was in the Roman Empire, conqueror of Rome, which, because of the very activity of war, emerged in the century BC, the first organized association of builders, Collegia Fabrorum. As the conquest of large parts of Europe, Asia and northern Africa, led to destruction, the collegiate accompanied the Roman legions, to rebuild what was being destroyed by war. Endowed with strong religious nature, this organization did, to work, the sacred nature of a cult to the deities.
Originally polytheistic, became, with the expansion of Christianity, monotheistic, entering, however, in decline, after the fall of the Roman Empire, occurred in 476 AD, although the association persisted in small groups Império Romano do Oriente, cujo centro era Constantinopla.
Na Idade Média é que iria florescer, através do grande poder da época, a Igreja, a hoje chamada Maçonaria Operativa, ou Maçonaria de Ofício, para a preservação da Arte Real entre os mestres construtores da Europa. Assim, a partir do século VI, as Associações Monásticas, formadas, principalmente, por clérigos, dominavam o segredo da arte de construir, que ficou restrita aos conventos, já que, naquela época de barbárie, quando a Europa estava em ruínas, graças às sucessivas invasões dos bárbaros, e quando as guerras, os roubos e os saques eram frequentes e até encarados as normal events, artists and architects have found safe refuge in convents.
Subsequently, the need for expansion, the brothers builders started to prepare and train lay people, providing, from the tenth century, the organization of the Lay Brotherhoods, which, though formed by laymen, received strong influence of the clergy, which had learned the art of building and the trouble with religious overtones.
It's that time what is considered the first meeting organized workers constructors: the Convention of York, convened and held in 926 by Edwin, son of King Athelstan, to repair the damage that the associations had had with the successive wars and invasions. It was presented for consideration and approval, a status that, henceforth, should serve as the supreme law of the brotherhood, which is usually called the Charter of York.
About the same time, associations arise simply religious, which, from the twelfth century, formed professional bodies: the guilds. To them we owe the first document that is mentioned the word "Shop" to designate a corporation and your workplace. The Guilds and his contemporary, the organization of Crafts Franks, were the main precursors of modern Freemasonry.
Your Name "Gild," the source Teutonic derives from the title given in the ancient region of Scandinavia, a religious agape, during which, at a special ceremony was dumped three cups of horn (horns), as the use of the time, full of beer, one in tribute the gods, secondly, by the ancient heroes, and the latter in honor of relatives and friends in memory of the dead, the end of the ceremony, all participants pledged to defend each other as brothers, bailing each other in difficult times.
The Guilds were characterized by three main purposes: mutual assistance, meetings and banquets in tax assessment for political and social reforms. Introduced in England by Saxon kings, they were modified by the influence of Christianity, but, nevertheless, were not well accepted by the Church, which had welcomed the practice of feasting, for its pagan origins, and the pretense of political reforms and social, that could eventually help to reduce their privileges and the privileges of the corporations under their protection. So, to avoid the hostility of the Church, each guild was organized under the aegis of a monarch, or under the name of a patron saint.
In the twelfth century, associated with guilds, there appeared an organization of German workers, the Steinmetzen, ie beds, which, under the direction of Erwin of Steinbach, achieved notoriety when it won approval for its plans to build the cathedral in Strasbourg and has perfected a way of organizing its workers. Plot is the worker who works in stone, that works in milled and rough stone sculpture, stone (a word derived from the corner) refers to the carved stone for the buildings.
source: www.rlmad.net/
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