BY the general consent of architectural writers, the Cathedral of Cologne has been admitted to be one of the most beautiful religious edifices in the world. It is considered to be a perfect type of the old Germanic or Gothic style of architecture, and it has been deemed a central point around which have gathered the most important historical and artistic researches on the subject of the architecture of the Middle Ages.
So high did it stand in contemporary estimation, and so much were its builders valued for the skill which they had displayed in its construction, that, as Boisseree tells, the Master Masons of Cologne were often sent for to superintend the building of many other churches. Thus the continuation of the steeple of the Cathedral of Strasburg was intrusted to John Hultz, of Cologne. Another John of Cologne, in 1369, built the two churches of Campen, on the shores of the Zuyder Zee; and he adopted as his plan that of the Cologne Cathedral. The Cathedrals of Prague and of Metz were built on the same plan. In 1442 the Bishop of Burgos imported into Spain two stonecutters of Cologne to complete the towers of his cathedral.
To this prominent poison of the cathedral and of its builders in the history of medieval architecture must we assign the equally prominent position which has been assumed for it in the traditions of modern Freemasonry. The fabrication of that very popular, but altogether supposititious document, known as the “Charter of Cologne,” is to be attributed to the fact that at the date assigned to it the Masons of Cologne were considered as the chiefs of the craft, and there was some apparent plausibility in assigning to them the duty of convening a Grand Lodge, whose representatives were brought from every part of Europe.
The present Cathedral is the successor of two others. The first is said to have been founded by St Maternus, who was Bishop of Cologne in the 4th century. That edifice, if the account of it is not altogether traditional, and perhaps mythical, must have been constructed in the Roman method and by Roman artisans, for the city did not come under the control of the Franks until the 5th century.
The second Cathedral, the history of which is also very imperfect, is said to have been consecrated in the year 873. Of its having been burnt in 1248 there is no doubt. This edifice does not seem to have met the growing needs or the increasing pride and wealth of the church, for before its destruction by fire, Archbishop Conrad is said to have had plans prepared for the construction of a new one, which should surpass all existing churches in magnificence. And Archbishop Engelbert had designed to do the same thing twenty-five years before, but was prevented from carrying out his plan by his assassination in 1225.
The second Cathedral was burnt in the year 1248, and the new one was begun the same year. Larousse and some other writers state that the work was commenced in 1249. But Boisseree, upon whose authority one may securely rely, says that the foundation-stone of the new edifice was laid on the eve of the feast of the Assumption, August 14, 1248, by Archbishop Conrad, in the presence of the Emperor, Frederick II., and a concourse of nobility and ecclesiastics of every grade.
The solemn ceremonies which accompanied this event have been described at length by the historian of the Cathedral, Sulpice Boisseree.
The foundation-stone was deposited in the spot which was destined for the high altar, and where was temporarily erected a wooden cross.
After the preparatory prayers and canticles the Archbishop proceeded, with the assistance of the architect and by means of a chisel and mallet, to engrave the figure of a cross on the four angles of the stone. In the interior of the stone, in an excavation made for the purpose, was deposited an account of the ceremony, some images of saints made in consecrated wax, some coins, and other objects which bore relation more or less to the epoch of time in which the stone was laid.
Afterward the Archbishop blessed the stone, sprinkled it with holy water, and then delivered it to the workmen, who lowered it into the pit which had been prepared for it.
The Archbishop then descended, accompanied by several attendants, and after spreading some mortar with a trowel over the face of the stone, gave it a blow with a hammer and placed a second stone upon the first. The Emperor, the Pope’s legate, and several princes and nobles imitated the Archbishop, and the trowel and hammer passed from hand to hand until it came to the architect, while the choir chanted the 87th Psalm, beginning “His foundation is in the holy mountains.”
The work was continued until 1509. During that period, the labours were often suspended in consequence of the sanguinary contests which took place in the 13th and 14th centuries between the city and the archbishops. Hence at the beginning of the 10th century, only the choir and the surrounding chapels had been finished. In succeeding wars the building suffered much, and would at length have been pulled down had it not been for the active exertions of a Fleming, Gerhard de Saint Trond, who caused subscriptions to be made and the work was resumed.
The historical question, who was the architect that drew the plans and first presided over their execution has never been satisfactorily settled; while the fame of Erwin Von Steinback has been preserved as the architect of the rival Cathedral of Strasburg, the name of the surpassing artist who was the architect of that of Cologne has been, apparently, irrecoverably lost.
There is a legend in connection with this which if of no value historically, is of some interest as a romance.
The Archbishop had called upon the architects of Germany for plans for the construction of the Cathedral. Many were submitted, but none were satisfactory to the prelate, who rejected them all.
Among the rejected applicants was a young architect, who was so despondent at his want of success, that one day he repaired to the banks of the Rhine and there meditated suicide. But before casting himself into the river, he tried, but in vain, to draw a new plan.
Suddenly the devil appeared before him as a venerable old gentleman, in black, and offered him a plan which he promised him should be accepted, but would not give it to the architect except in exchange for his soul.
The youth daring neither to accept nor to refuse the offer, asked for a day’s consideration. To this Satan assented, and they agreed to meet again at the same place on the afternoon of the next day. In the interval the young architect consulted the Archbishop and the canons of the Chapter, and by their advice he repaired to the rendezvous at the appointed time.
The devil again showed the plan and renewed his offer of an exchange the parchment with the plan inscribed, for the soul of an architect. The youth snatched the plan out of the devil’s hand and placed it in his bosom beneath a relic of St. Ursula.
The devil, enraged, exclaimed: “This is a trick of the rascally priests; but mark me, the Cathedral, the plan of which you have stolen from me, shall never be finished, and your own name shall forever remain unknown.”
In the struggle to get possession of the plan, the devil’s claws had torn off a corner of the parchment, and thus mutilated the plan.
The young artist having attempted to invent something which should appropriately fill the missing part, and always, after many trials, failing to succeed, at length died of chagrin. His name has passed into oblivion, and the Cathedral, for six hundred years, remained unfinished.
The story of the unknown architect of Cologne and his unhappy fate, told in different way, has always been a favourite myth with the German poets. Thus Frederick Rickert:
“Der Maister, der’s entwarf
Baut es nicht aus, und starb;
Niemand mocht’ sich getraun,
Seitdem ihn aufzubau’n,
Den hohen Dom zu Koin.”
The Master who designed the plan did not finish it but died; no one since has dared to build it up; the lofty Cathedral of Cologne.
There are but two names that have been proffered as claimants for the honour of being the architect of the Cathedral of Cologne - at least there are only two names whose apparent merits are such as to have secured any sort of consideration. These are the celebrated philosopher, Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great, and a distinguished Mason known as Maitre Gerard.
Let us first dispose of the claims of the philosopher.
Albertus Magnus was born of an illustrious family at Laevingen in Swabia in the year 1193. At the age of sixteen he entered the Dominican Order, of which afterward he became the Provincial. Pope Alexander VI. appointed him Bishop of Ratisbon; but Albertus, having held the office for only three years, renounced the miter to reassume the cowl and retired to the convent of his Order in Cologne, and employed himself in giving public instructions in philosophy. He died in the year 1280 at the ripe age of eighty-seven.
Albertus’s knowledge of the principles of natural science were so far in advance of the times in which he lived, and many of his experiments were of so extraordinary a nature that he obtained, in a credulous and ignorant age, the reputation of being a magician, and many wonderful stories were related of his power in the occult art.
Thus, for example, it was said that he had occupied thirty years in making an entire man of brass, which would answer all sorts of questions and would even perform domestic services. Another legend relates that on a certain occasion he invited William, Earl of Holland and King of the Romans, who was passing through Cologne, to a banquet in the open air. It was in the depth of winter, and the whole face of the earth was covered with snow. The king, however, was no sooner seated at table, than the snow disappeared, the temperature of the air rose to that of summer and the sun burst forth with dazzling splendour. The ground became covered with rich verdure, the trees were suddenly clothed with foliage, with flowers and with fruits; vines presented clusters of luscious grapes to the company. The table was loaded with dishes of exquisite food which was served by a train of gracefully dressed pages, who came, no one knew whence. But as soon as the feast was over, everything disappeared; all became wintry as before; the snow lay upon the ground, and the guests, chilled by the sudden change, gathered up the cloaks and mantles which they had previously thrown aside, and hurried to the fires in the apartments.
Such an extravagant legend shows what was the reputation of Albertus among his contemporaries, who did not hesitate to ascribe to him the possession of an almost illimitable amount of learning.
It is not surprising therefore that to him in the uncertainty of who was the real architect, should have been ascribed the honour of devising the plans of the Cathedral of Cologne, especially since the erection of that stupendous edifice was commenced during his residence in the city.
To him, too, has by some writers been ascribed the invention of the Gothic style of architecture, of which the Cathedral of Cologne was one of the earliest and most magnificent specimens.
Those who have believed that he invented the plans for the construction of the Cologne Cathedral, have founded their belief on the profound symbolism of the plan, and on the supposition that Albertus was, according to the views of Heidelof, the one who restored the symbolic language of the ancients and applied it to the principles of architecture.
But this seems to be but the exchanging of one conjectural hypothesis for another. It would be as difficult to prove that Albertus was the discoverer of the principles of symbolic architecture, which certainly does constitute, or at least among the medieval Masons did constitute the distinguishing element of their style, as it would be to prove that he was the deviser of the plans for the construction of the cathedral.
If either of these hypotheses were satisfactorily proved, it would give much plausibility to the other, but, unfortunately, the required proof is wanting.
Hence Boisseree, who has carefully discussed the question, refuses to adopt the opinion which attributes the plan of the Cathedral to Albertus.
He does not believe that ecclesiastics alone were the possessors of symbolic ideas, but he is sure that an architect only could give expression to those ideas.
He therefore supposes that the plans of the Cathedral must have been devised by an architect. But Albertus Magnus, though justly venerated for his vast erudition, never practiced architecture, and could not therefore have made the plans or superintended their execution.
The other person to whom has been ascribed the honour of being the architect of the Cathedral of Cologne is one Maitre Gerard, or Master Gerard.
“Historians,” says Boisseree, “are silent concerning this Gerard, as they are concerning all other architects of the Cathedral. I, however, consider him as being the first of them and consequently as the author of the admirable plan which is not less bold than it is ingenious. If the plan had been furnished by another architect, we must suppose hat he died at the very beginning of the work, and this we have no reason for believing.
“There is still less reason for supposing that the plan was the production of some man of genius, versed in the knowledge of the art but not himself a professional architect; for the plan of an edifice so immense, of a composition so rich and bold, calculated with so much wisdom in its minutest details and with such a due regard to the execution, could have been invented only by an artist who, to great experience, added the most exact knowledge of all technical methods and the certainty of being able to realize in practice his happy conceptions.”
Hence it is that he declines to attribute the position of first architect of the Cathedral to Albertus Magnus, and assigns it to Master Gerard.
In the volume of the proces verbaux, or reports of cases of the Senate of Cologne, commenced in 1396, there is a list of the founders and benefactors of the Hospital of St. Ursule at Cologne, the name of Master Gerard is found and he is there described as the Werk-Neister von Dom, or “Master of the Work of the Cathedral”
The Livre Copial of the Chapter of Cologne is preserved, says Boisseree, in the archives of the city of Darmstadt. On page 92 of this book is a copy of a charter in which the Chapter grants to Master Gerard a spot of ground on which he had erected at his own expense a house built of stone, in consideration of the services performed by him.
As the date of the charter is 1257, which is only eight years after the commencement of the Cathedral, it is, as Boisseree has maintained, not probable that there had been an earlier architect who had died or been dismissed. And as the charter distinctly calls him a lapicida, a “stonecutter,” and designates him as the rector fabricae, “the director, or ruler of the Cathedral,” I think the question may be considered as settled that Gerard was the name of the first architect of the Cathedral of Cologne and that he was a Mason by profession.
As to the influence which this building and the artists, engaged in its construction had upon the organization of the fraternity of Stonemasons of Germany, historical records are silent, and we are left mainly to conjecture.
It is said by Winzer that Albertus Magnus altered the constitution of the Fraternity and gave them a new code of laws. But as at the same time, and almost in the same passage, he ascribes to the same person the deigning of the plans for the Cathedral, we may be inclined to give no more credit to the one assertion than we do to the other.
But as the Cathedral is one of the grandest and most elaborate of all the works of Gothic architecture, and as that style was, it is admitted, the invention of the Freemasons of the Middle Ages, we arrive at the legitimate conclusion that the workmen who were members of that Fraternity, which came into Germany about the 10th century from Italy, but of the nature of whose organization, of the customs they practiced, and of the laws which they adopted for their government we have no documentary evidence, until the 15th century, when we find the ordinances of the Stonecutters adopted at Strasburg in the year 1459.
We have documentary evidence of the existence of guilds in Germany before the middle of the 12th century. “At that time,” says Mr. Fergusson, “all trades and professions were organized in the same manner, and the guild of Masons differed in no essential
(1) Magistro Gerardo, lapicede (says the charter), rectori fabrice nostre, propter meritoriae obsequia nobis facta, unam aream latiorem et majorem aliis prout ubi jacet, et comprehendit magnam domum lapideam, quam idem Magister Gerardus propriis edificavit sumptibus, duximus concedendam, etc. particulars from those of the shoemakers or hatters, the tailors or vintners, all had their Masters and Past Masters, their Wardens and other officers, and were recruited from a body of apprentices who were forced to undergo years of probationary servitude before they were admitted to practice their art.”
(2) There is no doubt that this statement is substantially correct, although there were some important differences between the guilds of Masons and those of other crafts, to one of which (the nomadic character of the former) he subsequently alludes.
We have a right, therefore, to conclude that at Cologne, during the construction of the Cathedral, the Freemasons who were engaged in that labour were already organized as a corporation and had their regulations, usages, and laws, though they have not been preserved to us in a written form.
But as it has been observed by a writer on this subject, we have no reason to doubt the existence of such associations even before the 12th century, because we have no positive documentary evidence of the fact in the transmission of written constitutions; because it was not until they had succeeded in obtaining formal recognition, and when they were desirous of obtaining some special privilege that the necessity of a written Constitution was felt, so as to give it, as it were, a superior sanction.
Hence, though the Cathedrals of Cologne and Strasburg and some others of less graiadeux were begun in the 12th century, the earliest extant written Constitution is that of Strasburg, whose date is about the middle of the 15th century.
Whether these Statutes of the Strasburg Masons were enacted for the first time in 1459, which is wholly improbable, or whether they were only confirmations of other regulations, are questions which will be mooted in a subsequent chapter.
This much, however, I think has been determined as historically plausible, even if not historically demonstrable.
The most important essay of the Freemasons of Germany as a corporate guild, in the development of their peculiar style of architectural symbolism, was the Cathedral of Cologne. This fabric must then at that time have been the central point of German medieval Masonry. Nineteen years afterward the Cathedral of Strasburg was begun. Then it is probable that the jurisdiction was divided and both Cologne and Strasburg became the separate centers in Lower and in Upper Germany whence other bauhutten, guilds or lodges emanated.
In time, however, probably from the suspension of the labours on the Cologne Cathedral in 1509, that Cathedral was shorn of its importance as a Masonic head, (1) and the power and jurisdiction of the Fraternity was concentrated in the Haupt-Hutte or Grand Lodge of Strasburg, which in 1549 modified the old regulations and preserved them in the form of a written Constitution which has been handed down to the present day.
This decadence of Cologne as a Masonic power affords another argument against the genuineness of the Charter said to have been issued in 1535.
WHATEVER knowledge we can obtain from existing documents of the customs and regulations of the Stonemasons who wrought at the building of Cathedrals and other religious edifices in Germany during the Middle Ages, will be so much in the way of enabling us to understand the theory which derives the present institution of Speculative Masons from the Operative Masons of that period.
The two most frequently cited authorities among the German writers on the subject of these customs of the Middle Ages are Fallon in his Mysteries of the Freemasons as well as their only true Foundation and Origin, and Winzer in his work entitled The German Brotherhood of the Middle Ages.
These works contain much interesting matter, and the general conclusion to which the authors have arrived, as to the origin of the institution, are in accordance with the opinions already expressed in this work. But like some of our older English writers on the history of Freemasonry, Fallon especially has indulged in some speculations which are by no means calculated to increase our respect for his accuracy as an historian. Both these authors have, however, been freely and favourably cited by Findel, who is himself conservative and but little inclined to take any theory on trust.
The theory advanced by Fallon and Winzer is that the German Stonemasons were fraternities in possession of secrets which related to the craft or mystery which they exercised. They have sought to prove that the Freemasons of the present day have derived the ritual which they practice from the medieval Stonecutters, a point which I do not think that they have successfully maintained in its full extent. There is, however, undoubtedly evidence that certain words and signs have been handed down, but slightly changed, if changed at all in their transmission, to the Freemasons of this day.
Another point advanced by these authors is that the German Stonecutters borrowed their customs and laws partly from other corporations contemporary with them, and partly from the regulations of the monastic order, which becomes a very plausible theory when we remember the close connection which originally existed between the monks and the architects.
Their last proposition is that the English Stonemasons received their mysteries from the German Steinmetzen, a proposition which is, I think, only partly true, as the English Masons undoubtedly were reinforced from time to time by the accession of Continental workmen who came from Italy and France as well as from Germany.
I have always believed that the earliest of the old English Constitution, that namely, known as the Halliwell MS., is a translation from a German original, and is a pregnant proof of the introduction in the 14th century of German Stonemasonry into England.
A most invaluable aid to the scholar engaged in researches into the character of the medieval Stonemasons, is the work of George Kloss, entitled Freemasonry in its real meaning, as shown by ancient and genuine records of the Stonecutters, Masons and Freemasons.
In this work we will find details of all the known laws and written constitutions of the medieval Stonemasons of Germany and England chronologically arranged and so collated as to show the progress of the gradual transition from the Operative to the Speculative institution.
Kloss, as the result of his labours, comes to the conclusion that the Freemasonry of the present day is a transition from the Stonemasonry of the Middle Ages, and that no distinction can be maintained between the old Operative and the recent Speculative system, the old laws, usages, and charges being the same with but slight, if any, modern alteration.
Die Freimaurerei in ihrer wahren Bedeutung aus den alten und achten Urkunden der Steinmetzen, Masonen und Freimaurer, nachgewiesen,” Leipsic, 1845.
With some reservations, this hypothesis may perhaps be accepted in its second clause, and unreservedly in its first.
But the great value of the work of Kloss consists in the medieval German Constitutions which it contains and from which and from some other sources we may derive a competent knowledge of the usages of the German Stonemasons of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, which is the subject of the present chapter.
The two oldest Constitutions extant of the German Stonemasons are those enacted at Strasburg, in 1459, and those enacted at Torgau, in 1462.
The ancient laws of the brotherhood were first given a permanent form in the code adopted at Ratisbon on Easter day, in the year 1459, by the Masters and Fellows there assembled in the manner of a Chapter. This code of regulations was soon after ratified at Strasburg and then promulgated as the “Ordinances of the Stonecutters of Strasburg.” Heldmann published them in the year 1819 in his book entitled The three most ancient historical Memorials of the German Freemasons’ Brotherhood. They were subsequently published by other writers, but to Heldmann must be attributed the honour of first giving this important document to the public.
Heldmann tells the story of how it came into his possession. All, he says, who have written of the Cathedral of Strasburg speak of the old statutes of the Grand Lodge there, without imparting them to their readers, or, indeed, being able to do so, since they have always been carefully preserved under a triple custody. While passing through Strasburg in the year 1817, he took extraordinary pains to get possession of a copy of these statutes, but in vain. But he afterward obtained a copy of the Statutes of 1459 from an architect, who had caused it to be made during an accidental residence at Strasburg in the beginning of the revolution, and also got possession, through another architect, of a copy of the revised code of 1563. Bro. Osterneth, who was a member of the Grand Lodge of Strasburg, and who had in his possession a copy of the Statutes of 1459, collated it with Hedmann’s exemplar and authenticated the latter.
It appears, therefore, that the Statutes of 1459, as published by Heldmann in 1819, have the mark of genuineness and may be accepted as a faithful exposition of the usages of the Craft at the time of their adoption.
The Constitutions of Torgau are the next authentic document in the history of the German Fraternity of the 15th century. Torgau is a town in the Prussian province of Saxony, and has an historical reputation as being the place where the Lutherans and the Elector Frederick concluded a league. The Stonemasons, whose seat was there, had accepted the Statutes of Strasburg when first promulgated, but three years afterward thought it necessary to modify them to some extent, and therefore drew up, in 1462, a code of 112 articles, which are known as the “Constitutions of Torgau.”
A duplicate of these Constitutions was deposited in the Stonemasons’ lodge, or Hutte, at Rochlitz, in 1486. Steiglitz published, in 1829, a copy of these Constitutions in a work written by him On the church of St. Kunigund at Rochliiz, and on the Stonemasons’ lodge at the same place.
These two Constitutions, those of Strasburg and Torgau, are the only authentic statutes of the Stonemasons which are known, and from them only can we derive any reliable information on the subject of the usages of the Craft at that period.
We learn in the first place from these Constitutions that there were in former times unwritten regulations by which the whole Craft had been governed; that these regulations had been much neglected, in consequence of which dissensions and differences had arisen among the workmen, which evils it was the object of these Constitutions to avoid in future by the adoption of statutes for the government of those who should unite in the establishment of a fraternity.
In Germany, therefore, as we have seen, in England, in Fiance, and in other countries, the work of building was carried on by two distinct classes of workmen; one class who were not associated in a guild, corporation, or society; and another class who, by these Constitutions, had formed themselves into a brotherhood.
In the English Constitutions this distinction of classes is very forcibly expressed, and the Freemason who is a member of the Guild is forbidden to hold any communication with the layer, rough mason, or Cowan, all of which names are used to designate a Stonemason who has not been admitted into the Fraternity.
The German Statutes also show this distinction very clearly. “No craftsman or Master,” say the Constitutions of Strasburg, “who does not go to the holy sacrament shall be received into the fraternity,” and in repeated places they speak of “Masters and Craftsmen who are of the fraternity,” which, of course, involves the contrary proposition, namely, that there were Masters and Craftsmen who were not of the fraternity.
What were the peculiar ceremonies which accompanied the reception into the fraternity, or whether there were any such ceremonies or not, are questions that can never be settled in such a satisfactory way as we should desire all historical problems to be solved.
That there were some ceremonies it is natural to suppose; these Steinmetzen had architectural secrets at least, and admission into all secret societies is attended by some form of initiation.
Fallon asserts that it was imitated from the rite of consecration practiced by the Order of Benedictine monks. But we need authority to sustain the assertion.
Findel, in his History of Freemasonry, gives a very detailed account of the medieval initiation into German Freemasonry. I shall make use of his account of the ceremonies used on that occasion, without admitting that I am satisfied as to the correctness of every detail
The Fellow Craft, as we style him, the Gesell of the Germans, before he could be admitted into the fraternity was required to prove that he was born in wedlock, of respectable parents, and that he himself bore a good reputation, with due mental and physical capacity. He was then presented with his mark, which thenceforward he had to cut into every stone on which he was engaged.
I give the account of the succeeding ceremonies in the words of Findel, as translated by Lyon.
“On the day fixed the candidate went into the house where the assemblies were held, where the Master in the Chair had everything prepared in due order in the Hall of the Craft; the Brethren were then summoned, of course bearing no weapons of any kind, it being a place dedicated to peace, and the Assembly was opened by the Master, who first acquainted them with the proposed inauguration of the candidate, dispatching a brother to prepare him. The messenger, in imitation of an ancient heathen custom, suggested to his companion that he should assume the demeanour of a suppliant; he was then stripped of all weapons and every thing of metal taken from him; he was divested of
half his garments, and with his eyes bound and breast and left foot bare, he stood at the door of the hall, which was opened to him after three distinct knocks. The Junior Warden conducted him to the Master, who made him kneel and repeat a prayer. The candidate was then led three times round the hall of the Guild, halting at last at the door and putting his feet together in the form of a right angle, that he might in three upright steps place himself in front of the Master. Between the two, lying open on the table, was a New Testament, a pair of Compasses, and a Mason’s square, over which, in pursuance of an ancient custom, he stretched out his right hand swearing to be faithful to the duties to which he pledged himself, and to keep secret whatever had been or might be thereafter made known to him in that place. The bandage was then removed from his eyes, the three Great Lights were shown him, a new apron bound round him, the password given him, and his place in the hall of the Guild pointed out to him. The manner of knocking and gripe of the hand were and are the same as those now used by the Apprentices in Freemasonry. After the Master had inquired if any one had anything else to submit to the decision of the Assembly, he closed the proceedings with the usual knocks of the Stonemason’s hammer.
“At the banquet which invariably succeeded the reception of the candidate, which feasts were always opened and closed with prayer, the chief Master proposed to drink the health of the newly accepted Brother in the drinking-cup of the Brotherhood called Willcommen, to which the Brother replied by drinking to the welfare of the whole Fraternity. At that time, as now, and in all other Guilds, healths were drunk with three times three; the cup was taken hold of with a glove or pocket-handkerchief, the cover lifted off, and lastly it was carried to the lips; the cup was emptied in three separate draughts and replaced on the table in three separate motions.”
The minuteness with which these details are given makes them very interesting, but at the same time it makes them very suspicious, and we require to relieve our doubts with the full authentication of the fact, by contemporary documents which shall be just as full and complete in the detail, and this is a want that has not been supplied.
Some points, however, in this described initiation, are supported by satisfactory evidence, beside which we are enabled to draw legitimate conclusions from contemporary authority or relevant and connected circumstances which satisfactorily support and confirm other points.
Thus, that the medieval Masons, at least from the middle of the 15th century were a secret society, that is to say, an association of craftsmen, who were in possession of certain secrets that were imparted only to those who were members of the fraternity, and were withheld from all other persons, though they might be of the same craft, but who had not been made free of the fraternity or guild, is a fact that is duly substantiated by the ordinances, statutes, or constitutions, French, English, and German of that period.
Thus in the French regulations of Stephen Boileau it is said that Masons may employ as many assistants and servants as they please provided they do not show them any point of their trade.
The Statutes of Strasburg forbid any workman to instruct any one in any part if he be not of the craft.
And the English Charges impress upon the Mason to keep secret the counsels “of Lodge and Chamber and all other Counsels that ought to be kept by way of Masonhood.”
Now the fact that there were secrets to be kept by the association, necessarily required that there should be some safeguard imposed upon the members, by which they should be reminded of the importance and necessity of preserving their exclusiveness and their identity as a secret society.
But there could not possibly be a better method of securing such a safeguard than to impart to the admission of each member into the fraternity a deeply impressive character derived from the solemnity of a formal initiation.
That method has been adopted in all ages and in all countries, and the ancient formula: “Depart, ye Profane,” has been pronounced whenever secrets, however valueless, were to be communicated to an aspirant.
It may, therefore, be accepted as an undoubted fact, substantiated by direct allusions in the old Statutes that the medieval fraternity of Stonemasons or stonecutters was in Germany, as well as in every other country where they had penetrated, a secret society.
What these secrets were, presents an enterprising inquiry, but which must, however, be deferred to a future chapter.
That this initiation was accompanied by an oath or obligation of secrecy is not only a natural conclusion which we are authorized to deduce from the lessons of experience but is a fact thoroughly substantiated by the old statutes and regulations.
Thus in most of the English charges we have this sentence, curiously enough put in Latin, as if the administration of this ceremony was to be concealed under the veil of a dead language. “Then one of the elders shall hold the book so that he or they (the candidate or candidates) shall place his or their hands on the book. and then the charges should be read.”
In the Steinmeizen Ordinances of 1462 it is provided that when the Parlirer, or Warden, is inducted into office he takes an oath to the Saints. But it is very worthy of remark that this oath was not taken as in modern times on the square and compasses, but on the gauge and square. This would impugn the correctness of the description given by Findel that on the table was a New Testament, and on it a square and compass. The gauge and square seem to have been the medieval symbols which accompanied the book in the solemnity of the obligation.
There is no evidence of the existence in the Bauhutten, or lodges, of such a system of government as is found in the lodges of the Modern Freemasons, where as an invariable rule there are a Master and two Wardens.
But the regulations of Strasburg and Torgau describe an officer between the Master of the work and the Fellows or workmen who was called the Parlirer.
From these regulations it is very evident that the Parlirer performed many of the duties which we are accustomed to attribute in English Masonry to the Warden, and which have been figuratively commemorated in the symbolic duties of the Warden of a lodge of Speculative Masons.
Thus the Parlirer was to be present in the morning at the opening, and in the evening at the closing of the lodge, and he was with the craft at their noontide meal.
The Parlirer paid the craftsmen their wages, which was generally done at sunset of each day.
He is also supposed to have performed the duties of Secretary and Treasurer, that is to say he kept the roll of the members and had charge of the finances of the lodge.
The Parlirer was appointed by the Master, but in the appointment he was restricted by certain regulations. Thus the Strasburg Constitutions provide that no Master shall promote one of his apprentices to the office of Parlirer who is still in his years of apprenticeship. A similar rule is found in the English charge which says that “no Brother can be a Warden until he has passed the part of a Fellow Craft.”
Being thus invested with such important functions it may be supposed that the Parlirer was inducted into office with impressive ceremonies. We know that his installation was sanctioned by the administration of a solemn oath on the Gospels and on the twenty-four-inch gauge and the square.
In the Stonecutters’ Bauhutten of Germany, as in the modern Speculative lodges, the office of Master was one of paramount importance.
All the Fellows or journeymen who were employed in the construction of the same building constituted a single lodge and were under the government of the same Master. The Strasburg Constitutions are very express on this point and leave no doubt of the fact. Two Masters shall not share in the same work or building.” (1) An exception is made in the case of a small building which can be finished in the space of a year. In such a work two Masters might engage.
The Master was enjoined to keep his lodge free from all discord and to administer justice in it between the Fellows. For this purpose he was invested with absolute power to rule his lodge, provided only that he governed it according to the ancient usages of the Craft, and did not arbitrarily oppress the brethren.
In every district there was a lodge over which a Master presided, and over all these there was a still higher officer, to whom appeals might be made, where there was complaint of injustice or wrong.
These were the Masters who presided over the work -the Magistri Operis, Master of the Work, called in the German Constitutions, the Werkmeister. One of these heard both parties and appointed a day when the trial should take place, which was always in the place where the offense had been committed and before the nearest Master who kept the Statutes.
After an Apprentice had been promoted to the rank of Fellow, he was required, or permitted, to travel throughout Germany and to visit the most important towns and cities. The years employed in this pilgrimage were called his Wanderjahre - his years of travel.
During his travels the Fellowcraft was always received with kindness and treated with hospitality by every lodge which he visited. A formula of salutation and reception was prescribed by which, with certain signs of recognition and passwords, the stranger could make himself known to his brethren and secure a welcome.
When a traveling Fellow visited a lodge for the first time, in some town where he had arrived, he knocked three times distinctly, and on being admitted approached the Master, or in his absence the Parlirer, with three regular steps, all the brethren standing around.
The salutations of the traveling craftsman were such phrases as these:
“God guide you,” or “God reward you, Master, Parlirer, and all good Companions.” The Master or Parlirer having returned thanks, the Fellowcraft was submitted to an examination,” which satisfactory he received such assistance as he needed, either in work, or if work could not, then and there, be obtained, in money sufficient to supply his immediate wants and to send him on to the next lodge.
The regulations that relate to Apprentices are very explicit in the Strasburg Constitutions, much more so indeed than those of the English or Scottish Masons.
In the first place, no bastard could be accepted as an Apprentice, and the Master is directed to inquire earnestly whether the parents were duly united in lawful wedlock.
An Apprentice could not be made a Parlirer. On the same principle the English Statutes required a Warden to have passed the grade of Fellowcraft.
Apprentices, after they had served their years of apprenticeship, were required to travel for at least one year.
If one had served with a Maurer, that is to say with a common Mason who was not of the guild, and desired to learn still more of his profession of a Freemason he was required to serve three years as an Apprentice.
The term of apprenticeship was not to be less than five years.
An Apprentice who left his Master without sufficient reason, before serving out his full term of service, was put under the ban. No other Master was to receive him nor was any fellow to work with him, until he had returned and completed his time, giving satisfaction to his Master.
An Apprentice wishing to marry must obtain the consent of his Master.
Apprentices do not appear to have met with the same consideration in the German regulations as they did in the English and in the Scottish, where they are spoken of as constituting a part of the great body of the Craft, and seem to have been intrusted with many of the mysteries of the trade, since they are warned not to divulge them.
An Apprentice who believed that he had not been justly dealt with might appeal for redress to the Masters and Fellows of the district in which his lodge was situated.
But no one can correctly understand the usages and customs of the medieval Masons of Germany unless he has made himself acquainted with the Statutes enacted by the Assembly held in 1459 at Strasburg and modified by statutes subsequently enacted at other places and by various confirmations of the German Emperors.
Of all these laws, the Constitutions of Strasburg are the foundation, as they were the earliest written Constitutions. Like the old English Charges they were probably, for the most part, the committal to writing of usages which had prevailed long before. Their similarity to the English Constitutions, to the Scottish Statutes and to the French Regulations, prove, very conclusively, that all these laws were at one time peculiar to a Fraternity of Builders who existed at a much earlier period and from whom the Guilds or Corporations of Freemasons in all these various countries sprang as from a common stock.
As the reader has already been put in possession of the English, Scottish, and French Constitutions, it is proper, for a thorough comprehension of the subject of the connection existing between all the bodies of Freemasons that he should be able to compare those laws with those which prevailed among the German Steinmetzen.
I devote therefore the next chapter to a translation of the Constitutions of Strasburg, appending such marginal remarks as may be necessary for their elucidation.
THAT the Stonemasons of the Middle Ages had in their possession certain very important secrets, which they religiously abstained from communicating to any other Masons who were not of the fraternity, is a fact of which there cannot be a doubt. But to discover what these secrets were is a task that has puzzled the brains of more than one investigator.
We have seen that there were passwords, signs, and other methods of recognition which were established to enable the members of the Craft to make themselves known in strange places and to strange brethren, and which were simply matters of convenience forming the part of a system not peculiar to the Masons, but which has, in all ages, been practiced by every association of men who desired to preserve an exclusive organization.
But these modes of recognition did not constitute the secrets of the Freemasons, which bound them together as a united sodality having in every country the same aims and objects. Such secrets were of far more value and importance than any arbitrary code of signals adopted as a means of communication and mutual recognition.
The evidence is very patent, in all the old Constitutions and Regulations, that the Freemasons were in possession of secrets which the members of the fraternity were strictly forbidden to communicate to outsiders. Thus the Strasburg Constitution forbid any Master or Fellow Craft to instruct anyone who is not of the Craft in any part belonging to Masonry.
There was in the lodge a certain book which was kept by the Master under an oath that he would permit no part of it to be copied. It is evident that this book must have contained something besides the Statutes, because a book of mere regulations would hardly have been invested with such a character of sanctity.
But the earliest of the English Constitutions, that known as the Halliwell MS., is still more explicit on this subject. The third point - tercius peonctus - is an admonition to Apprentices to keep the secrets of the Craft which have been entrusted to them. He was to keep close the counsel of his Master and his Fellows; he was to reveal to no man matters which had been privately discussed (the prevystye of the chamber), nor what had been done in the lodge.
“The thrydde poynt most be severele,
With the prerites knowe hyt wele.
Hys Mayster cownsel he kepe and close
And bys felows by hys goode purpose;
The prevystye of the chamber tell he no man,
Ny yn the logge whatsever they done;
Whatsever thou heryst or syste hem do,
Telle hyt no mon, whersever thou go;
The cownsel of halle and yeke of boure,
Kepe hyt wel to gret honoure
Lest hyt wolde torne thyself to blame,
And brynge the craft unto gret shame.”
It seems scarcely capable of a doubt that these secrets were of anarchitectural nature. The architects and builders who invented the Gothic style of architecture, and built all the religious edifices of the Middle Ages, and who, as Mr. Hope says, whatever might be the locality in which they were placed, either north, south, east, or west, derived their science from a central school, must have been in possession of certain principles of their art, which they kept exclusively to themselves. From the most distant points whither these “Traveling Freemasons” might have wandered, they maintained, with their brethren of the Craft, a constant correspondence, and communicated to each other the minutest improvement in their art.
It was in the 10th century that the science of geometry is supposed to have first given its aid to architecture by the learned Gerbert, who from the archbishopric of Ravenna had been advanced, in the year 999, to the papacy, under the name of Sylvester II. Mosheim says of him that his genius was extensive and sublime, embracing all the branches of literature, but more particularly mathematics. His studies in geometry were so far beyond the attainments of the age in which he lived that his geometrical figures were regarded by the monks as magical operations, and he himself considered as a magician and a disciple of Satan.
To him Europe is said to have been indebted for the introduction of the Arabic numerals, which he brought from Cordova, in Spain, where he spent several years in acquiring the language and the learning of the Arabians.
I am not ready to subscribe to the opinion of some writers who suppose that the builders of the 10th century were placed in possession of the method of applying geometric science to the secrets of architecture. But I think it highly probable that by his learning as a mathematician he gave the first impetus to the study of geometry by the monkish and the lay architects of his times. This led to the application of the principles of that science at a little later period to the art of building, so as to develop into the system of geometrical secrets, which distinguished the builders of the Gothic style, or the Freemasons of the Middle Ages.
Lord Lindsay, in his Sketches of the History of Christian Art, significantly alludes to this possession of architectural secrets as an important element in the strength of these medieval Masons. His language is well worth quotation.
Speaking of the symbolic style of architecture - an architecture in which everything was made subservient to the expression of religious ideas by means of symbolism, which, beginning in Lombardy, had been diffused over all Europe, both north and south of the Alps -Lord Lindsay assigns the following as the cause of that diffusion:
“What chiefly contributed to its diffusion over Europe, was the exclusive monopoly in Christian architecture, conceded by the Popes toward the close of the 8th century, to the Masons of Como, then, and for ages afterward, when the title of Magistri Comacini had long been absorbed in that of ‘Free and Accepted Masons,’ associated as a craft or brotherhood in art and friendship. A distinct and powerful body, composed eventually of all nations, concentrating the talent of each successive generation, with all the advantages of accumulated experience and constant mutual communication - imbued, moreover, in that age of faith, with the deepest Christian reverence, and retaining their advantages unchallenged till their proscription in the 15th and 16th centuries -we cannot wonder that the Freemasons should have carried their art to a pitch, which now that their secrets are lost, it may be considered hopeless to attempt to rival.”
Mr. Paley, in his Manual of Gothic Architecture, touches rather tenderly on this subject, for he thinks that little or nothing has ever transpired of the secret system which the Freemasons adopted in building, nor of the organization of their body, except that it was ecclesiastical and under the jurisdiction and benediction of the Pope. He supposes, however, that there was some central school whence emanated all the rules which were developed in a positive identity of architectural details in the minutest points; or if there were no such school that the Master Masons went about like missionaries teaching these principles.
Elsewhere, in the same work, he becomes more explicit in respect to these secrets, and thinks that they consisted in an application of the principles of geometry to architecture. It is, he says, certain that geometry lent its aid in the planning and designing of buildings, and the methods of application were, he thinks, evidently “profound secrets in the keeping of the Freemasons.”
He expatiates on this theory and supposes that the equilateral triangle was probably the basis of most formations, as it is exhibited in a majority of pointed arches as well as in the vesica piscis, a prominent mystic symbol of the medieval Masons.
And this theory is greatly strengthened by the fact -which was probably not known to Mr. Paley, or at least he does not refer to it - that the equilateral triangle is one of the most important and significant of the symbols of the Speculative Masons, who indeed have founded most of their symbolism on geometrical principles borrowed from or suggested by the practices of the medieval Operative Masons, who were their predecessors.
Michelet, in his History of France, has some very profound remarks on this subject of the secret of the medieval Masons. He shows that it was geometrical and consisted in an application of the science of numbers, used in a mystical sense to the art of building according to the principles of Gothic architecture, which was the peculiar style of the Freemasons.
He illustrates this view from examples furnished by cathedrals built by the fraternity from the 11th century onward. His views are worth consideration.
He says that this geometry of beauty, as he calls it, is conspicuous in the type of Gothic architecture as exhibited in the Cathedral of Cologne. This is a regular body which ha$ grown in its appropriate proportions with a regularity equal to that of the formation of crystals. The cross of this church is strictly deduced from the figure by which Euclid constructs the equilateral triangle. The numbers 10 and 12, with their divisors and their multiples, were the numbers which guided and controlled all the measures of the edifice.
Of these, 10 was the human number, because it was that of the fingers;
12 was the divine number, being astronomical in its relations. To these 7 were added as the number of the planets. The inferior parts of the building are modeled on the square, and subdivided into the octagon; the superior are modeled on the triangle and are developed in the hexagon and the lodecagon.
The arcade, thrown from one pillar to another, is fifty feet wide, and this number is repeated throughout the building in some of its multiples. Thus the side-aisles are 25 feet, or one-half the width of the arcade; the facade is thrice its width, or 150 feet. The entire length of the church is three times its entire breadth, or nine times the width of the arcade. The breadth of the whole church is equal to the length of the choir, of the nave, and to the height of the middle of the roof.
The proportion of the length to the height is as 2 is to 5. Finally, the numbers of the arcade and the side-aisles are repeated externally in the counter-foils and buttresses. There are seven chapels of the choir, which is the number of the gifts of the Holy Ghost and of the Sacraments, according to the Catholic Church, and the choir is supported by twice seven columns.
This predilection for mystical numbers occurs in all the churches of the medieval period. Thus the Cathedral of Rheims has 7 entrances, and both it and the Cathedral of Chartres have 7 chapels around the choir. The choir of Notre Dame, at Paris, has 7 arcades. The cross-aisle is 144 feet long, which is 16 times 9, and 42 feet wide, which is 6 times 7. The towers of Notre Dame are 204 feet high, which, is 17 times 12, the astronomical number. The length of the church of Notre Dame at Rheims is 408 feet, or 34 times 12. The Cathedral of Notre Dame has 297 columns; but 297 divided by 3 gives 99, and this divided by 3 again produces 33. The naves of St. Ouen. at Rouen, and of the Cathedrals of Strasburg and Chartres, are of the same length, or 244 feet. The Saint Chapelle, at Paris, is 110 feet long and 27 feet wide, but 110 is 10 times 11, and 27 is 3 times 9.
In these few examples we have developed the numbers 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12, all of which have been retained in the mystical system of the Speculative Freemasons, and their appearance among the medieval Masons could have been neither by an accident nor a coincidence but must have arisen from a predetermined selection.
“To whom, then,” says Michelet, “belonged this science of numbers, this divine mathematics? To no mortal man, but to the Church of God.”
Under the shadow of the Church, in chapters and in monasteries, the secret was transmitted together with instruction in the mysteries of Christianity. The Church alone could accomplish these miracles of architecture. She would often summon a whole people to complete a monument. A hundred thousand men laboured at once on that of Strasburg, and such was their zeal that they did not suffer night to interrupt their labours, but continued them by the light of torches. The Church would often expend centuries an the slow accomplishment of a perfect work. Renaud de Montauban, for instance, bore stones for the building of the Cathedral of Cologne, and to this day it is still in process of erection. Michelet has found, in the geometrical proportions observed in the construction of religious edifices, a conformity to the principles of art laid down by Vitruvius and by Pliny, and thus in the Gothic style of architecture the Freemasons have preserved the traditions of antiquity.
Here, then, we see apparently another link in the chain which connects the Middle Age Corporations of Craftsmen with the Roman builders of the Collegia Artificum.
In defining the secret or secrets of the medieval Masons to have consisted in an application of the principles of geometry to the processes of building, M. Michelet has taken that view of the subject which is now very generally accepted by Masonic and archaeological writers.
Findel says that the secrets of the Stonemasons consisted of instruction in architecture and in mystical numbers; of these he says that 3, 5, 7 and 9 were especially sacred. But Michelet has shown that while the numbers mentioned by Findel were venerated, the numbers 10 and 12, or the human and divine numbers, were deemed the most important, and were the most used in symbolization. He says, also, that the colours gold or yellow, blue and white, were sacred as having especial allusions to the art.
The symbolization of colours, as well as of the implements of the Craft, which have been described by Findel and some other German writers, did not constitute any part of those secrets of the Craft the knowledge of which distinguished the members of the Guild or Fraternity of Freemasons from the common workmen, to whom these secrets were never communicated, and to whom they never could be imparted except by a positive violation of the Guild law.
It is therefore a matter of but very little importance - in fact of none at all whether M. Michelet is or is not correct in assigning to the Church the office of inventing the architectural symbolism which pervaded all the religious edifices of the Middle Ages. It is true that the Christian Church had scarcely emerged from the chrysalis state in which it had existed during the apostolic age, when dogmas were taught without figurative illustration, before it began to impress its religious instructions upon its disciples by means of symbols.
But as early as the 12th century, at least, the Freemasons had begun to cut adrift from their monastic and ecclesiastic connections, and had established themselves as an independent body of Craftsmen. It would be safe to suppose, as Boisseree contends, that both geometrical architecture and architectural symbolism were the invention rather of skilled professional architects than of monks or prelates who were not practical Masons. The Church, however, must have undoubtedly exuded some influence in early times in moulding the system.
At first, in the earliest periods of the rise of ecclesiastical architecture, the abbots and bishops, taking, as Fergusson says, some former building as a model, made their designs and verbally corrected its mistakes or suggested their improvements to the builder.
But afterward the professional architects and Masons usurped to themselves the task of designing as well as erecting the churches and other buildings. The methods of geometrical and mathematical construction became arcana, to be confined to the members of the Guild of Freemasons and to constitute those secrets, so often spoken of, which were lost at the dissolution of the fraternity.
The gradual disseverance of the professional Masons from their ecclesiastical relations, and the improvement in the science of architecture which - of course, developed that geometrical system which the wiser craftsmen kept to themselves - has been described by Mr. Whittington in his Historical Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France; and though what he says has direct reference to that kingdom, it can, with perfect correctness, be applied to Germany.
The ancient writers often mention instances of an abbot giving a plan which his convent assisted in carrying into execution, and this was certainly the case in the beginning of the revival of learning after the decadence of the Roman Empire, when the arts were almost exclusively cultivated by the clergy.
But it is equally certain that the ecclesiastics patronized the professors of the arts among the laity, and especially in the arts of building there were men of superior skill and intelligence who, being brought from distant places by the liberality of the prelates, were added to the common Masons and carpenters who were found in the different cities, and whose mere manual labour was made use of by the monks in the construction of religious edifices. This association, elevated by the intermixture of the superior intelligence of the more skilled workmen, and patronized by the authority of the Church, secured employment and protection. The members gradually increased in numbers and improved in science until, at length, they produced the most able artificers among themselves.
Thus it was that the builders were, about the 12th century, enabled to withdraw altogether from their dependence on, and from their connection with, the ecclesiastics. They formed that fraternity of Freemasons who were distinguished in every country where they appeared, from the common herd of craftsmen - the Maurer of the Germans and the “rough Masons” of the English -by the possession of important secrets connected with the art of building.
“So studiously,” says Mr. Halliwell, “did they conceal their secrets, that it may be fairly questioned whether even some of those who were admitted into the Society of Freemasons were wholly skilled in all the mysterious portions of the art.”
Doubtless in this, as in every association of men, must have been a diversity of skill and talent. But the fraternal spirit of the Craft led to a willingness on the part of the best instructed to supply the needs of their less informed brethren. Thus in one of the earliest of the old English Constitutions it is provided that if a Mason be wiser and more subtle than his fellow working with him in his lodge or any other place, and he perceives that he must leave the stone upon which he is working for want of skill, and he can teach him how to work the stone better, he shall instruct him and help him, that the more love may increase among them, and that the work of the Lord be not lost. A similar regulation will be found in the Constitutions of Strasburg.
Thus, though there were of course some workmen more skilled than others, and though they were strictly exclusive in confining their knowledge of the secrets of their art to their own fraternity, yet those secrets were freely imparted to every member who desired the knowledge.
The theory that the secret of the medieval Freemasons consisted in an application of the principles of geometry to architecture enables us to explain many things otherwise inexplicable in the old records of the Operative Masons and in the modern rituals of the Speculative Free and Accepted Masons. We are thus enabled to understand all the allusions made to geometry as the most important of the sciences and as the synonym of Masonry. Dr. Anderson, most probably with some old manuscript before him, the suggestions of which he followed, commenced the Book of Constitutions with a eulogium, not on Masonry, but on Geometry, which he declared was the foundation of Masonry and Architecture.
In the second edition of the Constitutions he says that the Masons always had a book in manuscript which, besides the Charges and Regulations, contained the history of architecture, in order to show the antiquity of the Craft or Art, “and how it gradually arose upon its solid foundation, the noble science of Geometry.” (1) The discovery since his time of many copies of this manuscript book of Constitutions confirms what he here says of the connection of Geometry with Masonry.
Elsewhere he writes in the same strain of Geometry and Masonry as identical arts. Thus he says: “No doubt Adam taught his sons Geometry,” and “Seth took equal care to teach Geometry and Masonry to his offspring.” But the best illustration in the work of Anderson, of the theory that the secret of the Freemasons consisted in the application of the principles of Geometry to Architecture, is his statement that Noah’s ark “was certainly fabricated by Geometry and according to the rules of Architecture.”
All the old English manuscript Constitutions maintain the same idea of the very close connection, and, indeed, identity, of Geometry and Masonry.
Thus in the earliest of them, the Halliwell MS., whose date is supposed to be about the year 1390, it is said:
“In that time through good Geometry,
The honest craft of good Masonry
Was ordained and made in this manner.”
In the Cooke MS., whose date is about a hundred years later, we are told that “Isidore saith in his Etymologies, that Euclid calleth the craft geometry.” In the York MS., of the date of 1600, we are still more distinctly told that “Euclid was the first that gave it the name of Geometry, the which is now called Masonry.”
But it is hardly necessary to multiply the instances in which the old Constitutions have referred to Geometry as the foundation of Masonry, or as an art indeed identical with it. All of these references to Geometry are but corroborating proofs of what has been already said, that the great secret of the medieval Masons consisted in the application of the principles of Geometry to the art of building by methods known only to themselves, and which they developed in the Gothic style of architecture which they invented. This secret perished with the dissolution of the Operative Fraternity, or by its transmission into the Speculative Association.
Yet this Speculative Association, the Free and Accepted Masons of the present day, have retained the memory of their descent from these Operative Masons of the Middle Ages by a sacred preservation in their ritual of a reference to Geometry as the “fifth and noblest of the sciences and the one on which the superstructure of Masonry is founded.”
The retention in the ritual of the letter G, the earliest and the most extensively propagated of all the symbols of Speculative Masonry, is an ever-present and a loudly speaking testimony in every lodge that the brethren there congregated have not forgotten that the great secret of their predecessors was a geometrical one.
Indeed, if there were no other proof that the medieval Freemasons did all their work according to certain principles of Geometry, the method of applying which was known only to themselves, and that therefore the science of Geometry was to them a most important and indispensable part of their Craft, and which entitled it peculiarly to the appellation of a “mystery,” a word applied indifferently to designate a trade or a secret.
But the very fact that these Freemasons were possessed of important secrets in reference to the art and practice of building, and to preserve their own preeminence, it became necessary that they should have some method of securing these secrets to themselves and of preventing the intrusion of strangers and workmen who were not of their guild or fraternity into a community of labour with them and the acquisition of any part of their mystical knowledge.
Now the only method by which these ends could be attained was that of a code or system of signs and words by which any one of these Freemasons could make himself known to the others, when he might be in a strange place, and thus secure to himself a participation in the benefits of the association. A form of reception or initiation would also, probably, be adopted, either for further security or for the purpose of giving solemnity to the admission of new members.
We have the best historical records to prove that modes of recognition were adopted for the purpose named by the medieval Freemasons, and that they had a form of initiation, though what that form precisely was I am disposed to think we are ignorant of, notwithstanding the authority of recent German writers, some of whom have pretended to give it in full.
The English and Scottish authorities - that is to say, the contemporary manuscript records -certainly supply us with no information on that subject, save that there was some formula of reception for an Apprentice, a Fellow, and a Master, the authorities indicating that the same formula was used on each occasion, or perhaps that one form of reception only was used, and on only one occasion. There is a great amount of obscurity on this subject which can be removed only by future investigations and by the discovery of more explicit manuscripts, which, if any such exist, have not yet been brought to light.
The German writers, however, have furnished from documents in their possession many almost minute details of the usages of the Traveling Freemasons of that country and which in the course of time must have extended into other lands.
In the Book of Constitutions of the Lodge Archimedes, at Altenburg, is contained an examination of a German Steinmetzen, which has been copied by Krause, by Findel, and by other writers, and which is declared by all of them to be a genuine document. I do not see any reason to doubt its genuineness and I give it as it has been published in Findel’s History of Freemasonry, with a few alterations or amendments, on the authority of Krause’s copy of the same document. When a Fellow, traveling in his “Wander Year,” or at any time in search of employment, arrived at a strange Huttle or Lodge, he approached, says Findel, by three regular steps, and knocking three times was admitted, when, the brethren all standing around, their feet placed at right angles, he saluted the Master, or in his absence, the Parlirer or Warden, with the following salutations, which were, “God greet you -God guide you -God reward you - Master, Parlirer and Fellows.” After some other mutual courteous greetings, the examination proceeded as follows:
Q. Worthy Fellow-craftsmen, are you a letter Mason (ein Briefer) or a salute Mason (ein Grasser) ?
A. I am a salute Mason.
Q. How shall I know you to be such ?
A. By my salute and the words of my mouth
Q. Who has sent you ?
A. My worshipful Master, the worshipful townsmen, and the worshipful Craft of Masons at N.N.
Q. For what purpose ?
A. For honourable advancement, instruction, and honesty.
Q. What are instruction and honesty ?
A. The customs and usages of the Craft.
Q. When do they begin ?
A. As soon as I have honestly and faithfully finished my Apprenticeship.
Q. When do they end ?
A. When death breaks my heart.
Q. How shall we know a Mason ?
A. By his honesty.
Q. What kind of a Mason are you?
A. A Mouth-mason (ein Mund-Maurer).
Q. How shall we know that ?
A. By my salute and mouth speech.
Q. Where was the worshipful Craft of Masonry in Germany instituted ?
A. In Magdeburg, at the Cathedral. (1)
(1)It was a tradition of the German Masons that they were first formed into a brotherhood at the building of the Cathedral of Magdeburg, which was commenced about the year 1211. Bishop Lucy, a few years before, in 1202, created a company of builders for the construction of the Cathedral of Winchester. Hence Findel suggests that they were most probably the founders of the Fraternity of Freemasons in England. We have no positive authority for this, but the coincidence of time is, at least, remarkable.
Q. Under what monarch ?
A. Under the Emperor Charles II., in the year 876.
Q. How long did that Emperor reign ?
A. Three years.
Q. How was the first Mason called?
A. Anton Hieronymus, and the working tool was invented by Walkan.
Q. How many words has a Mason ?
A. Seven.
Q. What are for the Words?
A. Riganische, Riganse, Rigaische.
Q. How do they run ?
A. God bless honesty.
God bless honourable wisdom.
God bless a worshipful Craft of Masons.
God bless a worshipful Master.
God bless a worshipful Parlirer (or warden).
God bless a worshipful Society.
God bless an honourable advancement here and there and everywhere, on the water and on the land.
Q. What is secrecy in itself ?
A. Earth, fire, air, and snow, through which to a Worshipful Master’s advancement I go.
Q. What do you carry under your hat?
A. A praiseworthy wisdom.
Q. What do you carry under your tongue ?
A. A praiseworthy truth.
Q. Why do you wear an apron?
A. To do honour to the Worshipful Craft and for my profit Q. What is the strength of our Craft ?
A. That which fire and water cannot destroy.
Q. What is the best for a Mason ?
A. Water.
Such was according to the Konstitutions Buch of the Altenburg
(1) Findel gives this last question and answer thus: “Q. What is the best part of a wall? A. Union.” There is certainly more sense apparently in this than in the formula as I have given it. Yet it is the language of Krause, who quotes the “Konstitutions Buch” in his “Drei Altesten Kunsturkenden,” and it is from him that I have made my translation. Lodge of “Archimedes of the three Tracing Boards,” the catechism or examination of a Freemason in the Middle Ages in Germany.
It is very evident that its only design was to establish a system of questions, the capacity of giving the correct answers to which were to prove the just claim of the person questioned to be a member of the guild. In this respect this catechism resembles that which was in use among the English Masons at the time of the organization of Speculative Masonry.
One of the answers in this medieval catechism presents the doggerel form of verse which is so common in the early English catechisms, and hence we find another resemblance. In the original German catechism we find this answer:
“Was ist Heimlichkeit an sich selbst?
Erde, Feur, Luft, und Schnee,
Wodunt ich auf eines Ehrbaren Maisters Beforderung geh.”
Which may be translated:
“What is Secrecy in itself?
Earth, Fire, Air, and Snow,
Through which to a worshipful Master’s advancement I go.”
This must strongly remind us of the doggerel verses in the English catechisms. So common indeed was this practice of doggerel versification in all the old rituals that its presence may be deemed a
proof of relative antiquity, as its absence would be a proof of want of genuineness. The long ritual of the Royal Order of Scotland, which is among the oldest of the High Degrees, is made up almost entirely from beginning to end of doggerel verses, which even for doggerel are for the most part very inferior in structure.
The secret words in this catechism are also worthy of remark. Of Rikanse, with its variations, it is impossible to trace the origin. The supposition in the Constitution Book that it is a corruption of the English “wriggle,” is too puerile for consideration. It is said that the number of the letters being seven is significant, and hence Krause, who admits that this is a mutilated word, thinks the letters may be composed of the initials of the names of the seven liberal arts and sciences. But this hypothesis is, I think, wholly untenable, and it must remain as another instance of the numerous irreparable corruptions of the old Masonic manuscripts.
Not so, however, with the other words in this catechism, Adon Hieronymus and Walkan. The former, evidently, is a corruption of Adonhiram, who, Krause says, has been confounded with either Hiram, the King of Tyre, or with Hiram Abif; I think most probably the latter, because the person described by that name in the Books of Kings and Chronicles is called “Adon” in some of the English Constitutions.
The word Walkan, evidently, is a corruption of Tubal Cain. Mossdorf thinks it was meant for Vulcan. But this is untenable. Vulcan is never mentioned in any of the old Masonic records, and it is not probable that the Freemasons were at all acquainted with this pagan god of blacksmiths. On the other hand, the old Constitutions had made them familiar with the name of Tubal Cain, whom the Legend of the Craft had placed with the other children of Lamech as the founders of Masonry.
We see, therefore, the close connection between the Steinmetzen of Germany and the Freemasons of England. They were both, evidently, branches of the same common body of artists, and had, if we may judge from these two words, the same legend.
The Altenburg Constitution Book asserts, indeed, that the forms of initiation and the ritual used by the German Stonemasons came originally from England.
This may have been so, though we have no direct or distinct proof of the fact. If it were so it would not militate with the fact that the other and greater secret of the Craft, that of building in the Gothic style and on geometric principles, came to both England and to Germany from the school of Lombardy and the Masters of Como.
We have thus seen that the Freemasons of the Middle Ages -the Steinmetzen, Stonecutters or Stonemasons, as they have been indifferently called, were in possession of and were distinguished by two classes of secrets.
One of these classes consisted in the possession of certain methods of recognition by which one Mason might know another, as the modern rituals say, “in the dark as well as in the light.”
Now this class of secrets is not of any historical importance, nor was it peculiar to the fraternity of Masons. At all times and in all countries, men, when they unite into a brotherhood for the pursuit of any special object, certain details of which they desire to conceal from the world, protect their exclusiveness and their secrecy by some method of signs or pass-words which will secure them from the intrusion of those who are not of their sodality, and are therefore to them as profanes. We have ample proof that those who practiced the Pagan Mysteries of antiquity had this secret method of protecting their ceremonies and the dogmas which they taught from the uninitiated.
“Every trade, art, and occupation,” said Harris, “has its secrets, which are not to be indiscriminately communicated to all who seek to obtain them without having undergone the necessary probation, and have not thus become members of the sodality, guild, or craft.”
The Freemasons of the Middle Ages did not, therefore, differ in this respect from other associations of a similar kind. Their possession of signs and words, by which they made themselves known to each other, is of no special importance in the history of the Craft, except insomuch as that if there can be shown to be any similarity or analogy between those used by the Freemasons of the present day and those which were practiced by the medieval Masons, we should have another proof of the descent of the former as a fraternity from the latter.
Such a similarity or analogy has, I think, been already shown in the course of our present investigations. The use among the German Stonemasons of such words as Walkan and Adon Hieronymus, which are evidently corruptions of “Tubal Cain” and “Adon Hiram” or “Adoniram,” together with some similar analogies among the English and the Scotch Stonemasons, render it very probable that the secret methods of recognition which were in use among the Stonemasons or Masonic Corporations of the Middle Ages, have for the most part been preserved, and are to this day employed by their successors, the Speculative Freemasons.
But the real secrets of the medieval Masons were those whose loss are still deplored, and whose importance is testified to by the fact universally admitted, that from the knowledge of them, and from their practical application, have resulted the magnificent architectural works of the Middle Ages, some of which, as the Cathedrals of Cologne and Strasburg, still remain, while of others, though time worn and dilapidated, the ruins still attest the skill and the taste (unsurpassed in modern times) of their builders.
These secrets, which were the application of Geometry to the art of building, intimately connect the history of Freemasonry with the history of Gothic architecture, and thus they acquire an importance far surpassing that of the former class, or the methods of recognition.
The use by the Masons of the Middle Ages of Geometry in the practice of their profession as architects gave rise to geometrical symbols, the preservation of many of which by the Speculative Freemasons of our day is another proof of the succession of the later from the older society, and is in this way again of great historical importance in the history of the institution.
The geometrical symbols which are found in the ritual of modern or Speculative Freemasonry, such as the triangle, the square, the right angle and the forty-seventh problem, may be considered as the debris of the “lost secrets” of the medieval Stonemasons. As these founded their operative art on the application to architecture of the principles of Geometry, of which they were wont to say that “there is no handicraft that is wrought by man’s hand but it is wrought by Geometry,” so the
modern Freemasons, imitating them in their reverence for that science (though not possessing the same knowledge of its principles), have drawn from it their most impressive symbols.
Thus we may easily explain the origin and the meaning of the phrase, “Geometrical Masons,” which was applied in the beginning of the 18th century to the Speculative Freemasons, who thus claimed to be considered as the successors of the Masonic Guilds of the Middle Ages, who had called themselves Freemasons and whose secrets were of a geometric character.
This claim, too often rejected or laid aide for the sake of seeking a more ancient but wholly mythical origin of Freemasonry, either from the Pagan Mysteries or from the Temple of Solomon, is rapidly gaining ground among the Fraternity.
It is evident that the Speculative Freemasons of the last century sought to strengthen the claim by applying to themselves the title of “Geometrical Masons,” by which they intended to distinguish themselves from the Operative Masons of their own time, just as the old Freemasons of the Middle Ages distinguished themselves, by the possession of geometrical secrets, from the “rough layers” or “rough Masons” workmen who were not entitled to be called, and who were not called, “Freemasons” because they were not freemen of the Guild, were not in possession of those geometrical secrets, and were not therefore admitted into the brotherhood.
There are, however, between the Speculative Masons, who date their organization from the year 1717, and the Freemasons of the Middle Ages some very significant differences and some equally significant resemblances.
The consideration of these differences and of these resemblances will come into view when treating, in another chapter, of the transition of Operative into Speculative Masonry.
FROM what has been heretofore said, the reader will readily perceive that there was a very close connection between the Freemasons of the Middle Ages and that system of architecture which has been called the Gothic style.
It is not my intention to enter into any elaborate discussion of the character and the origin of that style. Such a discussion would be irrelevant to the design of the present work, which is a history not of architecture but of Freemasonry.
But as it has been, by general consent, admitted that the Gothic style, if not absolutely invented by the medieval Freemasons, was exclusively cultivated by them as the style of the ecclesiastical buildings which they erected in every country of western Europe, during the period of from four to five centuries or perhaps more, in which they flourished as a well-organized fraternity.
Gothic architecture has, therefore, very justly been called the architecture of the Freemasons.
It has, however, received other names, some of which have less appropriateness, whether we look to the character of the style or to the history of its origin and its progress.
Sir Christopher Wren, indulging in the hypothesis that this style was introduced into Europe by the Crusaders, called it the Saracenic style.
He maintains his theory with great ingenuity, and I shall quote the passage from the Parentalia, at the expense of some repetition, because, whatever may be thought of the Saracen origin attributed to the Gothic style, we have the important testimony of this great architect to the guild or corporation character of the Stonemasons of the Middle Ages. We find the following passages in the Parentalia:
“The Holy War gave the Christians who had been there an idea of the Saracen works; which were afterward by them imitated in the West; and they refined upon it every day, as they proceeded in building churches. The Italians (among which were some Greek refugees), and with them Frenchmen, Germans, and Flemings, joined into a fraternity of architects; procuring Papal bulls for their encouragement and particular privileges; they styled themselves Freemasons, and ranged from one nation to another, as they found churches to be built.”
Britton, an architect of much reputation, rejecting the Saracenic theory of Wren, uses the term “Christian Architecture” in preference to Gothic, as more analogous, more correct, and more historical. He defines this phrase, “Christian Architecture,” as one “applied to all the classes of buildings which were invented and erected by the Christians, and which essentially varied from the Pagan architecture of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. It includes all the varieties of designs used in churches and monasteries, from the 6th to the end of the 16th century.”
Mr. T.G. Jackson, a professional architect, who has written a very readable little work on Modern Gothic Architecture, dissents from this view. He asserts that Gothic architecture was not exclusively connected with the system of the Christian Church, nor intended by its forms to symbolize Christian doctrine.
Gothic architecture is not, he says, the creation of any religious creed or doctrine. It is the offspring of modern European civilization. It is Christian, only because modern Europe is Christian. It is connected with the Church only so far as the Church enters into the composition of our social state as one among many elements.
But a previous admission of the author contradicts the theory which he has here advanced that Gothic architecture was not Christian architecture, except incidentally, and that its forms did not symbolize Christian doctrine.
“It is true,” he says, “that this style was at first nurtured in the Church,” and he assigns as a reason for this fact that “amid the turmoil and confusion of society during the 11th and 12th century it was only in the kindly shelter of the cloister that learning and the peaceful arts were able to live and grow; but it did not develop itself into a perfect style, it never shook off the traditions of that classic art from which it was derived, it never merged into an independent, energizing life, till the 13th century, when it passed from the hands of the clergy into those of the laity. Till then, all those great architects were clerks; since then they have mostly, been laymen.”
Now this admission is all that the most zealous advocates of the close relation borne by the Freemasons to Gothic architecture could require. It is not denied that in the earlier periods of the revival of art, the monastic institutions and the prelates of the Church, in whose hands were deported all the seeds of learning, and who were the architects of that period, cultivated, almost as a necessity, the classic style which they borrowed from the Roman artificers.
But neither the Gothic style nor the corporations of Freemasons existed. They both sprung into active life at the same time. Paley, in his classification, traces Gothic architecture in its different styles from the middle of the 12th to the middle of the 16th century. This embraces the very period in which the Freemasons of the Middle Ages present themselves as guilds or a fraternity.
It was then that architecture passed out of its classic form, whether you call that form Roman, Byzantine, Norman or what you please, and assumed that more symbolic form which has received the name of the Gothic.
This style, coming into existence at the very time that the lay builders had emerged from the control of the clergy, and established themselves as an independent body of architects with the organization of a guild and under the name of Freemasons, was, it can not be doubted, from the coincidence of time and circumstances, the invention of that Fraternity.
It may therefore be accepted as an historical fact, capable of demonstration, that the Gothic style of architecture was the invention of the medieval Freemasons.
And this style, so full of high art, developed in the profoundest symbolism, was that peculiar characteristic of the Freemasons of the Middle Ages, which distinguished them from the artisans of every other trade or profession, and in time when as a body of operatives they were dissolved, enabled them to transmute themselves into a Speculative association founded on the teaching of moral and religious doctrines by architectural and geometrical symbols.
We can not properly or fairly appreciate this medieval architecture if we confound it with the mere practice of building by laying one stone on another. The Freemasons, justly appreciative of the high aims of their profession, held themselves proudly aloof from the ordinary rough masons, who could do no more than build a wall or construct a house.
“Medieval architecture,” says Paley, “was the visible embodying of the highest feelings of adoration and worship, and holy abstraction; the expression of a sense which must have a language of its own and which could have utterance in no worthier or more significant way.”
So these Freemasons became the preservers and the teachers of the doctrines of their religious faith, and gave a moral in every sculptured form. Among their works, the moralizing Jacques might have well said that he could find “sermons in stones.”
The Freemasons of the Middle Ages, coming originally from Lombardy and extending over Europe in the 12th and succeeding centuries, thus applied to their works the taste and skill and spirit of symbolism which they had originally learned from their Masters on the borders of the Lake of Como. Congregating in the bauhutten, the hut or lodge which they had erected near the building about to be constructed by their skill, they devised the plans for the future edifice, which in almost every instance was one intended for religious purposes, for to nothing secular or profane would they devote their art.
Hence arose the monasteries, the churches, and cathedrals, which although now for the most part in ruins, present, even in wreck, such wonderful evidence of architectural beauty as to excite the admiration of every spectator, as well as the envy of modern artists, who have sought in vain to rival or even to imitate these old builders.
Speaking of them as the inventors of the system of architectural symbolism, Lord Lindsay calls the humble lodges in which they held their consultations and produced their designs, “parliaments of genius.”
They were possessed of wondrous skill in art, and were actuated purely by elevated religious thought. Yet have they passed away unknown save as component parts of that vast association which had spread over all civilized countries, and who laboured at the great works in which they more engaged with a noble abnegation of self. Of the wholly disinterested zeal with which they worked, Michelet cites one striking proof. “Ascend,” he says, “to the top -most points of those aerial spires which they were constructing, to heights which only the slater mounts with fear and trembling, and you will often find some masterpiece of sculpture, on which the pious workman had perhaps consumed his life, without the remotest expectation that the eye of man would ever behold its delicate, artistic tracing. On it there is no name, not a mark or a letter. He had worked not for human praise, but only for the glory of God and the health of his soul.”
An English historian has thus expressed a similar view of the self-abnegation of these old builders:
“The elaborate and costly ornaments which were lavished on architecture were meant to do God honour, though spending their beauties perhaps on some remote and secluded wilderness, to be witnessed only by the rude peasants of the neighbourhood and the birds that hovered about the pinnacle.”
Mr. Paley has been led to say, with great truth, that these ancient builders, working as a body and not as individuals, cared less about personal profit or celebrity than about the good of the Church, and hence he concludes that if they had intended only to please the eye of man they would not have let their finest works stand alone in the midst of the marsh and the moor.
The name of Gothic Architecture, applied to the style of building adopted by the Freemasons of the Middle Ages, is by no means suggestive of its true origin or character. The opinion once entertained that it was the invention of the Goths, has long since been exploded; and notwithstanding the various hypotheses that have been advanced at different times, it is now generally conceded that this distinct style was the system of building applied by the medieval Freemasons to the erection of cathedrals and other religious edifices.
Of this style, the distinguishing features are the pointed arch, long lancet windows, clustered columns, and a general tendency to vertical and ascending lines. Comparing it with the preceding styles, we see the whole contour and composition of building changed from the horizontal to the perpendicular, “we might almost say,” to borrow the words of Paley, “from earthly to heavenly, from Pagan to Christian.”
It began to make its appearance toward the close of the 12th century, and having been adopted, or more properly speaking invented by the association of Freemasons spread from Italy into France, into Germany, and into England, as well as every other country of Europe where these architects and builders penetrated.
Governor Pownall, toward the close of the last century, wrote a very able article containing Observations on the Origin and Progress of Gothic Architecture, and on the Corporation of Free Masons, Supposed to be the Establishers of it as a Regular Order, in which he admits that William of Sens had used the same style a century before in the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Canterbury, yet he asserts that the Corporations of Freemasons “were the first architects who reduced it to and introduced it as a regular order.”
He further asserts that the Corporation which existed in England was instituted by a similar corporation from abroad, and that all these corporations had been created by the Pope, by bull, diploma, or charter, about the close of the 12th or the commencement of the 13th century. This statement of the existence of a Papal bull bestowing certain privileges on the Freemasons has been repeatedly made since the date of Governor Pownall’s article, by other writers, who most probably borrowed his authority for the statement.
I think that it will be admitted that the Freemasons, who were at first exclusively ecclesiastics, and whose schools of architecture were originally established in the monasteries, were under the protection and patronage of the Church. But that any especial bull in their favour was ever issued, though not at all improbable, has never yet been established as an historical fact. Governor Pownall, anxious to prove the truth of his statement, caused application to be made to the librarian of the Vatican, and the Pope himself is said to have ordered a minute search to be made.
The search was a vain one. The official report was that “not the least traces of any such documents could be found.” Pownall, however, persistently believed that some record or copy of this charter or diploma must be somewhere buried at Rome amid forgotten and unknown bundles or rolls of manuscripts -a circumstance that he says had frequently occurred in relation to important English records.
Unfortunately, therefore, for the settlement of the historic question, it by no means follows, because the Roman Catholic librarian of the Vatican, a few centuries ago, could not find a bull granting special indulgences to an association which the Popes had at a later period denounced, that no such document is in existence. Besides the too common result of an unsuccessful search for old manuscripts which has occurred, and is continually occurring, to investigators, we have in this particular case the other factor to contend with, the policy of the Roman Church. That policy has always overruled all principles of historic accuracy. Hence in subjects over which that Church has had control, suppressed documents are of no uncommon occurrence.
This question of a Papal charter, therefore, still remains sub lite. Krause, for instance, on the supposed authority of a statement of Ashmole, which had been communicated by Dr. Knipe to the author of the life of that antiquary, admits the fact of Papal indulgences, while Steiglitz, accepting the unsuccessful result of the application of Pownall as conclusive evidence, contends for the absurdity of any such claim.
But whether there is or is not in existence such a charter, diploma, or bull, it is very evident from history that the Freemasons of the Middle Ages first enjoyed the protection and afterward the patronage of the Church extended to them by ecclesiastical chiefs.
THE art of building in the Middle Ages is presented to us by authentic history as being practiced by two distinct classes of workmen; first, the association of builders who have already been repeatedly described under the name of “Freemasons;” and, secondly, another class of workmen who were not members of the fraternity, though they were often in the cities incorporated as independent bodies.
Thus we find that in London in the 14th century, during the reign of Edward III., there was an incorporated Company of Masons who sent four delegates to the Common Council, and a Company of Freemasons, which being a smaller, and probably a more select body, sent only two.
The Strasburg Constitutions prohibited those who had been admitted as members of the Fraternity of Freemasons from working with any other craftsmen, evidently referring to other Masons whether incorporated or not, and who had not been made free of the Guild or Fraternity.
The old English Charges furnish the evidence that the same distinction of workmen existed in England as in Germany. For instance the “Mason, allowed,” that is, he who had been accepted by the Fraternity, is forbidden to instruct the “layer” by furnishing him with moulds or patterns for work. “Also,” says the York MS., “that no Master or Fellow make any mould, rule, or square of any layer nor set any layer (within the Lodge) or without to hew any mould stones.”
The date of the York MS. is about the close of the 16th century. But the same regulation is found in all the subsequent manuscripts. In the Landsdowne MS., however, as well as in the Antiquity MS., which appears to be only a copy of the Landsdowne, the word is Lowen. This is evidently a blunder of a careless or an ignorant copyist, who has retained the initial capital, because in it there could have been no chance of confounding it for C, but has changed the rest of the word layer, badly written most probably in the exemplar from which he copied, into Lowen.
The correct word is, therefore, layer; and from this regulation we learn that the division of the builders in the Middle Ages was into two classes: a superior one, who are always designated in the English manuscript Constitutions and Charges as Masons, and an inferior class called layers, and sometimes, as in the Alnwick MS., rough layers. In contemporary works of the same period, not Masonic Constitutions, we also find the distinction of free mason and rough mason, being no doubt the same thing as a stone layer in contradistinction to a brick layer, a craft which belonged no more than the carpenter to the great body of Masons.
Now what is the meaning of this word layer, which is to be classed among “the lost beauties of the English language,” being retained only in the compound bricklayer ?
There can be no difficulty in answering this question. In the Promptorium Parvulorm, the oldest dictionary of our language extant, which was compiled in the year 1440 by a Dominican Friar of Norfolk, and the latest edition of which was published in 1865 by the Camden Society, with copious and learned annotations by the late Mr. Albert Way, is the following:
“Leyare, or werkare wythe stone and mortere.” And the Latin equivalent given for it is Caementarius.
In classical Latinity, as well as in the Low Latin of the Middle Ages, a caemeniarius was a builder of walls, who handled the caementa or rough stones as they came from the quarries. St. Jerome, in one of his Epistles (53), defines a camentarius as one who builds rough walls of
caementa, or unhewn stones. A layer or stonelayer
In a work published in 1559, entitled “The Booke for a Justice of the Peace,” is the following passage: “None artificer, nor labourer hereafter named, take no more nor greater wages than hereafter is limited....... that is to say, a free mason, master carpenter, rough mason, bricklayer,” etc., fol. 17.
(the word “stone” being understood), which the Promptorium Latinizes by caementarius, was a rough mason whose business was simply to follow the plan of the architect, and in the erection of the walls of an edifice to lay one stone upon another, just as the bricklayer does at the present day with bricks.
Mr. Way has this interesting note on the word Leyare and its definition. in the Promptorium Parvulorum:
In the account of works at the palace of Westminster and Tower during the 14th century, preserved among the miscellaneous records of the Queen’s Remembrancer, mention is made continually of cubatores, (1) or stone layers. See also the abstract of accounts relating to the erection of St. Stephen’s Chapel in the reign of Edward III., printed in Smith’s Antiquities of Westminster. In this contract for building Fotheringhay Church, the chief mason undertakes neither to ‘set more nor fewer freemasons, rough setters ne leye®s’ upon the work but as the appointed overseer shall ordain.”
The same distinction between the two classes is preserved in a statute passed in the reign of Edward VI, anno 1548. It is then enacted “that noe person or persons shall at anye tyme after the firste daye of Aprille next conyngq interrupte, denye, lett or disturbe any Freemason, rough mason, carpenter, bricklayer, playsterer,” etc.
The appellation of rough mason, rough setters, or rough layers bestowed upon these workmen of an inferior class was derived from the German. In the Strasburg Ordinances ruh or roh is applied to an unskilled or ignorant apprentice. In the German rituals rohenstein is the rough ashlar. Richardson defines the word rough as meaning it coarse, unpolished, savage, rude, uncivil.” When the English Charges speak of a “rough mason,” they mean one whose work is coarse and unpolished, and who has not the skill in stonecutting, possessed by the members of the fraternity of Freemasons.
To the Freemasons, who were a brotherhood devoted to the erection principally of cathedrals and other religious edifices, every other Mason was looked upon with a species almost of contempt as rude and ignorant; he was called a rough Mason, and they refused to work with him or to impart to him any information which would assist him in his own work.
Now as to the higher class, called by historians the “Freemasons,” but who in the English Constitutions are always designated as “Masons.”
But in other documents of the Middle Ages we frequently meet with the word “Freemason,” used in a sense evidently denoting a particular class of artisans.
As early as the year 1350, in the reign of Edward III., of England, an act of Parliament was passed in which the wages of a Master Freemason are fixed at 4 pence and that of other Masons at 3 pence. This is the earliest date for the use of the word, but it was subsequently used in other statutes, in monumental inscriptions, and in old records, and always so as to indicate that the Freemason was of a class differing from other Masons.
Whence then comes the term, from what is it derived, and what was in former times its exact meaning? These are questions that have greatly exercised the minds of Masonic etymologists who have arrived at three very different conclusions.
The first of these conclusions, namely, that free in the word Freemason was originally Frere or Brother, which was prefixed by the workmen who used the French language to the word Mason, so as to make the word Frere Mason or Brother Mason, which was afterward corrupted into Free Mason, is mere etymological fancy hardly worth a serious refutation.
Paley says, quite dogmatically The name Freemasons is a corruption of Freres Macons, or fraternity,” and he quotes Dallaway as his authority for the opinion.
But Dallaway, in his Historical Account of Master and Freemason, has expressed an opinion the reverse of this. He admits that a passage in the Leland MS. authorizes the conjecture that the denomination of Freemasons in England was merely a corruption of Frere Macons, but immediately afterward he says, “but I am not borne out by their appellations on the continent,” and he gives their appellations such as Franc-Macon in French, Frei Maurer in German, and Libero Muratore in Italian. None of these titles could
of course have been translations of Frere, but must have been intended to convey, in each of these languages, the idea conveyed in English by the word Free.
It is strange, too, that Dallaway should have laid any stress on the Leland MS. as authorizing even a conjecture (admitted afterward to be unplausible) that Freemason was originally Frere Macon.
Now the word Frere Macon does not occur in the Leland MS. Only once do we meet with freres, in its usual sense of brothers or members of a confrerie or confraternity, a sense in which it is still employed. The word invariably used is Masons, or rather Maconnes and Maconrye. There is no mention of either Freemasons or Frere Macons, and nothing can be learned from it of the derivation or original meaning of the word Free.
But in fact the Leland MS. is now very generally admitted to be of no value as an historical document. Purporting to have been written in the reign of Henry VI., and by the king himself, it is now known to have been a forgery in the middle of the last century.
I think we may dismiss the attempted derivation of Free from Frere, as one of those allusions to which etymologists are unfortunately too often addicted.
Again it has been supposed that Freemasons were so called because they worked in Freestone, and because they were thus distinguished from other Masons, who were called Rough Masons, because they worked in rough stones. But for several reasons I cannot accept this derivation, although it is not as objectionable as the preceding one.
In the first place, if the name of the class was derived from the character of the stone worked, the proper words would be Free Stone Mason and Rough Stone Mason, and Free Mason and Rough Mason.
Again, Free Stone is not the apposite or antithesis of Rough Stone.
There is no relation, contradictory or otherwise, between them.
Free Stone is any stone composed of sand or grit, which, on account of its softness, is easily cut or wrought.
Rough Stone is any ston, no matter what may be its geological character, that is still in its native state, and has not been formed or polished by the hands of the workmen. A stone may be at the same time free stone and rough stone. The word juh or roh - English rough is used in the German Constitutions to signify unskilled or unpolished. An Apprentice is spoken of in them as being taken “from his rough state” (von Ruhem auff), which Krause interprets as “one still wholly ignorant.”
And so, also, the unpolished stone which we call the rough Ashlar, the German rituals name das rohen Stein.
By a “rough Mason” or a “rough layer,” the old English Masons meant a Mason who had not been thoroughly educated in the art, one who was ignorant of the principles and geometrical secrets which were possessed by the higher fraternity.
The etymology is, therefore, I think, not tenable, which would derive the two appellations Free-Mason and Rough Mason from the different geological nature of the stones on which the two classes worked. The Rough Mason often used free stone in building his walls, but he did not thereby become a Free Mason.
It must be observed that the word Free Mason is never employed in the English, German, or French Constitutions or Regulations of the Craft. There the simple word Mason or its equivalent is used. The appellation is to be found only in statutes and contracts.
But it is not to be supposed that the framers of these were acquainted with the fact that there was a distinction between the two classes founded on the possession of certain secrets. They simply intended, by the words “Free Mason” and “Rough Mason,” to recognize the fact that there were two classes of workmen, one of superior skill and superior station to the other.
But though the word “Free Mason” is not to be found in the Masonic Constitutions, it is evident that the Masons themselves had recognized it as a distinguishing title as early as the 14th century, because in the year 1377 we meet with the Company of Freemasons and the Company of Masons in the Catalogue of those which were authorized to send delegates to the Common Council of London. (2)
It is then evident that the word “Free” was employed, no matter what was its original meaning, to designate a superior class. I think it may justly be considered as referring to the fact that the persons called “Freemasons” were me of superior abilities, who, by being accepted into the fraternity, had become free of the guild or corporation. Masons who were not possessed of this amount of skill, and who were employed in labours of a less artistic character, were not permitted to work with these Freemasons - were not accepted into their fraternity; in other words, were not made free of the guild.
A writer in the London Freemason says: “Originally the Operative Mason was free of his guild, and probably we have in the word a remembrance of emancipation through honest labour in towns of those who were originally villani adscripti gleba” -serfs who were attached to the soil, and who could not be admitted to the freedom of the guild because the lord who owned them might at any time reclaim them.
In the earliest periods of the feudal system, before the municipalities began to assert their rights, the handicrafts were for the most part pursued by slaves. At a later period freemen also practiced the trades, but there was always a distinction between the free and the servile craftsman - a distinction which the Masons apparently retained after the cause had ceased. Krause says that these Masons were called Free because they possessed certain municipal privileges. These privileges, according to Hope, Pownall, and many other writers, consisted in the monopoly of building churches, cathedrals, and other religious edifices, and in certain franchises granted them by Popes and other sovereigns.
Dallaway, it is true, denies, at least so far as England is concerned, that any such privileges existed. “No proof,” he says, “has been as yet adduced from any chronicle or history of this country that as a fraternity or guild the Freemasons in England possessed or held by patent any exclusive privilege whatever.”
But if there is no positive testimony extant of patents or charters granting such privileges, the whole course of history, the phraseology of contract between Masons and their employers, the distinction made between the Freemasons and the Rough Masons in the matter of wages and many other incidental circumstances, clearly show that the Freemasons were looked upon as a superior class, and were in possession of certain privileges, social as well as professional, which were denied to the lower order of workmen.
A proof of the rank and estimation which Master Masons, Architects, or Freemasons held in society during the Middle Ages is to be found in the contract made in the year 1439 between the Abbot of St. Edmundsbury and John Wood, “Masoun,” for the repairs and restoration of the great towers “in all manner of things that longe to Freemasonry.”
In this contract, Wood, the Master Mason, is allowed “borde for himself as a gentilman and his servant as a yeoman, and thereto two robys, one for himselfe after a gentilman’s livery.”
Though in the English Constitutions we do not meet, as I have already said, with the word “Freemason,” yet its equivalent is found in the constant use of the phrase “Mason allowed” to designate one who had become a member of the fraternity; that is, who had been made “free of the guild.” But I have heretofore shown that the meaning of “allowed” is “accepted,” and therefore a Freemason was a Mason who had been accepted into the Fraternity.
The founders of Speculative Masonry, who in the year 1717 seceded from the operative branch of the Institution and formed the Grand Lodge of England, seemed to be aware of this signification of the word “Free,” as designating one who had been “allowed” or “accepted” into the fraternity, for they assumed for themselves the title of “Free and Accepted Masons.” In this way, they meant to put forward the claim that they were Freemasons who had been Accepted into the Fraternity. “Free and Accepted Masons” now denoted Speculative Masons, and by this title they distinguished themselves from the lower class of Operative Masons.
Just in the same way, when they were all Operatives, the higher class were called “Freemasons” to distinguish themselves from the lower class, who were known as “Rough Masons.”
Toward a perfect understanding of the true organization of the medieval Masons, it is not necessary that we should know the correct derivation of the word Free. It is not material to this purpose that we know whether it comes from the French frere, and consequently that the word “Freemason” signifies a Brother Mason; or from freestone, and that it means a Mason who works on that material; or lastly that it is derived from freeman and denotes one who had been made free of the fraternity.
All that is really material to be known on this subject is that there was always a division of the medieval builders into two classes, distinctly separate the one from the other; and that the Freemasons occupied the superior place, superior in skill, superior in the possession of certain privileges, and therefore superior in social standing.
There are, however, two points worthy of notice in connection with this subject.
In the first place, the word “Freemason” was confined as a descriptive term to the workmen of England. Neither this nor any equivalent of it is to be found in the Masonic documents of France or Germany. The words Franc-Macon and Frei Haurer, now so common in these languages, were not known until after the organization of Speculative Masonry in England and its propagation in those countries by the “Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons” established in 1717 in London.
The words Franc-Macon and Frei Maurer were never applied in any document, Masonic or non-Masonic, to any of the builders of the Middle Ages in France or Germany, as Freemason was in England.
The growth of those words in those languages appears to have been in this way. There were in England, as early as the 14th century, a class of skillful builders who excluded from their companionship all other builders whose standard of knowledge and skill was lower than theirs.
This exclusive and more skillful class were recognized in the statutes of the realm, in contracts made with them, in sepalchral inscriptions, in church registers, and in some other documents by the title of “Freemasons.”
In the 17th century, at least, if not before, the word began to be used by the Masons themselves as a distinctive appellation. Thus in 1646 Ashmole wrote that he had been “made a Freemason at Warrington,” and he calls those who had been just received into the fraternity, “new Accepted Masons.”
In 1717, when the Speculative Institution was established the founders adopted both the words “Free” and “Accepted,” and called themselves “Free and Accepted Masons.” In the “Charges published in 1723 in the first edition of the Constitutions, the word “Freemason” is adopted as the recognized title of the members of the Fraternity, being there adopted in place of the simple word “Mason,” which was used in all the Old Charges. Thus the Old Charge which forbade “Masons to work within or without the Lodge with rough layers,” reads in the Book of Constitutions of 1723 that Freemasons shall not work with those that are not Free.”
The title “Freemason” afterward came quite commonly into use. In 1734 a book was published called the “Free Masons’ Vade Mecum,” and it is several times employed in Masonic publications of that period. “Free and Accepted Masons” and “Freemasons” were then, as it appears from contemporary publications, terms adopted by and in common use immediately after what has been called the Revival, in the beginning of the 18th century.
Now when deputations began to be “sent beyond sea” to establish lodges in foreign countries - beginning with the Deputation granted in 1728 by the Earl of Inchiquin, Grand Master, “to some Brothers in Spain to constitute a lodge at Gibraltar,” succeeded very rapidly by others in Germany, Holland, France, and other countries -the title of “Freemasons,” which had been adopted by the Speculative Masons of England to distinguish themselves from the purely Operative Masons, from whom they had separated, was carried into these foreign countries by those who had been appointed under the various deputations to disseminate the system.
Necessarily the English word was in each of these countries translated by those who entered the Order into an equivalent word in their own language.
So “Freemason” became in Germany “Freimaurer,” in France “Franc-Macon,” in Italy “Libero Muratore,” and so on. In all of these it will be seen that the expression “Free” has been translated by a word that has no relation either to frere, brother, or to freestone.
Freimaurer, in German, and Franc-Macon, in French, like Freemason in English, conveys the idea of a freeman, who is a Mason; originally indicating a freeman of the guild, and afterward, and now, a man of a superior class.
For example, in the 17th century a Freemason was a Mason of great skill engaged in the deigning and erecting of cathedrals, as distinguished from the common workman, who only built walls and laid or set stones.
In the 18th century a Freemason was a Speculative Mason, engaged in the erection of a spiritual temple, as distinguished from the purely Operative Masons, who laboured without symbolism or philosophy at the construction of material edifices.
This same distinction into two classes was still more explicitly marked in the medieval Masonry of Germany.
If, for instance, we refer to the Strasburg Ordinances, we find a very distinct reference to two classes of Masons under various names.
The fraternity of Masons who were united together for the construction of Cathedrals and other religious and important edifices, was called the Craft of Stonework. Each member of this body is denominated in the ordinances either a Meister, Master, a Gesell, Companion or Fellow, or a Werkmann Workman, or, as it has been generally translated, a Craftsman. The word Maurer (in the old German, Murer) is the name given to those Masons of the lower class who in the English Constitutions are designated as rough layers. They were permitted to work only on inferior tasks, in cases of necessity.
Thus one of the ordinances of Strasburg provides as follows: If there be a need of Masons (Hurer) to hew or set stone, the Master may employ them, so that the employers’ work may not be hindered, and the men so employed shall not be subject, except with their own free will, to the regulations of the Craft.
But the exclusive position maintained by this higher class is distinctly expressed in the second of the Strasburg Constitutions in the following words:
“Whosoever wishes to be received into this fraternity as a member, according to these regulations as they are written in this book, must promise to keep all the points and articles of our Craft of Stonework, which consists only of Masters (Meyster) who are skilled in constructing costly buildings and works which they have been made free (have the privilege to erect). They shall not work with the men of any other Craft.”
The distinction between the Werkmann, or Freemason, and the Murer (Maurer), or Wall Builder, is expressly made in one of the Strasburg regulations which relates to Apprentices. It is there said that “if any one who has served with a Murer comes to a Werkmann to learn of him, the Werkmann can not receive him as an Apprentice unless he consent to serve for three years.”
But the Freemasons of Germany had another and a still more significant method of distinguishing themselves from the lower class of rough Masons; while these latter were known as Maurer, literally wall builders (for the German for wall is maurer), the higher class, the Freemasons, the men who invented and practiced Gothic architecture, called themselves Steinmetzen.
Now in German the verb metzen signifies to cut with a knife, a chisel, or any other cutting instrument.
A Steinmetz is, therefore, a Stonecutter - one who with the chisel cuts the stone into various forms or decorates it with objects in relief. On the other hand, a Maurer is a builder of walls - a mason who roughly sets or lays one stone upon another, without any reference to beauty of design or skill of art.
The Steinmetz, or Stonecutter, was the Freemason; the Maurer, or wall builder, was the rough mason or rough layer.
Now the adoption of this word Steinmetzen, or Stonecutters, by the Masons who invented Gothic architecture in the Middle Ages, throws a flood of light upon the history of Masonry at that period.
A Master Stonecutter was an honourable term, and whoever wished to become an architect had to begin by learning to cut stone.
The cutting of stone ornaments was not used before the 12th century.
In the early Norman work, says Parker, the chisel was very little employed. Most of the ornaments in the churches anterior to that period are such as could have been readily wrought by the axe, and could have been readily produced by stone hewers. Whatever sculpture there is appears to have been executed afterward, for it was a general practice to execute sculptured work after the stones were placed in position.
We do not find that the chisel was used, as it must have been, for deep cutting, and especially under-cutting, in any buildings of ascertained date before the year 1120. (2) Carving in stone occurred in Italy and the south of France at an earlier period; later in northern France and Germany, and still later in England.
This gradual extension northwardly of the art of stonecutting - the Freemasons’ art-confirms the theory maintained by Mr. Hope and other writers, that the Freemasonry of the Middle Ages arose in Lombardy and spread thence over the rest of Europe.
The monk Gervase, in his description of the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Canterbury, (3) tells us that in the old work there was no deep sculpture with the chisel. He says that in the old Cathedral, “the arches and everything else were plain or sculptured with an axe and not with a chisel.”
But when with their geometrical system of building the Freemasons had introduced the art of deep stonecutting with the chisel, they reveled in the art and the profusion of sculptured ornaments; most of them having a symbolic meaning, became wonderful in the churches and cathedrals which they erected.
Rightly, therefore, did the Freemasons of Germany, the builders of the great Cathedrals of Magdeburg, of Cologne, and of Strasburg assume the title of Stonecutters, and held themselves above the mere wall builders, who only hewed stone.
The Steinmeiz, or Stonecutter in Germany, like the Mason or the Freemason of England, was of a higher class than the Maurer or builder of walls, the rough Mason or the rough layer.
THE subject of Marks forms an interesting episode in the history of Masonry, both Operative and Speculative.
A Mason’s Mark is a monogram, a symbol, or some other arbitrary figure chiselled by a mason on the surface of a stone for the purpose of identifying his own work and distinguishing it from that of other workmen.
Mr. Godwin, in an article “On Masons’ Marks observable on Buildings of the Middle Ages,” published some years ago, has given, perhaps, the best definition that we possess of the true character of these Sculptural figures.
He says that it can perhaps hardly be doubted that these marks were made chiefly to distinguish the work, of different individuals. At the present time the man who works a stone (being different from the man who sets it) makes his mark on the bed or other internal face of it so that it may be identified. The fact, however, that in the ancient buildings it is only a certain number of stones which bear symbols - that marks found in different countries (although the variety is great) are in many cases identical, and in all have a singular accordance in character - seems to show that the men who employed them did so by system, and that the system, if not the same in England, Germany, and France, was closely analogous in one country to that of the others.”
He adds that many of these signs are evidently religious and symbolical, “and agree fully with our notions of the body of men known as the Freemasons.”
That there should be a purpose of identification so that the particular work of every Mason might, by a simple inspection, be recognized by his Fellows and the Lord or Master of the Works might be enabled to attribute any defect or any excellence to its proper source, was essentially necessary to constitute a Masonic Mark.
By observing this distinction we avoid the error committed by several writers of calling every device found upon a stone a mark, and thereby giving to the system of marks a greater antiquity than really belongs to it.
Thus it has been said by one writer that “Masonic Marks have been discovered on the Pyramids of Egypt, on the ruined buildings in Herculaneum, Pompeii, Greece, and Rome, and on the ancient cathedrals, castles, etc., that are to be found in almost every country of Europe.”
But the fact is that the inscriptions and devices found on stones in buildings of antiquity were most probably mythological, symbolical, or historical, being a brief record of or allusion to some important event that had occurred. If any of them were proprietary -that is, intended to identify the work or the ownership of some particular person - there is no evidence that any well-organized system of proprietary marks existed in that very early period.
Lord Lindsay, in his Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land, inserts a description of a square building or monumental chamber, near Baalbeck, given to him by Mr. Farren, Consul-General in Syria, which was covered with small marks, on which Mr. Farren makes the following remarks:
“It is very remarkable that the faces of this monument are covered with small marks cut on the stones - hieroglyphics I can not call them - they are too numerous to be accidental. I was convinced that they were not from the mere process of chiselling.”
On this statement, Mr. Godwin remarks: “Whether or not they were analogous to the marks under consideration (Masons Marks) I do not pretend to say.”
I can not myself doubt that they were not. The fact that innumerable monuments of the ancient East have been found covered with devices and hieroglyphics which the comparatively recent labours of learned mentalists and antiquaries have deciphered and shown to be mythological or symbolical, and very often historical would lead us to infer that those on the monument near Baalbeck were of the same character.
The sculptures on the Pyramids, which Lyon refers to as “Masonic Marks,” are really inscriptions, mostly.
Thus Mr. Ainsworth tells us that in the ruins of Al-Hadhr, in Mesopotamia, “every stone, not only in the chief building, but in the walls and bastions and other public monuments when not defaced by time, is marked with a character, which is for the most part either a Chaldea letter or numeral. Some of the letters resemble the Roman and others were apparently astronomical signs, among which the ancient mirror and handle were very common.”
Ainsworth’s description is too meager to supply the foundation for an hypothesis, but we are hardly warranted in ascribing to the Chaldean letters and astronomical signs the character of proprietary marks, such as those practiced by the Freemasons of the Middle Ages.
The sculptures on the Pyramids which Mr. Lyon refers to as “Masonic marks,” are, as we have reason for believing, inscriptions, mostly in the cursive character generally recording the names of the different kings in whose reigns they were constructed.
Again, the Messrs. Waller, in a work on Monumental Brasses, describe a monument to Sir John de Creke and Lady Alyne, his wife, at Wesley Waterless, in Cambridgeshire, about 1325, which is inscribed with a monogram or device consisting of the letter N, with a half moon on one side, and a star, or more probably the sun, on the other, and a mallet above. This is supposed to have been the device of the artist.
But the same is found on a seal attached to a deed dated 1272, wherein Walter Dixi, called Caementarius de Bernewelle, conveys certain lands to his son Lawrence. The seal has for its legend the words, S. Walter: Le: Massume.
Messrs. Waller think that the occurrence of a similar device in two instances seems to show that it was not an individual mark, but that it may have been the badge of some guild of Masons. On the contrary, the use of it as a seal on a deed of conveyance proves that it was a family device. It is probable that the monumental brass referred to above was the work of the son or grandson of the Caementarius or Mason who conveyed the land fifty-three years before, and whose family seal as well as his profession was retained by his descendant.
Mr. Godwin gives from the Gloucester Cathedral a mark or device in the form of a seal, consisting of a mallet between a half moon and a sun. This will give some show of probability to the hypothesis that this device was the badge of some early Masonic guild. But the interpolation of the letter would also tend to show that Walter Dixi had adopted the guild device with the addition of the letter, to form his own private seal, which he also used as his mark.
If this be so, then this would be a very early specimen of a proprietary mark. While, however, it presents the characteristic of a mark used to designate the personality of a workman who constructed the brass, it differs in its complicated form from the more simple marks used by the medieval Masons. The Messrs. Waller, whose theory was that it was the badge of a guild of Masons, say that this will suggest “that the same minds that designed the architectural structures of the Middle Ages also designed the sepulchral monuments.” Without accepting the truth of the premises there can be no doubt of the correctness of the conclusion. The same artistic skill and taste that were displayed in the exterior construction of churches and cathedrals was also employed in their interior decorations, sepulchral and otherwise, and the same class of artists were engaged in both tasks.
If the profession and the “seal of Walter the Mason” were retained, as we may well suppose, by his descendant, then we have the very best evidence that the sepulchral brass of Sir John de Creke and his wife were designed and constructed by a Mason, who used his family seal as his proprietary mark.
Letters, as initials of the names of the workmen, are repeatedly found among the medieval Masons’ marks. This letter N is met with on stones in the Church of St. Rudegonde, at Poitiers, in France, and in different churches in Scotland.
Mr. Lyon gives, from the Minute Book of the Lodge of Edinburgh, and Mr. Godwin, from personal observation of stones in the churches of England and the continent of Europe, many marks consisting only of letters, single and double, of which the following are specimens:
Besides this class of what may be called literal marks, being evidently the initials of the names of the workmen who inscribed them, there was a second class of marks which were geometrical, consisting of angles, curves, circles, and other mathematical figures. These were far more common than the literal, and have been found in great variety. The following are a few specimens taken from English, Scottish, and Continental churches:
The great prevalence of these marks, composed of mathematical lines, is a strong confirmation of the truth of the opinion entertained by Paley, Lindsay, and many other writers, that the secret of the medieval Freemasons was the application of the principles of geometry to the art of building. This secret, the magnificent results of which were exhibited in the great Cathedrals and other massive edifices erected during the Middle Ages in the Gothic style, has been lost to the professional or Operative Masons of the present day. But its influence is still felt by the Speculative Freemasons, who succeeded the Operative Lodges as organized bodies, and who, when they abandoned the operative art, or rather transmuted it into a science, still retained, so far as they possibly could, the relics of the older institution.
Hence we find these Speculative, or, as they called themselves, “Free and Accepted Masons,” made “right angles, horizontals, and perpendiculars” the basis of all their manual modes of recognition, and declared that “geometry was the foundation of Masonry.”
A third class of marks may be designated as the symbolical. And here I am compelled to dissent from the views of Bro. Lyon, who says that “there is no ground for believing that in the choice of their marks the 16th century Masons were guided by any consideration of their symbolical quality or of their relation to the propositions of Euclid.”
Symbolism, as a means of giving a language and a spiritual meaning to their labour, was a science thoroughly understood and practiced by the Masons who invented the Gothic style. Findel says that they symbolized their working tools, a custom in which they have been closely imitated by their Speculative successors.
The symbolism of the Gothic architects has already been sufficiently discussed in a previous chapter, and it is now necessary to advert to it only in reference to the fact that the symbols used by the builders in the ornamentation of the churches furnished them also with a fertile supply of marks.
We must not, therefore, confound the more complicated decorations used as symbols on the exterior and in the interior of churches, such as gargoyles, rose windows, cathedral wheels, etc., with the simpler forms of some of these symbols which were adopted by the builders as proprietary marks.
As these symbolic marks presupposed that those who adopted them to designate their work must have understood their meaning, it would not be a very bold assumption to believe that the use of them for that purpose was confined to the more intellectual portion of the workmen. The adoption of a symbol for a mark would, in general, indicate that the person who adopted it was one who had extended his studies to the highest principles of his art and had made himself conversant with the science of symbolism.
If this reasoning were accepted, we should then recognize another class lower in culture than the former and less familiar with the occult elements of their profession, though perhaps equally skillful in all its practical operations. Being therefore familiar with the method of applying geometry to the art of building, these workmen would be likely to select mathematical figures for marks.
Pursuing the same train of reasoning we would find a third and still lower class, far inferior to either of the two preceding classes in intellectual culture and having sluggish minds wholly uninspired by anything that was not purely practical in their profession. As they would be compelled, by the regulations of the guild or as they were guided by their own inclination, to distinguish the stones which they had wrought from those of other workmen, we might suppose that they would be content to achieve that object by using the simplest method that could present itself, which, of course, would be the initial letter of their name.
We would thus have, if we accepted this theory, an easy method of detecting when we inspected the stones of a medieval edifice constructed by the old Gothic Freemasons, not only the practical skill in architecture of the builders whose works have been individualized by their proprietary marks, but also the intellectual cultivation of each workman. This one we might say was high in art, for he had cultivated the symbolism which was its highest development; this one had not aspired so high, but had confined himself to its geometric formula; but this one was low in intellectual cultivation, with little if any identity or imagination, for he had contented himself with no more ingenious device to designate his labour than the simple sculpture of a letter of his name.
The acceptance of such a theory as this would, I confess, very readily relieve the antiquary from all the embarrassments which he encounters, in the attempt to explain the reason of this diversity in the character of the Masonic marks of the Middle Ages, and would enable him to explain why they are not all of one kind - not all monogrammatic, or all geometrical, or all symbolic.
Unfortunately, however, for the easy solution of the problem, another theory has been proposed by M. Didron, to which further reference will be directly made, which ascribes the monogrammatic marks to the higher class of workmen or overseers, and the bolic and mathematical to the inferior class of masons.
This theory is not untenable, because it is based upon the well-known fact that in the Middle Ages the art of writing was not so generally diffused as it is now. Many persons of high station were unable to sign their names, and there are instances where kings have affixed the sign of the cross to charters, assigning; as a reason pro ignorantia literarum in consequence of their ignorance of writing. Now, it is not to be supposed that the lower order of Masons were any better instructed, and as the use of initials would indicate a knowledge of letters, it may be inferred that only the more educated part of the fraternity used this method of making their proprietary mark, while crosses, angles, shoes, triangles, and other similar figures would be adopted by those who were unacquainted with the use of letters.
But reasonable and plausible as this theory may at first glance appear, neither it nor the former are sustained by the facts that are within our knowledge.
In Mr. Lyon’s most valuable work on the Edinburgh Lodge we will find several facsimiles of minutes of the lodge, in which are the signatures of the officers and members. Now, a careful inspection of these marks does not reveal any such arraignment as is indicated in either of the two theories, and, therefore, supports neither.
Let us take, for instance, a minute of the lodge in June, 1600. Here there are thirteen signatures and thirteen marks. Of these but one, that of the Warden, Thomas Vier, or Weir, is a monogram; the twelve others, all of them Maisteris, or Masters, are mathematical, or symbolical. Here we might infer that the chief officer alone used a monogram, which would, to some extent, sustain M. Didron’s theory.
But on the inspection of another minute of the year 1634 we find that the Deacon and Warden use initial letters for their marks, while Anthony Alexander, the highest Masonic officer in the kingdom, being the King’s Master of the Work, adopts a symbolic mark, a practice that was imitated by Sir Alexander Strachan, who had just been admitted as a Fellow Craft.
There is so much contradiction in these records, in reference to any appropriation of marks of a particular kind to distinctive classes of workmen, that we are compelled to leave the whole question “under advisement.”
It is, perhaps, a plausible solution to suppose that the choice of a mark being left entirely to each workman it became a mere matter of taste, and that while some were contented with a monogram or merely an initial letter, others, more imaginative, would select a symbol, or, if they were peculiarly mathematical in their notions, would take a geometrical figure.
It was probably only to one of the first class that could be truth-fully assigned the title borne by that skillful architect, who had been summoned from Germany by Ludovic Sforza to complete the Cathedral of Milan, and who, doubtless for his skill in symbolic architecture by which he gave to stones an instructive voice, was called Magister de vivis lapidibus-“Master of living stones.”
Four of these symbolic marks, which are of comparatively frequent occurrence, are the pentalpha, the double triangle, the fylfot, and the vesica piscis, which are delineated in that order in the following cut:
It is worthy of note that not one of these four marks here delineated are of purely Masonic origin. The first, which is the Pentalpha, is derived from the Greek, and was, in the school of Pythagoras, a symbol of health. Among the Orientalists it was deemed to be a talisman against evil, and is often seen on old coins of Britain and Gaul, where it is supposed to have been a symbol of Deity. It was finally adopted by the early Christians, who referred its five points to the five wounds of Jesus, and it is probable that through this character as an ecclesiastical symbol it passed over to the Freemasons, whose organization, as we have seen, was at first purely ecclesiastical.
The second is a Hebrew symbol and known as the shield of David, and sometimes as the seal of Solomon, and was considered by the ancient Jews as a talisman of great efficacy, because it had a recondite allusion to the Tetragrammaton or four-lettered, incommunicable name of God.
The early Christians adopted it and made the two intersecting triangles symbols of the two natures of Christ, the divine and human. Thence it became a favourite decoration of the Gothic architects and is to be found in most of the medieval churches.
The third mark, here delineated, is what is known as the Fylfot, or Mystic cross of the Buddhists. It is found in Egypt, in Etruria, on the Scandinavian Runic stones, and on British and Gaulish coins.
The fourth of these marks is known as the Vesica Piscis. The fish was universally accepted among the early Christians as a symbol of Jesus, and is found constantly inscribed on the tombs in the Catacombs. The fish was adopted as an emblem of Jesus, because the letters of the Greek word for fish form the initials of the words in the same language which signify “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.” At first, as it appears in the Catacombs, it presented the correct, though rudely drawn, shape of a fish. It afterward assumed the abbreviated form of an oval. In this latter form it was frequently employed by the Freemasons of the Middle Ages as a symbolic decoration, and the seals of all religious communities and ecclesiastical persons were made of the same shape.
Albert Durer, who was a distinguished architect of the 15th century, wrote a work on Geometry in which he says that the vesica piscis is formed by two intersecting circles which produce two pointed arches, one above and one below. It is probable that it was in reference to this idea, which was not confined to Albert Durer, that the pointed arch, the peculiar characteristic of the Gothic style, was suggested by the intersection of the two circles which also form the vesica, piscis, that the Freemasons adopted it as a mark, though its early religious origin would also sufficiently account for the introduction of it into church or Gothic architecture.
But the further discussion of these symbolic marks appertains more properly to a subsequent portion of this work which is to be specially devoted to the investigation and interpretation of Masonic symbolism.
Various other classifications of these marks have been made by different writers who have investigated this interesting subject.
M. Didron, who collected a great many of these marks in France, thought that they were divided into two classes, namely, those of the overseers of the works, the magistri operum, and the men who wrought the stones. The marks of the first class, he says, consist generally of monogrammatic characters and are placed separately on the stones; while those of the second class partake more of the nature of symbols, such as shoes, trowels, mallets, and other objects of a similar kind. Other writers have divided these marks into three classes, and suppose that some were peculiar to the Apprentices, others to the Fellows, and others again to the Masters.
There is abundant historical evidence, especially in the Ordinances of the German Masons, that Apprentices were sometimes invested with a mark, particularly when, for certain reasons, they were permitted to travel, before the expiration of their time, in search of employment.
But I do not find any authentic means by which we can distinguish from the appearance of any mark, or from any other cause, the marks which were peculiar to any grade, or by which we can authoritatively distinguish the mark of an Apprentice from that of a Fellow or Master.
Speaking of the traditional arrangement of marks into distinctive classes for each of the three grades of Masters, Fellows, and Apprentices, Mr. Lyon says that “the practice of the Lodge of Edinburgh, or that of Kilwinning, as far as can be learned from their records, was never in harmony with the teachings of tradition on that point.”
What is thus said of the Scottish Masons may, I think, be said with equal correctness of those of Germany and England. Indeed if, as will hardly be denied, the system of proprietary marks was originally derived from the German Masons, who perfected, if they did not invent, it at Strasburg, it is reasonable to suppose that the same or very similar regulations must have prevailed in every country into which the system was introduced. There might have been some modifications to suit local circumstances, but there would have been no radical changes.
We must, therefore, reject the theory that there was any distinction of marks appropriated to the three ranks of workmen. Certainly, at the present day, we have no authority for recognizing any such distinction.
There are, however, outside of any question as to the classification of the marks many circumstances and conditions connected with them which are of a highly interesting character.
In the first place, the antiquity of the custom among architects and builders of placing marks upon stones is worthy of notice. But in treating this question of the early origin and use of marks by builders, we must not forget the distinction, which has already been referred to, between such marks as were used simply as symbols, and intended to express some religious idea, and those which were adopted by builders to designate and claim the proprietorship in a stone, and which have hence been called proprietary marks.
There is the very best evidence, that of the stones themselves, to prove that symbols were sometimes represented by hieroglyphics, and sometimes by pictured representations of objects. The hieroglyphical inscriptions on the monuments of ancient Egypt and the emblems sculptured in profusion on the topes or Buddhist towers of Central India, though often resembling the more modern Masonic marks, are known to have been used only as the expressions of religious ideas. They were symbols and not marks.
The proprietary marks may, however, be traced as far back as the end of the 10th century, and are to be found upon the walls of the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice. As this edifice was constructed after the Byzantine method and by Greek architects brought to Venice by the government for that purpose, we may safely adopt the conclusion of Mr. Fort, that Masonic proprietary marks were first introduced into western Europe by the corporations of Byzantine Masons.
It is very probable that the use of Masonic marks at that period was regulated by a system similar to that which prevailed at a later time among the German Masons. But this can be only a matter of
conjecture. No regulations on the subject have been preserved, if any such existed. All that we can presume from the testimony of the stones themselves, is that as the design of these marks was to afford the means of distinguishing the work of each artisan, each mark must have been the exclusive property of the mason who used it.
It is not until the organization of the fraternity of Freemasons, which took place at Strasburg Cathedral in the 15th century, and the adoption of their Ordinances, that we obtain any documentary information of the mode in which the proprietary marks of the medieval builders were regulated.
The universality of these marks is another point in their history that is worthy of notice. By their universality is meant their prevalence in every country into which the Freemasons penetrated, and into which they extended their peculiar system of architecture. From the northern parts of Scotland to the island of Malta, we will meet with these marks sculptured on the stones of buildings which had been constructed by this brotherhood of builders. It is curious says Mr. Godwin, to find these marks exactly the same in different countries, and descending from early times to the present day.
The fact that in a great many instances identical marks have been found in countries widely separated, proves, as Mr. Godwin claims, in a passage already quoted, that the men who employed them did so by a system which must have prevailed in all essential points in all those countries.
M. Didron gives the following illustration of this fact. He found stones marked in the Cathedral of Rheims with a certain monogrammatic character, and the outline of the sole of a shoe; other stones with the same monogram and the outline of two soles, and others again with the same character and the outline of three soles. The use of the same monogram would indicate a close connection, perhaps in the same guild or lodge, while the variation in the number of soles would indicate that each of the marks belonged to a different person.
This mark M. Didron calls the shoe mark - a very proper designation. As he found the same shoe mark at Strasburg, and in no other place, he accounts very reasonably for that fact by supposing that certain of the workmen at Rheims had been brought from Strasburg.
Dr. Krause has given in his great work a plate of marks found in the church of Batalha in Portugal, and which he says are similar to marks found in a church near Jena in Germany. One of them of a rather complicated form is also to be seen among the marks recorded in the minute book of the Lodge of Edinburgh, copies of which are contained in Mr. Lyon’s History of that lodge.
Amid the immense variety of marks suggested to the mind of the Mason, by an unlimited number of objects, it is very likely that sometimes two stonecutters, living at remote distances from each other, might, by a mere accident of caprice, select the same object for the mark of each. This especially might happen in the case of figures well known, from some religious or symbolic use to which they had been applied. Such, for instance, were the pentalpha, the mystical vesica piscis, or fish, the shield of David, the square and compass, and others of a like import, which were familiarly known in the Middle Ages as religious symbols.
Hence the fact that any one of these figures is found to be inscribed on stones in two or more places, would not necessarily indicate that the same workman had migrated from one of these places to the others and carried with him his own peculiar mark. Two, three, or more Masons, living in different places and who had never seen each other, might each have selected, without reference to the others, so familiar a figure as the pentalpha or the fish, (2) for his proprietary mark. And this undoubtedly did occur, for we find these figures used as marks in buildings very remotely distant from each other, and sculptured at such different epochs as to make it impossible that they could all have been the work of one and the same man.
But, as a general rule, when we meet with the same mark in twoplaces, between which there may have been a possible connection, and at times not far separated, it is a legitimate presumption that the marks belonged to the same person, and that he had migrated from one place to the other and had carried his skill and the mark of his skill with him.
The method by which these marks were obtained by the workmen or bestowed upon them is perhaps the most important and the most interesting part of their history.
The knowledge of the Regulations of the Strasburg Masons and of the customs of the same fraternity in Scotland has been transmitted to us, and we are at no loss to describe the method of bestowing marks which was practiced in Germany and Scotland.
It is, however, singular that neither in the Regulations of Etienne Boileau in France, nor in any of the old Constitutions in England, is there the slightest reference to the subject of Masonic proprietary marks.
We learn, however, from the inspection of buildings still remaining, that the custom of using proprietary marks was practiced by the Masons in both those countries, and we may justly presume that the same or analogous regulations as to their government existed among the French and English Masons as did among the German and Scottish.
Among the German Freemasons of the Middle Ages, when an Apprentice had served his time he became a Fellow, and on being admitted into the Fraternity he received a mark, which he was to carve on the stones which he wrought, so as to identify his work.
The peculiar form of the mark may, we suppose have been selected by the workman, though the statutes speak of it as having been “granted and conceded to him by the craft or corporation,” and having been once selected or granted, he was never, as we learn from a clause in the Strasburg Ordinances of 1563, permitted afterward to change it wherever, in the course of his nomadic life as a wandering artisan, he might travel -into whatsoever region he might go in search of work, however distant it might be, he was bound to use the same mark in designating the materials which he had wrought.
Hence it is that we account, in a great many instances, for the repetition of the same mark in various places widely separated. Sometimes it might happen that, by a casual coincidence, two masons, in different places and wholly unknown to each other, would choose the same figure for a mark, but, as a general rule, especially where the mark was at all complicated or peculiar in shape, it would be right to infer that the stone so marked in two places must have been the work of the same artisan who had immigrated from one place to the other.
Thus, as it has already been shown, the “shoe marks,” as they have been called, which are very peculiar and complex, accompanied as each is by a monogram, having been found in the Cathedral of Strasburg and also in that of Rheims, it has been justly assumed by M. Didron that they were the proprietary marks of certain Masons of Strasburg who had been brought to Rheims and who continued to use there those marks of proprietorship which they had originally adopted at the former place.
From this necessity of identification, so that the stones wrought by one Mason might be easily distinguished from those which were worked by all the others, it followed that no two workmen who were attached to the same sodality or lodge ever selected precisely the same mark. There
were some forms, such as angles, crosses, squares, and triangles, which, being familiar to these geometric Masons, would naturally be suggested to the mind as appropriate figures for marks, and such figures were, accordingly, often selected. But in every case some modification of the original form has been made, which, however minute, has been sufficient to show a distinct difference, so as to easily enable every inspector to recognize it.
Thus of ninety-one proprietary marks copied by Mr. Lyon in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh from the minute-book of that lodge, no two can be found which are precisely alike. Yet it will be also found that certain forms seem to have been suggested to different minds, but, as has been already said, the original form has always been adopted, with some addition or change necessary to preserve its character and usefulness as a token of proprietorship.
Thus the figure of a lozenge with two sides extended inferiorly, which I am inclined to think was at first suggested by the vesica piscis given in a preceding page of this work, with the circle changed into straight lines for the greater facility of being carved on stone, appears to have been a favourite mark.
Of this mark I have found no less than eleven variations, all of them completely distinct, each from the others, and yet every one preserving evident traces of the original type. Of these marks the following copies are here inserted, taken from the two plates in Bro. Lyon’s work. The first is the original type, and it will be readily seen by inspection, how much and yet how little all the others differ from it.
This is a very striking instance of the manner in which these old Masons often fabricated their proprietary marks. One would select some popular and well-known symbol, and several others of less inventive genius would copy his design with some slight modification, or, in the language of the heralds, each would bear his mark “with a difference.”
And as the heralds invented and used these “differences” in coat armour, to indicate a descent of all the bearers from one common ancestor, so might we not, with the aid of a very little romance, suppose that the owners of these similar marks bore some close affinity by relationship or friendship and intimacy to the owner of the original type.
But this thought is scarcely worth pursuing, though the results of an investigation on this point would be very interesting if we had any authentic method of making it.
As a general rule, Masters and Fellows only were entitled to use marks. But in Germany there were certain circumstances under which the privilege was extended to Apprentices. Thus according to the Statutes of 1462, when a Master had no employment for his Apprentice, he permitted him to go forth in search of work, and on such occasions a mark was assigned to him.
But this was only a temporary loan to be used by the Apprentice while away. It was still the Master’s mark. Apprentices in Germany were not invested with marks during their Lehrjaren or time of apprenticeship.
This appears from the next statute in the same Ordinances, where it is expressly stated that “no Master shall be permitted to bestow a mark upon his Apprentice until he had served out his time.” It will be noted that in the former of these regulations which have just been cited, the verb “to lend,” verleihen, is used, and in the latter the verb is “to grant or bestow,” verschenken. The Apprentice might get the temporary loan of a mark for a special purpose, but under no circumstances could he be permanently invested with one. That prerogative belonged only to the Masters and Fellows.
It was different with the Scottish Freemasons. The Schaw Statutes, promulgated by William Schaw, Master of Work in 1598 and in 1599, had the same authority with the Masons in Scotland as the “Old Charges” had in England, the Ordinances of Strasburg and Torgau had in Germany, or the Regulations of Etienne Boileau had in France.
Accepting the authority of these Statutes we can be at no loss on the subject of marks. They say nothing about the marks of Apprentices, but they direct that on the reception into the fraternity of a Master or Fellow, his name and mark shall be inserted in a book kept for the purpose, together with the date of his reception.
But the minutes of Mary’s Chapel Lodge and of Kilwinning Lodge furnish ample evidence that the privilege of the mark was sometimes extended to Apprentices, that their marks were also registered, and that they paid a fee for the registration.
It is probable that a satisfactory reason may be assigned why the Apprentices in Scotland received the privilege of marks which, as far as can be learned, was not conferred upon them in other countries.
Apprentices elsewhere were always under the immediate control of theirMasters, and did no work independently and for which they were responsible to the owners, the Masters of course assuming all responsibility for the acts of their Apprentices.
But in Scotland, Apprentices were sometimes permitted to undertake work for themselves, and thus for a time they became as Masters, and were therefore, like them, required to have a proprietary mark.
Thus in the Schaw Statutes for 1598 we meet with this clause, which is here, however, transferred from the archaic Scottish idiom of the original to our modern intelligible vernacular:
“Item, it shall not be lawful for an Entered Apprentice to take in hand any greater task or work than will extend to the sum of ten pounds, under the penalty aforesaid, namely twenty pounds, and that task being done, he shall undertake no more without the license of the Masters or Warden where they dwell.”
Here the position of the Scotch Apprentice was similar to that occupied by the German, when the Master, having no work for him, permitted him to travel in search of employment and at the same time loaned him his mark; that is, gave him permission to use it and to inscribe it on the stones which he finished.
But the Scotch Apprentice was more liberally treated. His mark became a permanent possession, and like those of the Masters and Fellows was registered in the book of the lodge.
As to the formality with which the Mason was invested with his mark, the custom varied in Scotland and in Germany. What it was in England and France we can not tell, as no records touching this subject are extant.
In Scotland the registering of the mark as well as the name of the Fellow Craft appears from the Schaw Statutes to have been a necessary part of the form of reception. But it does not follow that he was at that time invested with it, for he may have selected it while an Apprentice, for the minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh show that any Apprentice might have a mark if he was willing to pay for it. There is no evidence that any especial ceremony beyond that of registration accompanied what in Scottish phraseology was called the giving, choosing, taking or receiving of a mark. In none of the Scottish records, says Bro. Lyon, is there anything pointing to a special ceremony in connection with their adoption.
The custom was otherwise in Germany. Findel describes the ceremony of reception, which resembled, in many respects, the modern form of initiation into the First degree. Of this rather impressive ceremony the investment with a peculiar mark constituted a preliminary part.
The Ordinances of 1462 prescribed that when a mark is presented there shall be a banquet given by the Master of the Lodge, to which a few ecclesiastics and not more than ten Fellows shall be invited. The cost of this feast was to be very moderate, and if the workman who received the mark, and in whose honour it was given, desired to have a larger provision, it was to be provided at his expense.
Dr. Krause, in commenting on this article of the 1563 Ordinances, says that everyone who was to be admitted a Fellow received at the time a mark which was to be peculiar to himself, consisting of straight lines and curves joined together in the form of angles.
According to Heldmann this mark was called the Ehrenzeichen, or distinctive mark of a Fellow, and that a copy of it was appended to the margin of the register or record of his admission.
Krause calls it also “Namenchiffer,” the cipher of the name, and adds, that with it the Fellow marked all stones in the making of which superior skill was employed.
“Hence we find,” he says, “in every country of Europe in the buildings which were constructed by Gothic art on single stones, and also on the outside of the edifice, such name, ciphers, or marks.”
Krause also says that at the time of giving the Fellow his mark, he probably also received a particular name.
But of this circumstance, which, after all, Krause relates as only a probability, I have met with no substantiating testimony in any other authority.
I am inclined to believe, contrary to the opinion of some writers, that there was but little or indeed no ceremony of any secret nature accompanying the bestowal of the mark. The only formality appears to have consisted in the giving by the lodge of a banquet.
But that there were exoteric ceremonies accompanying this is to be inferred from the fact that a few ecclesiastics were admitted among the guests.
The giving of a banquet by the lodge was also prescribed by the Schaw Statutes of 1599 to be given by and in the lodge on the entry of Apprentices and the admission of Fellow Crafts. But Mr. Lyon thinks that the custom was afterward abolished and the feast compounded for by a sum of money paid by the entrant to the lodge.
The Masons often made use of their marks as seals, and Steiglitz has given, in his work on Old German Architecture, several specimens of marks used as seals. We have already seen, in a preceding part of this chapter, that the mark of Walter Dixi, the English Mason, was adopted by him as a family seal and affixed as such to a deed of conveyance in the 14th century.
Lastly we have to inquire whether proprietary marks were hereditary. We have no evidence that there was any statute or Ordinance regulating this matter, but there can hardly be any doubt that in many instances the son voluntarily adopted the mark of his father. The case of the family of Dixi, just referred to, is an instance in point where a mark appears to have descended through at least three generations.
But a circumstance occurred during the Session of the Archaeological Association at Canterbury in September, 1844, which it would seem ought to set this question of the descent of marks by voluntary inheritance completely at rest.
It is stated in the Archaeological Journal that a member of the Association, believing that marks were quite arbitrary on the part of the workmen and had no connection either one with another or with Freemasonry, requested Mr. Godwin to accompany him to the Mason’s yard which was attached to the Cathedral. When there he called one of the elder men and asked him to make his, mark upon a piece of stone.
The man complied, and being asked why he made that particular form, said that it was his father’s mark and his grandfather’s mark, and that his grandfather had received it from the lodge.
Doubtless if the inquiry had been continued it would have been found that many other marks had passed from father to son. Indeed, nothing is more natural where the latter has pursued the profession of the former.
Our investigations have led to the following conclusions:
1. The existence of proprietary marks on European buildings may be traced as far back as the 10th century, and they were probably brought over at that time by the Greek artists who introduced the Byzantine style of architecture, for which the Freemasons afterward substituted the Gothic.
2. But it was not until the 15th century that we were furnished with any historical evidence that there was an organized system of laws by which the imparting, owning, and using of these marks was regulated. Doubtless such a system had been in existence long before, but its practice was regulated by oral and traditional usages, until old customs, having begun to be neglected or forgotten, it was found necessary to renew them by written Constitutions.
Hence it is in the German Ordinances of 1462 that we are to look for the first written laws regulating the subject of proprietary marks.
If we have no authentic documents which refer to this subject anterior to the 15th century, it is not because a system of giving and receiving marks, and a prescribed method of using them, did not exist anterior to that period, but because, to use the language of Bro. Findel, it was only when the ancient forms had begun to fall into disuse, when the taste for forming leagues and confederacies was on the wane, and when the true comprehension of the signification of the ancient ritual, usages, and discipline was beginning to disappear, that the Masons felt the necessity of reviving the ancient landmarks and of giving them authority by written Constitutions. Of these “ancient landmarks” not the least important was the use by Stonemasons of proprietary marks, and hence we find that regulations for their government were not revived or re-established, but transferred from oral tradition to a written document, so that there might be no defense or palliation of a disobedience or infringement of them.
3. As we find this system of marks prevailing in Germany, in France, in England, and in Scotland, as well as in many other places, we have a right to infer that as the marks were often of the same form, the same system of regulations prevailed in all those countries.
4. The marks were not arbitrarily selected, and liable to be changed at the fancy or caprice of the owner, but were only obtained after laborious study of the principles of the Gothic art and adequate proofs of skill; and having been bestowed with some formal ceremony, however brief, the proprietor was not permitted at any time or for any cause to change the form or character of the mark, but was obliged always after its acceptance to retain it and to affix it to all stones which he fabricated with superior skill and care.
5. These marks were sometimes monogrammatic, sometimes geometrical, and sometimes symbolic, but, notwithstanding some few writers have entertained a contrary opinion, there is no authentic evidence that the choice of the character of the mark was governed by any rules which bestowed the marks with either of these characteristics upon different classes or ranks of the workmen. Yet it is not improbable that some such rules may have prevailed, though there is no documentary evidence extant of their existence. It must, however, be confessed that the fact that in Germany Apprentices were permitted, under certain circumstances, to employ the marks of their Masters, would seem to indicate that there could not have been any difference in the character of the marks used by different ranks of Masons.
6. In some cases proprietary marks were hereditary, and there are instances known where the son or the grandson has assumed the mark of his father or grandfather. But there does not seem to have been any law making such hereditary transmission obligatory. If the son adopted the mark of his father it was because he chose to do so, and he might with perfect propriety, and most frequently did, select a different mark. All Statutes and Ordinances are silent on the subject. Very intimately connected with this subject of proprietary marks is that of the Mark degree, which, whatever was the date and the place of its origin, was undoubtedly founded on and to be traced to the usages of the Operative Masons.
The fact of the existence of this degree, which continues the usage of marks in modem rituals, is another important link in the chain which connects the Operative Masonry of the Middle Ages with the Speculative Masonry of the present day.
As such it is entitled to due investigation, and it will therefore be made the subject of the succeeding chapter, though the continuity of our researches into the progress of medieval Masonry will, by this course, be to some extent interrupted.
But I know no better plan than to let the history of Speculative Mark Masonry immediately and continuously follow that of Operative Mark Masonry. It is but the transfer from the treatment of a cause to that of its effect.
THERE is no stronger or more convincing proof of the connection between the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages and those of the present day, and of the regular descent of the one from the other, than that furnished by the existence in the modern rituals of a degree the ceremonies of which have been evidently founded on the system of proprietary marks which prevailed among the Stonemasons of Germany, and which passed from them into all the other countries of Europe.
If all the other authentic testimonies of the fact that about the beginning of the 18th century there was a transmutation of an Operative Art into a Speculative Science, were expunged from the record, the apparently extraordinary phenomenon that there exists in the latter, and in the latter only, a peculiar and extraordinary system, which also prevailed in the former, and in the former only, would be sufficient to warrant the conclusion that there must have been a very intimate relation between the two associations with which this system was connected.
Therefore, as a connecting link of that great chain which, beginning with the Roman Colleges of Artificers, extended to the early Masons of Gaul and Britain to the Travelling Freemasons of Lombardy and Germany, and finally terminated in the Free and Accepted Masons of modern times, a thorough consideration of the rise and progress of the Mark degree must be deemed essential to the completeness of any work on the history of Freemasonry.
In pursuing this investigation it will be necessary to inquire, firstly, what is the position of the Mark degree in the modern rituals; secondly, what is its character and legendary history; and, thirdly, what was its real historical origin as distinguished from the mythical account of its fabrication, as it is given in its legends.
To an investigation of these important and, to the student of Masonic Antiquities, interesting, points, the present chapter will be devoted.
The Mark degree, or to define it more accurately according to the received phraseology, the degree of Mark Master, constitutes the fourth degree or the first of what are called the capitular degrees in the American Rite as it is practiced in the United States. In Scotland and Ireland it is a degree recognized under the jurisdiction of the Grand Chapter. In England it is not recognized by the Grand Lodge. The articles of Union, adopted in 1813, defined Ancient Craft Masonry to consist only of the first three degrees, including the Royal Arch. Hence, there being no place provided for the Mark degree, it was ignored in English Masonry until its introduction a few years ago, when it was placed under an independent jurisdiction called the Mark Grand Lodge, a body which was established in 1856.
On the Continent of Europe and in all countries the Freemasonry of which is not delved immediately from and is in intimate connection with the Masonry of England and America, the Mark degree is entirely unknown. There is not in any of the German, French, Italian, or Spanish rituals the slightest allusion to it.
In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite the Mark degree at one time held a distinct position, though it has ever since the beginning of this century or the close of the last, been stricken from its ritual. Of this fact there is undeniable proof.
I have in my possession an original Warrant or charter, granted in the year 1804 by the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem to American Eagle Master Mark Masons’ Lodge No. 1, in Charleston, South Carolina, and there is in the archives of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, the ritual of the degree as at the time conferred, which appears to have been only on Past Master Masons of the Scottish Rite who were recognized by the possession of Scottish degrees as Past Masters.
There is no evidence, however, that other lodges were established by the same authority. At least no other Charters have to my knowledge been discovered.
At the time of the establishment of the Supreme Council at Charleston, in 1801, the jurisdiction over the degree had probably been assumed by the Scottish Rite Masons, for the Warrant just mentioned was granted by the Council of Princes of Jerusalem, which was a body subordinate to the Supreme Council.
At the present time the Mark degree constitutes a part of the Rite practiced in the United States, and is under the jurisdiction of the Grand Chapter, being the fourth of the capitular degrees.
Up to nearly the middle of the present century the degree was conferred sometimes in a lodge working under the Warrant granted by the Grand Chapter to a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, and sometimes in a Mark Masters’ lodge working under a special and distinct charter from the Grand Chapter. But in 1853 this system was abolished by the General Grand Chapter, and independent Mark Masters’ lodges no longer exist in America.
In Scotland, after the transition of Operative into Speculative Masonry, the Mark degree was worked originally by a few lodges under their Craft Warrant, and it was then conferred as an appendage to the Fellow-Craft degree. This was done as late as 1860, by a lodge at Glasgow, which action, however, attracted the notice of the Grand Chapter, and having in conference with the Grand Lodge thoroughly investigated the subject, the following report was made, which as giving a summary of the rise and progress of the degree in Scotland, and of the changes of position to which it was subjected, is well worthy of quotation.
In this report it was unanimously agreed by the Committee of Conference “that what is generally known under the name of the Mark Master’s degree was wrought by the Operative lodges of St. John’s Masonry in connection with the Fellow-Craft degree before the institution of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. That since that date it has continued to be wrought in the Old Operative lodges, but in what may be called the Speculative lodges, it was never worked at all - or at all events only in a very few. That this degree being, with the exception of the Old Operative lodges above mentioned, entirely abandoned by the lodges of St. John’s Masonry, the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter assumed the management of it as the Fourth degree of Masonry, in order to complete the instruction of their candidates in the preliminary degrees, before admitting them to the Royal Arch. And, finally, that this degree, whether viewed as a second part of the Fellow-Craft degree or as a separate degree, has never been recognized or worked in England, Ireland, or the Continent, or in America, as a part of St. John’s Masonry.”
It was also stated by a delegate of the Grand Lodge of Scotland at a conference on the subject of the Mark degree, held at London in 1871, that long anterior to the institution of the Grand Lodge of Scotland two classes of lodges existed in that kingdom; namely, those which worked only the First and Second degrees and of which the Mark Master or Overseer was Master, and those which worked the First, Second, and Third degrees, over which the Master Mason presided.
In both of these statements there are errors in respect to the Mark degree, which have been corrected by subsequent investigations. Bro. Lyon, whose authority on this subject is unquestionable, says that the statements in regard to an organization for conferring the Mark under Mark Masters or Overseers are unsupported by any existing records. The lodges previous to the 18th century “knew nothing of the degrees of Mark Men, Mark Master, or Master Mason.”
As a degree of Masonry, in the sense which we give to the word degree, the system of Mark Masonry was wholly unknown to the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages. It has been shown that in Germany every Apprentice who had served his time, on being admitted as a Fellow Craft received a Mark, which was to be his unchangeably during his life. The reception of this was generally accompanied by a banquet, furnished to a certain extent of expenditure by the lodge which admitted him; but there is not the slightest allusion in any document extant to the fact that the bestowal of the mark was accompanied by esoteric ceremonies which would give it the slightest resemblance to a degree.
In Scotland the Statutes of William Schaw required all Fellows and sometimes Apprentices, to select their marks, which were to be recorded, and a fee was paid for their registration; but as Bro. Lyon says, there is not anything in the records of the period which points to a special ceremony in connection with their adoption.
In England preceding the middle of the 18th century we have nothing in reference to marks in the Old Charges or to the Mark degree in the minutes of lodges, either in Operative or Speculative Masonry.
We are indebted to Bro. Hughan, that indefatigable investigator, for the earliest authentic record we possess of the existence of the Mark degree in Scotland. It is contained in an extract from the minutes of the Operative lodge at Banff, the date of which is January 7, 1778. The minute is in the following words:
“That in time coming all members that shall hereafter raise to the degree of Mark Mason, shall pay one mark Scots, but not to obtain the degree of Mark Mason before they are passed Fellow-Craft. And those that shall take the degree of Mark Master Masons shall pay one shilling and sixpence sterling into the Treasurer for behoofe of the lodge. None to attain to the degree of Mark Master Mason until they are raised Master.”
From this record we learn that at that time there were two degrees in connection with the mark-one called “Mark Mason,” probably the same which was distinguished elsewhere as “Mark Man,” to which degree Fellows were eligible, and another called “Mark Master Mason,” which was conferred only on Master Masons.
We are not, however, to ascribe the year 1778, the date of the record, as the date of the institution of either of the degrees. The minutes only prove that the degrees were then in existence, and show the regulation by which they were governed.
Their fabrication must have taken place at an earlier period, but how much earlier we are unable to say. But I imagine that we would be safe in saying that neither of the degrees was fabricated anterior to the middle of the 18th century. If earlier, some notice of them would occur in the minutes of the Lodges of Mary’s Chapel and Kilwinning. But those minutes have been thoroughly digested by Bro. Lyon, and no such notice has been met with.
The earliest mention of the two Mark degrees in England is found in the Minute Books of St. Thomas Lodge No. 142 in London.
The minutes of the lodge in connection with this subject were transcribed by Bro. H.C. Levander, Secretary of the lodge, and are contained in a letter from Bro. T.B. Whytehead, Past Master of York Mark Lodge, which was inserted in the Report of the Committee on Correspondence to the Grand Chapter of Pennsylvania, and published in the proceedings of that body for the year 1879. From the minutes of the lodge, of August 14, 1777, we are put in possession of important facts bearing on this subject. The minute is as follows:
“August 14, 1777.
“Regular Lodge night, the W.M., the Wardens, the Secretary, and Treasurer present worked in the First and Second degrees, made the following brothers Mark Masons and also Mark Master Masons, opened at 6 o’clock.”
From this and from other minutes of the lodge of subsequent date but of the same purport, we glean the facts that in 1777, and no doubt earlier (the lodge was warranted in 1775), the two degrees of Mark Man and Mark Master were worked in the South of England as an appendage to the Fellow-Craft’s degree.
The Lodge of St. Thomas received its Warrant from the Grand Lodge of “Ancients,” or Athol Grand Lodge, which held close and amicable relations with the Grand Lodge of Scotland. But there is also evidence that at a later period, the Mark degree was worked by an English lodge holding its Warrant from the Grand Lodge of “Moderns,” or the legitimate Grand Lodge of England, though that body religiously repudiated all degrees except the three symbolic degrees.
Bro. Whytehead, in the article before referred to, supplies us with an extract from the minutes of the Imperial George Lodge of Middleton in Lancashire, which had been warranted in 1752 by the Grand Lodge of “Moderns.” The minute is dated March 9, 1809, and is in these words:
“This lodge was opened in due form at 8 o’clock, in peace and good harmony.
“When the following Brethren were made Mark Masons.”
Bro. Whytehead also cites the Directory of Minerva Lodge No. 250 at Hull, as showing that in the year 1802 that lodge conferred, besides several other degrees, those of “Ark, Mark, and Link.”
Though there was no regular book of the Mark Lodge, yet the Secretary, Bro. M.C. Peck, states that the marks were entered in the Craft minute book.
In Kenning’s Masonic Cyclopaedia, Bro. Woodford says: “It is undoubtedly true that in Scotland the ‘Falows of Craft’ took up their marks, but we are not aware, so far, of any corresponding use in England.”
But the records of St. Thomas Lodge of Lancashire in 1775 and of Minerva Lodge of Yorkshire in 1809, marks were regularly selected and recorded by brethren when they received the Mark degree. The mark was always appended to the name of the brother.
So that if, by the expression “Taking up their marks,” of which, he says, there was no “corresponding use in England,” he means that the English Mark Masons did not select and register their marks, just as they did in Scotland, these records show that he is clearly in error.
Bro. Woodford also says, in the same article, “Mark Man, in our humble opinion, is historically synonymous with Mark Mason.”
But the same records prove that in 1775 the degree of Mark Man was distinct from that of Mark Master, though in 1809 the Minerva Lodge does not appear to have practiced the former.
Whether we call the first of these degrees Mark Man or Mark Mason, and the latter Mark Mason or Mark Master Mason, the words Mark Man and Mark Mason, in the meaning given to them at the present day, are not synonymous, and never could have been, because they indicate two distinct things.
These minutes also show that in the 18th century the Mark degree was worked independently by certain Blue lodges under their Grand Lodge Warrants. It was, however, rejected as a degree, or rather not recognized by the United Grand Lodge, in the articles of union adopted in 1813. It has, however, always been recognized in Scotland and in Ireland as a part of Speculative Masonry necessarily preparatory to the Royal Arch.
The Mark degree was introduced into the United States at a time subsequent to the middle of the last century. In the sparseness of authentic documents, it is impossible to affix the precise date of the introduction of the Mark degree into America, but it would be, I think, more correct to place that date at about the close rather than immediately after the middle of the century. “Independent Mark Lodges” says Bro. Hughan, “were scattered throughout the United States of America during the latter part of the last century and early in the present one.” This, I have no doubt, as the result of my own investigations, is the proper date of the introduction of the degree in this country.
The late Bro. F.G. Tisdall, who was the Master of St. John’s Lodge No. 1 in the city of New York, asserted in an address delivered at the Centennial of the lodge, in 1857, that the lodge received its original Warrant from the Grand Lodge of England in the year 1757, under the Grand Mastership of Lord Aberdour, and that to its Warrant was “annexed a Warrant with power to make Mark Masons.”
If this assertion were true it would establish two important historical facts:
first, that the Mark degree was recognized in the middle of the last century by the Grand Lodge of England (Moderns), and secondly, that it was practiced at the same period in the United States.
Unfortunately, Bro. Tisdall has verified neither of these statements by authentic documents, and we are compelled to relegate them to the regions of the mythical, where so many hundreds of hap-hazard statements of Masonic history have found at last a quiet resting-place.
He has, however, cited an extract from the minutes which shows that in the year 1796 there was a Mark lodge, connected in some way with the Craft Lodge, St. John, and that at that time the Mark degree was conferred by it.
It must be admitted as a well-proven historical fact that Mark lodges existed in America and that the Mark Master’s degree was conferred at the earliest about the close of the last century.
It was most probably introduced from Scotland or from the Athol Grand Lodge of England. St. John’s Lodge of New York, already mentioned, though it was originally warranted by the Grand Lodge of “Moderns,” afterward attached itself to the Grand Lodge of New York which was established by the “Ancients” under the Duke of Athol in 1781. It will be remarked, as has been proven by Bro. Hughan, that notwithstanding the assertion of Tisdall, there is no mention in the records of a Mark lodge or of the Mark degree in the records, until after it became connected with the “Ancients.”
Though it is probable that in America, as in Scotland and in England, the Mark Master’s degree was conferred in connection with Craft lodges, we learn by authentic testimonies that it was about the beginning of the present century, perhaps a few years earlier, conferred in Mark lodges, which seem to have been under the charge of Chapters.
Webb, in the 1812 edition of his Freemasons Monitor, records two Mark lodges as existing in Rhode Island and seventeen in New York. The Grand Chapters of both of these states were organized in 1798. But there were Royal Arch Chapters in existence before this date, and Mark lodges also.
The first constitution adopted in 1798 by the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the Northern States of America, which body afterward became the General Grand Chapter of the United States, recognized the Mark Master Mason’s degree as a part of its system of degrees. The Constitutions adopted in 1799 expressly provided for the granting of warrants to hold Mark Master Masons’ Lodges separately.
For a long time afterward Mark lodges were held generally in the bosom of the Chapters and under Chapter Warrants, and sometimes in distinct lodges under Warrants issued by the State Grand Chapters. Perhaps the last of these was St. John’s Mark Lodge No. 1, in the city of Charleston, South Carolina.
But in the year 1856 the General Grand Chapter abolished independent Mark lodges, and ever since the degree has been conferred in a lodge working in the bosom of a Chapter and under the Chapter Warrant.
The theory entertained by some that the Mark degree was introduced into America by the Masons of the Scottish Rite, founded on the isolated fact that in the year 1803 a Mark lodge had been warranted in the city of Charleston by the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem, is wholly untenable. It is more probable that the jurisdiction over the degree was assumed in that case by the Council, the degree having existed long before in this country, whither it had been brought from Scotland and England through Charters issued for the establishment of subordinate lodges of Craft Masons.
The Mark degree appears, indeed, to have been something of a waif floating on the waters - a sort of flotsam and jetsam - without any lawful owner, and claimed and seized sometimes by Royal Arch Chapters, sometimes by Craft lodges, sometimes by independent Mark lodges, and lastly by the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The degree was traveling about during the close of the last and the beginning of the present century like Marryat’s “Japhet,” in search of a father. Fortunately, it has at last found a parent in Scotland, Ireland, and this country, in the Grand Chapter, which has assumed the paternity. In England, maternal relations are exercised by the Grand Mark Lodge, which is nursing the bantling until such time as the Grand Chapter shall acknowledge a fatherhood.
From this indicative sketch of the position occupied by Mark Masonry in the series of Masonic grades, we pass to a consideration of its legend that mythical history fabricated at the time of its adoption, as a part of the system of Speculative Masonry.
In pursuing our further investigations in this way we necessarily abandon the functions of the historian and assume those of the fabulist. Yet the investigation is of great importance, for the fact of the direct descent of Speculative Masonry from the Operative art practiced by the medieval builders, is by no circumstance more clearly and positively proved than by the modification of the system of Marks peculiar to the latter, which was invented by the former.
This modification was, however, a very important one. The practice of using proprietary Marks, which was in use among the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, and which lasted longer in Scotland than in any other country, undoubtedly suggested to the Speculative Masons the thought which resulted in the fabrication of the Mark degree. At first the idea of a proprietary mark may have occurred to the inventors of the different legends. If so, it gradually became obsolescent, and at this day the Mark of a Speculative Mark Master bears in its accepted character and use a much nearer resemblance to the tessers hospitalis of the Ancients than to the proprietary mark of an Operative Mason of the Middle Ages. To this particular point I shall have occasion hereafter to revert.
As the government of the Mark degree differed in different countries and at different times, so the legend seems also to have varied, and we find several forms of it in the rituals of the degree.
In the middle of the last century, or a little later, when in Scotland and in England the Mark system was divided into two grades or ranks, that of Mark Man and that of Mark Master, the design of the Mark was supposed to be very different from that of indicating a proprietorship.
The duty of the Mark Men is said in the ritual to have been to examine the materials as they came out of the hands of the workmen, and then to place a Mark upon them so as to enable them to be put together with greater facility and precision when brought from the quarries, the forest, and the clay-grounds to the city of Jerusalem. These marks were mathematical figures, name squares, levels, and perpendiculars which were used by command of King Solomon.
The Mark Masters were to examine the materials when they were brought to the Temple to see that every part duly corresponded, and thus to prevent confusion and mistake in fitting the respective parts to their proper places.
In doing this they were, of course, guided by the marks which had been placed upon the stones and other materials by the Mark Men. The Mark Masters then placed an additional Mark upon them to show that they approved the work which had been previously examined by the Mark Men.
In all this there is not the slightest notion of a proprietorship. The stones were marked by the medieval Mason, so that the work of each man might be identified and he be made responsible for its imperfection or receive due credit for its merit.
But the stones and timbers were not according to this legend marked for any such purpose by the workmen, who “hewed, cut, and squared” them. The Mark was placed upon them by the Mark Masters, who superintended the Masons and carpenters in the quarries and the forests, and who placed a Mark on each stone and timber so that when transported to Jerusalem, the Mark Masters would find no difficulty, when guided by these Marks, in placing those materials together which were intended to be in juxtaposition.Such a system prevails at the present day among stonemasons, carpenters, and joiners, so as to point out precisely the positions to be occupied by the different parts of the work upon which they are engaged when they are to be put together.
But this is altogether different from the system of proprietary Marks which was pursued by the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages.
There was another legend introduced at a later period, for the preliminary degree of Mark Man appears to have been omitted by that time from the system. It was most probably the ritual practiced in this country before the close of the last century. It is that which was used by the Mark lodge in Charleston, which had been chartered in 1804 by the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem. We have every reason to believe that this was the ritual used at that time by the Mark lodges in America, from whom the Charleston Mark lodge must have received it, as there is no other source known from which it could have been derived.
The legend in this ritual differs very materially from the former, which has been just described. There is no longer a pretension that the Mark was used as a means of indicating that two distinct pieces of material were when brought together to be put in juxtaposition. That idea has now been entirely eliminated from the degree.
In this more modern legend, the Mark is said to have been used for two purposes. In the first place, Hiram Abif, seeing that it was impossible to superintend so large a number of workmen as were employed in the building of the Temple, appointed overseers to the different classes. He was careful to select only men of irreproachable character for this responsible office.
He was particularly attached to the Giblemites or Stonecutters, whom he formed into a body, whose duty it was, as overseers, to procure from the Treasurer-General such sums of money as were necessary to pay off the workmen over whom they presided, which was done at a particular time and in a particular place.
To expedite the task of payment, and to prevent confusion and imposition among the workmen, the Giblemites were ordered to provide for themselves a particular Mark by which they and the amount due to each one were easily recognized; and presenting this Mark in a particular manner, each Mark Master received at once the wages due to him.
But the Mark thus selected was to be used not on the stone as a proof of who was the cutter of the stone, but only as a jewel to be employed at the hour of paying wages, so that the paymaster might commit no error in the payment.
But the Mark was used also for another purpose. This purpose was one utterly unknown to the Operative Masons or to the Speculative Masons who first founded the degree.A Mark Master being in distress or danger, has a talisman for relief in his Mark. He sends it, says the ritual, to a Mark Mason, who instantly obeys the summons and flies to his relief with a heart warmed with the impulse of brotherly love.
The Mark might also be put in pledge if the owner was “in the utmost distress;” and he was to redeem it as soon as it should be in his power.
In this way the Mark of the Speculative Masons began to cease to bear any analogy to that of the Operative Stonecutters whence it was originally derived. It was no longer a device placed by a builder upon the stone which he had wrought, and the proprietorship of which he by this token claimed - not a proprietorship in the material, but in the workmanship with which his skill had fitted it for the building.
In the first ritual of the Mark degree, adopted at the time, most probably, of its institution, though this design of a proprietary Mark was not exactly observed, still the Speculative Mark referred to an architectural purpose, that of indicating the proper position of the materials.
There was enough of analogy to the Operative preserved by the Speculative Mark to indicate and to clearly prove the one was the outcome of the other.
But now all analogy or resemblance to the operative art was obliterated, and the more recent Mark Masters began to look outside of the Craft of Operative Masons for characteristics to apply to the Mark. It became to him, as it is called in the ritual quoted above, a “talisman,” a means of obtaining relief, either by summoning with it a brother Mark Master to his assistance, or by pledging it to obtain the loan of money.
In plain words it ceased to have any relation to the proprietary mark of the Cologne and Strasburg Masons, and found its true analogy in the tessera hospitalis of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The tessera hospitalis, or “hospitable die,” was a piece of bone, of stone, or ivory, or any other material. It was a custom among the ancients that when two persons became allied as friends, they took such a die, which they divided into two parts, each one inscribing his name upon one of the halves, which were then interchanged. The Scholiast on Euripides says that if at any future period either needed assistance, on showing his broken half of the die to the other the required aid was, if possible, granted.
Plautus, the Roman dramatist, gives an interesting instance of the use of the lessers in the interview between Agorastocles and his unknown uncle, Hanno, described in the play of “Poenulus.”
“Hanno. Hail, my countryman.“Agorastocles. Whosoever thou art, I hail thee also in the name of Pollux. If thou needest anything, speak, I beseech thee, and ask it for the sake of thy country.
“Hanno. I thank thee, but I have a lodging here. Show me, if you know him, Agorastocles, the son of Antedamas. Knowest thou here a certain youth called Agorastocles ?
“Agorastocles. If thou art looking for the adopted son of Antedamas, I am the one thou art seeking.
“Hanno. Ha! what do I hear ?
“Agorastocles. That I am the son of Antedamas.
“Hanno. If this be so, compare with me, if thou pleasest, the hospitable die (tessera hospitalis); here it is, I have brought it with me. “Agorastocles. Come then, let me see it; it is the exact counterpart of that which I have at home.
“Hanno. Much I greet thee, oh, my friend! for thy father, Antidamas, thy father, I say, was bound to me by the ties of hospitality. This hospitable die (tessera hospitalis) was in common with him and me. “Agorastocles. Therefore thou shalt lodge with me. For I deny neither the rights of hospitality nor Carthage where I was born.”
The early Christians also had their lessers, which they carried about in their journeys from one place to another as a means of introduction to their fellow-Christians whom they might meet. Dr. Mason Harris, in a dissertation on this subject, says that the use of these tesseree in the place of written certificates of character lasted until the 11th century.
It is very evident that the fabricator of the Mark ritual which we are considering was well acquainted with the nature of these Greek, Roman, and Christian tessera, and that they suggested to him the idea of transmuting the proprietary Mark of the Operative Masons which had given origin to the Mark degree from a token of ownership in the work of the stone to a badge of fraternity, and a means of claiming brotherly assistance.
In the early part of the present century, perhaps even much earlier, the ritual was again changed, and that form adopted which being either invented or approved by Thomas Smith Webb, the most prominent ritual maker of his day, is now the form universally practiced in this country.
The legend attached to this ritual enters into several details not embraced in the former ones, but it continues to maintain the theory that the Mark is a token of friendship, a theory which I have already said a dozen times was utterly unknown to the old Operative Masons.
The legend is to this effect. At the building of the Temple of Solomon, ayoung craftsman found in the quarries a stone of a peculiar form andbeauty, and an which was inscribed certain mystical characters the meaning of which was wholly unknown to him. Nevertheless, he carried it up to the inspectors of the materials brought up for the construction of the temple, and disingenuously but unsuccessfully attempted to pass it off as a stone wrought by himself. Some time afterward this very stone, which had been prepared by Hiram Abif, for a special purpose in the building, was found to be wanting. After a strict search it was discovered among the rubbish and applied to its original destination. In honour of Hiram Abif, who had constructed the stone and placed his own mark upon it, a representation of this stone in gold or silver is used as the decoration of the degree; it is worn by Mark Masters, and the traditional mark of Hiram being a circle of letters, each brother is directed to select his own mark and place it within the circle. This mark is inscribed by the lodge in its register or Book of Marks. The representation of it in metal is often, but not always, nor by any obligation, worn upon his person. It is sometimes used when in distress as a means of obtaining aid and relief.
To be more precise in the description: the American ritual requires the jewel, as it is called, to be “made of gold or silver, usually of the former metal (sometimes of a precious stone, as opal or agate), and in the form of a keystone. On the obverse or front surface the device or mark selected by the owner must be engraved within a circle composed of the letters H.T.W.S.S.T.K.S. On the reverse surface the name of the owner, of his chapter, and the time of his advancement to the degree may be inscribed, though this is not legally necessary.
In Scotland the usage is a little different. The jewel must be of mother-of-pearl and wedgeshaped. In a circle on one side are the Hebrew letters XXXXXXXX; on the other side are letters conveying the same meaning in the vernacular language with the wearer’s mark in the center.
In this ritual and legend, as in the preceding one, the Mark has altogether lost the proprietary character which it had among the Craft in the Middle Ages. It has become a Masonic decoration and a means of proving the claims of its owner to certain prerogatives peculiar to Mark Masters.
In one point, however, all the legends agree. Each fixes the time and place of instituting the degree at the building of Solomon, and they attribute the establishment of the regulations which then governed it to the wisdom and foresight of Hiram Abif, though according to the most modern ritual, the circumstances which are commemorated in the ceremony of initiation occurred after the death of that distinguished artist.
As the result of our investigation, I think that we are forced to come to the conclusion that the Mark degree first made its appearance in Speculative Masonry about the middle of the 18th century. We can find no records in which such a degree is mentioned previous to that period.
In a report made to the Grand Lodge of Mark Masons of England in 1873, it is said, with a great deal more of boldness than of accuracy, that “there is probably no degree in Freemasonry that can lay claim to greater antiquity than those of Mark Man or Mark Mason and Mark Master Mason.” It is a very great pity, for it is vastly detrimental to the intelligent study of Masonic history, that men otherwise accurate and trustworthy should indulge in such fanciful speculations. To say nothing of the Fellow-Craft and Master’s degrees which antedate all allusions to Mark degrees by about half a century, all the degrees of the Chevalier Ramsey’s system and many other high degrees were known and practiced at a time when Mark Masonry as a Speculative degree or degrees had been unheard of.
There can not, I think, be any doubt that Scotland was the place where the Mark degree was instituted. “It is to Scotland,” says Bro. Whytehead (in the letter heretofore cited), “that we must look for the birthplace of the Mark degree as a Speculative working;” and he feels sure that the
degree “came into working existence toward the close of the last century, when there was a rage for the multiplication of Orders.”
In both of these opinions I concur, except that I would prefer to make the time of birth about the middle, rather than toward the close, of the last century. But in either way the difference would not be much more than a score of years.
We must also, I am sure, ascribe the fabrication of the degree to suggestions derived from the use of proprietary marks by the Freemasons of Germany, whence they were introduced into Scotland. There they remained long after they had ceased to be employed in other countries.
It has been shown that in Operative Masonry the Mark was bestowed upon the Fellow-craft or sometimes upon the Apprentice, unaccompanied with any other ceremonial than that of a modest banquet in Germany at the expense of the lodge, and that of a registration of the mark in Scotland at the expense of the candidate.
Notwithstanding this, when the inclination to create a new degree in Speculative Masonry took possession of the minds of certain Scottish Masons, the very fact that the Mark was bestowed without any ceremonial, inspired the thought that this manifest want of any formality in the bestowal might be well supplied by the fabrication of a degree in which the ceremony might take place.
Whytehead supposes, but I can not agree with him, that “it may have even been the case that originally some kind of Mark working, though, of course, not the same as at present, once formed an integral part or complement of the Second degree, just as some Masons imagine the Royal Arch did of the Third degree, and that for the sake of abbreviating the ceremonies both were divorced and fashioned into separated and distinct workings under newly invented names.”
But it is not necessary to indulge in any such supposition, which, besides, is not sustained by the records. The mere fact that there was in Operative Masonry a Mark, which every Fellow received upon his admission to the Craft and preparatory to his going to work as a journeyman, would have been sufficient to suggest to an inventive genius the most fitting points of a new degree, at a time when the manufactory of degrees had been established as a popular and successful branch of business in Speculative Masonry.
Notwithstanding that the use of proprietary Marks by the German and Scottish Operative Masons had furnished the suggestion for the invention of a degree in Speculative Masonry, the fabricators of that degree did not strictly preserve the system by which the use of Marks had always been regulated, which was simply to each stone-cutter the means of identifying the stones which he had cut.
I do not believe that the Mark was employed simply to give the Overseers and Masters of the works a ready means of calculating the amount of pay due to each workman. Nothing of this is to be found in any of the old statutes or regulations.
Besides, the Mark was not placed on all stones indiscriminately, and if the calculation of wages was made by the marked stones only, the workmen would be constantly defrauded of a part of their dues.
It was a regulation that those stones only should be marked which were of importance in the building and which required skill and dexterity in their construction.
The inscribing of a Mark on a well-cut and polished stone was rather intended to secure to the stonecutter a just reputation for his work than to enable an overseer to calculate the amount of wages which were due.
If I am correct in my views, the Masons placed their Marks upon the stones which they cut in the same spirit in which the early printers affixed, each one, a peculiar device on the title-pages of the books which were issued from his press.
It is evident from what has been here said that the design of the Mark has been greatly changed in its adoption by the Speculative Masons from that of the Operative Builders, from whom, however, the former derived it.
In one respect the various rituals of Mark Masonry agree, without the slightest variation. They all placed the institution of the system of giving Marks to a portion of the Craft at the time of building King Solomon’s Temple, and the legend connects them with Hiram Abif, whose supposed personal Mark, surrounding that of the wearer, constitutes the decoration of the degree of Mark Master according to the modern ritual.
I need hardly say that this story of the Temple origin of the Mark degree is a mere myth, having no more foundation in history than the Hiramic legend of the Third degree.
Its adoption in the Mark Master’s degree is, however, a conclusive proof that degree in Speculative Masonry was fabricated after the invention of the Third degree, in the first quarter of the 18th century.
In conclusion, as it has been shown that the Mark of the modern Speculative Freemason was evidently suggested by that of the German and especially the Scottish Operative Masons, and as the employment of Marks by the latter has evidently suggested their adoption by the Mark Masters when fabricating their degree, so I may repeat what was said in the beginning of this chapter, that there is no stronger or more convincing proof of the connection between the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages and the Speculative Freemasons of the present day, and of the direct descent of the latter from the former, than that which is furnished by the Mark Master’s degree.
Some of these old printers’ devices bear a very striking resemblance to the stone-cutters’ marks. That resembling an inverted 4 is very common to both. See Fosbrook’s, “Encyclopedia of Antiquities,” p. 445, or the title-page of any old book.
But we must be careful to repudiate as simply a myth of modern origin, the notion that there was ever a Mark degree before the middle or toward the close of the last century.
Still the Mark degree, though it has no antiquity, has its historical value as a factor in determining the true origin of the Speculative system, no investigation of which could be correctly or usefully conducted without a due consideration of the modern Mark degree.
THE history of the institution of Freemasonry is naturally divided into two distinct yet closely connected periods. The first period embraces the history of Operative Freemasonry; the second that of Speculative Freemasonry.
But the first of these periods did not pass at once and, as it were, by a leap into the second. The change which took place was a gradual one. The steps which led from the one to the other were almost imperceptible. The progress was slow and gradual. There was a time when all Freemasonry was purely Operative, and there was a time when it became solely Speculative. We have abundant facts to prove this statement. But it is impossible from any records in our possession to define the precise epoch when the change took place.
The naturalist with all the science in his possession is at a loss to determine the precise limits which bound the different kingdoms of nature. The mineral passes by an imperceptible gradation into the vegetable, and the highest species of the vegetable assimilate with a remarkable likeness of organization to the lowest tribes of the animal kingdom. It requires even in this advanced state of science, the largest amount of professional knowledge and experience to determine in certain instances to which division of nature certain specimens rightly belong.
So in the history of the Masonic institution, there are well-marked eras in its annals when we are at no loss to define the distinctive character of its workings. There are again points on the extreme limits of its two periods, when the Operative and the Speculative elements are so intimately connected and clash so confusedly together, like the prismatic colours of the spectrum, that it becomes extremely difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to define the precise line of demarcation.
Thus we know with certainty that the Freemasonry of the 12th century, which had penetrated every country of the Continent of Europe, was wholly Operative, without a particle of the Speculative element in it; we know, too, that the Freemasonry of the 19th century, which prevails over the whole civilized world, is entirely Speculative and has ceased to have any social connection with the Operative Craft.
But at what precise period the Operative art ceased to form a part of the institution of Freemasonry, and when the Speculative science threw off all connection with it, are historical questions which admit hardly of a possible conjecture, certainly not of any positive solution.
A great difficulty which we encounter in the discussion of this subject is that the change from one to the other branch began to assume a distinct form in different countries at different periods.
Thus, in London, Speculative Freemasonry had assumed a distinct and independent form many years before the lodges of Scotland had divested themselves of the Operative influence, and even in the same kingdom there were English lodges in the provinces which mingled Operative and Speculative Freemasonry in their work, long after the former system had been wholly abandoned by the lodges in the Metropolis.
Though it is probable that most readers understand the distinction between Masonry and Freemasonry, it may be well to impress that distinction upon their minds, that during this investigation they may perfectly appreciate the train of reasoning that is pursued.
Masonry is merely the art of building. It has existed from the earliest historic times, when men began to need places of shelter from the inclemency of the seasons, and must continue to exist so long as they require houses for their habitation. With its history we have no concern. Freemasonry is the art of building connected in its practical operations with a Guild organization. It was always a confraternity or corporation constituted on the plan of a guild, and maintaining throughout all its progress that idea derived first from the Roman Colleges of Artificers, until finally it was merged in the non-operative system of Freemasonry, which exists at the present day and whose history it is the object of the present work to treat.
This distinction, it will be remembered, never ceased to be maintained by the Operative Freemasons, who always held themselves aloof as a higher class from the lower body of “rough masons” who were not “free” of the guild.
In pursuing our researches into that indefinable period during which the Operative organization was slowly advancing to a transformation into a Speculative society, it will be necessary that we should first thoroughly understand one of the characteristics which marked the Freemasons of the Middle Ages, and which rendered them unlike every other class of contemporary craftsmen.
This was the admission into their ranks and into full fraternity with them of non-professional persons, whose only claim to a connection with the craft was derived from their learning, their rank, or their wealth, which gave them the means of elevating the character and promoting the interests of the fraternity.
We have seen the existence of the same system in the Roman Colleges of Artificers, who strengthened their corporations by the adoption of men of rank and political influence as Patrons.
The early Freemasons were patronized by the Church, and were engaged almost solely in the construction of religious edifices. Hence there was a close and friendly connection between them and the ecclesiastics of that period. Lodges were for the most part held in the vicinity and under the patronage of monasteries, and the monks were often architects and builders. At a later period, when the Freemasons became independent of monastic influence, the primitive alliance was not completely dissolved, and the clergy, especially in France, in Germany, and in England, were often admitted, though not professional Masons, into the corporation of the Craft. They were among the first of non-masons who received from Operative Lodges the compliment of honourary membership.
The result of thus securing the patronage of bishops and other high ecclesiastics was, of course, favourable to the interests of the corporations of workmen and was, to a great extent, the controlling motive with them, as it had previously been with the Roman Colleges, for introducing into their guild men who were not of the Craft.
It was seen in the 12th and 13th centuries, when the corporations, not only of Masons but of other crafts, having sought to exercise undue power in the cities, incurred the displeasure of the government. Many sanguinary contests ensued, with alternate successes. But when the Emperors Frederick II. and Henry VII. of Germany sought to end them by abolishing the corporations of workmen, these associations had grown so strong that they were able to successfully resist the Imperial power.
Dr. Anderson, in the second edition of the Book of Constitutions, gives repeated instances of bishops, noblemen, and even kings, who were admitted to the privileges of the Craft and exercised authority over the Operative Masons as members and patrons of the guild. But as the accuracy of Anderson as an historian has ceased to be respected through the researches of modern scholars, his authority on this subject need not be pressed. Elias Ashmole, however, whose truthfulness and minuteness as an annalist has never been doubted, furnishes unquestioned instances in which he and other gentlemen had been made members of an Operative Lodge in the 17th century. Nor does he speak of these admissions as if they were of unusual occurrence. Indeed, he leads us, by his silence, to the contrary inference.
But it is in the annals of the lodges of Scotland that we find the most satisfactory history of the rise and progress of the custom of admitting persons who were not Operative Masons as members of the guild. For this we are indebted to the researches of Bro. Murray Lyon, whose History of the Lodge of Edinburgh is of invaluable use to the scholar who is seeking to trace the authentic history of Freemasonry outside and independent of its mythical elements. To that work I shall have constant occasion to refer in the course of the part of the present investigation.
Lyon says that the earliest authentic record of a non-operative being a member of a Masons’ lodge is contained in a minute of the Lodge of Edinburgh under date of June 8, 1600, where John Boswell Laird, of Achinflek, is mentioned among the members of the lodge. His name with his mark is signed to the minute with the names and marks of twelve others who evidently were Operative Masons.
But twelve years anterior to that, in 1598, we find that William Schaw, who was also a non-operative, acted as Master of the Work, and that a year afterward he signed his name to the supplementary statutes issued by him, as “Master of the Work, Warden of the Masons.”
His predecessor in that office was a nobleman, and in his own time the Wardenship over the Masons in Aberdeen, Banff, and Kincardine was held by a country gentleman, the Laird of Udaught, which shows, says Lyon, “that it was not necessary that either appointment should be held by a Craftsman.” But there is just reason for inferring that to hold such offices it was necessary to have honourary membership in the fraternity.
At a later period in the 17th century the practice of admitting non-operatives appears to have begun to be common.
In July, 1634, the Lodge of Edinburgh admitted as Fellow-Craft the following gentlemen: Lord Alexander, Viscount Canada, Sir Anthony Alexander, and Sir Alexander Strachan. The two first were sons of the Earl of Stirling, and the last a well-known public man in his time.
“These brethren,” says Lyon, “seem from their subsequent attendance in the lodge to have felt an interest in its proceedings. In the month immediately succeeding their initiation they were present, and attested the admission of three Operative Apprentices and one Fellow of Craft. They attended three meetings of the lodge in 1635, one in 1636, and one in 1637. In signing the minute of their own reception each appends a mark to his name.
Throughout the rest of the 17th century there are repeated records in the minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh of the admission of nonoperatives to the rank of Fellow-Crafts and sometimes of Masters.
Thus, in 1637, David Ramsay, a “gentleman of the Privy Chamber,” was admitted; in 1638, Henry Alexander, another son of the Earl of Stirling; in 1640, General Alexander Hamilton; in 1667, Sir Patrick Hume; and in 1670, the Right Honourable William Murray, son of Lord Balvaird, and Walter Pringle and Sir John Harper, both members of the Scotch Bar.
It is not necessary to cite any more instances to show that in the 17th century the practice existed of admitting non-operative persons into the brotherhood of the Craft. In the 18th century it had become so common as finally to give to the Speculative element a preponderance over the Operative in the fraternity.
The following remarks of Bro. Lyon on the subject of the admission of non-operatives into the membership of the Craft are of great value in connection with this subject:
“It is worthy of remark that with singularly few exceptions, the non-operatives who were admitted to Masonic fellowship in the Lodges of Edinburgh and Kilwinning during the 17th century were persons of quality, the most distinguished of whom, as the natural result of its metropolitan position, being made in the former lodge. Their admission to fellowship in an institution composed of operative Masons associated together for purposes of their craft, would in all probability originate in a desire to elevate its position and increase its influence, and once adopted the system would further recommend itself to the Fraternity, by the opportunities which it presented for cultivating the friendship and enjoying the society of gentlemen, to whom, in ordinary circumstances, there was little chance of their ever being personally known.
“On the other hand, non-professionals connecting themselves with the lodge by the ties of membership would, we believe, be actuated partly by a disposition to reciprocate the feelings which had prompted the bestowal of the fellowship, partly by curiosity to penetrate the arcana of the Craft, and partly by the novelty of the situation as members of a secret society and participants in its ceremonies and festivities.”
The members thus admitted received various designations, such as “Gentlemen Masons,” “Theoretical Masons,” “Geomatic Masons,” and “Honourary Members.” The use of these terms evidently shows that the Working Masons - the “Domatic Masons,” as Lyon styles them recognized that there was a very palpable difference between the two classes of members. It is well to remember this fact, as it supplies one of the motives for the result which afterward occurred in the complete separation of the Speculative from the Operative element.
The Scotch Constitutions of 1598 and 1599 were certainly constructed solely for the government of Operative Masons. Yet there is no prohibition, express or implied, of the admission of non-operatives as members of lodges. The fact that Schaw, the framer of the Constitutions, was himself present at a meeting of the Lodge of Edinburgh, where a non-operative took a part in the proceedings, shows that he did not view such admissions as illegal innovations on the usages and laws of the fraternity.
We are not without the requisite information as to the status of these “Honourary Members.”
The form of initiation or admission must have differed in some respects from that prescribed for an Operative Mason. The presentation of an “essay” or Master-piece of work, as a trial of skill, must have been dispensed with in the case of candidates whose previous education and profession had not supplied them with the necessary mechanical knowledge.
“It can not now be ascertained,” says Bro. Lyon, “in what respect the ceremonial preceding the admission of theoretical, differed from that observed in the reception of practical Masons; but that there was some difference is certain, from the inability of non-professionals to comply with the tests to which Operatives were subjected ere they could be passed as Fellows of Craft. The former class of entrants would, in all likelihood, be initiated into a knowledge of the legendary history of the Mason Craft, and have the Word and such other secrets communicated to them as was necessary to their recognition as brethren.”
At first they were not chargeable with admission fees; but in 1727, when an attempt was made to exclude them on account of this exemption, a fee of one guinea was exacted as entrance money. But this was done at so late a period that we may infer that exemption from fees was the usage with respect to all “Theoretic Masons,” while the lodges were purely Operative in character.
Notwithstanding this exemption, Theoretic Masons were qualified to hold the highest office in the lodge. Lyon says that “for a time the occupancy of the chair alternated between the two grand classes into which its membership was divided. Though to Speculative concurrence the Operative section owed the more frequent possession of the coveted honour.”
In Scotland the Operatives and Speculatives do not appear to have lived always in peace and concord; some jealousy seems to have existed at times, which finally culminated in the year 1727 in an attempt by the Operatives to exclude Theoretical Masons from the lodge. “Exclusion” is the word used by Lyon, by which I suppose he means not only the expulsion of the Theoretic Masons who had been already admitted, but also the discontinuance in future of the custom of admitting them.
The attempt did not succeed. Speculative Masonry was already the preponderating element in the lodges, which a few years afterward abandoned in Scotland, as they had long before done in England, the Operative character.
It is admitted that the earliest authentic record of the admission of “Gentlemen Masons” into the lodges of England, or in other words the introduction of the Speculative element, occurred in 1646, when Elias Ashmole, the celebrated antiquary, and Colonel Henry Mainwaring were made “Free-Masons” in a lodge at Warrington in Lancashire.
But it does not, by any means, follow, because this is the first recorded instance, that Theoretical Masons had not been admitted in England long before. But the records have not come down to us, because of the loss or disappearance of the ancient minute books of the English Operative lodges.
“Why,” says Bro. W.J. Hughan, “so many minute books are still preserved in Scotland, dating long before the institution of the Grand Lodge, even some in the 17th century, and yet scarcely any are to be found in England, seems inexplicable.”
We, have a right to presume, judging by the usages of the sister kingdom, that the initiation of Ashmole and Mainwaring in 1646 was not the introduction of a new custom, but only the continuation of an old one.
If we have not the names of those gentlemen who had previously been admitted to the fellowship of English lodges, it is because the records are not extant.
Many brave heroes, says the Roman poet, have lived before Agamemnon but they have died unwept, because there was no poet to sing their deeds.
The same thing may be said of the corporations and lodges of France and Germany. Though the records are not extant, we have collateral evidence that in both of them, as well as in other countries of the Continent, Theoretical or Honourary Members were admitted among the Operative craftsmen.
We may therefore lay it down as an authentic historical statement, which if not supported in other places as in Scotland by positive testimony, is yet sustained by the strongest logical inference, that from the earliest period, Speculative Masons who were not practical workmen, builders, or architects, began to be admitted into the ranks of the Operative Craft. As time passed on the number of these Speculatives increased, as in the nature of things must have occurred, until they predominated over the Operatives. Finally, when this predominance became sufficiently powerful, the control of Freemasonry passed into their hands, and as a necessary result the institution ceased to be Operative and became wholly Speculative in its character.
The terms “Gentleman Mason,” “Theoretical Mason,” and “Honourary Member,” formerly employed to distinguish a non-Operative from an Operative, are no longer in use. For them has been substituted the word “Speculative.” The thing itself was in existence long before the word which was to define it.
The first place in which we find the word Speculative in connection with Masonry is in the Cooke MS., whose conjectural date is about 1490. In this document it is said that the youngest son of King Athelstan, being a master of the Speculative science of geometry or masonry, added to it by his connection with the Craft of Masons a knowledge of the practical science.
It must be admitted, as Bro. Cooke says, that “no book or writing so early as this manuscript has yet been discovered in which Speculative Masonry is mentioned.” (1) It is equally certain that the word appears to have been used in the sense given to it at the present day, and the writer of the manuscript drew a distinction between Practical or Operative and Speculative Masonry.
The word, however, is not repeated in any of the subsequent Constitutions, and we do not hear of it again until the time of Preston, who is the first to give its definition in these words :
“Masonry passes and is understood under two denominations; it is operative and speculative. By the former we allude to the useful rules of architecture, whence a structure derives figure, strength, and beauty, and whence result a due proportion and just correspondence in all its parts. By the latter we learn to subdue the passions, act upon the square, keep a tongue of good report, maintain secrecy, and practice charity.”
The lexicographers define Speculative as opposed to Practical. Hence, “Speculative Masons,” the term used at the present day, is precisely synonymous with “Theoretic Masons,” the term which was applied by the Scotch Masons of the 16th and 17th centuries to those persons who were admitted into their lodges though they had no practical knowledge of the Operative art of building.
In contemplating that period in the history of Freemasonry when the institution was gradually preparing for the important change in its organization from an Operative Art to a Speculative Science, which period may be called, borrowing a term from the language of geology, the transition period, we must first properly appreciate what was its real condition just previous to the change.
In the first place, we find that before the present organization of Grand and Subordinate Lodges, the Society was an Operative one whose members were actually engaged in the manual labour of building, as well as in the more intellectual task of architecture or the designing of plans.
But not every man who was engaged in building or in handling stones was a member of this society or entitled to its privileges. In every country were two distinct and well-recognized classes of workmen.
In Germany the Craftsman (Werkmann) of the Corporation was distinguished from the Maurer or wall builder, the man who simply hewed and set stones. The Craftsman, the Stonecutter, was employed in the higher walks of the art. These Craftsmen formed a fraternity of themselves, and no workman was permitted to work with a Mason who was not a member, except under special circumstances which were provided for by the regulations. These facts are well authenticated in the Strasburg and other German Ordinances.
In France, the regulations of Enenne Boileau prescribe a similar difference between the Masons and Stonecutters who were members of the Corporation and those who were not. The former could employ the latter only as assistants and servants (aides et vallis), but were forbidden to instruct them in any of the secrets of the mystery or trade.
In Scotland the Masons of the Guild, who were called, certainly as early as the middle of the 17th century, Freemasons, were distinguished from the Masons who were not “free of the Guild,” and who were called “Cowans,” a term which has been preserved in the ritual of modern Speculative Freemasonry with a similar meaning. With the Cowans the Freemasons were forbidden to work.”
In England the distinction was between Masons or Freemasons and “Rough layers,” and the same prohibition as to fellowship in labour prevailed there that did in other countries.
Though all were Operative workmen and all were engaged in the practical art of building, there was in every country a broad line of demarcation between the Freemasons who were instructed in the highest principles of the art and the lower class of Masons, who were without any pretension to a knowledge of the sciences of architecture and geometry which were cultivated by the higher class.
“Those only,” said the Strasburg builders, with an excusable pride in their elevated position, “shall be Masters who can design and erect costly edifices and works for the execution of which they are authorized and privileged, nor shall they be compelled to work with any other craftsmen.”
But this higher class of Freemasons were, as we have already seen, divided also into two classes, the Operative and the non-Operative members of the Guild, Corporation, or Fraternity.
It is not difficult to suppose how this division into two classes originally arose. In the earliest times of the society of Freemasons it was closely connected with and under the patronage of the Church. Among its practical members were often monks who were skilled in the manual labour of the Craft, and the architectural designs for the construction of Cathedrals and monasteries were often drawn by bishops or abbots who were well skilled in the theory of architecture. These sometimes from choice, and sometimes from necessity, in consequence of the intimate relations they held with it, became members of the Fraternity. Subsequently, when the Operative Masons had released themselves from the rule of their ecclesiastical superiors and had established an independent brotherhood, they found it politic, if not positively necessary, to secure the patronage of wealthy nobles, and men of rank and science, who by their social position secured protection to the association and elevated its character.
The same process had occurred in the Roman Colleges of Artificers, from whose peculiar organization the Freemasons had derived the idea of their own.
Thus it happened that the Fraternity of Freemasons consisted from the very earliest period of its history of two classes, the Operative Masons who did the work, and the Theoretic, or, as we now call them, the Speculative Masons.
The word “Speculative,” as has been already shown, is of very modern origin. If the single passage in the Cooke MS. be excepted, it is never met with in any Masonic writing until after the organization of Grand Lodges.
I use it, in the present work, as a mere matter of convenience, because it is most familiar to the general reader as a recent synonym of the old word “Theoretic.”
Thus there always existed, we may say, from the earliest times, so far as we can trace authentic history, two classes of Freemasons, namely, Operative and Speculative.
The Speculative Masons, however, though very definitely distinguished after the separation of the Fraternity from its monastic connections, from the Operative, by their want of practical skill, did not form an independent and distinct class.
In the lodges into which they were admitted they mingled with the members on a common footing. We presume that this was the case in all countries; we know that it was so in Scotland. They underwent a modified initiation into membership, in which of course the presentation of an essay, piece, or chef d’oeuvre was omitted; they assisted in the admission of new members, took part in the deliberations of the society on affairs of business, voted, and even held office.
Starting with our inquiries from the time when the Fraternity dissolved its connection with the monasteries, where it really played the role of a subordinate, we may well suppose that at first the number of these Speculative Masons or Honourary members must have been very small.
But they never could have been an insignificant element. The Operative Masons held the ascendency in members, but the Speculative Masons must have always exerted a powerful influence by their better culture, their wealth, and their higher social position.
These two elements of Freemasonry continued to exist together for a very long period of time. But at length, from causes which must be attributed to the increasing power and influence of the Speculative element, as well as to intellectual progress, there came a total and permanent disseverance of the two.
The precise time of this disseverance must be placed at the beginning of the 18th century, though it is evident that for some years previously the feeling which eventually led to it must have been gradually growing. The men of culture and science who were in constant communion with their operative associates, were getting dissatisfied with a society of mechanics who had lost much of that skill as architects which had given so bright a reputation to their predecessors of the Middle Ages, and who were now not very much superior to the “Cowans,” the “wall builders,” and the “rough layers” whom these skillful predecessors had so much contemned - contemned so much that the Freemasons would not work in common with them on the same building.
The first act of severance occurred in England in the year 1717, when the Grand Lodge of “Free and Accepted Masons” was organized, an event that has been very generally designated by Masonic writers by the rather questionable title of the Revival.
This was followed nineteen years afterward by the organization of the Grand Lodge of Scotland with similar methods.
Both of these bodies were formed by lodges that were Operative, but in each case the Operative character was abandoned, and the Grand lodges and the lodges under them became entirely Speculative; that is to say, they ceased to cultivate practical Masonry, and were composed for the most part of members who were totally ignorant of the Mystery of the handicraft of building.
In other countries the process of disseverance did not take place according to the English and Scottish method. Elsewhere than in those two countries the organization of Freemasonry as it prevailed in the Middle Ages had long ceased to exist.
In France the Corporations des Metiers and in Germany the Hutten had been abolished, though in both countries the Stonemasons still continued to maintain an organization, which, however, was outside of the law, and without legal protection or recognition.
But we must look for the real causes of the change from Operative to Speculative Masonry to England, for it was in that country that the change was first developed and consummated.
THE transition from Operative to Speculative Freemasonry was not a spontaneous and sudden act, commencing and completing itself by an instantaneous movement, through which that which was the peculiar characteristic of the institution was at once changed into another and entirely different one.
On the contrary, the epoch of the change can not be precisely determined within the period of six years at least during which the Speculative Masons were engaged in slowly perfecting it. The fortress of Operative Freemasonry, which had derived its strength from its comparative antiquity and from the imperishable labours of the medieval architects, was not to be taken by storm. It was only by gradual approaches that its stronghold in the lodges was to be overcome.
We are not to suppose that on that eventful festival of St. John the Baptist, when the members of the Four Old Lodges of the Metropolis of England met at the Goose and Gridiron, and elected for the first time a Grand Master to preside in their new organization, that the special and well-understood design of that meeting was at once to change the entire character of the fraternity.
The fact is that the beginning of the 18th century was in England, and more especially in London, the age of clubs. We shall soon see how associations of men for all sorts of purposes, but principally for convivial ones, were established in that city.
Now the Masonic lodges, consisting as they did and as they had done for many years past of professional Masons and of non-professional gentlemen, and the latter preponderating, perhaps in numbers, certainly in influence, would seem to have afforded an admirable opportunity, by their coalition into one body, for the establishment of a club of the very highest rank, one indeed of a rank and prestige very far superior to that of the obscure and often ridiculous coteries of that day, such as the “No Nose Club,” or the “Ugly Faced Club.”
We know that for many years previous to 1717 the Operative lodges contained many non-operative or “Gentlemen Masons,” and that outside of London and its suburbs this condition lasted for many years afterward. And yet during all that period we have no record of any attempt on the part of the latter to infuse a Speculative element into those lodges.
Even the organization of the Grand Lodge on St. John the Baptist’s day, 1717, does not seem, if we may judge from the meager details of that event which Anderson has transmitted to us, to have been intended to accomplish at once a total severance of the Speculative from the Operative element. The “Charges of a Freemason,” which were adopted in 1718, for the government of the new form of the institution, were only a collation of the old laws which had formerly regulated the Operative lodges, and were wholly inapplicable to a system from which practical Masonry had been eliminated.
Nor was there any pretense that these were new laws, framed for a new society. It was thus acknowledged that the old Constitutions of the Operative were to be preserved. The disruption was not to be suddenly effected. Anderson, recording the transactions of 1718, under the Grand Mastership of George Payne, says that “this year several old copies of the Gothic Constitutions were produced and collated.”
The preservation and publication of these “charges” as the standard of Masonic law very clearly show that at that time the thought of a purely Speculative institution, fully dissolved from any association with Operative Masonry, had not yet entered the minds of those who were engaged in the establishment of a Grand Lodge.
The most that we can say of their ulterior views at that early period, was that they intended to enforce, with greater rigor, the usage which had long before prevailed, and to interpret with the utmost liberality the standing regulation which admitted persons who were not Masons by profession to the privileges of the Society.
It was not until 1721, four years after the organization of the Grand Lodge, that a set of “General Regulations,” which had been compiled by Payne the year before, were adopted, which were applicable to the requirements of a purely Speculative association, in which the Operative element was wholly ignored.
It will be seen hereafter, when the early records of the Grand Lodge are brought under review, that though no Operative Mason was ever elected Grand Master, yet until the year 1723 that class was recognized by being chosen to the high office of Grand Warden on several occasions.
After that year the Operative Masons appear to have retired either voluntarily or involuntarily from all prominence, and probably from all participation in the concerns of the Society. It had by this time assumed a thoroughly speculative character; its laws and usages were such as were appropriate to a non-operative system; and its offices were given only to noblemen, to scholars, and to men of high social position.
The immediate cause of these changes has with very great certainty been attributed to the efforts of three persons - John Theophilus Desaguliers, a philosopher, James Anderson, a clergyman, and George Payne, an antiquary. To them are we to attribute the influences which gradually but successfully led between the years 1717 and 1723 to the complete separation of the Speculative from the Operative Order, and to the birth of that system which, after many subsequent accretions, modifications, and improvements, has been developed into the widely extended Freemasonry of the present day.
But there were other causes in operation which assisted in the accomplishment of those results, in which these celebrated persons played so important a part, and without which their labours would hardly have been successful.
The first and perhaps the most important event which prepared the way for the transition was the decadence of architecture in England, where in the 17th century the principles of the Gothic style with all its symbolism began to give way to the corrupt forms of the Renaissance, which was a revival of the Roman style. It was on Gothic architecture that the Freemasons of the Middle Ages had founded that school of symbolism which gave to every stone a living voice, and supported the claim of the Fraternity to the elevated position which it had long held above all other handicrafts.
But when the Craft had abandoned this so long honoured art and the lodges ceased to be, as Lord Lyndsay has called them, “parliaments of genius,” there must have been some, as there are now, who deplored the change from high to low taste, and who were anxious to perpetuate, if not the practical part of the art, as it has been pursued by the Gothic Masons, at least to preserve the spirit of symbolism which had been in medieval times its principal and peculiar characteristic.
Thus the way was gradually prepared in the 17th century for that spiritualizing of the labours and implements of Operative Masonry which resulted finally, after many slow steps, in the formation of that system of purely symbolic Masonry which exists at the present day, wholly distinct from the body of working Masons.
The science of symbolism had been originally practiced only by the Church and by the Gothic Freemasons. When it had been abandoned in the former by the Reformation and in the latter by the decay of architecture, it was still preserved in some of its forms, not in all its excellence, by the Rosicrucian society which sprung into existence in the 17th century. Though the mystical association of Rosicrucianism was not, in any way, connected with Freemasonry, it can not be doubted that it played an important part in inspiring many members of the Masonic lodges of Operative Masonry with a renewed taste for the mystical symbolism of their predecessors, which in its progressive cultivation led to the inauguration of a purely symbolic association founded on architecture.
Another important cause is to be found in the intellectual revolution which took place in the 17th century, and toward which the Reformation in religion had contributed essential aid. The writings of Bacon had produced a school of experimental philosophy in England, one result of which was the organization of the Royal Society, in whose bosom a race of thinkers was nursed who, in their search for the attainment of knowledge, were ever ready to convert an art such as Operative Masonry into a Speculative Science.
At one time it was a favourite theory with some Masonic historians that the origin of Speculative Freemasonry was to be traced to the Royal Society. Though the theory was a fallacious one, as has been shown in a preceding part of this work, its very existence proves that Society must, in an indirect way, have had some influence upon the birth and the growth of the Speculative institution.
It is singularly pertinent to this question that Dr. Desaguliers, to whom, beyond all other men, we must ascribe the organization of Speculative Freemasonry in England, was a distinguished experimental philosopher of the Baconian school and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
It can not, however, be doubted that as the low state of morals, the general depression of learning, and the decay of art, which distinguished the close of the 17th century, had a very unfavourable effect on the character of Operative Masonry; so the improvement of the moral and intellectual condition of England, and the cultivation of a refinement in literature and science which sprang up soon after the beginning of the 18th century, must have awakened a new spirit in the thinkers of the age.
Dr. Oliver, in an essay on this subject, attributes this revolution principally to the influence of Addison, Steele, and the other periodical writers of the day. He quotes the opinion of Foster, who had said that “it is incredible to conceive the effect these writings have had on the town; ... they have set all our wits and men of letters upon a new way of thinking of which they had little or no notion before.” Hence Oliver says, “It will not be conceding too much to the influence of these immortal productions, if we admit that the Revival of Freemasonry in 1717 was owing, in a great measure, to their operation on public taste and public morality.”
As of the two most important and effective of these periodical essays by Steele and Addison, the Tatler was begun in 1709, and the Spectator in 1711, while the organization of the Grand Lodge which was the prelude to the establishment of Speculative Freemasonry has the date of 1717, the inference of Oliver as to their influence will hardly be deemed untenable.
Another cause leading directly to the establishment of Speculative Freemasonry has been adduced by Kloss in his German work on the History of Freemasonry in France, which is well worth consideration. He says:
“When Wren had completed the building of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, in 1708, and thus the workmen had no common center remaining, their corporate customs, like those of many other bodies, would, in the course of time, have been lost and wiped away, if the brotherhood had not been sustained as such by the power of that ancient addition -the non-professional members, taken from the various grades of society. The religious contentions, which had prevailed for two centuries, were at last compelled to recede before the spirit of toleration. Hence the necessity of some place of rest, where political discussions could not enter, was the cause and the reason for the formation and adoption of, about the year 1716, an organized system, then first appearing as Freemasonry.”
Of the correctness of two assertions made in this paragraph we have convincing proofs. The decay of the Operative branch of Freemasonry is evident, since, according to Oliver, there were in 1688 only seven lodges in existence, and of them there were but two that held their meetings regularly. There was some improvement at the beginning of the next century, which, however, it would be but fair to attribute to the influence and the energy of the honourary or non-professional members.
In respect to the question of religious toleration, it is very evident that in the matter of a creed there was a very great difference between the two systems, the Operative and the Speculative. The early Operative Freemasons were, of course, Roman Catholics. After the Reformation in England they became Protestants, but strict adherents to the church. This is apparent from the older and the more recent Constitutions.
There was another cause which must have exercised a very potent influence in hastening the establishment of a Grand Lodge of Speculative Freemasonry. This was the universal passion for the formation of clubs which took possession of the English people toward the close of the 17th and at the beginning of the 18th century.
The word Club, as signifying a society or assembly of persons each contributing his share of the expenses, came into the English language, as the things itself did into English social customs, at the period specified. Dryden is the first writer who speaks of political clubs, but the word is in familiar use in the pages of the Tatler and Spectator. These new organizations had in a short time become so important as to claim a place in literary history; and in 1709 a work of some magnitude was published in London, entitled The Secret History of Clubs, particularly of the Golden Fleece. With their Original: And the Characters of the most noted Members thereof. (1) Dr. Oliver, to whose indefatigable industry and research (however they were sometimes illy regulated) we are indebted for an admirable Essay on the Usages and Customs of Symbolical Masonry in the 18th Century, (2) supplies us with the following information on the subject of Clubs:
“The 18th century was distinguished by the existence of numerous local institutions, which periodically congregated together different classes of society, for divers purposes, the chief of which appears to have been the amusement of an idle hour, when the business of the day was ended. Few of these ephemeral societies aimed at a higher flight. Some met weekly, while the members of others assembled every evening. Each profession and calling had its club, and in large towns the trade of every street was not without its means of thus killing the evening hour.
“Such societies embraced every class of persons, from the noble to the beggar; and whatever might be a man’s character or disposition, he would find in London a club that would square with his ideas. If he were a tall man, the tall club was ready to receive him; if short, he would soon find a club of dwarfs; if musically inclined, the harmonic club was at hand; was he fond of late hours, he joined the owl club; if of convivial habits, he would find a free and easy in every street; if warlike, he sought out the lumber troopers; if a buck of the first water, he joined the club of choice spirits; and if sober and quiet, the humdrum. If nature had favoured him with a gigantic proboscis, an unsightly protuberance on his shoulders, or any other striking peculiarity, he would have no difficulty in finding a society to keep him in countenance.”
Before the middle of the century the number of clubs had increased amazingly. Dermott gives in his Ahiman Rezon the names of thirty-eight, besides “many others not worth notice.”
Most of these clubs were of a convivial character. There were, however, some whose members aimed at higher pursuits and devoted themselves to the cultivation of art, science, and literature. It must not be forgotten that the Royal Society was originally formed on the pattern of a club.
Dermott mentions a circumstance connected with these clubs which is worthy of notice as showing the popularity of Freemasonry at the time, and the existence then, as at the present day, of societies which sought to imitate its forms, if not always its principles.
“Several of these Clubs or Societies,” he says, “have, in imitation of the free-masons, called their club by the name of lodge, and their president by the title of grand master or most noble grand.”
Addison, speaking in the Spectator of these associations, says:
“Man is said to be a social animal, and as an instance of it we may observe that we take all occasions and pretences of forming ourselves into those little nocturnal assemblies which are commonly known as clubs. When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular, though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity and meet once or twice a week on account of such a fantastic resemblance.”
The presumption will not, then, be a violent one that the first successful effort toward a secession from Operative Freemasonry, must have been stimulated by the usage among men of all classes, in the early part of the last century, of inaugurating separate societies or clubs.
The meeting in 1716 consisting of honourary or non-professional members of the London Operative lodges, being held, too, at a tavern, as was the custom with all clubs, might very properly and with the utmost respect, be looked upon as a club of the highest class. This club of scientific and literary gentlemen who were desirous of separating from the coarser and less intellectual materials which composed the lodges of practical Masons, was not long afterward, in June, 1717, resolved into a Grand Lodge, the mother of all the Speculative lodges in the world, Scotland excepted, just as the club of philosophers who first met in the latter part of the preceding century, was finally developed into the Royal Society, the most prominent institution of learning in England.
That such was the opinion of the learned Dr. Oliver may be justly inferred from the language used by him in his essay On the Usages and the Customs of Symbolical Masonry in the 18th Century. Speaking of the character of the Clubs in which conviviality appears to have been always carried to an excess, he says :
“There was, however, one society in that period, which, if it did indulge its members with the enjoyment of decent refreshment, had a standing law which provided against all excess; declaring that ‘they ought to be moral men, good husbands, good parents, good sons, and good neighbours, not staying too long from home, and avoiding all excess.’ This society was Freemasonry; the exclusive character of which excited the envy of all other periodical assemblies of convivial men.”
Five causes appear to have been instrumental in producing that separation of the Speculative from the Operative element in Freemasonry which led to the organization of the Grand Lodge of England and to the establishment of the present system. These, which have been fully treated in the present chapter, may be briefly summarized as follows:
1. The gradual decay of Gothic architecture and the abandonment of scientific methods by the Operative Masons.
2. The intellectual revolution in Europe, which led to the more general cultivation of science and literature.
3. The loss of a common center and a commencing disintegration of the Operative Masons in England, after their last great work, the Cathedral of St. Paul’s, had been finished.
4. The growing desire among men of culture and refinement to establish an association from which the spirit of political partisanship and of religious intolerance should be banished.
5. And, lastly, the social example given in the beginning of the 18th century by the universal formation of clubs and private societies for all sorts of purposes. But none of these causes could have been productive of a society of philosophers whose formulas of instruction were derived from the principles of Operative Masonry, had not the way been prepared for the establishment of such a society by relations which had previously existed between the two elements.
To this subject I shall accordingly invite the attention of the reader in the following chapter.
THE very great change from an Operative art to a Speculative Science, by which the whole practical character of the former was abandoned and a system of philosophy was established on its basis, could never have been accomplished by any human efforts, if there had not been some previous provision, which, though undesigned originally for that purpose, rendered the transition from the one to the other practicable, if not easy of execution.
In the process of locomotion, the act of removal from one point to another can not be effected unless there be a pathway which will render the removal possible. If there be no pathway, there can be no removal; and the more direct the pathway is, and the less it is encumbered by obstructions, the more readily will the removal be accomplished.
So in the intellectual transmutation of an old society into a new one, it is just as necessary that there should be a way prepared by which the change may be effected. The old society may be of such a nature that it would be impossible to convert it into the contemplated new society. The design and objects of the former might be such as to be antagonistic even, and not favourable to the transformation.
Thus it would be impossible to convert a guild of Weavers or of Mercers into an association having the character of a lodge of Speculative Freemasons. The way is not open to such a conversion. The foundation-stone upon which the system of modern Freemasonry is built must have been a fraternity of Operative Builders in stone. It is useless to look for it elsewhere, because the symbolism of Freemasonry is derived altogether from the art of architecture.
This is the best reason that we possess for the rejection of the theory that the origin of Freemasonry is to be sought in the ancient mysteries of Egypt, of Greece, or of Persia. There is no passable way leading from these Mysteries to Speculative Freemasonry. In the secret doctrines and in the usages of these Mysteries we find no reference to architecture. They were simply systems intended to teach in a mystical way what they supposed to be religious truth. Their organization was so different from that on which the Freemasonry of the present day is based, that we can find no road directly connecting the two.
Those who have sought to make the Speculative Freemasons the legitimate descendants of the Crusaders and the Knights Templars, must meet with the same difficulty in connecting the two. Military associationscould never give rise to sodalities, all of whose principles are those of
peace and brotherly love. It would have been utterly impossible to transform a camp of knights in armour, thirsting for the blood of their Saracen foes, into a peaceful lodge of Freemasons, engaged, as the French song says, in erecting temples for virtue and dungeons for vice.
It is true that at a later period, when Craft Masonry was supplied with new rituals and when what are called the high degrees were invented, a great deal of dogma was borrowed from or rather found to be identical as to the unity of God and the immortality of the soul with those of the ancient Mysteries, and something like the usages of chivalry was introduced into the developed system of Freemasonry.
But the Speculative Freemasonry which at the beginning of the 18th century was boldly separated from the Operative Masonry, within which it had quietly slept, waiting patiently for its time of birth, knew nothing recognized nothing -imitated nothing of the Mysteries of Osiris, of Dionysus, or of Mithras, and cared still less for the daring deeds of the warriors of Palestine.
In 1716, when the resolve was first made to segregate Speculative from Operative Freemasonry, and in 1717, when that resolve was carried into effect by the organization of the Grand Lodge of England, those who undertook the enterprise, looked only to the usages and principles of the English Stonemasons for the pattern on which they were to construct the new edifice in which they were thereafter to dwell. Hence it is that the pure, Speculative Freemasonry at its origin borrowed and spiritualized, not the sacred baskets and phallic emblems of the Mysteries, nor the glittering swords and invincible armour of the Crusaders, but the working tools and professional phrases of the sodality of builders, whence they sprang.
They even, in deference to and in memorial of their descent, preserved the name of the association to which they thus unequivocally ascribed their origin.
They did not profess to be Free Mystagogues or Hierophants, nor Free Knights, but simply, as they then spelt the word, Free Masons, Builders free of the Guild, who still continued to build. They only transmuted the material cathedral, where God was to be worshipped in all the splendour of art, to the spiritual temple of the heart, where the same worship was to be continued in purity and truth.
It is true that we thus materially abridge the pretensions of the institution to a profound antiquity. But unfounded claims never win honour or respect from the honest inquirer. If we were disposed to treat the rise and progress of Freemasonry as a romance, we might indulge the imagination in its wildest flights, with no other object than to make the narrative interesting. But as the purpose is to write a history, we must confine ourselves to authenticated facts, and take the result, whatever it may be, without reservation.
Accepting, then, as true the theory that the Freemasons who commenced the organization of the Speculative system in the year 1716 at the “Apple Tree” Tavern in London, and afterward completed it in 1717 at the “Goose and Gridiron,” framed their Association after the model of the Stonemasons of the Middle Ages, whose fraternity was still preserved, though in a degenerated form, in the four Operative Lodges of London, we must inquire what were the circumstances that prepared the founders of the new Order which they were instituting for this transition from an Operative art to a purely Speculative science? We must go over the road which they traversed in making the transition from one system to the other.
If we carefully inspect the organizations of the two associations, we will observe that while between them there are some very important differences, there were, on the other hand, some equally important resemblances.
The differences present that well-marked line of demarcation which gave to each an independent individuality. They show that there have been two very distinct fraternities, while the resemblances between the two, directly considered, show also the dependence of one upon the other and the relation that existed between them.
The differences between them were only three, and were as follows :
1. The medieval Freemasons were exclusively a body of Operative builders. They admitted, it is true, as honourary members a class of persons who were not stonemasons by profession. This did not, however, in the slightest degree affect the purely Operative character of the institution.
The modern Speculative Freemasons are not Operative builders. No member is necessarily a stonemason. Stonemasons, it is true, are admitted into the brotherhood, just as persons of any other Craft may be, if morally and intellectually qualified.
2. The medieval Freemasons constituted a guild which was restricted to men of one peculiar handicraft. No one could be admitted into the guild except the Honourary Members, or Theoretic Masons, as they were sometimes called, unless he had served a long apprenticeship to the mystery, extending from one to seven years.
The Speculative Freemasons have no such provision in their Constitution. Although they derive their existence from an association of Stonemasons, and though they preserve much of the language and use all the implements of Operative Masonry in their own association, yet men of every craft and profession, and men without either, are freely admitted, without distinction, into their Brotherhood.
3. Another difference is in the religious character of the two associations.
This difference is a very important one, and has already been assigned as one of the causes that led to the separation. The medieval Masons were at first Roman Catholic, and afterward, when the Reformation had gained a foothold, and become the religion of the country in which they resided, the Freemasons professed to be Protestants, but in all their regulations a strict allegiance to the Church was required. The medieval Operative Freemasons all professed and maintained the Christian religion.
But one of the first acts of the Speculative Freemasons after their organization was to establish a system of toleration in respect to religious doctrines. The Mason was required to be of “that religion in which all men agree.” Consequently atheists only were precluded from admission to the Brotherhood. In Speculative Masonry every member is permitted to enjoy his own peculiar views on religious matters, provided that he does not deny the existence of a personal God and of a future life.
These are the essential differences which exist between the two associations. To counterbalance them, there are several very important and significant resemblances. These are as follows:
1. Both systems had some form of initiation into the Brotherhood, and certain methods of recognition by which one member could make himself known to another. These forms and methods were exceedingly simple in the older fraternity, and varied then as they do now in different countries. They afforded only the germ from which in the newer fraternity was developed, by slow steps, the full fruit of a perfect form of initiation and more complicated methods of recognition. It must be very evident that when the first movement was inaugurated toward the separation of the Speculative from the Operative element, the existence in the latter of a form of initiation and modes of recognition, however simple they may have been, must have suggested the policy of continuing, and as the organization became more mature, of improving them.
That the Modern Order of Free and Accepted Masons is a secret society, in the meaning usually but not accurately ascribed to that phrase, arises from the fact that the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages were of the same character. Of the fact that the Operative Freemasons were a secret association there is not the least doubt. (1)
If the Operative Masons had not practiced these forms and methods, we may safely infer that nothing of that nature would have been adopted by the Speculative Masons. No other of the contemporary clubs or societies which at that day were springing abundantly into existence had adopted any such methods of organization until a few of them, which were established after the year 1717, such as the Gormagons, followed the example of the Freemasons.
These forms were peculiar to the Operative Freemasons, and that they were adopted by the Speculatives is one of the strongest “So studiously did they conceal their secrets,” says Halliwell, “that it may be fairly questioned whether even some of those who were admitted into the Society of the (Operative) Freemasons were wholly skilled in all the mysterious portions of the art.” - “Archaeologia,” vol. xxviii., p. 445. proofs that could be presented that the latter are the direct descendants of the former.
2. Both the Operative and Speculative Freemasons held Geometry in the greatest esteem as being; the most important of the sciences. Indeed, in the Old Constitutions, the words were held to be synonymous. The secrets of the medieval Architects are admitted to have been geometrical, that is, they consisted in an application of the principals of geometry to the art of building.
Mr. Paley, in a sentence that has heretofore been quoted, says that “it is certain that geometry lent its aid in the planning and designing of buildings ... which were evidently profound secrets in the keeping of the Freemasons.”
When Speculative Freemasonry arose out of the declining condition of the Operative system, this respect for geometry was retained as the basis of the symbolic science, as it had been of the building art. “Right angles, horizontals, and perpendiculars,” which had been applied to the
construction of edifices, received now a spiritual signification as symbols. But seven years after the organization of Speculative Freemasonry, we find the “Free Masons’ Signs” depicted in the oldest ritual extant as acute, obtuse, and right angles. The equilateral triangle which Palfrey says was probably the basis of most of the formations of the Operative Freemasons has become the most sacred of the symbols of their Speculative descendants.
In fact all the geometrical symbols (and there are very few others) which are found in the rituals of modern Freemasonry, such as the triangle, the square, the right angle, and the forty-seventh problem of Euclid may be considered as the debris of what has been called the “lost secrets” of the old Freemasons. As these founded their art on the application of the principles of Geometry to the art of building, declaring in their veneration for the science that “there is no handicraft that is wrought by man’s hand but it is wrought by, geometry,” so the Speculative Freemasons, imitating them in that veneration, have drawn from it their most important symbols and announced it in all their rituals to be “the first and noblest of the sciences, and the basis on which the superstructure of Freemasonry is founded.”
Of the various links of the chain which connects the Operative Freemasonry of the Middle Ages with the Speculative system of the present times, there is no stronger one than this common cultivation of the science of geometry by both -in the one, as the aid to a style of architecture; in the other, as the foundation of a profound system of symbolism.
Moreover, it supplies an unanswerable objection to the theory which seeks to deduce Freemasonry from the Ancient Mysteries. Between the two this common bond is wanting. The hierophants of Egypt, of Greece, and of Persia presented no geometric teachings in their religious systems, and a modern mystical association which was derived from the Osirian, the Dionysiac, or the Mithraic secret culture, would have been as devoid as its original to any allusions to the science of Geometry.
3. A third point of resemblance is that both the Operative and the Speculative Freemasons cultivated the science of symbolism as an important part of their systems.
There is no one of the resemblances between the medieval and the modern Freemasons which is so full of suggestion as to the descent of the one from the other, as is the existence of this fact that a science of symbolism was common to both.
That the Freemasons of the Middle Ages cultivated with consummate taste and skill the science of symbolism and infused its principles in all their works, is an authentic fact of history which admits of no denial. The proofs of this are at hand, and if it were necessary might be readily produced.
Findel, whose iconoclasm as an historian never permits him to accept conclusions without a careful investigation, has contributed his authority to the statement that the German Stonemasons made abundant use of symbols in the prosecution of their art.
According to him the implements, and especially the compasses, the square, the gavel, and the foot-rule, were peculiar and expressive symbols. Other crafts may have symbolized the instruments of their trade, but the Freemasons, above all others, “had special reason to invest them with a far higher value and to associate them with a spiritual meaning; for it was a holy vocation to which they had devoted themselves. By the erection of a house to God’s service, the Master Mason not only perpetuated his own name, but contributed to the glory of the greatest of all Beings by spreading the knowledge of Christianity and by inciting to the practice of Christian virtue and piety.”
But it was not to the mere implements of their work that they confined this principle of symbolization. They extended it to the work itself, and every church and cathedral erected by Gothic art is full of the symbolism of architecture. “On all the buildings erected by them,” says Findel, “are to be found intimations of their secret brotherhood and of the symbols known to them.”
Michelet, the historian of France, always eloquent and florid, becomes especially so when he is referring to the architectural symbolism of the Old Freemasons.
According to him the church, as erected in all the significance of its architectural symbols, is not a mere building of stones, but the material presentation of the Christian drama. “It is,” he exclaims, in the fervour of his admiration, “a petrified Mystery, a Passion in stone, or rather the Sufferer himself. The whole edifice, in the austerity of its geometrical architecture, is a living body, a Man. The nave, extending its two arms, is the Man on the cross; the crypt, or subterranean church, is the Man in the tomb; the spire is still the same Man, but above, ascending to heaven; while in the choir obliquely inclining in respect to the nave you see his head bent in agony.”
Now this science of symbolism so assiduously and so gracefully cultivated by the medieval Freemasons was handed down, like an heir-loom, to their modern successors, who in slow process of time developed it into the beautiful system which now forms the vital force of Speculative Freemasonry.
One of the legal and accredited definitions of modem Freemasonry is that it is “a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.” (1) As the architecture of the old Freemasons differed from all other architecture in the symbolism which it impressed on every stone, so the morality of the modern Freemasons differs from every other code in the symbolism with which it clothes its instructions.
But in all fairness it must be confessed that the mere fact that the science of symbolism has been cultivated both by the Operative and Speculative Freemasons furnishes no satisfactory evidence that the one has been derived from the other.
Symbolism was the very earliest method by which men sought to convey religious thought. It is believed, with some share of plausibility, that it existed even in prehistoric times. It was common to all nations, and exercised its influence even in the construction of language, for words are merely the symbols of ideas.
The Phallic, supposed to be the most ancient of all worships, was preeminently a religion of symbolism. Much of that symbolism has been retained in modern customs and religious observances, though its origin has been forgotten and its application been perverted.
Nearly all the ancient schools were secret, like that of Pythagoras, and clothed their lessons of wisdom with the covering of symbolism. As with the philosophical, so was it with the religious sects called the Mysteries. Their secret dogmas were concealed beneath symbols and allegories.
It is evident, then, that in regard to the single point of symbolism, the modern Freemasons might as well have derived their symbolic usages from the ancient institutions of philosophy or of religion as from the medieval builders.
But the symbols which were adopted by the modern Freemasons, in the beginning of the 18th century, under their Speculative system, were all based on geometry and on architecture and on its implements.
Now the symbols of the old Operative Freemasons were of precisely the same character. Geometry and architecture were the foundation of both of them.
But the hierophants and mystagogues of the Pagan mysteries employed, in the illustration of their doctrines, symbols, like the phallus, or the serpent, that had no connection whatsoever with the art of building or with the science of mathematics. It is evident that the Speculative Freemasons, when they were instituting their new Society as “a system of morality which was to be illustrated by symbols,” could not have derived any suggestions from the Pagan mysteries.
The winged globe or the handled cross of the Egyptians, the mystic van of Eleusis, and the bleeding bull of the rites of Mithras found no place as symbols in the system of the first Speculative Masons. It is true that at a later period, and especially after the invention of what are called the “high degrees,” the original ritual was supplemented by the addition of many symbols culled from these ancient sources.
Among the Operative Freemasons there were also a few symbols which were not connected with Geometry or Architecture, which were, it is supposed, borrowed from the Gnostics, with whom these old builders appear to have had some intercourse. But these symbols were chiefly confined to the proprietary marks, and consequently never were incorporated into the ritual of the Speculatives.
But the society which in 1716 seceded or separated from the Operative Lodges of London, and in less than a year after organized the “Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons,” when adopting its unimposing ritual, gave the most ample testimony in its construction of the unmixed influence of an association of builders. The symbolism employed in the beginning by the Speculative Freemasons therefore furnished all the evidence that is necessary, if no other were forthcoming, of their direct descent from the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages.
4. A fourth resemblance between the two associations is found in the fact that both were divided into three classes, bearing the same name, namely, Masters, Fellows, and Apprentices.
In the Operative system these were mere ranks or classes, which do not appear, from any evidence we possess, to have any distinct form of initiation or methods of recognition by which the classes were esoterically separated from each other. In other words, there was no such thing as a series of degrees, as that term is now masonically understood, but only one degree or form of initiation common to all - to the Apprentice as well as to the Master.
This was precisely the system adopted by the Speculative Freemasons at the outspring of the separation. For at least three years they pursued the old Operative method, and had but one esoteric form of admission for all their members. The fabrication of the three degrees was an afterthought, which did not take place until at least the year 1720.
Bro. W.J. Hughan, who on this subject will be willingly recognized as of the highest authority, has made this positive statement on the subject:
“The reference to Masonic degrees (as we understand the term now) never occurs in the ancient minutes, no rituals of degrees prior to 1720 are in existence; and whatever esoteric customs may have been communicated to craftsmen before the last century, they do not appear to have necessitated the temporary absence of either class of members from the lodge.”
But as this has long been, and even now is, a mooted question among masonic scholars, a very few inclining to give to the series of Craft degrees a greater antiquity than they seem entitled to, the subject will be discussed in all its bearings in a future chapter of this work, when the judgment expressed by Bro. Hughan will, I think, be sustained by the clearest historical evidence.
In respect to the inquiry which we are now pursuing, the decision of the question is unimportant. For whether we consider that the Masters, Fellows, and Apprentices represented three degrees of esoteric Masonry or only three classes of workmen, there is no doubt that the Speculative Freemasons derived the idea of such a division from the Operatives.
They could not have got it from any of the religious or philosophic systems of antiquity. They could not have found it in the Mysteries of Osiris nor in the school of Pythagoras, in neither of which does any such division occur.
Whatever changes the Speculatives may have made after their organization by transmuting what were classes in the Operative system into degrees, the change could not obliterate the evidence that the former was the successor of the latter, and could have an origin only in an association of craftsmen to whom such a division into classes or ranks of workmen was common and necessary.
5. Another resemblance is found in the common reference of both to the Temple of Solomon as a pattern or type on which much of their symbolism has been founded.
It is not intended to maintain the theory that the Institution of Freemasonry has descended from the Tyrian and Jewish builders at the Temple erected by King Solomon. It has already engaged our attention in a preceding part of this work, and I have sought, I hope and think successfully, to show that the Solomonic legend as it has been formulated in the third degree of our modern Freemasonry, though accepted in the lodge rituals, is a mere myth without a particle of historical authority to sustain it.
Yet as a part of the great Legend of the Craft, the connection of King Solomon’s Temple with the supposed history of Masonry was not unknown to the Operative Masons of at least the 15th and succeeding centuries, since they were familiar with the Old Constitutions in which this Legend was embodied.
Notwithstanding that the details of the construction of this Temple by the Jewish and Tyrian Masons contained in the Legend of the Craft are very brief, these details, unsatisfactory as they are, were enough to inspire the Freemasons of the Middle Ages with the belief that the building had been erected by the aid of their predecessors. Hence their Master Builders preserved a reverential reference to it in many of their architectural symbols.
But there is no evidence that the Hiramic legend, such as met with in the lodges, was ever known to the architects of the Middle Ages.
Still, the history of the Temple, inaccurately as it was given in the Legend, was accepted by them as a part of the history of the Craft, and the building of the magnificent structure was esteemed by them as one of the most glorious works of the ancient Brotherhood.
From the Operative Freemasons the Temple idea passed over to their Speculative successors. From no other source could the latter have derived it. Its presence among them, coupled with the other resemblances, especially that of the division into three classes, is a most irrefragable proof of the intimate connection of the two associations.
The founders of Speculative Freemasonry found the simple Legend of the Craft ready at hand. They adopted it - incorporated it into their new association -and in a short time, with great ingenuity, developed it into the beautiful and impressive allegory of the Third degree.
6. A very significant resemblance between the Operative and the Speculative Freemasons is shown in the fact that all the written laws and usages of the latter are founded upon those which were enacted for the government of the former.
The oldest code of laws for the government of Speculative Freemasons is that contained in the document entitled “The Charges of a Free-Mason,” which were adopted in 1722 by the Grand Lodge and published in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions. In this edition it is said that they have been “extracted from the ancient records of lodges beyond sea and of those in England, Scotland, and Ireland for the use of the lodges in London.” (1) The statutes which governed the Operative Freemasons are contained in the old manuscript Constitutions, which range in date from the end of the 13th to the beginning of the 18th century. The regulations which they contain are wholly inappropriate to the government of a non-Operative society. Still, as the Speculative was founded upon the Operative association, and was only a development of the principles of the latter in an application of them to moral and philosophical purposes, the laws of the Operative society were largely made use of by the Speculative Fraternity in the construction of their new code. It is true that the statutes contained in the manuscript Constitutions have not, with a few exceptions, been copied word for word in the “Charges” adopted for the regulation of the newly born Brotherhood. This was hardly to be expected. That which is justly appropriate for a mechanic pursuing a mechanical occupation, would be very absurd and incongruous when applied to a philosopher engaged in a philosophical inquiry.
Still, the spirit of the old laws has been rigidly observed. There is not a regulation in the “Charges” adopted in 1722 which does not find an analogy in the Constitutions of the Operative Craft contained in the old manuscript records, beginning, so far as we have any trace of them, with the Constitutions of the Art of Geometry according to Euclid, which was written, it is supposed, in the year 1399, and which was in all probability a copy of some older manuscript, now, perhaps, irrecoverably lost. The old law has been retained, but in its spirit and application there has been a material change.
Thus, by way of example, we find in the “Charges” of 1722 the following clause :
“No Master shall give more wages to any Brother or Apprentice than he may deserve.”
Now this most certainly could not have meant that in a lodge of Speculative Freemasons the Master should not pay more than a certain justly earned amount of wages to an Entered Apprentice. In 1722, when this regulation was adopted, the Masters of lodges did not pay wages, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, to any of the members.
The French Masons have retained the use of this word in their technical language, and show us very clearly what meaning was intended to be conveyed by these “Charges,” when they spoke of paying a Speculative Freemason his wages.
What the English and American Freemasons call “advancement from a lower to a higher degree,” the French Freemasons designate by the expression “increase of wages.” When we say that an Entered Apprentice has been advanced to the degree of Fellow-Craft, the French express the same fact by stating that the Apprentice has received an increase of wages.
This, then, is the idea intended to be conveyed in that clause of the “Charges” of 1722 which has just been quoted. Translated into the language of the present day, we find it in that law which exists in all Masonic jurisdictions and under the sanction of all Grand Lodges, that no Mason shall be advanced to a higher degree until he has shown suitable proficiency in the preceding one.
Now this law of Speculative Freemasonry has been derived from and finds its analogy in the Old Constitutions of the Operative Freemasons, where the following law is extant:
“Every Master shall give pay to his Fellows and servants as they may deserve, so that he be not defamed with false working.”
It is very manifest that here the literal meaning of the law as it was applicable to Operative Freemasonry has been abandoned, but the spirit has been preserved in a symbolical interpretation.
Again, in the “Charges” adopted by the Speculatives in 1722, the following regulation will be found:
“None shall discover envy at the prosperity of a Brother nor supplant him, nor put him out of his work if he be capable to finish the same; for no man can finish another’s work so much to the Lord’s profit, unless he be thoroughly acquainted with the design and draughts of him that began it.”
No one, on the mere reading of this regulation, can hesitate to believe that it must have been originally intended for the government of working Masons, and that the Speculative Masons must have derived it from them.
Accordingly, if we look into the Old Constitutions of the Operative Freemasons we shall find the same law, though not expressed in identical words. The Operative law is thus stated in the Sloane MS., whose date is about 1645.
“Noe Maister nor Fellowe shall supplant others of there worke (that is to say); if he have taken a worke, or stand Maister of a Lord’s work, you shall not put him out of it; if hee bee able of cunning to performe the same.”
Now we can very easily understand the meaning of this last regulation as applied to an association or fraternity of working Masons. It was intended to prevent the unfair interference of one Operative Freemason with another, by seeking to wrest employment from him in surreptitious and underhanded ways. It is not, even at this day, considered by craftsmen to be an honourable act, though not forbidden, as it was to the old Freemasons, by an express statute.
But what can be the meaning of such a law when applied, as it is in the “Charges” of 1722, to Speculative Freemasons? They have no “Lord’s work” to do, in which they might be supplanted by a rival craftsman.
If the literal meaning of the law were to be accepted, we should verify the truth of Scripture that it is the letter which killeth. But if we apply the symbolic interpretation, which must have been the one given to it by the Speculative Freemasons, we shall find that the spirit of the old Operative regulations is still preserved and obeyed b,y all the Grand Lodges in the world. It is in fact the very law that applies to and is the foundation of the well-known and often discussed doctrine of Masonic jurisdiction.
The law as it is normally understood is that no lodge shall interfere with another lodge in conferring degrees on a candidate; that when he has received the First degree in any lodge, he becomes, masonically, the work of that lodge and must there receive the rest of the degrees. No other lodge shall be permitted to supplant it, or to take the finishing of that work out of its hands. The Apprentice must be passed and raised in the lodge wherein he was initiated.
Thus the law of Speculative Freemasonry which is everywhere accepted by the Craft as the rule of courtesy for the government of lodges in their relation to each other, was evidently founded on the principles of Operative Freemasonry, taken, in fact, from the law of that older branch of the Institution and, as it were, spiritualized in its practical application to the government of the Speculative branch.
Viewed in their literal meaning, it is very evident that the whole of the “Charges” adopted in the year 1722 by the Grand Lodge of England, just after its severance from the Operative lodges, are laws which must have been intended for an association of working Masons.
They were the statutes of an Operative guild, and were adopted in the bulk by the Speculative Freemasons at the time of the separation, to be subsequently and gradually interpreted in their meaning and modified in their purpose to suit the Speculative idea.
Other points of emblance and other points of resemblance might be found on a more minute investigation, but the connection between the two branches have I think, been sufficiently shown.
The differences have enabled us to give to each association a personality and an individuality which manifestly separate the one from the other. The guild of Operative and the guild of Speculative Freemasons were and are entirely distinct, in their character and design.
The parent and the child are not the same, though there will be resemblances which indicate the common lineage.Now the resemblances which have been described as existing between the two Fraternities, while they paved the way for the easy outgrowth of the one from the other, furnish also the most incontestable evidence of the influence that was exerted by the guild of medieval Freemasons on the organization of the Speculative Freemasons who sprang into existence in England at the beginning of the 18th century. To use a Darwinian phrase, the change might be said to have been produced by a sort of evolution.
In other words, if there had been no guilds of Operative Freemasons, such as history paints them, from the 10th to the 17th centuries, there would have been no lodges of Speculative Freemasons in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Thus we establish the truth of the hypothesis which it has been the object of this work to maintain, that the Freemasonry of the present day is derived solely, in its primitive organization, from the Building Corporations of the Middle Ages; and that its rites, its doctrines, and its laws have suffered no modification except that which naturally resulted from a change of character when the Operative Fraternity became a Speculative one.
This is, I think, about the sum and substance and the true solution of the historical problem which refers to the connection of the Speculative with the Operative association; of the Freemasons of to-day with the Freemasons who came from Lombardy and who flourished in the Middle Ages; of the men whose lodges have now passed into every country where civilization has extended, and everywhere exerted a powerful moral influence, with the men who erected monuments of their artistic skill at Magdeburg, and Strasburg, and Cologne, at Canterbury and York, at Kilwinning and Melrose.
Our attention must next be directed to the historical events that took place immediately after the separation in England, and afterward in Scotland and in other countries -events which make up the narrative of the rise and progress of Speculative Freemasonry.
To these events the following chapters will be devoted.