 It is inconceivable that a youth accompanied by some followers without any construction experience should have built a 900 m long stone arch bridge in an era when all experience and tradition of building large bridges had been lost and when all skilled trades were strictly controlled by the respective guilds.In that era, when neither banks nor banknotes nor demand deposits existed, the financial means for such a large project could be put up only by collecting coins or later on, indulgences.This kind of financing required the sustained initiative of persons interested in the project, typically the heads of the local trading houses, who got together in a "confrèrie" (corresponding to a present-day syndicate or citizens' initiative) in order to collect the funds over the prolonged period of time required for the execution of the project.