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. CHAPTER III THE ORIGIN OF SAXON ARCHITECTURE (A SUGGESTION) BY THE REV. W. MILES BARNES[101] Wherever the Romans planted colonies, there they established _Collegia_; without its colleges Roman society was incomplete; the _Collegium_ was an element essential to Roman life.