Aragon 4
It is assumed that he there met the English master architect and stonecutter des Fonoll who lived and had his masonic school in Montblanc in Tarragona and environs (perhaps at the inauguration of some of the English master’s works). It is not clear if he spent a long time in the castle of Amposta, because the latter became property of the Crown of Aragon instead of the San Juanistas (today only its sad ruins and walls remain on the banks of the Ebro river). The fact that we can find des Fonoll’s personal characteristic mark (the Cruz Plomada or cross with five holes) at the entrance, and in the cloister of the Colegiata de Santa Maria, by the castle at Mora, is interesting because it suggests he was there, presumably at the invitation of de Heredia, towards the end of his professional life. Whether this visit to Mora happened before or after 1356 - when de Heredia was in London at the invitation of king Edward III, we do not know. It is not unreasonable to think that des Fonoll might have provided a good network of knowledge and masonic contacts in England to de Heredia. These were no doubt useful to the future Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John when, due to his personal diplomatic prestige and longstanding links with builders of castles, city walls and churches, he may well have become involved in the negotiations over Masons’ Regulations (and Distribution of Tasks and wages?) at the Guild of Masons in the City of London.
References:
1. L’Art gotic a Catalunya. Arquitectura. Barcelona: Encyclopedia catalana, 2002-2003, p. 3 v. ISBN 88441208875.
2.Vives i Miret, Josep. Reinard deus Fonoll: escultor i arquitecte angles renovador de l’art gotic a Catalunya (1321-1362). Barcelona: Blume, 1969, p. 236.
3. L’Art gotic a Catalunya, Escultura. Barcelona: Enciclopedia catalana, 2007, p. 3 v. ISBN 9788441208926.
4. ‘600 Years of Craft Ritual’, Bro. Harry Carr, AQC 81, 1968, pp 153-279, In London, the year 1356 proved to have been a very important date. A great row had been in progress between the mason hewers and the layers and setters - the men who actually built the walls. The exact details of the quarrel are unknown but as a result of this row, twelve skilled master masons, some famous men amongst them, came before the mayor and aldermen at the Guildhall in London, and, granted official permission, were able to draw up a simple code of trade regulations. The opening words of that surviving document say that the men had come together because their trade had never been regulated in such form as were other trades. Here, in this document, we have an official guarantee that this was the very first attempt to establish a trade organisation for masons and its very first rule gives the reader a clue to the demarcation dispute. The ruled: ‘That every man of the trade may work at any work touching the trade if he be perfectly skilled and knowing in the same’. How might that be likened unto the wisdom of Solomon?
Within twenty years, the organization that had thus been set up became the London Masons Company - the first trade guild of the masons and one of the direct ancestors of Freemasonry today.