The Origin of Freemasonry and Knights Templar ... - Lodge Prudentia

FREEMASONRY AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARRoman colonists, and the Colleges of Artificers,who had settled among them, were left to defendthemselves. Long previous to this, however, Christianityhad dawned, not only upon the BritishIslands, but upon the whole of Europe, and theinfluences of the new faith were not long in beingfelt by the colleges, and the next phase in theirhistory is the record of their assumption of theChristian life and doctrines.Building Corporations.# As soon as the colonists and the natives of Britainhad been abandoned, they were driven, first bythe Picts, their savage neighbors, and then by theSaxon sea robbers, into the mountains of Walesand the islands of the Irish Sea. The Artificers,who were converted to Christianity, and who hadremained when the legions left the country, wentwith them, and having lost their connection withthe mother institution at Rome, became thenceforthsimply Building Corporations or Societies ofJ Guilders. They retained the organization whichhad always worked so well and the name of Freemasons.Subsequently, in the sixth century, aboutthe year 550, when the whole of England was takenpossession of by the Saxon invaders, the Britons,headed by the monks and priests, and accompaniedby the Artificers, fled into Ireland and Scotlandwhich countries they civilized and converted, andwhose inhabitants were instructed in the art ofbuilding.Whenever we read of the extension in barbarous62