The Templars and the Parisian Builders 125
either a spiritual or temporal nature." In 1547 the court of Parliament
reorganized Trinity and delegated five "good bourgeois of the city of
Paris to administer it."^28
Cocheris points out the existence in Trinity Chapel of a Con-
federation of the Ascension, which he connects to tailors of religious
habits. It may be more likely, however, that this was the seat of a con-
federation of stonecutters, for the Ascension of Our Lord was depicted
on the coat of arms of the association of masons and stonecutters.^29
According to a trade legend, it was a stonecutter who unsealed the
stone that covered the tomb of Jesus and a mason who demolished the
rest of it to enable Jesus to ascend to Heaven.'^0 Trinity Chapel was also
the seat of the Confederation of the Passion and Resurrection of Our
Lord, which received patent letters from Charles V awarding them the
privilege of staging the Mystery of the Passion and other Catholic mys-
tery plays. Such performances, which were very popular during the
Middle Ages, offered religious and initiatory amphibological sense rel-
evant to the rituals of craftsmen. Over time, however, their meaning
was lost and they eventually became spectacles deemed impious by the
clergy and justice authorities. Nonetheless, the attraction of these plays
survived for an audience of diverse quality made up mostly of the
"mechanically minded," meaning artisans, according to Pierre Bonfons,
who was a contemporary of this era. (The first edition of his book, itself
a revision of the 1532 book by Gilles Corrozet, was published in 1586.)
Eventually, similar Passion confederations were formed in Paris and its
suburbs, causing the confederation of Trinity Church to assert its priv-
ilege and request the authorities to ban these rival associations. With an
act of November 17, 1548, the Parliament of Paris satisfied this request
by forbidding the staging of all sacred mysteries, including those of the
Passion of Our Savior, and permitting the staging of only "profane,
honest, and licit mysteries."
Trinity Hospital, originally intended to give succor to "poor pil-
grims," was eventually also used to house transients,^31 a term that is
worth some additional attention. As we will see when we discuss Saint
Gervais Hospital, it refers not only to pilgrims, but also to workers in
transit, who traveled a kind of "Tour de France" of journeymen. We
might assume, therefore, that many of those who attended the Mystery
nandana
(Nandana)
#1