It need not excite wonder that any guild should have fled from Rome in these centuries. This was the time that Gregory the Great, painted so graphically in his passionate Homily of Ezechiel, preached at Rome. "Everywhere see we mourning, hear we laments; cities, strongholds, villages are devastated; the earth is a desert. No busy peasants are in the fields, few people in the cities, and these last relics of human kind daily suffer new wounds. There is no end to the scourging of God's judgment.... We see some carried into slavery, others cruelly mutilated, and yet more killed. What joy, oh my brethren, is left to us in life? If it is still dear to us we must look for wounds, and not for pleasures. Behold Rome, once Queen of the world, to what is she reduced?--prostrated by the sorrows and desolation of her citizens, by the fierceness of her enemies and frequent ruin, the prophecy against Samaria has been fulfilled in her. Here no longer have we a senate; the people are perished, save the few who still suffer daily. Rome is empty, and has barely escaped the flames; her buildings are thrown down. The fate of Nineveh is already upon her...."[14] The Longobard invaders were more merciful than the Goths, for not long after their rule was over, another Pope wrote to Pepin--"Erat sanæ hoc mirabile in regno Longobardorum, nulla erat violenta nulla struebantur insidiæ. Nemo aliquem iniuste angariabat, nemo spoliabat. Non erat furta, non latrocinia, unusquisque quodlibebat securus sine timore pergebat."--_Histor. Franc. Scrip._ Tom. III. cap. xvi. Whatever the moving cause, the fact remains that in the Middle Ages the Comacine Masters had a nucleus on that strong little fortified island of Comacina, which, together with Como itself, stood against the Lombards in the sixth century for twenty years before being subjugated; and in the twelfth, held its own independence for a quarter of a century against Milan and the Lombard League, which it refused to join. When at length the Longobards became their rulers, they respected their art and privileges. The guild remained free as it had been before, and in this freedom its power must have increased fast. The Masters worked liberally for their new lords, but it was as paid architects, not as serfs. As a proof we may cite an edict signed by King Luitprand on February 28, 713. It is entitled _Memoratorio_, and is published by Troya in his _Codex Diplomaticus Longobardus_. It fixes the prices of every kind of building. Here are the titles of the seven clauses, referring to the payments of the _Magistri Comacini_: _De Mercede Comacinorum_-- CLVII. Capit. i. De Sala. "Si sala fecerit, etc." CLVIII. Capit. ii. De Muro. "Si vero murum fecerit qui usque ad pedem unum sit grossus ... cum axes clauserit et opera gallica fecerit ... si arcum volserit, etc." Capit. iii. De annonam Comacinorum. CLIX. Capit. iv. De opera. CLX. Similiter romanense si fecerit, sic repotet sicut gallica opera. Capit. v. De Caminata.