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 History of Freemasonry
No one
knows with certainty how or when the Masonic Fraternity was formed. A widely
accepted theory among Masonic scholars is that it arose from the
stonemasons’ guilds during the Middle Ages. The language and symbols used in
the fraternity’s rituals come from this era. The oldest document that makes
reference to Masons is the Regius Poem, printed about 1390, which was a copy
of an earlier work. In 1717, four lodges in London formed the first Grand
Lodge of England, and records from that point on are more complete.
Within
thirty years, the fraternity had spread throughout Europe and the American
Colonies. Freemasonry became very popular in colonial America. George
Washington was a Mason, Benjamin Franklin served as the head of the
fraternity in Pennsylvania, as did Paul Revere and Joseph Warren in
Massachusetts. Other well-known Masons involved with the founding of
America included John
Hancock, John Sullivan, Lafayette, Baron Fredrick von Stuben, Nathanael
Greene, and John Paul Jones. Another Mason, Chief Justice John Marshall,
shaped the Supreme Court into its present form.
Over the
centuries, Freemasonry has developed into a worldwide fraternity emphasizing
personal study, self-improvement, and social betterment via individual
involvement and philanthropy. During the late 1700s it was one of the
organizations most responsible for spreading the ideals of the
Enlightenment: the dignity of man and the liberty of the individual, the
right of all persons to worship as they choose, the formation of democratic
governments, and the importance of public education. Masons supported the
first public schools in both Europe and America.
During
the 1800s and early 1900s, Freemasonry grew dramatically. At that time, the
government had provided no social "safety net". The Masonic tradition of
founding orphanages, homes for widows, and homes for the aged provided the
only security many people knew.
 Freemasonry's Origin
Freemasonry is ancient, having existed in some form for so
long that many serious students have differed as to the time and place of
its origin. There is evidence of a basic type of craft association which
antedates the Christian era. It survived various transitions which took
place during the Middle Ages. It was during this period that the word "Free"
was prefixed to the word Mason, because these builders were one of the very
few classes of persons allowed to travel from country to country and to
practice the builder's art wheresoever they went. It was these companies of
Masons who constructed the beautiful cathedrals and other stately structures
which dot the plains of Europe and the English countryside. These men
differed from the main from others of the working crafts because they,
possessing knowledge and skills not found elsewhere, were free men rather
than bond servants.
Until about the Sixteenth Century Masons were strictly an
operative craft, bond together by the close ties found in the constructive
craft guilds of the day. Early in the Seventeenth Century, men of prominence
were admitted, not as craftsmen, for they were not skilled in the builders
art, but rather as patrons. Gradually these men came to be known as
"accepted" Masons. Thus, by the time the Seventh Century came to its end the
accepted or speculative Masons were predominant in many of the
older Lodges of Freemasons. Today the Masonic Lodge is termed speculative
because its emphasis is on the moral philosophy which is its foundation,
rather than the operative art of the Sixteenth and earlier centuries. The
tools of the stonemason are used to symbolize moral virtues rather than to
build cathedrals.
Because of its very nature, there is no way to change
Freemasonry to suit the tastes, opinions, or prejudices of each candidate or
member; if such were possible there would soon be no basic Masonic
principles or doctrines, and Freemasonry would become just another
organization. Since it is a proven system of self-improvement, each
candidate must accept its doctrines and principles, and comply with its laws
and regulations.
The Old Charges of Freemasonry
(1) The
Operative Craft
"There
exists a collection of documents which has been called up as evidence both
for the operative and non-operative origins of Freemasonry. Described by
Anderson as the Gothic Constitutions, and now known collectively as the
Old Charges, some 127 versions have been traced of which
113 are still in existence....All have a common form:
a. an opening prayer
b. a legendary history of the mason craft tracing it from biblical
origins to its establishment in England
c. a code of regulations for Masters, Fellows and Apprentices covering
both craft practices and morals
d. arrangement for large-scale 'territorial' assemblies at which
attendance was obligatory
e. procedures for the trial and punishment of offenders
f. admission procedures 'for new men that were never charged before',
including an oath of fidelity."
"Historically, the Old Charges fall into three groups. The first comprises
the two earliest versions, the Regius MS of c.1390 and the Cook MS of
c.1420...The second, and largest, group begins with the Grand Lodge No. 1
MS, dated 25 December 1583, and covers
all the versions datable before the formation of the premier Grand Lodge in
1717. The third group comprises manuscript and printed versions produced
after 1717, the majority of which appear to have been produced as
antiquarian curiosities."
- John Hamill, The Craft, A History of English Freemasonry
The Wood
manuscript, written in 1610 "traces the history of the Order from
two pillars
that were found after Noah's Flood, none made of a marble that would not
burn with fire, the other made of a substance known in Masonic legends as
Laterus, which would not dissolve, sink or drown in any water. One of these
pillars was found and upon it were inscribed the secrets of the sciences
from which the Sumerians developed a moral code that passed to the Egyptians
through the Sumerian Abraham and his wife Sarah. The script goes on to
describe Euclid teaching geometry to the Egyptians, from whom the Israelites
took it to
Jerusalem, which resulted in the building of King Solomon's
Temple."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"A
record of the society written in the reign of Edward IV, said to have been
in the possession of the famous Elias Ashmole, founder of
the Museum at Oxford, and which was unfortunately destroyed, with other
papers on the subject of Masonry, at the Revolution, gives the following
account of the state of Masonry at this period:
"That
though the ancient records of the brotherhood in England were many of them
destroyed, or lost, in the wars of the Saxons and Danes, yet king Athelitane,
(the grandson of King Alfred the Great, a mighty architect,) the first
anointed king of England, and who translated the Holy Bible into the Saxon
tongue, (AD 930) when he had brought the land into rest and peace, built
many great works, and encouraged many Mason from France, who were appointed
overseers thereof, and brought with them the charges and regulations of the
lodges, preserved since the Roman times; who also prevailed with the king to
improve the constitution of the English lodges according to the foreign
model, and to increase the wages of working Masons."
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1804)
Preston's accounts of the history of Masonry in England, beginning with the
Druids and Romans, are based on the mythical history included in Anderson's
Constitutions (1773) and his own 1776 Appendix.
"In the
west of England there is a magnificent chain of cathedrals without parallel
elsewhere: Exeter, Wells, Gloucester, Worcestershire and Hereford, as well
asmany abbeys and castles, on which building was carried out almost
continuously during the five centuries before A.D. 1500."
The Regius MS and the Cooke MS, based on a lost 1360 manuscript, are the
only pre-Reformation versions of the Old Charges still extant. Both "say
that Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great gave charges to masons for he
was the King of Wessex before he became King of All England [c.895-939], and
he is reputed to have been the founder in 932 of the monastic house which
was the fore-runner of the cathedral at Exeter."
According to the Cooke MS, Athalstan's youngest son "'loved well the science
of Geometry' and he became a mason himself. He, in turn, gave charges to
masons 'as it is now in England'. Moreover he obtained a patent from the
king that they should 'make assembly when they saw reasonable time to come
together'."
- Bro. J. R. Clarke, "The Old Charges (A New Look at the Oldest of
Them)"
"During
the reign of Henry II, the Grand Master of the
Knights Templars superintended the
Masons, and employed them in building their Temple in Fleet-street, A.D.
1155. Masonry continued under the patronage of this Order till the year
1199, when John succeeded his brother Richard in the crown of England."
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1804)
"The
term freemason appears as early as 1375 in the records of the
city of London. It referred to
working masons who were permitted to travel the country at a time when the
feudal system shackled most peasants closely to the land. Unlike the members
of other crafts of the time - smiths or tanners for example - the masons
gathered in large groups to work on majestic, glorious projects, moving from
one finished castle or cathedral to the planning and building of the next.
For mutual protection, education, and training, the masons bound themselves
together into a local lodge - the building, put up at a construction site,
where workmen could eat and rest. Eventually, a lodge came to signify a
group of masons based in a particular locality."
- "Freemasons; Mortar and Mysticism", Ancient Wisdom and Secret
Sects
"A record in the reign of Edward IV runs thus:
"The company of Masons, being otherwise termed Free-Masons,
of auntient staunding and good reckonings, by means of affable and kind
meetyngs dyverse tymes, and as a lovinge brotherhode use to doe, did
frequent this mutual assembly in the tyme of Henry VI in the twelfth yeare
of his most gracious reign, A.D. 1434'."
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1804)
"It has been demonstrated that freemason - in an operative
context - is a contraction of 'freestone mason'....The earliest printed use
so far traced comes in The Pilgrimage of Perfection - usually
attributed to William Bonde - printed in 1536 by Wynkyn de Worde."
- John Hamill, The Craft, A History of English Freemasonry
"The freemason setteth his pretyss first long tyme to learn
to hewe stones and whan he can do that perfectly he admytteth him to be a
freemason and choseth hym as a conynge man to be master of the Craft."
- The Pilgrimage of Perfection
"Guilds of mason were common, and can be found emerging in
Scotland (where guilds were generally known as incorporations) in the late
Middle Ages."
- David Stevenson, The First Freemasons
"...The Masons were countenanced and protected in Scotland by
King James I. After his return from captivity, he became the patron of the
learned, and a zealous encourager of Masonry. The Scottish records relate,
that he honored the lodges with his royal presence; that he settled a yearly
revenue of four pounds Scots, (an English noble,) to be paid by every
Master-Mason in Scotland, to a Grand Master, chosen by the Grand Lodge, and
approved by the crown, one nobly born, or an eminent clergyman, who had his
deputies in cities and counties, and every new brother at entrance paid him
also a fee. His office empowered him to regulate in the fraternity what
should not come under the cognizance of law-courts."
- William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry (1804)
"In Scotland such lodges [established for long-term site
building activity], under burgh control, can be traced in Aberdeen and
Dundee in the late fifteenth and early sixteen centuries. But they appear to
have declined or disappeared entirely shortly before or after the
Reformation of 1560 brought a new protestant church to Scotland."
"The legacy of the Medieval masons obviously contains much that is later
found in freemasonry; the mythical history of the craft, the identification
of masonry with mathematics; organization in 'lodges'; secret signs and
words; and rituals of initiation."
- David Stevenson, The First Freemasons
(2) A Brother to Pirates and Corsairs
Concerning stonemasons in the Middle Ages, "their vocabulary
and most likely their ability for abstract thought must have been very
limited indeed. Travel for all but the most highly skilled master masons was
a rare event so secret signs, grips and passwords would not be of much
value; end even if they did travel from one building construction to another
why would they need secret means of recognition?"
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"A final check at Oxford's Bodleian, one of the great
libraries of the world, and I finally felt absolutely secure in stating that
Freemasonry did not evolve from the medieval guilds of stonemasons in
Britain because it would appear that there were no medieval guilds of
stonemasons in Britain."
"The French-language roots of the lost words of Masonry indicate the strong
possibility that the society was in existence in the first half of the
fourteenth century..."
- John J. Robinson, Born in Blood
William St Clair designed and built Rosslyn Chapel using the
plans of Solomon's Temple, and incorporating many Templar and Masonic
motifs. Knight and Lomas speculate that the Chapel also contained a copy of
the vaults at Solomon's Temple and its hidden treasure.
"William St Clair had an obvious problem with security; the
masons building his scroll shrine had to know the layout of the underground
vault network and they knew that this strange building was to house
something of great value.
"William St Clair was a brilliant and talented man and we believe that he
devised the First Degree of Craft Masonry and the Mark Mason Degree to give
his operative masons a code of conduct and an involvement in the secret,
without telling them the great secret of living resurrection which was
reserved for speculative Masons. It is a matter of record that he had two
grades of stonemason on site; the 10 pounds-a-year standard masons (or
apprentices) and the 40 pounds-a-year 'mark masons' who were honored by the
possession of a personal mark in the continental fashion."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
Origins of Modern Freemasonry
The Acception
 "King
James VI of Scotland (also later James I of England) was the only child of
Mary Queen of Scots and the first king to rule both England and Scotland. He
was also the first king known to be a Freemason, being initiated into the
Lodge of Scots and Perth in 1601 at the age of thirty five."
"He made a leading Mason by the name of William Schaw his General Warden of
the Craft and instructed him to improve the entire structure of Masonry.
Schaw started this major project on 28 December 1598 when he issued 'The
statues and ordinances to be observed by all the master maissouns within
this realme,' signing himself as 'the General Warden of the said craft'."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"The man
who more than anyone else deserves the title of creator of modern Feemasonry
was William Schaw. The younger son of a laird (landowner)
with close connections with the court, Schaw developed a strong interest in
architecture and in 1583 was appointed master of works by King James VI of
Scotland."
- David Stevenson, The First Freemasons
"Schaw
started this major project on 28 December 1598 when he issued 'The statues
and ordinances to be observed by all the master maissouns within this realme,'
signing himself as 'the General Warden of the said craft'."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs,
Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
"As
general warden and master of works Schaw issued two codes of statutes, in
1598 and 1599. In these he laid down regulations for the organization and
practice of the mason craft through a system of 'lodges'."
"At first sight is might seem that his statutes are solely concerned with
the organization and regulation of the working lives of stonemasons....He
was doing much more, reviving and developing Medieval masonic mythology and
rituals in a Renaissance atmosphere."
"Scotland's early freemasons, it would appear, probably kept specific
religious practices out of their lodges as to do otherwise would have been
to confront the church with an attack on its monopoly of religion but as a
later date the morality without religious worship of the lodges made
freemasonry attractive to those developing tolerant or deistic attitudes."
- David Stevenson, The First Freemasons
Sir Francis Bacon, who became Solicitor-General under fellow Freemason James
I of England, was a champion of inductive reasoning and has been described
as "the father of modern science".
"It is highly likely that Brother Bacon was the driving force behind the
styling of the new second degree introduced by his close colleague William
Schaw."
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The
Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of
Jesus.
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