198 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKINGOf course, we can certainly cite arrangements that were made against
them, but these were particular cases due to very specific circumstances.
An example of this rare animosity occurred in 1360-1361, when
the Statute of Workers was published again. This text included a meas-
ure according to which all alliances and associations of masons and
carpenters, as well as assemblies, chapters, ordinances, and oaths that
could be established between them, would be annulled. It might seem,
at first glance, that all of this was directed against the obligations and
meetings of the masonic order. This seems even more obvious by the
existence of an array of many intermediary statutes of the same kind,
such as an ordinance from 1389 and the bill crafted by Parliament in
1425 at the urging of the bishop of Winchester, tutor of King Henry VI,
who was then still in his minority. This bill states that the assemblies of
masons imperil the law and that consequently they would no longer be
allowed to convene. Prison and a fine, according to the king's good
pleasure, would punish those who violated this ban.
In truth, it seems that the actual scope of this bill has been exag-
gerated. What it suppressed, or proposed to suppress, was not at all
lodge meetings or the yearly assemblies held by the order, but those
gatherings, comparable modern strikes, that were organized with the
intention of forcing the hand of the authorities or the masters.
Proof of this can be seen, according to Rebold, in the great assem-
bly that was nonetheless held in York on Saint John's Day in 1427,
which protested against the 1425 bill that otherwise would have
remained of no consequence.^14 Similarly, an entry in the Latin register
of William Mollart, prior of Canterbury, shows that in 1429, while
King Henry was still a minor, a lodge was held in Canterbury under the
sponsorship of Archbishop Henry Chichery and attended by Thomas
Stapylton, master; John Morris, described in Franco-Norman as cultos
de la Lodge lathomorum, or "warden of the masons lodge"; fifteen fel-
lows; and three apprentices, whose names are also listed.^15
The importance of the restrictions imposed by the 1425 bill ought
to be viewed in their proper proportion. These interdictions were, at
most, local matters by virtue of the independence of the corporations
and lodges of each city during a time when the idea of multiple obedi-
ences did not exist. They were certainly merely matters of place and