points
out that St. Alban was the name of a town, not of a man, and shows how
the error may have crept into the record (_A. Q. C._, vii, 119-131).
The nature of the tradition, its details, its motive, and the absence
of any reason for fiction, should deter us from rejecting it. See two
able articles, pro and con, by Begemann and Speth, entitled "The
Assembly" (_A. Q. C._, vii). Older Masonic writers, like Oliver and
Mackey, accepted the York assembly as a fact established (_American
Quarterly Review of Freemasonry_, vol. i, 546; ii, 245).

[80] _History of the English Constitution._ Of course the Guild was
indigenous to almost every age and land, from China to ancient Rome
(_The Guilds of China_, by H.B. Morse), and they survive in the trade
and labor unions of our day. The story of _English Guilds_ has been
told by Toulmin Smith, and in the histories of particular companies by
Herbert and Hazlitt, leaving little for any one to add. No doubt the
Guilds were influenced by the Free-masons in respect of officers and
emblems, and we know that some of them, like the German Steinmetzen,
attached moral meanings to their working tools, and that others, like
the French Companionage, even held the legend of Hiram; but these did
not make them Free-masons. English writers like Speth go too far when
they deny to the Steinmetzen any esoteric lore, and German scholars
like Krause and Findel are equally at fault in insisting that they were
Free-masons. (See essay by Speth, _A. Q. C._, i, 17, and _History of
Masonry_, by Steinbrenner, chap. iv.)

[81] _Notes on the Superintendents of English Buildings in the Middle
Ages_, by Wyatt Papworth. Cementerius is also mentioned in connection
with the Salisbury Cathedral, again in his capacity as a Master Mason.

[82] Hearing that the Masons had certain secrets that could not be
revealed to her (for that she could not be Grand Master) Queen
Elizabeth sent an armed force to break up their annual Grand Lodge at
York, on St. John's Day, December 27, 1561. But Sir Thomas Sackville
took care to see that some of the men sent were Free-masons, who,
joining in the communication, made "a very honorable report to the
Queen, who never more attempted to dislodge or disturb them; but
esteemed them a peculiar sort of men, that cultivated peace and
friendship, arts and sciences, without meddling in the affairs of
Church or State" (_Book of Constitutions_, by Anderson).

FELLOWCRAFTS

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