Builders Corporations in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland 177- The associates were divided into masters, journeymen, and
apprentices. - The governance of the organization was entrusted to certain
leaders. - The profane was excluded.
- Privileges extended to the sons of masters.
- Their were conditions governing acceptance into the organization.
- The principals of fraternal equality and mutual aid were primary.
- Procedures were established for specific jurisdiction and how
lodge judgments would be handed down. - Procedures were established for how meetings would be opened
and closed. - There were established initiation rites and forms of greeting
(Gruss) and customs to be observed at banquets. - There was a test that foreign brothers were required to
undergo.
The guarantee of secrecy was assured by the way brothers greeted
one another as well as by how they shook hands (Schenk), although
Schenk appears instead to designate feast toasts. The ancient statutes
make no mention of a "password." The sole time there is any reference
to a password is in the rules of the Halberstadt masons, which were
filed before the reigning prince in 1693: "The master will tell the
worker that he has been welcomed into the order and that he should
lock within his heart, at the price of his soul's salvation, the words
(Worter) that have been entrusted to him and that by no means will he
let anyone else know them, save an honest mason, under penalty of
being disbarred from the craft."^15
The organization did not pursue only professional and social goals.
Like the French brotherhoods, it included religious concerns among its
objectives:
No laborer or master shall be allowed admission into the order
who does not approach the Holy Sacrament once a year and who
does not observe the Christian law. If someone who has been
admitted into the association refuses to fulfill this precept, may no