158 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING
fact not out of the question that builders formed several brotherhoods
at this time. What is certain—and this is something that happened
quite quickly—is that Saint Blaise was not the only saint to have their
worship.
Carpenters gladly invoked the patronage of Saint Nicholas and
shared his worship with the watermen or water vendors. According to
Dulaure, this patronage went far back to the distant past, to a time even
before Christianity, for Saint Nicholas simply replaced Neptune. This
opinion appears well-founded—simply recall that the Roman builders
who settled in Great Britain placed their collegium under the protection
of Neptune.
Saint Joseph was also ardently worshiped by the carpenters and
seems to have supplanted Saint Blaise. The Litre des Confreries indi-
cates that Pope Alexander VII (1655-1667) granted one Brotherhood
of Saint Joseph to the carpenters, though it is likely that this was actu-
ally a confirmation of a brotherhood that was much older in origin. It
was installed in the church of Saint Nicolas des Champs, near the
Temple, a parish where builders were numerous, and its coat of arms
was an azure field behind a golden image of the infant Jesus holding a
compass and measuring a drawing given to him by Saint Joseph.
The Livre des Confreries also mentions an organization of stone-
cutters: "Brotherhood of the Ascension of Our Lord, erected in the
parish church of Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle for the brotherhood
of journeymen stonecutters, having then in charge Philippe Hubert and
Pierre Jouanne in 1663." Its coat of arms "was a compass, triangle,
plumb line, hammer, and chisels." The Ascension depicted on the coat
of arms of the community of masons ("an Acension of the Son of God,
all in gold") compels us to accept the fact that it refers to the craft of
masonry.^12
Certain craftmen in the building trade, such as roofers, worshipped
Saint Anne. In fact, in the Temple there was an altar dedicated to her.
Finally, Saint John was worshipped by sculptors and carvers of stone
and plaster whose brotherhood had its seat in the church of the Holy
Sepulcher near Saint Merri. Fairly recently, according to Cocheris, this
brotherhood celebrated Saint John Porte Latine on May 6." Because of
their spiritual affinity and their roles as guardians and patron saints of