The _Collegium_ was a corporation or guild of persons associated in support of a common object; there were colleges of artists, of architects, builders, and artisans, as well as colleges associated with the administration and government, with religion and law. The _Collegium_ consisted of _Collegæ_ or _sodales_ (fellows, as we should term them), with a president who was styled "_Magister_"; the _Collegium_ was recognized by the State, which confirmed the regulations made by the members for the government of their body, provided they were in conformity with the laws of the land. There is evidence that Roman _Collegia_ were established in Britain shortly after its conquest by the Romans, and there was certainly a _Collegium fabrorum_ in Britain in the reign of Claudius, the first Roman emperor to whom the island was subject. Under the direction of the Roman college, the Britons as builders reached a high degree of excellence in their craft, "so that when the cities of the empire of Gaul and the fortresses on the Rhine were destroyed, Constantius Chlorus, A.D. 298, sent to Britain for and employed British architects in repairing and re-edifying them" (_Archæologia_, vol. ix. p. 100). Mr. Coote affirms that _Collegia_ existed here after the final departure of the Romans from the island, and that the Saxons found them here, and did not interfere with them. Now if _Collegia fabrorum_, which certainly existed in Britain throughout the Roman occupation, were still in existence during the Saxon occupation, it needs explanation why the earliest missionaries to the Saxons had to bring or to send abroad for workmen to build churches. On the Continent the barbarians who overran Italy dreaded the influence of the _Collegia_, and vigorously suppressed them, prohibiting them everywhere under the hardest penalties; under such circumstances we can understand that the societies in Rome could scarcely escape observation, and we shall be prepared to hear that the college of architects and builders in that city removed from thence and took refuge elsewhere. According to tradition they settled at or near Comum, where in mediæval times, under the title of Comacine Masters, they gained fame as architects, and their services were in much request throughout the Continent and beyond it. Had the barbarians, however, treated the Roman colleges with the same indifference as the Saxons are reputed to have shown towards them in England, all guilds of artists and artisans must, for a time at least, have ceased to exist, or have removed from Rome, where there was no longer any appreciation of art, or demand for their services.