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.