About the Author:
The Revd Neville Barker Cryer - the Past Grand Chaplain UGLE, Prestonian Lecturer (1974) and Batham Lecturer (1996-1998) - is a well-known and popular masonic author and international lecturer.
He is also senior member of the SRIA, The Royal Order, the Operatives and the Order of Eri.
Introduction
Following the publication last year of the 150th anniversary book for the Grand Lodge, Marking Well, it would be a quite proper question to ask why there is any need for something else so soon dealing with this degree. The answer is that the contents of this book were written long before the 150th celebrations were thought of and had been circulated among friendly Mark Masons, or delivered in Mark lodges as invitation lectures and demonstrations. As time has passed there have been requests for this private material to be made public and the publishers also have considered that there might be a wider audience to be served.
It is also the case that whilst the contents of last year's book dealt admirably with places and persons connected with the great event that it commemorated, this book is trying to serve the lodges and their members in the days ahead. At a time when there seems to be a growing, and commendable, desire to understand our Masonry as well as practise it, what is put down here has just that purpose in view. Each of the Ten Minute Talks that come first in this book are meant to help Mark Masons to appreciate and understand better the contents of our ritual and procedures. That they have already helped a few leads me to believe that others could benefit. What is undoubted is that I have myself, over the last 50 years, benefited from, and grown to value the lessons that Mark Masonry has to offer.
Should there be occasions when time for a lecture is available then perhaps the three offered here will avoid the necessity of always looking for an outside speaker. Certainly experience with my other books on the Craft and Royal Arch is such as to suggest that what has been written can be of help in lodges and chapters. Apart from any copyright on formal reproduction for gain there is free permission to reproduce in speech what is here, with due acknowledgement. It will please this author to know that he is assisting that famous 'daily advancement in Masonic knowledge'.
As for the old rituals that are reproduced here it may be of interest for readers to learn that not only have these been already translated into, and performed, in Dutch but that the author was invited as a special guest to see their presentation there three years ago. As is stated in their introduction they have for long been known to Surrey Freemasons and their neighbours. I shall be delighted to learn of their further use.
In commending this work to my present readership, and especially to those who share my long regard for Mark Masonry, I can only hope that once again there will be those who, on reading or hearing what is in these pages, will be led to exclaim, as others have done elsewhere: 'Well, I just didn't know that.' If that happens then all the effort of creation and publication will have been immensely worthwhile.
The Revd Neville Barker Cryer, M.A., PPGM (Surrey)
York. 2007
Book Excerpt
Mark Man and Mark Master
When the members of a Mark lodge have been assured that their candidate for the Mark Degree has attained the status of a Master Mason in the Craft, and prayer has been offered for the blessing of the occasion, a newcomer to the Mark is made aware of something that has happened from very much earlier times. He is told that it was then the custom for a fellow of the craft of stonemasons to be invited to choose a Mark that was special to himself, and unlike anything used by anyone else in that lodge, so that his work might be recognised as his by the officials called Overseers. He is also taught how to present that mark at the Senior Warden's wicket in the West that he might receive the wages due to him as a Mark Man. If he says that he had not received such a mark in his Craft lodge, as he still might do in many Scottish Craft lodges, he is taken to the Registrar's place which is beside the Secretary, and is provided with his distinctive mark. This is then presented to the Worshipful Master for confirmation. Because we so often pass over this part of the ceremony too swiftly at the outset of the present Mark degree ceremony we may easily forget that the candidate is then addressed by the Worshipful Master in the following manner: 'I admire the ability displayed in the execution of your work. I therefore designate you a Mark Man and will at once entrust you with the token of that rank.' He is accordingly shown how to present his hand for such wages as will thus be his due. Let us register here the fact that what has just taken place has confirmed our candidate in anew Masonic rank, that of Mark Man, even if he were not to proceed any further.
At once, however, in our present practice, he is said to be qualified for advancement to the honourable degree of a Mark Master. One might therefore reasonably ask why, if this is the real purpose of the evening's ceremony, is a distinction made between two ranks or grades in what is regarded as a one degree event. Why do we have two such steps and what do they each signify?
The answer, of course, is that what we have here is the remnant of what was, during a century before our present Mark Grand Lodge organisation was established. Let me explain. A working stonemason received his personal mark when he had qualified as a fellow or master craftsman, but not a master mason, of his trade. The master mason was then a person of a superior rank who did not even belong to the working lodge. So when a form of Mark practice began to be adopted by Free and Accepted Masons, used among them since at least 1750, it was that older usage which was followed. Fellow crafts finished the second degree by being given a mark which thus allowed them to be paid their wages in specie in the middle chamber, as we are told was the case in the explanation of the second degree tracing board. These brethren were known as 'marked' or Mark men. That is why, to this day, when a Craft lodge is closed in what was originally the only form of ancient closing, in the fellows grade, the Senior Warden says, 'having seen that every Brother has had his due'. The apprentices did not have wages. It was only the fellow-craftsmen who were so entitled.
Yet there were some other kinds of mark that were used by working masons, as is explained in another of these talks. One was not granted until a man was qualified as a Harod or senior, thus able to preside as a ruler of an operative lodge. In the Free and Accepted Craft this further knowledge was not granted until a brother was raised to the so-called rank of a Master Mason, when you could become a Mark Master Mason. That is why, when the candidate today has received his mark the Worshipful Master says: 'that he may be qualified to preside over a lodge of Operative Masons when required'. In the 18th century there were indeed two separate and complete ceremonies which followed the second and third degrees respectively. A reconstruction of those two early ceremonies, taken from the original documents, can be found later in this book.
Today we have reduced those ceremonies to just one but by retaining the titles of Mark Man and Mark Master we have at least maintained the ancient practice and ensured that the present Mark Mason has taken both the essential steps. It only goes to prove that there is much more to our progress through Masonry than at first we may be aware of.
Book-review
At last, Neville Barker Cryer, author or the ever-popular I Just Didn’t Know That, Did You Know This Too? and What Do You Know About the Royal Arch? has brought his attention to the Mark Degree! In this amazing volume, Cryer presents ten, ten-minute talks, which are both inspiriting and educational. And because they are written in such an easy to read manner, they can be performed in a Mark Lodge or simply a pleasure to read at home.
Remarkable is the reconstruction of the old Mark Degrees workings. The author demonstrates how the present-day ritual draws upon its predecessors, how the Craft, Mark and Royal Arch ceremonies were previously connected, and how certain symbols and ceremonies today have an explanation which has tended to be obscured in more recents times.
This volume is a "must" and should be present in every, both personal and Lodge as far as Grand Lodge masonic library.
Bruno Virgilio Gazzo
editor, PS Review of FM
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