8Mason Corporationsin FranceIn the first half of this book we examined the remote ancestry of
Freemasonry and its birth as a craft brotherhood in the Middle Ages,
notably under the aegis of the Templars. In this second half we are
going to undertake the examination of the professional building trade
organizations in the major countries of Europe and then look at select
circumstances of how the art of building, which primarily implies and
illustrates an art of thinking and living, gave way to an art of thinking
alone. We will also look at how modern speculative Freemasonry suc-
ceeded the operative freemasonry of the past.
First, though, an observation concerning terminology: It is custom-
ary when characterizing the trades of the past to use the generic word
corporation. It is important to emphasize that this term, which is ety-
mologically English, is of modern origin. When this kind of group
appeared at the beginning of the twelfth century, the name it assumed,
depending on the region, was either guild or brotherhood, the terms for
the associations from which it emerged at a time when, in addition to
their origional religious and social purposes, they took on a secular and
professional nature.
In the thirteenth century, notably in Paris, a division occurred