CHAPTER II

THE GERMAN LINK

The heading of this chapter implies nothing that can impugn the claims of the Teutons to the perfecting of the Gothic style, which claims are undoubtedly fair. It only implies that the pointed Gothic architecture was not an invention of the Germans, so much as a national development of some earlier form; and, like all developments, must have had some link connecting it with that earlier source. Was the Comacine Guild that link? Legends and traditions pointing to it are many, but, as usual, absolute proofs are few. Some proofs might be found if, with a clue in one's hand, search could be made among the archives of the German cities in which round-arched Lombard-style churches were built before the pointed Gothic and composite style came in. Some German _savant_ should sift out certain traditions, which, from want of authorities and unfamiliarity with the language, I am not able to do. These are--

Firstly: That St. Boniface came to Italy before proceeding on his mission to Germany in A.D. 715, and that Pope Gregory II. gave him his credentials, instructions, etc., and sent with him a large following of monks, versed in the art of building, and of lay brethren who were also architects, to assist them.[96] This is the precise method in which St. Augustine and St. Benedict Biscop were equipped and sent to their missions in England, and S. Guillaume to his bishopric in Normandy. What resulted in England from the missions of St. Augustine, St. Wilfrid, and St. Benedict? The cathedral of Canterbury, the abbeys of Hexham, Lindisfarne and others--all distinctly Lombard buildings. What did S. Guillaume do in Normandy? He built the churches of Caen, Dijon, etc., also in pure Lombard style, not in the heavier Norman by which the natives followed it. So in Germany we hear that among the bishoprics founded by St. Boniface were Cologne, Worms, and Spires,[97] precisely the cities which have remains of the earliest churches in Lombard style. There are many other German churches, now fine Gothic buildings, whose crypts and portals show remains of older round-arched buildings.

Secondly: It is necessary to discover the precise connection of the Emperors Charlemagne, Otho, and the German monarchs who successively ruled in Lombardy, with the Masonic guild there. Whether, as they employed them in the Italian part of their kingdom, they did not also employ them across the Alps.

Thirdly: To find out whether, when Albertus Magnus went back to Cologne from Padua, he had not become a _Magister_ in the Masonic guild, as many monks were, and whether he propagated the tenets of the brotherhood in Germany.

Certain proof exists that he designed the choir of the cathedral there, if nothing more. He also wrote a book entitled _Liber Constructionum Alberti_, which afterwards became the handbook for Gothic work. It is probable that this was in great part borrowed from an earlier Italian work on the construction of churches, named _L' Arcano Magistero_. This, however, was a secret book of the guild, and was kept most strictly in the hands of the _Magistri_ themselves. Kügler relates that in 1090 a citizen of Utrecht killed a bishop, who had taken _L' Arcano Magistero_ away from his son who was an architect. I am strongly of opinion that Albertus Magnus was much connected with the importation of Freemasons into Germany.

Fourthly: To discover whether in the cities where great buildings went on for many years, there remains any trace of the same threefold Masonic organization, which we find in the Italian cathedral-building towns; and whether the administration thereof was jointly managed by the _Magistri_ or head architects, and the patrons or civic authorities of the city in which the buildings were carried on.

All these things can only be verified, in case the works of contemporary chroniclers still exist, or if there remain any traces of archives of so early a date.

As far as style in building goes to prove anything, the Lombards certainly preceded the native Gothic architects in Germany. Hope enumerates several churches, such as those at Spires, Worms, Zurich, and several old ones at Cologne, built before or about the Carlovingian era, which have every sign of Lombard influence.

The Gross Münster of Zurich was begun in 966 as a thank-offering of the Emperor Otho for his victories in Italy, and its plan, arches, windows, towers (excepting only the climatic addition of the pointed roofs) are all in Lombard style. The cloister adjoining it is very Italian, with its double columns and its sculptured capitals. Now, as Otho granted a special charter to the Masonic guild of Lombardy, it is natural to suppose that when he wanted a church built, he would employ this valuable class of his new subjects. At Basle we have a distinct sign of the Comacine Masters in the _intrecci_ and other symbols sculptured round the _Gallus-pforte_ of the cathedral, while in the crypt are two carved lions which were once beneath the columns of the door. They were removed in the restoration of the cathedral, after the earthquake of 1356. These lions are precisely the counterparts of those in the doorways of Modena and Verona. But it is at Cologne, the city of Albertus Magnus, that the Lombard style is unmistakable. Can one look at the three apses of the churches of the Apostles and of St. Martin, with the round arches encircling them, and little pillared galleries above, or at the double-arched windows in the towers, without at once recalling the Romanesque churches of Lucca, Arezzo, and Pisa, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries?[98]

Santa Maria del Campidoglio at Cologne, which was founded by Plectrude, wife of Pepin, has the same Lombard galleries running round the apses, and Cunibert's church in its western door shows not only pure Comacine sculpture, but the characteristic lion of Judah between the column and the arch. S. Andrea and S. Pantaleone, both founded in 954 by Bishop Bruno, brother of Otho the Great, were in the same style. This group of buildings all in one city, and all founded under the Emperors who ruled in Italy, surely suggest that when Charlemagne took over the builders for Aix-la-Chapelle, they as usual left their school and _laborerium_ there, and that Otho and his successors in their turn had not far to go for architects.

If their churches are not enough, the civil architecture of that epoch also affords proof of Lombard influence in Germany. Compare the windows and style of the ancient dwelling-house at Cologne which Fergusson illustrates, p. 590, with those of any Lombard building whatsoever, from the Palace of King Desiderius in the eighth century to the Bargello of Florence in the thirteenth, and you will find them identical. The only German innovation is in the high gabled roof. Again, compare St. Elizabeth's home, the Castle on the Wartburg, with the ancient Communal Palace at Todi, or at Perugia, or other Lombard building of the twelfth century, and its genesis will at once be seen.[99]

Ferd. Pitou, author of the fine monograph on the Cathedral of Strasburg, confirms the presence of Italian builders in Germany, not only in the time of the Carlovingians and the line of Otho, but also in the later times of the Swabian dynasty. He says, when speaking of the works at Strasburg, that "colonies of artisans, chiefly sent from Lombardy and other parts, where church-building was prevalent, accompanied the monks and ecclesiastics who directed the work. These spiritual leaders, however, had all the glory of the buildings up to about the end of the twelfth century, when ogival architecture arose. These Lombard colonies pushed on beyond the Rhine, to the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula, and even penetrated to the forests and lands of Sarmatia and Scythia."

There seems little doubt that the German lodges founded by the Comacine emigrations took root, and became in time entirely national. Traditions are many, and most of them point back to Italy. For instance, legend says a brotherhood of stone-carvers existed in Spires and Bamberg from the time when those cathedrals were begun. Others say that Albertus Magnus on his return from Padua formed the first Masonic association in Germany, making special laws and obtaining especial privileges for the immense number of builders he collected to put into execution his cathedral at Cologne.[100] Again, L' Abbé de Grandidier, writing to a lady in November 1778, tells her that he has discovered an ancient document three centuries old, which shows that the much-boasted society of the Freemasons is nothing but a servile imitation of an ancient and humble confraternity of real builders whose seat was anciently in Strasburg. Hope, however, says that the Strasburg lodge, which was the earliest acknowledged German one, was first recognized by a legal act executed at Ratisbon in 1458, and that the Emperor Maximilian ratified and confirmed the act by a diploma given at Strasburg in 1498.

My theory is this, that in their early emigrations the Comacine Masters founded the usual lodges; that the Germans entered their schools and became masters in their turn; that in the end the German interest outweighed the foreign element in the brotherhood, and the Germans, wishing to nationalize an art which they had so greatly developed, split off from the universal Masonic Association, as the Sienese builders did in Siena in the fourteenth century, and formed a distinct national branch: that this decisive break probably took place at Strasburg, and that other lodges followed suit and nationalized themselves in their turn. No doubt some German searcher into archives may arise, who will do for Cologne and Strasburg what Milanesi has done for Siena, and Cesare Guasti for Florence, and so throw light on the complicated organization of patrons, architects, builders, and sculptors which banded together under one rule, to build the multiplex and grand old cathedrals.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] See the Letters of Pope Gregory II., and Life of St. Boniface.

[97] Milman, _Latin Christianity_, Vol. II. chap. v. p. 302, Book IV.

[98] See illustrations in Fergusson, pp. 578, 579.

[99] See illustrations in Fergusson's _Handbook of Architecture_, pp. 589, 590.

[100] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. x. p. 282.