Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/178

 166 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE Each pupil was obliged to go through a certain period of study and travel, and only became a ' master ' when he had executed some thoroughly good piece of work- manship. It is only by means of this strict guild dis- cipline that the perfection to be found in a Gothic cathedral could have been attained. It was this mode of working in unison, the brotherhood which existed between the stonecutters, carpenters, builders, lock- smiths, &c, that produced the harmony, by which all the minutest details of each part are blended into one great whole. For the help and profit of the master-builders, and in order to prevent misunderstandings, discord, and jealousies among the members of different guilds, all the separate building societies united together towards the middle of the fifteenth century in one universal brotherhood. At two conventions of stonemasons, held at Katisbon in 1459 and at Spires in 1464, all the different guilds formed themselves unanimouslv into the four principal associations of Strasburg, Cologne, Vienna, and Bern, and elected the architect-in-chief of the Strasburg Cathedral to be their president and ruler. Every one of the guilds was placed under the same rules and bye-laws, and bound themselves to abide by the fundamental principle of all success, ' Brotherhood, friendship, and obedience.' ' Without God and the compass, art and rule aid no one.' In a stonecutter's ' code of rules ' dated 1462 we read as follows : ' Masters and apprentices should be orderly, should uphold each other, and attend each Sunday at High Mass, and receive Holy Communion at least once a year.' Piety and faith were considered the strength of the guild. The code adds : ' Every master should keep his workshop clear of all distur b>