Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

118 BRIDGE
BRIDGE
control and direction of the College of Pontiffs,
of which the Pontifex Maximus, or High Priest,
was the presiding officer and the organ through
which its decrees were communicated to the
people . Hence, when the Papal Church established
its seat at the city of Rome, its
Bishop assumed the designation of Pontifex
Maximus as one of his titles, and Pontiff and
Pope are now considered equivalent terms .
The question naturally arises as to what
connection there was between religious rites
and the building of bridges, and why a Roman
priest bore the name which literally denoted a
bridge builder . Etymologists have in vain
sought to solve the problem, and, after all
their speculation, fail to satisfy us . One of
the most tenable theories is that of Schmitz,
who thinks the Pontifices were so called because
they superintended the sacrifices on a
bridge, alluding to the Argean sacrifices on
the Sublician bridge . But Varro gives a more
probable explanation when he tells us that the
Sublician bridge was built by the Pontifices ;
and that it was deemed, from its historic association,
of so sacred a character, that no repairs
could be made on it without a previous
sacrifice, which was to be conducted by the
Chief Pontiff in person . The true etymology
is, however, undoubtedly lost ; yet it may be
interesting, as well as suggestive, to know that
in old Rome there was, even in a mere title,
supposing that it was nothing more, some sort
of connection between the art or practise of
bridge building and the mysterious sacerdotal
rites established by Numa, a connection which
was subsequently again developed in the Masonic
association which is the subject of the
present article . Whatever may have been
this connection in Pagan Rome, we find, after
the establishment of Christianity and in the
Middle Ages, a secret Fraternity organized as
a branch of the Traveling Freemasons of that
period, whose members were exclusively devoted
to the building of bridges, and who were
known as Pontifices, or "Bridge Builders,"
and styled by the French les Freres Pontifes,
or Pontifical Brethren, and by the Germans
Bruckenbriider, or "Brethren of the Bridge."
It is of this Fraternity that, because of their
association in history with the early corporations
of Freemasons, it is proposed to give a
brief sketch .
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the
methods of intercommunication between different
countries were neither safe nor convenient.
Travelers could not avail themselves
of the comforts of either macadamized roads
or railways. Stage-coaches were unknown .
He who was compelled by the calls of business
to leave his home, trudged as a pedestrian
wearily on foot, or as an equestrian, if his means
permitted that mode of journeying ; made his
solitary ride through badly constructed roads,
where he frequently became the victim of robbers,
who took his life as well as his purse, or
submitted to the scarcely less heavy exactions
of some lawless Baron, who claimed it as his
high prerogative to levy a tax on every wayfarer
who passed through his domains . Inns
were infrequent, incommodious, and expensive,
and the weary traveler could hardly
have appreciated Shenstone's declaration,
that
"Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
His warmest welcome at an inn."
But one of the greatest embarrassments to
which the traveler in this olden time was exposed
occurred when there was a necessity to
cross a stream of water . The noble bridges of
the ancient Greeks and Romans had been
destroyed by time or war, and the intellectual
debasement of the dark ages had prevented
their renewal . Hence, when refinement and
learning began to awaken from that long sleep
which followed the invasion of the Goths and
Vandals and the decline and fall of the Roman
Empire, the bridgeless rivers could only be
crossed by swimming through the rapid current,
or by fording the shallow places .
The earliest improvement toward a removal
of these difficulties consisted in the
adoption of rafts or boats, and guilds or corporations
of raftsmen and boatmen, under the
names of Linuncularii, Lintrarii, and Utricularii,
were formed to transport travelers and
merchandise across rivers . But the times were
lawless, and these watermen oftener plundered
than assisted their patrons . Benevolent persons,
therefore, saw the necessity of erecting
hostelries on the banks of the rivers at frequented
places, and of constructing bridges
for the transportation of travelers and their
goods .
All the architectural labors of the period
were, as is well known, entrusted to the guilds
or corporations of builders who, under the
designation of " Traveling Freemasons,"
passed from country to country, and, patronized
by the Church, erected those magnificent
cathedrals, monasteries, and other public edifices,
many of which have long since crumbled
to dust, but a few of which still remain to attest
the wondrous ability of these Operative
Brethren . Alone skilled in the science of architecture,
from them only could be derived
workmen capable of constructing safe and
enduring bridges .
Accordingly, a portion of these "Freemasons,"
withdrawing from the general body,
united, under the patronage of the Church,
into a distinct corporation of Freres Pontifes,
or Bridge Builders . The name which they
received in Germany was that of Briickenbriider,
or Brethren of the Bridge .
A legend of the Church attributes their
foundation to Saint Benezet, who accordingly
became the patron of the Order, as Saint John
was of the Freemasons proper . Saint Benezet
was a shepherd of Avilar, in France, who was
born in the year 1165 . "He kept his mother's
sheep in the country," says Butler, the historian
of the saints, "being devoted to the
practices of piety beyond his age ; when moved
by charity to save the lives of many poor persons,
who were frequently drowned in crossing