Builders Corporations in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland 179others, to temporary or local abeyance, for all these interdictions were
generally affairs of circumstance.
In sixteenth-century Germany and Switzerland, the sacrifices made
by the populace to erect their churches, coupled with the blatant abuses
commited by the clergy and the popes, had chilled their religious fervor,
shaken their faith, and made it impossible to complete those churches still
under construction. It was at this point that Luther's reformation
occurred, which weakened the very foundations of papal authority and
halted the construction of the great monuments of Catholic worship. This
delivered a mortal blow to the masonic corporations here. By and large,
they were greatly dispersed and their remnants were forced to join forces
with the mastery associations of the towns' own trades and crafts guilds.
In 1522, the brotherhood in Switzerland was mixed up in matters
that were foreign to the building craft, leading to an order for its grand
master, Stephan Rulzislofer of Zurich, to appear before the Diet.
Because he failed to appear to defend himself, the brotherhood was sup-
pressed throughout the territory of the Heovetic Confederations.^16
In Germany, those lodges that had not been formally dissolved
remained isolated under the guidance of their respective great lodges.
After Alsace was made part of France under Louis VIV, the German
princes sought to impose limits on the French king's influence in
Germany. It was natural that an association whose members were sub-
ject to the jurisdiction of French authority—the grand lodge of
Strasbourg—would catch their eye. Accordingly, an arret issued by the
Diet in March 16, 1707, forbade German lodges from maintaining any
relationship with the grand lodge of Strasbourg. The organization of a
grand lodge of Germany failed to be realized. Incorrect intelligence and
complaints prompted an edict on August 16, 1731, commanding that
the grand lodges must henceforth cease being considered in that capac-
ity. In the future, there was no longer to be any distincton between them
and the secondary lodges and judgment of any trade or organization
disagreement was to be deferred to civil tribunals.^17
We should end by noting that in Germany, as in France, the initiatory
traditions of the builders survived only in the compagnonnages, albeit in
a form that was distorted to defend professional or class interests.