From the beginning of the 17th century attempts were made inside the fraternity, as the company societies working in the same spirit may be called, to bring to more general recognition a suitable name for this company, which could also form a uniting bond for the scattered single organizations. The leaders knew and occasionally said that a respected name for the common interest would be advantageous. This view appears especially in the letters of Comenius. It was then indeed an undecided question what nation should place itself at the head of the great undertaking. (Keller, in the M. H. der C. G., 1895, p. 156.) “As a matter of fact precisely in the years when in Germany the brothers had won the support of powerful princes and the movement received a great impetus, very decided efforts were made both to create larger unions and to adopt a unifying name. The founding of the Society of the Palmtree [1617] was the result of the earlier effort and the writings of Andreaes on the alleged origin and aims of the rosicrucians are connected with the other need. The battle of the White Mountain and the unfortunate consequences that followed killed both attempts, as it were, in the germ.” (Z. Gesch, d. Bauh., p. 20.) Note by the way that the name of the “Fraternity of the Red Cross” was taken from symbols which were already employed in the societies. In regard to this it is quite mistaken accuracy to maintain that it was correctly called “Bruderschaft des Rosenkreutz” and not “des Rosenkreutzes,” as the “Handbuch d. Freimaurerei,” p. 259, emends it. Vatter Christian Rosenkreutz is indeed evidently only a composite legendary personage as the bearer of a definite symbolism (Christ, rose, cross), (and may have been devised merely in jest). The name does not come from the personality of the founder but the personality of the founder comes from the name. The symbols and expressions that lie at the foundations are the earlier.