222 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING
unchristian life, or were known to be unfaithful to their spouses could
not be admitted into the organization or, if already members, would be
expelled.
The Masonic Poem (Regius Manuscript) contains a veritable trea-
tise on civility. It stipulates that an individual should attend to his own
education and that of his family to attain courteousness, distinguished
manners, good morals, and self-mastery. The Cooke Manuscript attests
to masonry's enduring desire to require its members to display a char-
acter of rectitude and uprightness. It was forbidden to keep a "night
crawling" apprentice, for he could not effectively perform his duly
appointed tasks and would give his fellows cause to complain. No mas-
ter should seek to supplant another. If a mason has a quarrel with his
journeymen, he should submit to the judgment of the master or warden
who rules in his stead and reconcile with his journeymen on the next
feast day of the calendar. A master or journeyman who has transgressed
any article should be judged before a general assembly of the lodge. If
he does not acknowledge his misdeeds, he will be expelled and handed
over to the sheriff or lord mayor to be imprisoned.
Philibert Delorme, in his Treatise on Architecture, advises the reader
that in addition to the science required to perform his craft, the qualities
of probity, openness, and scrupulousness "should distinguish the mason;
he must neither be mad, nor vain, nor proud, nor presumptuous."
Finally, we should recall that brotherhoods and craft associations
pursued social objectives that were not confined merely to providing
charitable assistance to brothers in need. All craft communities had a
much larger target in mind. They often played a truly political role and
were unfailingly the basis of the municipal franchises. Particularly in
the northern countries, Italy, and England the mastery associations
remained the instruments of the municipal administration, taking part
in basic policing, finance issues, urbanization, and even the defense of
the city, especially with regard to the levying of troops. Consequently,
it is superfluous to emphasize how questions of a political and social
nature could be the subjects of discussion in these organizations. Nor
should we look elsewhere for the reasons they sometimes incited
especially in France—the distrust of royal authority, all the more so
because they often had eminent figures among their membership,