Universal Freemasonry 213struction of religious buildings. Spiritual authority and unity were
interrelated.
This was why builders communities identified with monastic asso-
ciations. Their ecclesiastical quality conferred upon craftsmen the priv-
ilege of internationality. The builders, both lay and clerical, who
belonged to the Benedictine, Cistercian, and Templar brotherhoods
could circulate freely, build, and settle anywhere in the whole of
Christendom. Their freedom was guaranteed by the immunity and sov-
ereignty of the Church to which they belonged.
Later, because of feudal bonds the communities that had turned sec-
ular would continue to enjoy the same privileges and franchises they
assumed when they were religious dependents. More important, all
craftsmen had the right to asylum and the free exercise of their trade in
the domains of the Templar commanderies and the popes maintained
these privileges for domains held by the Knights Hospitaller or Knights
of Malta until the time of the French Revolution. When we recall that
the Temple numbered some 900 commanderies, many of which were
extensive, and 10,000 castles, we can see how operatives, especially
masons who traveled widely, could be assured of finding hospitality,
security, and work everywhere they went.
The popes also conferred these privileges, valid throughout the
Catholic world, to the lay masons that built churches.^5 Boniface IV
granted these craftsmen the first diploma of franchises in 614. During
this time, however, there were not any true lay communities or associ-
ations and such franchises could have concerned only Benedictine
builders.
Mention has been made of the briefs that Popes Nicholas III (in
1277) and Benoit IX (in 1334) crafted with regard to mason corpora-
tions, confirming their status as a monopoly that encompassed the
entire Christian world, granting them protection and an exclusive right
to construct all religious edifices, and conceding to them "the right to
direct authority from only the popes," who freed them "from all local
laws and statutes, royal edicts, and municipal regulations concerning
conscript labor or any other obligatory imposition for all the land's
inhabitants." These popes ensured that members of the corporations
had the right to set their own salaries and to regulate exclusively, within