incoming of the Renaissance the whole order
changed. The Reformation not only suppressed the Monasteries but
also the Gilds. The former, in many instances, became the homes of
the nobility, the latter the Clubs of Speculative Masons, until so
far as architecture was concerned, A would build in the style of
"Queen Anne" and B, next door, in that of "Mary Anne" or any other
Anne.

Surely this justifies the conclusion that down to the time when the
Gothic period was ended and the classic revival was in full vogue,
nothing can account for the stone written history I have briefly
sketched short of an organized body, or, if one prefer it,
organized associations directing and controlling at least the
architecture of Western Europe. And, roughly speaking, the end of
the Gothic period and the decay of the Gilds synchronizes with the
beginning of Speculative Masonry when good fellowship began to be
the chief characteristic in evidence.

Lastly, if I may be permitted a reference to the "Master Mason" for
May, 1926. I read therein an article or English Freemasonry before
the year 1717 (in which Bro. F. F. Gould's views are set forth) and
under the heading of "Oral Tradition" three very eminent men are
quoted as having written on this very point--Sir Christopher Wren,
Sir William Dugdale and Elias Ashmole. Before the year 1717, in
which, under the heading, "Oral Traditions,' three very eminent men
are quoted as having held this opinion. The passages are to be
found in Gould's Concise' History [Revised Edition, pages 53, 99
and 100] and are discussed at length in chapter twelve of the
larger work. The earliest in date is the report of Dugdale's belief
by John Aubrey, which is as follows:

Sir William Dugdale told me many years since, that about Henry the
Third's time, the Pope gave a bull or patent to a company of
Italian Freemasons, to travel up and down all Europe to build
churches. From those are derived the Fraternity of adopted Masons.

In the memoir of Elias Ashmole in the Biographia Britannica we are
told by Dr. Knipe:

What from Mr. Ashmole's collection I could gather was that the
report of our Society taking rise from a Bull granted by the Pope
in the reign of Henry III to some Italian architects to travel all
over Europe to erect chapels was ill-founded. Such a Bull there
was, and those architects were masons. But this Bull, in the
opinion of the learned Mr. Ashmole, was confirmative only and did
not by any means create our Fraternity or even establish them in
this kingdom.

The remaining quotation is from the Parentalia or Memoirs of the
Family of the Wrens:

The Italians (among whom were yet some Greek Refugees), and with
them French, German and Flemings, joined into a Fraternity of
Architects, procuring Papal Bulls for their Encouragement and
particular Privileges; they styled themselves Freemasons, and
ranged from one Nation to another, as they found Churches to be
built.

It seems to me that these opinions should be considered very
carefully. One is inclined to wonder why, because traditions had
grown up around these pronouncements which were extravagant and
false, he should, therefore, have dismissed the lot. I am inclined
to think that had he been acquainted more fully with the Comacine
theory, and the steady development and sequence of changes in
English architecture he would have concluded otherwise.

