CHAPTER XIII

EARLY MASONRY IN SCOTLAND


WHAT the tradition of York is to the Freemasons of England, that of
Kilwinning is to the Masons of Scotland.  The story which traces the birth
of the Order to the celebrated Abbey of Kilwinning was for many years
accepted as the authentic history of Scottish Masonry.

Thus Sir John Sinclair, in his Stalistical Account of Scotland, states that "a
number of Freemasons came from the continent to build a monastery at
Kilwinning and with them an architect or Master Mason to superintend and
carry on the work.  This architect resided at Kilwinning, and being a gude
and true Mason, intimately acquainted with all the arts and parts of
Masonry, known on the continent, was chosen Master of the meetings of
the brethren all over Scotland.  He gave rules for the conduct of the
brethren at these meetings, and decided finally in appeals from all the other
meetings or lodges in Scotland." (1)

This tradition has been accepted by the author of Laurie's History, who
says that "Freemasonry was introduced into Scotland by those architects
who built the Abbey of Kilwinning." (2) He connects those architects with
the trading association of artists who were engaged in the construction of
religious buildings on the Continent, under the patronage of the Pope, and
who provided builders for both England and Scotland.  And he
suggests as an evidence that Masonry was introduced into Scotland by
these foreign workmen the fact that in a town in Scotland where there is
an elegant abbey, he had "often heard that it was erected by a company
of industrious men who spoke in a foreign langiiage and lived separately
from the town's people."

(1) Vol. xi., art.  "Kilwinning."    
(2) "History of Freemasonry" p. 89.


The Abbey of Kilwinning, which has been claimed as the birthplace of
Masonry in Scotland, was situated in the town of the same name, and in
the county of Ayr, on the southwestern coast of Scotland.  It was
founded by Hugh de Morville, High Constable of Scotland, in the year
1157. The abbey is now and bas long been in ruins, though what now
remains of it attests, says Mr. Robert Wylie, who has written a History of
the Mother Lodge, Kilwinning, "the zeal and opulence of its founder, and
furnishes indubitable evidence, fragmentary as it is, of its having been
one of the most splendid examples of Gothic art in Scotland."

It is only very recently that anyone has attempted to deny the
authenticity of the Legend which traces the introduction of Freemasonry
into Scotland to the workmen who came over in the 12th century to
construct the Abbey of Kilwinning.

Bro. D. Murray Lyon has attacked the tradition, together with some
others connected with Scottish Masonry, all of which he deems destitute
of historical support.

The tradition, however, like that of York among the English Masons, has
not wanted its zealous supporters among the Scottish brethren, and
more especially among the members of the Kilwinning, which claims to
have a legitimate descent from the primitive lodge which was established
in the 12th century by the foreign architect who settled in the town of
Kilwinning.

It has, however, been attempted to trace the introduction of the Order
into Scotland to a much earlier period, and one writer, cited by Wylie
with apparent approval says that Scotland can boast of many noble
remains of the ancient Roman buildings which plainly evince that the
Romans when they entered the country brought along with them some
of their best designers and operative masons, who were employed in
rearing those noble fabrics of which we can at this day trace the
remains.  And it is asserted that these Roman builders communicated to
the natives and left behind them a predilection for and a knowledge of
Masonry which have descended from them to the present generation. (1)

It is very probable that more is here claimed than can be authenticated
by history. The influences exerted upon English architecture by the
Roman colleges of Masons is very patent, as has


(1) Wylie, "History of the Mother Lodge, Kilwinning," P. 47.


been already shown.  The Romans had been enabled to make for
centuries a home in England, had introduced into it their arts of
civilization, and made it in every respect a Roman colony.

But Scotland had never been completely subjugated by the Roman
arms; the incursions of the legions were altogether of a predatory nature,
nor are there many evidences from Roman remains that the Roman
artists had been enabled to make, or had even attempted to make, the
same impression on the warlike Scots and Picts that they had been
enabled to produce in the more docile and more easily civilized
inhabitants of the southern part of the island.

The theory which assigns the introduction of Freemasonry into Scotland
to the workmen who came over from England or from the Continent in
the 12th century, and erected the religious buildings at Kilwinning,
Melrose, Glasgow, and other places, is a much more plausible one.  The
bodies of Traveling Freemasons were at that time in existence, and we
know that they were perambulating the Continent and erecting
ecclesiastical edifices; we know too that it that period there were
corporations or guilds of Masons in England; and it is a very fair
deduction from historical reasoning, though there be no historical
records to confirm it, that the churches and abbeys which were erected
in Scotland in the 12th and 13th centuries must have been the work of
Freemasons who came partly from England and partly from the
Continent.

Bro. D. Murray Lyon, the Historian of the Lodge of Edinburgh, has said
that "not the slightest vestige of authentic evidence has ever been
adduced in support of the legends in regard to the time and place of the
institution of the first Scotch Masonic Lodge." (1) This is, however, a
merely local question affecting the claims to precedency on the roll of
the Grand Lodge, and must not be mixed up with the question of the
introduction of the Freemasons into Scotland as an organized society of
builders.  I can not consider it as quite aprocryphal to assign this to the
time when religious establishments were patronized by King David I.,
which was toward the close of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th
century.

The Mother Kilwinning Lodge, at Kilwinning, the St. Mary's Chapel
Lodge, at Edinburgh, and the Freemen St. John's, at Glasgow, have
each preferred the claim that it is the oldest lodge in


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 2.


Scotland. Each has its proofs and each has its adherents, and the
controversy has at times waxed warm among the Scottish Masons.  Yet,
as I have already said, it is, as a matter of general history, of but little
importance.


We have seen that we are almost compelled to suppose that the
institution of Masonry was introduced into Scotland by the builders who
were encraged in the erection of religious houses from the 11th to the
13th centuries.  We can not get over the belief that these builders formed
a part of the fraternity which already existed in the Continent of Europe
and in England, and who were then engaged in the same occupation of
constructing cathedrals and monasteries.

Knowing from other evidence what was the usage of these Traveling
Freemasons, and that wherever they were engaged in the labors of their
Craft they established lodges, we are again forced to the belief that in
Scotland they followed the usages they had adopted elsewhere, and
erected their lodges there also.

Doubtless there is no authentic evidence that the modern lodges at
Glasgow, at Kilwinning, and at Edinburgh were the legitimate and
uninterrupted successors of those which were established by the
Masons who were engaged in the construction of the Cathedral, the
Abbey, and Holyrood; indeed it is very probable that they are not.  Nor is
there any historical material which will enable us to determine which of
these primitive lodges was first established by the mediaeval builders. 
The probability is, as Bro.  Lyon has suggested, that the erection of the
earliest Scottish lodges was a nearlv simultaneous occurrence, as
wherever a body of mediveval Masons were employed there also were
the elements to constitute a lodge. (1)

The facts, therefore, would appear to be that lodges must have existed
in Scotland from the time when those edifices were being erected, and
that the Freemasons who came over from the Continent to erect those
edifices brought with them the Freemasonry of the Continent.

We can not indeed prove these facts by historical records of undoubted
authenticity, but we can advance no reason for denying or doubting their
probability.

Ascribing the first introduction of Freemasonry into Scotland


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 242.


to the continental Masons, we have some evidence that at a later period
there was a considerable influence exercised by England on Scottish
Masonry.  This is apparent from the fact that the Constitutions used in
the Kilwinning Lodge, and in others established by it in the middle of the
17th century, and known as the "Edinburgh Kilwinning MS.," is a nearly
exact copy of an English manuscript, and contains a charge to be
"liegemen to the King of England, without treason or other falsehood."

This manuscript, which was kept in the archives of the Kilwinning Lodge,
and known, says Lyon, as "the old buck," was frequently copied, and the
copies sold by the Lodge of Kilwinning to those lodges which had
received charters from it.

The fact that these Constitutions require allegiance to the King of
England, that the legend which refers to the introduction of Masonry into
Scotland and in subsequent expansion, dwells on the patronage
extended to the Craft by the English Kings, and finally that the narrative
contains no allusion to the Kilwinning or another Scottish legend, induce
Brothers Hughan and Lyon to come to the conclusion that the
manuscript was brought from England into Scotland, and that its
adoption by the Kilwinning Lodge, and by those which were chartered
by it, proves that the Masonry of England exercised in the middle of the
17th century a very great influence over that of Scotland, an influence
which, as it will be seen, was still further exerted in after times in
assimilating the rituals and ceremonial usages of the two countries.

This English influence on Scotch lodges at so early a period is a fact of
great importance in the history of Masonry.  From it is to be presumed
that there was a great intimacy and frequent communication between the
Freemasons of the two countries.  It is to be presumed also that there
was a great similarity - indeed, in many respects, an identity - of usages
in Scotland and England.  Therefore we may with great safety apply
what we know of the Masonry of one country to that of another, where
we have no other knowledge but that which is derived from such a
collation.

Now, it is a well-known fact that while the literature of English Masonry is
exceedingly deficient in any authentic records of lodges which existed
anterior to the Revival of 1717, the Scottish lodges have preserved
original minutes or records of their proceedings as far back as the end
of the 16th century.

Lyon, in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, has torn away, with an
unsparing and relentless hand, the meretricious garments which the
imaginations of Anderson and Brewster (Lawrie's edition) had cast
around the statute of Scottish Masonic history.  It will not be safe in
writing such a history to lose sight of the incisive criticism of Lyon and
trust to the deceptive and fallacious authority of earlier historians.

At the beginning of the 12th century, Masons had been imported into
Scotland from Strasburg, in Germany, for the purpose of building
Holyrood House; in the middle of the same century other Masons were
engaged in erecting Kilwinning Abbey.  From these epochs historians
have been wont to date the origin of Scottish Masonry.  We have no
documents referring to that early period, but we know that King David I.,
who then reigned, was what Anderson would call a "great patron of
Masonry," and that he nearly beggared the kingdom by the prodigality
with which he invested its resources in the construction of religious
edifices.

But it is not until we reach the commencement of the 15th century that
we begin to find any records which seem to indicate the existence of a
craft or guild like that which we know at the same time existed in
England.  It is not asserted here that there were no lodges or guild
meetings in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. Judging from the
condition of things in England at that time, we may conclude that guilds
or lodges of Masons were in existence also in Scotland, but we have no
documentary evidence of any authentic value to sustain the supposition.

The first period in which Freemasonry in Scotland begins to assume an
historic form is the beginning of the 15th century.

James I. had been confined as prisoner in England from the year 1406
to 1424.  During those eighteen years of his enforced absence, the
kingdom had been greatly harassed by the contentions of what were
called "leagues" or "bands" among the craftsmen of the different trades,
including the Masons, and which might be compared to the modern
trades-unions and strikes.

When James I. returned to Scotland, in 1424, he at once began to
reform the abuses which had resulted from these illegal confederacies. 
He suppressed the "leagues," and instituted the office of "Deacon" or
"Master-man," as a method of preserving the community from the frauds
of the crafts.  For this purpose the "Deacons" were authorized, by act of
Parliament, to regulate the works of all the crafts, to establish the rate of
wages, and to punish any who should transgress the law.

But these powers having been found to be in many instances oppressive
to the people and an encroachment on the prerogatives of the municipal
authorities, were, after a year's trial, abrogated, and a new class of
officials was instituted, called "Wardens," one of whom was selected from
each trade.  These Wardens were not the representatives of the crafts,
but had a greater affinity with the town-councils of each burgh, whose
prerogatives in regulating work and wages they exercised.

Now the Masons who originally came to Scotland in the 12th century
from the Continent and from England had enjoyed the privilege from the
Pope of regulating their own concerns and prescribing their own wages. 
This privilege they must of course have communicated to their
successors in Scotland, and it was there apparently exercised, up to and
including the time of the institution of Deacons, under whom the trade
and craft unions exercised the same prerogative.     

But when the Deaconship was abolished, and Wardens established as
representatives of the municipal authorities, this right of regulating their
own concerns was taken from the craft.

To this there was naturally resistance, and Lyon tells us that "the
Deacons continued holding meetings of their respective crafts, for the
purpose doubtless of keeping alive the embers of discontent at their
degraded portion and organizing the means for carrying on the struggle,
not only to regain independence of action in trade affairs but also to
acquire a political status in the country." (1)

There is nothing in the history of the reigns of the two succeeding kings,
James II. and III., that connects them with the Masonic fraternity.  None
of the acts of the Scottish Parliament, during these two reigns, has any
special reference to the Craft of Masons.  James III is said indeed to
have had "a passionate attachment for magnificent buildings." Beyond
this, says Lyon, "his name can not in any special degree be associated
with Masons." But in truth, though documentary evidence of particular
facts may be wanting, this attachment to magnificent edifices must have
led the monarch


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 3.


to have bestowed his patronage upon that fraternity whose duty it was to
erect thern.

Brewster (Lawrie's edition) has sought to give an importance to the reign
of James II., by the statement that that monarch had invested the Earl of
Orkney and Caithness with the dignity of "Grand Master" of the Masons
of Scotland, and subsequently made the office hereditary in his heirs
and successors in the barony of Roslin.

This statement, long accepted by Masonic writers and by all the Masons
of Scotland as a veritable fact, has been proved by more recent
researches to be wholly unsupported by historic evidence and even to
be contradicted by those authentic documents which are known as the
"St. Clair Charters."

There are two Charters bearing this name, which were once the property
of Mr. Alexander Deuchar, and were purchased at the sale of his library
by Dr. David Laing of the Signet Library, and exchanged by him for other
documents with Professor Aytoun of the University of Edinburgh, who
presented them to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, in whose archives they
are still preserved.  The manuscipts have been carefully examined, and
their authenticity is without doubt.

The date of the first of these Manuscripts is not given, but from internal
and other evidence it seems presumable that it was written between the
years 1600 and 1601.

It is signed by William Schaw as "Master of Work" and by several
Masons of Edinburgh and various towns in Scotland.

It is unnecessary to give the text of the manuscript, as it has been
printed by Lawrie, by Lyon, and by some others, but its substance may
be cited as follows:

It begins by stating that the Lords of Roslin have from "age to age" been
patrons and protectors of the Masons of Scotland and of their privileges,
and as such have been obeyed and acknowledged.  That within a few
years past this position has from sloth and negligence been allowed to
go out of use, whereby the Lord of Roslin has been lying out of his just
rights and the Craft been destitute of a patron and protector, and other
evils have arisen; wherefore it goes on to say that, not being able to wait
on the tedious and expensive courses of the ordinary courts, the signers,
in behalf of all the Craft and with their consent, agree that William
Sinclair of Roslin and his heirs shall obtain at the hands of the King
liberty, freedom, and jurisdiction upon them and their successors, in all
times to come, so that he shall be acknowledged by the Craft as their
patron and judge under the King.

The second charter, which purports to be issued by the Deacons,
Masters, and Freemen of the Masons and Hammermen of Scotland, is
supposed by Lyon, with good reason, to have been written in the year
1628.

This document is confirmatory of the other, making the same statement
of the recogniion of the Sinclairs of Roslin as patrons and protectors of
the Scottish Craft, but adding an additional fact, which will hereafter be
referred to.

Upon this authority Brewster has said, in Lawrie's History, that King
James II. had granted to William St. Clair, Earl of Orkney and Caithness,
Baron of Roslin, the office of Grand Master, and made it hereditary to his
heirs and successors in the barony of Roslin; and he adds that "the
Barons of Roslyn, as hereditary Grand Masters of Scotland, held their
principal annual meetings at Kilwinning."
 
Anderson had previously asserted that James I. had instituted the office
of Grand Master, who was to be chosen by the Grand Lodge, and this,
he says, "is the tradition of the old Scottish Masons and found in their
records."

The language of Anderson shows that he was not acquainted with the
St. Clair Charters, as they are called, because if he had seen them it is
not likely that he would have omitted to take notice of the important
point of hereditary occupation.  But the authority of Anderson as an
authentic historian is of so little value that we need not discuss the
question whether any such tradition ever existed.

The statement made in Lawrie's History is, however, professedly based
on the authority of the St. Clair Charters.  This statement has been
impugned by James Maidment in his Genealogie of the Saint Clairs of
Rosslyn, by Lyon in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, and by
several other writers.

As the statement made in Lawrie's work depends for its verity or its
fallacy on the question whether these charters have been faithfully
interpreted or not, it will be necessary in making the issue to investigate
more particularly the express language which is used in these
documents.

The words of the first charter, literally translated from the Scottish dialect
of the original, are as follows:


"We, Deacons, Masters, and Freemen of the Masons within the realm of
Scotland, with express consent and assent of William Schaw, Master of
Work to our Sovereign Lord, forasmuch as from age to age it has been
observed among us that the Lords of Roslin have ever been patrons and
protectors of us and our privileges, likewise our predecessors have
obeyed and acknowledged them as patrons and protectors, while
through negligence and sloth the same has past out of use. . . . We, for
ourselves and in the name of all our brethren and craftsmen, consent to
the aforesaid agreement and consent that William St. Clair, now of
Roslin, for himself and his heirs, shall purchase and obtain, at the hands
of our Sovereign Lord, liberty, freedom, and jurisdiction upon us and our
successors, in all times coming, as patrons and judges to us and all the
professors of our craft within this realm, . . . so that hereafter we may
acknowledge him and his heirs as our patron and judge under our
Sovereign Lord, without appeal or declination from his judgment, and
with power to the said William to deputize one or more judges under
him, and to use such ample and large jurisdiction upon us and our
successors, in town and in country, as it shall please our Sovereign Lord
to grant to him and his heirs."

The second charter is but a repetition of the statements of the first, with
a few additional details which make it a longer document. It approves
and confirms the former "letter of jurisdiction and liberty made and
subscribed by our brethren and his highness, (1) formerly Master of
Work for the time to the said William St. Clair of Roslin."

There is, however, one statement not to be found in the first charter, and
which is of much importance.  It is stated that the St. Clairs of Roslin had
letters of protection and of other rights which were "granted to them by
his majesty's most noble progenitors of worthy memory, which, with
sundry others of the Lord of Roslin's writings, were consumed and burnt
in a flame of fire within the castle of Roslin in the year


(1) Mr. Lyon objects to the opinion that Schaw was an Operative Mason
and thinks that he was of higher social position and merely an honorary
member of the Craft.  If there were no other evidence to sustain Bro.
Lyon in this view, the fact that the appellation of "highness," as here
applied to him, would be sufficient to prove its accuracy.


The last two words are "in an," evidently meaning "in anno," but being at
the end of the line, the two last letters with the date have been
apparently torn or worn off from the manuscript.  We can from this only
gather the fact that there was a tradition among the Scottish Masons that
some one of the Kings of Scotland, previous to James VI., in whose
reign the manuscript was undoubtedly written, had by letters patent
granted to the Lords of Roslin the patronage and protection of the Craft
in Scotland.

Now, it is very evident that Brewster had no authority from these charters
to make the statement that James II. had appointed the Barons of Roslin
hereditary Grand Masters of Scotland.  There is not the remotest allusion
in either of these documents to the use of such a title.  One of William
SchaW's titles was "Chief Master of Masons," but that of "Grand Master"
was never recognized in Scotland until one was elected in 1731 by the
Grand Lodge of Edinburgh.

But the charters do not themselves declare that the Sinclairs of Roslin
had received any such appointment from the King.  It is true that the
second charter does refer to the fact that letters of protection had been
granted by the predecessors of James VI., which letters were burnt in a
fire that took place at Roslin Castle at a time the date of which has been
lost.

On this subject it has very properly been asked why was the fact of the
burning of these papers not stated in the first charter; how is it that there
is no certain knowledge of the year when this fire took place; and how
was it that while all the other charters belonging to the house of Roslyn
were preserved these alone were consumed by this fatal fire ?

When the last Roslin resigned in the year 1736 his hereditary rights as
patron, he certainly did allude to the possibility that some King of
Scotland may have granted a charter to his predecessors.  But he
expressly deignates those predecessors as William St. Clair and his son,
Sir William, the very persons who are mentioned in the two charters as
deriving their rights from the Masons in the beginning of the 17th
century.  But there is no evidence in his letter of resignation that he was
at all acquainted with any charter granted by James II. to the Earls of
Orkney and Barons of Roslin.

On the whole, I think we may explain this story of the St. Clair Charters
in the following way:

At the beginning of the 17th century there was possibly a tradition,
unsupported, however, by any historical evidence, that the St. Clairs of
Roslin had been the hereditary patrons and protectors of the Craft of
Masons in Scotland.

In the year 1601, when William Schaw was the "Chief Mason" and
"Master of the Work," the St. Clairs, if they had ever exercised their
patronage and protection, had ceased to do so.

The Masons needing at that time such a patron, designated William St.
Clair as such, and to give a greater prestige to the position, either
invented a tradition that the office had been hereditary in the family of
the St. Clairs or repeated one that already existed.

About thirty years afterward, the Masons of Scotland renewed and
confirmed the appointment of Sir William St. Clair, the son of the one
who had received the appointment in 1601.  And now, in accordance
with the unhappy method of treating Masonic documents which seems
always to have prevailed whenever it was necessary to make a point, the
writers of the second charter changed the tradition which in the first
charter was to the effect that the Masons had always appointed the St.
Clairs as their patrons, and asserted that the appointment had been
given at an early period by one of the Scottish Kings.  This was a
falsification of the original tradition and must be rejected.

It was, however, accepted by Sir David Brewster and bas until recently
been recognized as a part of the authentic history of Scottish Masonry.

I think there can be no doubt that the St. Clairs accepted the honorable
position of patrons of Scotch Masonry which had been bestowed upon
them in 1601 and retained the office until it was finally vacated in 1736
by William St. Clair, who resigned all claim or pretense that he had to
any hereditary right to be "patron, protector, judge or Master of the
Masons in Scotland." Upon this the Grand Lodge of Scotland, which had
then been duly formed, first adopted for their presiding officer, under the
influence of the example of the Grand Lodge of England, the title of "
Grand Master" and elected St. Clair to the office.

Looking back to the 12th century, when Kilwinning Abbey, Glasgow
Cathedral, and Holyrood and other religious houses were built by
Freemasons brought over from England and from the Continent, we are
to suppose, for we are without documentary information, that the
Masons of that and the succeeding centuries up to the end of the 16th
century must have observed the usages and customs of the English and
Continental Masons.

In the reigns of James IV. and V., the statutes of Parliament show that
there were continual controversies between the Masons and the public
authorities, the former seeking to enlarge their privileges and the latter to
restrict them.  When Mary ascended the throne she found the Masons
suffering under an act passed during the regency which suppressed the
Deaconry, and which with previous ones that forbade their meetings in
"private conventions" or framing statutes, seemed to have deprived the
Masons of almost all their prerogatives.

All these laws Queen Mary abolished, and granted letters under the
Great Seal, which restored the office of Deacon, confirmed the Craft in
the privilege of self-government, in the observance of the customs and
the exercise of the prerogatives which they had formerly enjoyed. (1)

During the reign of James VI. we find a recognized connection between
the Sovereign and the Craft; the office of Warden and that of Master of
the Works, being made by the King's authority.

It is at this period that we begin to find records or minutes of lodges and
statutes well authenticated, by which we are enabled to form a correct
judgment of the condition and the customs of the Craft in Scotland at
that early period.

In this respect Scotland has the advantage of England, where we find no
authentic records of any lodge until the 18th century, while the first
minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh date back to the year 1598.
A very fair analysis of the early minutes of the Scottish lodges, and
especially of the Lodge of Edinburgh, has been given by Bro. D. Murray
Lyon in his valuable history of that Lodge.  Whoever expects to write a
faithful history of Freemasonry in Scotland must depend on that work as
almost the only source of authentic facts.  As histories of the early period
the imaginative illustrations of Anderson's, and of Lawrie's edition, are
almost utterly valueless.

The minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh, or St. Mary's Chapel, extend
from December 28, 1598, to November 29, 1869.  They are


(1) Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 5.



contained in six volumes, which are in an excellent state of preservation,
with comparatively very few omissions.  The first and second volumes,
which include the space of one hundred and sixty-three years, that is,
from 1598 to 1761, with a hiatus of only thirteen years, supply an ample
store of authentic materials for early Scotch Masonic history.

The first volume contains a copy of what are called "The Schaw
Statutes," the earliest Constitutions extant of Scotch Freemasonry.  The
date of this document is December 28, 1598.  They are entitled "The
Statutes and Ordinances to be observed by all the Master Masons within
this realm; set down by William Schaw, Master of Work to his Majesty
and General Warden of the said Craft with the consent of the Masters
hereafter specified." (1)

Of these statutes, the most important for understanding the true
condition and usages of the Masonic Craft of Scotland in the 17th
century are the following:

The first point intimates that the ordinances thereafter prescribed are but
a continuation of those which had previously prevailed, but of these no
copy is in existence.

The second point requires them "to be true to one another, and to live
charitably together." This is in exact accord with the guild spirit, to be
found in all the old English Constitutions.

The third enjoins obedience "to their Wardens, Deacons, and Masters in
all things concerning their Craft."

The fourth directs them to be honest, faithful, and diligent, and to deal
uprightly with the Masters or owners of the work in whatsoever they shall
take in hand.  This is evidently a transcript from the English
Constitutions.

The fifth point prescribes that no one shall take in hand any work which
he is not able duly to perform.  This is the same as the regulation in the
English Constitution, but the Schaw statutes direct the compensation
that is to be made for an infraction of the rule.

The sixth provides that no Master shall take another one's work from
him, after the latter has made a contract with the owner



(1) In quoting from these statutes, from the minutes of lodges or any
other documents, for the convenience of the English reader, the Scottish
dialect of the originals has been translated into the vernacular, but with
literal exactness.  The object has been to impart the meaning, and not
merely to preserve the original phraseology.


of the work (who in the English Constitutions is called "the lord") under a
penalty of forty pounds.

The seventh point is that none shall finish any work begun, and not
completed by another, until the latter has received his pay for what he
has done.

The eighth point provides for the election by the Masters of every lodge
of a Warden to take charge of the lodge, whose election is to be
approved by the Warden-General.

The ninth point directs that no Master shall take more than three
apprentices unless with the consent of the Wardens, Deacons, and
Masters of the shriffalty (district) where the apprentice dwells.

The tenth point is that no apprentice shall be taken for less than seven
years, nor shall that apprentice be made a brother and fellow of the Craft
until he has served seven years more after the expiration of his term of
apprenticeship, unless by the special license of the Wardens, Deacons,
and Masters assembled for that purpose, nor without a sufficient trial of
his worthiness, qualifications, and skill.

The eleventh point makes it unlawful for a Master to sell his apprentice
to any other Master or to dispense with the years of his apprenticeship
by selling them to the apprentice himself.  The apprentice was to fulfil
the full term of his servitude with his original Master.

By the twelfth point the Master, when he received an apprentice, was to
notify the fact to the Warden of the lodge, so that his name and the day
of hs reception might be properly enrolled in the book of the lodge.

The thirteenth point prescribed that the names of the apprentices should
be enrolled in the order of the time of their reception.

By the fourteenth point a Master or Fellow was to be received or
admitted only in the presence of six Masters and two Entered
Apprentices, the Warden of the lodge being one of the six; the time of
the reception and the name and mark of the Master or Fellow were to be
enrolled in the lodge book, together with the names of the six Masters
and two apprentices who received him and the names of the "intendars"
or persons chosen to give him instruction.  Nor was he to be admitted
without an "assay" or specimen of his work and a sufficient trial of his
skill and worthiness.

By the fifteenth no Master was to do any work under the charge or
command of any other craftsman.

The sixteenth strictly prohibited all work with cowans.

The seventeenth forbade an apprentice to accept any work beyond a
certain amount without the license of the Masters or Warden.

By the eighteenth all disputes were to be referred for reconciliation to the
Wardens or Deacons of the lodge.

The nineteenth provided for the careful erection of scaffolds and
footways so as to prevent any danger or injury to the workmen.

By the twentieth apprentices who had ran away from their Masters were
not to be received or employed by other Masters.

The twenty-first commended all the craftsmen to come to the meeting
when duly warned of the time and place.

The twenty-second point required all Masters who were summoned to
the Assembly to swear under "a great oath" not to conceal the wrongs or
faults done to each other nor to the owners of the works on which they
were employed.

The twenty-third and last point prescribed that all the fines and penalties
inflicted for a violation of these ordinances should be collected by the
Wardens, Deacons, and Masters of the lodges and distributed according
to their judgment for pious uses.

Bro. Lyon very properly suggests that this code of laws was applicable
only to Operative Masons.  This is certainly true, but so also were all the
Constitutions of the English Craft and the Ordinances of the German and
French Masons.  Originally Freemasonry was an exclusively operative
institution.  But out of it grew the present Speculative system, in all these
countries.  To understand, then, the growth of the one out of the other, it
is necessary to examine these constitutions and the minutes of the
Operative lodges, of which lauer Scotland only supplies us with
authentic mateials.

The great resemblance between the statutes of Schaw and the early
English Constitutions indicates very clearly the close connection that
existed between the two bodies of craftsmen in these countries, and
leaves us in no doubt that both derived their laws and their customs
from a common source, namely, that body of architects and builders
who sprang up out of the Roman Colleges of Artificers and in time
passed over into the Traveling Freemasons of Lombardy, who
disseminated their skill and the principles of their profession over all
Europe and to its remotest islands.
Having thus traced the rise of Masonry in Scotland to the builders who
came over in the 12th century from the Continent, and perhaps from
England, to be employed in the construction of religious houses at
Kilwinning, at Glasgow, at Edinburgh, and other places, and having
shown the condition of the Craft, so far as the great dearth of materials
would permit, between that period and the year 1598, when the Schaw
Statutes were enacted, we are next to inquire into the customs and
usages of the Scottish Craft in the 17th century and until the
organization of the Speculative Grand Lodge of Scotland in the year
1736.  In performing a similar task in reference to the Masons of
England, we were restricted for our sources of information to the
manuscript Constitutions which could supply us only with logical
deductions and suggestions, which made our narrative more a plausible
conjecture than an absolute certainty.

But in tracing the customs and usages of the Scottish Craft in the 17th
century, we are enabled to take as guides the minutes of the Operative
lodges which, unlike those of England, have been preserved from the
early date of the last years of the 16th century, and which have been
collected and published by Bro. D. Murray Lyon in his most valuable
History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, a work to which, in the following
chapter, I shall almost wholly confine myself for facts, though not always
concurring in his views and deductions. The facts are incontrovertible
and authentic - the deductions, whether they be his or mine, may be
erroneous, and their acceptance must be left to the reader's judgment.





CHAPTER XIV

CUSTOMS OF THE SCOTTISH MASONS IN THE 17TH CENTURY



THE Masons of the 10th century in Scotland appear to have been divided
into two classes, the Incorporations and the Lodges.  These, although not
exactly similar to the Masons' Company and the lodges of England, may
be considered as in some degree analogous.

In 1475 the Mayor and Town Council of Edinburgh chartered the
Incorporation of Masons and Wrights.  In this body two Masons and two
Wrights were selected and sworn to see that all work was properly done,
to examine all new-comers into the town who were seeking employment,
to make the necessary regulations for the reception and govemment of
apprentices, to settle disputes between the craftsmen, to bury the dead,
and generally to make laws for the two trades of Masons and Wrights.

Incorporations were also invested in Glasgow and other cities with the
same prerogatives.  Controversies repeatedly and naturally arose between
these Incorporations and the Lodges with whose privileges and regulations
they sought to interfere.  But early in the 17th century the former ceased to
exercise some of their offensive prerogatives, and especially that of
receiving and admitting Fellows of the Mason's Craft. 
But as Lyon justly observes, the fact that Wrights were present with
Masons at the passing of apprentices to the rank of Fellow, favors the
opinion that the ceremony of passing was simply a testing of the
candidate's fitness for employment as a journeyman.

But the Incorporations were really extraneous bodies having their origin
in the municipal spirit of interference.  In investigating the Masonic
usages and customs of the 17th century we must look really to the
lodges and to what is suggested or developed of them in the Schaw and
other statutes, and in the early minutes of the lodges that have been
preserved.

The assertion of Anderson, Preston, and other writers of the 18th
century, as well as some of a later date, that there was from the earliest
period a government of the Craft in England by a Grand Master has
been proved to be wholly untenable.  Something of the kind appears,
however, to have prevailed in Scotland at least from the end of the 16th
century.

William Schaw, in his signature subscribed to the Statutes enacted by
him, and in various records going back as far as 1583, calls himself, and
is called, "the King's Master of Work." This is a very common title in the
Middle Ages, but by no means indicated that the possessor of it was a
Mason. The Majester Operis, or "Master of the Work," sometimes called
the Majister Operum, or "Master of the Works," was an officer to whom
was entrusted the superintendence of the public works.  Sometimes, but
not necessarily, he was an architect, and hence Anderson always calls
these Masters of the Works Grand Masters, an error which has a very
unfortunate effect in confusing true Masonic history.  The office was a
monastic one also, and in early times the monk who was made the
Master of the Work superintended the Masons employed by the
monastery in conducting repairs or erecting buildings.

It does not, therefore, follow that Schaw was, from being called by this
title, an Operative Mason.  The evidence, though circumstantial, is the
other way.  Indeed, the office of King's Master of the Work was an old
one in Scotland, and Schaw himself, in 1583, succeeded Sir Robert
Drummond in the office.

But, in 1600, as it appears from a minute of the Lodge of Edinburgh, he
presided over a Masonic trial, and to do this he must have been a
member of the Craft.  He was, therefore, it is to be supposed, a
non-professional who was admitted to honorary membership, and he is
only one instance among many of the adoption into the brotherhood of
persons who were not Masons.

But, in that minute, Schaw is described as "the principal Warden and
Chief Master of Masons."

Now, this title of "Principal Warden" is the same as that called in the
Statutes of 1599 the "Lord Warden-General." This office of
Warden-General, or General Warden, as it is also called, approaches
nearer to the idea of a Grand Master than anything that we can find in
Anderson's Constitutions in respect to the English Masons.

The General Warden appears, according to the Scottish Statutes, to
have been possessed of several important prerogatives. He had the
power of calling the representatives of the lodges to a General
Assembly; he enacted the statutes for the government of the Craft-the
election of Wardens in the particular lodges was to be submitted to him
for his approval - and he exercised a general supervision over all the
lodges; in short, the General Warden was, in fact, though not in name,
the Grand Master of the Masons in Scotland.

There is some confusion about the names of the officers of the private
lodges.  In some instances we find the presiding officer called the
Deacon, and in others the Warden.  But it has been explained that the
Warden was recognized as the head of the lodge in its relations with the
General Warden, while the Deacon was the chief of the Masons in their
incorporate capacity and also the head of the lodge.  Sometimes both
offices were united in the same person, who was then called "the
Deacon of the Masons and the Warden of the lodge." As a general rule,
however, the Warden appears to have been the presiding officer of the
lodge, the custodian of its funds, and the dispenser of its charities.  That
he held a precedence over the Deacon is evident from the fact that when
both are spoken of in a minute or in a regulation, the Warden is named
before the Deacon.  It is always "the Warden and Deacon," and never
"the Deacon and Warden."

Both officers were elected by the suffrages of the Master Masons of the
lodge, and the election was held annually.

In every lodge there were three classes of members: Masters, Fellows,
and Apprentices; but it must be remarked that these were only three
ranks, and that they do not by any means indicate that there were three
degrees, in the sense in which that word is now understood.

The Masters were those who undertook contracts for building and were
responsible to their employers for the fidelity of the work; the Fellows
were the journeymen who were employed by these Master-builders; and
the apprentices were those youths who were engaged, under the
Masters, in acquiring a knowledge of their Craft.

If there was a ceremonial of initiation or reception and an esoteric
knowledge of certain arcana, that ceremony and that knowledge must
have been common to and participated in by each of the three classes. 
Whatever was the Mason's secret the Apprentice knew it as well as the
Master, for one of Schaw's regulations required that at the admission or
reception of a Master or Fellow, there should be present besides six
Masters, two Entered Apprentices, whence it is evident that nothing
could have been imparted to the newly accepted Master that the
Apprentice was not already in possession of.

That the ceremony of initiation was in the 17th century a very simple one
is very evident from the slight references to it in the minutes of the
lodges.  The Statutes of 1598 required it to be performed in the
presence alike of Masters and Apprentices, which shows, as has already
beeh said, that it was a ceremony common to both.  It appears to have
consisted principally of the impartation of what was called the "Mason
Word," and a few secrets connected with it, which are called in one of
the old minute books, "the secrets of the Mason Word." What these
"secrets" were, it is now impossible to discover, but as it has been seen
that the Scottish Craft customs were originally derived from the English
and the Continental Freemasons it is most probable that the secrets of
the Word and the ceremonies of initiation were much the same as those
described in the Sloane MS., heretofore quoted as practiced by the
English Masons, and those described by Findel as used by the German
Masons in the 12th century.

The Squaremen were companies of Wrights and Slaters in Scotland who
were very intimately connected with the Masons, and who appear to
have had, in many respects, a similarity, if not an identity, of customs.

Now these Squareamen had a ceremony of initiation, a word which was
called the "Squaremen's word" and secret methods of recognition.  In
the ceremony of initiation, which was called the "brithering," (1) the
candidate was blindfolded and prepared in other ways; an oath of
secrecy was administered, and after the performances, which were in a
guarded chamber, were finished, a banquet was goven, the expenses of
which were paid by the fee of initiation.

The banquet was in fact so important a part of the ceremony of initiation
among the Masons that special provision for it was made by Schaw, the
Warden General, in the Statutes of 1598.  Apprentices


(1) Jamieson defines the word to brither thus: "To unite into a society or
Corporation sometimes by a very ludicrous process." - "Dictionary of the
Scottish Language " in voc.


were to pay on their admission six pounds to the "common banquet,"
and Fellow Crafts ten pounds.

The Fellow Craft was also required to provide the lodge with ten
shillings' worth of gloves.  Nothing more conclusively proves the
connection of the Scottish with the Continental Masons than this
reference in the Statutes of the former to the article of gloves to be
provided for the lodge. The use of gloves as a portion of the dress of an
Operative Mason, is shown in early records to have been very common
from early times on the Continent.  M. Didron gives, in the Annales
Archeologiques, several examples from old documents of the
presentation to Masons and Stonecutters of gloves.  Thus in 1381 the
Chatelan of Vallaines bought a considerable quantity of gloves to be
given to the workmen, and the reason assigned for the gift is that they
might "Shield their hands from the stone and lime." In 1383 three dozen
gloves were distributed to the Masons when they began the buildings at
the Chartreuse of Dijon.  At Amiens twenty-two pairs of gloves were
given to the Masons.

The use of gloves seems to have been, among the different crafts,
peculiar to the Masons, and their use is well explained as being intended
for protection against the corrosive nature of the mortar which they were
compelled to handle.

When Operative was superseded by Speculative Masonry the use of this
article of dress was not abandoned, and in the Continental lodges to this
day, the candidate is required to present two pair of gloves to the lodge
on the night of his initiation.  But the explanation now made of their use
is, of course, altogether symbolical.

Another important ceremony connected with advancement to a higher
rank in the fraternity was the production of the Essay or Trial piece.

It was a very common custom among the early continental guilds to
require of eveqr apprentice to any trade before he could be admitted to
his freedom and the prerogatives of a journeyman, that he should
present to the guild into which he sought membership, a piece of
finished work as a specimen and a proof of his skill in the art in which hc
had bccn instructed.

This custom was adopted among the Scottish Masons, and when an
apprentice had served his time of probation and was desirous of being
advanced to the rank of a fellow or journeyman, he was required by the
statutes to present an Essay or piece of work to prove his skill and
competent knowledge of the trade.

At first the privilege of inspecting and judging the character of this trial
piece was intrusted to the lodge, but afterward it seems to have been
taken from them and given to the Incorporations, who, however,
resigned it early in the 17th century.  When an Apprentice wished to
become a Fellow, he applied to his lodge, which, in Edinburgh, referred
him to the Incorporation of Masons and Wrights of St. Mary's Chapel. 
By that body the piece of work to be done was prescribed; Essay
masters were appointed to attend the candidate and see that he did the
work himself, and when it was done, it was submitted to the brethren,
who by an open vote admitted or rejected the piece of work.

Lyon very correctly finds a parallel to these Essay pieces of the Scottish
Operative Masons, in the examinations for advancement from a lower to
a higher degree, in the Speculative Lodges, but he is wrong in
supposing that these tests for advancement were, in the "inflated
language of the Masonic diplomas of the last century characterized as
the 'wonderful trials' which the neophyte had had the 'fortitude to
sustain' before attaining to the sublime degree of Master Mason."

The "wonderful trials" thus referred to were not the examinations to which
the neophyte had been subjected to test his proficiency in the preceding
degrees, but were the actual ceremonies of initiation through which he
had passed, and considering their severity in the continental lodges, it is
hardly an "inflation of language," to speak of some fortitude being
needed to sustain them.

Annually both the Masters and the Fellows were required to renew their
oath of fidelity and obedience to the brotherhood, and especially to take
the obligation that they would not work with cowans.

It was also provided by the statutes that yearly the Fellows and
Apprentices should submit to an examination which should test their
memory and knowledge of the principles of the art.

Now as it would not have been fair to expect an Apprentice or Fellow to
remember what he had never been taught, this regulation led to the
introduction of a particular class of persons in the lodges who were
called "intendars" or instructors, whose duty it was to instruct the newly
admitted persons in the principles of the art.

This custom, according to Lyon, still prevails in some of the Scottish
lodges. In the United States, it is a very general usage at the present day
to provide an Apprentice as soon as he has been initiated and a Fellow
Craft when he has passed, with an instructor whose duty it is to drill him
accurately in the lecture of the degree into which he has just been
admitted, so that when he applies for advancement he may be enabled
to answer the questions that will be asked, and thus prove that he has
made "due proficiency."

The transition of Operative into Speculative Masonry which took place
soon after the beginning of the 18th century, is the most important
portion of the history of the Institution.  The gradual approaches to that
condition in which the Operative element was wholly superseded by the
Speculative, must therefore be regarded with great interest.

These approaches are marked by the introduction of persons who were
not professional Masons into the Operative lodges.  Occasion has been
had heretofore to speak of the reception by a lodge of Operative Masons
at Warrington in England, of two gentlemen who certainly were not
Operative Masons, namely, Colonel Mainwaring and Elias Ashmole.  This
event occurred in the year 1646, and it is the earliest record in England
of the acceptance of a non-professional member by a lodge of Operative
Masons.

It does not, however, follow because this reception is the first recorded
that it was therefore the first that took place.  On the contrary it is most
probable that the custom of receiving non-operative members was a
very old one.  It had, as we have seen, been practiced by the Roman
Colleges of Artificers, and was by them propagated into the early Craft
and Trade Guilds, and eventually imitated by the more modern Operative
lodges.  The practice still prevails in the London Livery Companies,
which we know are the successors of the Trade Guilds of the Middle
Ages.

In Scotland the custom of admitting non-operatives into the lodges has a
much older record than that of England just referred to.

A minute of the Lodge of Edinburgh of the date of June 8th, in the year
1600, a facsimile of which is given by Lyon, records the presence at the
meeting of the lodge of William Boswell, Laird of Auchinlech.  The
meeting was called for the purpose of considering a penalty that had
been imposed upon the Warden.  The Laird of Auchinlech took a part in
the deliberations, acquiesced in the decision at which the lodge arrived,
and signed his name and affixed his mark to the minutes just as the
Operative Masons did.

There are abundance of other instances of the admission of noblemen
and gentlemen as honorary members.  The case already cited of
Boswell proves conclusively that the practice existed before the close of
the 16th century.  If we had the records we might, I think, find many
cases still earlier.

In the admission of these "gentlemen masons," as they were sometimes
called, the ceremonies of initiation, whatever they were, appear to have
been the same as those practiced in the reception of operative
members.  As in the present day, and in Speculative Masonry, rank or
condition secures no exemption.

Several instances are recorded during the 17th century of brethren who
were not operative Masons being elected to preside over lodges.  Thus
Elphingston, who was tutor of Airth and collector of the King's Customs,
was in 1670 one of the Masters or Past Masters of the Lodge of
Aberdeen.  The Earl of Cassilis was, in 1672, chosen as Deacon or head
of the Lodge of Kilwinning.  He had been preceded in the same office by
Sir Alexander Cunningham, in 1671, and by the Earl of Eglinton in 1670.
In 1678 Lord William Cochrane, the son of the Earl of Dundonald, was
elected Warden of the same lodge.

All these appointments were merely honorary, and intended, it is to be
presumed, to secure the patronage and influence of the noblemen or
men of wealth and rank who were thus honored.  They were not
expected to perform any of the laborious duties of the office, for which
task it is most probable that they were unfit.  This, as Bro. Lyon
observes, "may be inferred from the fact that when a nobleman or a laird
was chosen to fill any of the offices named, deputies were elected from
the operative members of the Kilwinning Lodge." (1)

The relation of females to Freemasonry in Scotland during the 17th
century is worthy of attention.

It has already been seen that in one of the English Constitutions, when
referring to the Charges, it is written that "one of the Elders taking the
Booke and that he or shee that is to be made


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 52.


a Mason shall lay their hands thereon and the charge shall be given."

From this passage some persons have drawn the apparently natural
inference that females were admitted.  Bro. Hughan, in commenting on
it, thinks that the manuscript being a copy from a much older one, the
word "shee" was carelessly retained, and that it is only an evidence that
females were admitted in the early Guilds, an historical fact that can not
be denied.  But he is not prepared to advocate the opinion that women
were admitted into the Mysteries of Masonry.  And he admits that the
custom of the Guilds to admit women was gradually discontinued.

As the passage quoted is found only in the York MS. of 1693, it is more
reasonable to suppose that the word "shee" was a clerical error for
"they." Hence we have no satisfactory evidence that women were
connected with the Masonic lodges in England.

But Bro. Lyon contends that the obligation of the apprentice to protect
the interests of his "dame," which is mentioned in the same manuscript,
would indicate that it was lawful at that time in England for females, as
employers, to execute the work of Masons.

This statement derives probability from the fact that at that time, in
Scotland, the widows and daughters of freemen Masons were, under
certain restrictions, permitted to exercise the privilege of burgesses in
executing Mason's work.

Lyon cites a minute of the Ayr Squaremen Incorporation of the date of
1628, which enacts that every freeman's daughter shall pay for her
freedom the sum of eight pounds.  But it is clear that if a fine was
imposed for the freedom, there must have been a privilege
accompanying it, which could have been nothing other than the right to
do a freeman's work.

The Lodge of Edinburgh, in 1683, recognized this privilege and qualified
it by certain restrictions.  It was then enacted that a widow should not
undertake work or employ journeymen herself, but might have the
benefit of the work under the favor of some freeman "by whose advice
and concurrence the work shall be undertaken and the journeymen
agreed with."

It is apparent from these two minutes that, from 1628 to 1683 women,
the widows or daughters of masons, were in the habit of employing
journeymen to do work given to them by the patrons of their husbands
or fathers.

But this custom, growing into an evil, in time the females acting
independently and assuming the position and exercising the
prerogatives of Master Masons, the Lodge of Edinburgh found it
necessary at length to correct the abuse and to restrict the privilege by
compelling the females to undertake the work and employ the
journeymen under the direction of a Master Mason, who, acting for the
widow, discharged the duties without receiving compensation (which
was strictly prohibited) and gave her the profits.

Another usage of the Scottish Masons in the 17th century was that of
opening the lodge with prayer.  There is no record of the existence of
such a usage in England, although it is highly probable that the same
practice prevailed in both countries, since Freemasonry being a later
institution in Scotland, we have seen that it derived many of its customs
from the sister kingdom.

The use of prayer as an introductory ceremony has always been
practiced in the English speculative lodges, and combining this with the
fact now known that it was observed by the Scottish operatives, we have
an additional reason for believing that it was a usage among the English
operative masons of the 17th and earlier centuries.

Bro. Lyon says that in opening with prayer, the Lodge of Edinburgh
"followed an example which had been set in the ancient Constitutions of
the English Masons which open and close with prayer." Here our
generally accurate historian appears to have fallen into an error in
confounding the form of composition adopted in writing a manuscript
with that of opening a lodge, two things evidently very distinct.
It is of course admitted that all of the old English Constitutions
commence with a religious invocation, and that they end either with a
prayer for help or an imprecatory formula like the condition of an oath to
keep the statutes.

But in a careful examination of all these Constitutions from the Halliwell
MS. to the Papworth MS., that is from the first to the last, I have failed to
find any regulation or article which prescribes that the business of a
lodge shall be preceded by prayer.  The only regulation that has a
religious bearing is the one that prescribes a reverence for God and
Holy Church and the avoidance of heresy or error.

That it was the practice of the early English operative lodges to open
and closc with prayer, is an opinion founded wholly on conjecture, but
for the reasons already assigned, the conjecture appears to be a
plausible one.

But the use of prayer in the Scottish lodges of the 17th century is not
conjectural, but is proved by actual records, and Bro. Lyon, in his
invaluable work, to which I have been almost wholly indebted for the
facts in the present and the preceding chapter, supplies us with two
forms of prayers, one "to be said at the convening," and the other "to be
said before dismissing." Both are extracted from the minute-books of
Mary's Chapel Incorporation for the year 1699, and it will be interesting
to compare them with the oldest English formula, namely, that given by
Preston.

The first of these, or the prayer at the opening of the lodge, is in the
following words:

"O Lord, we most humblie beseech thee to be present with us in mercy,
and to bless our meeting and haill (whole) exercise which wee now have
in hand. O Lord, enlighten our understandings and direct our hearts and
mynds, so with thy good Spirit, that wee may frame all our purposes and
conclusions to the glory of thy name and the welfare of our Brethren;
and therefore O Lord, let no partiall respect, neither of freed (enmity) nor
favour, draw us out of the right way.  But grant that we may ever so
frame all our purposes and conclusions to the glory of thy name and the
welfare of our Brethren.  Grant these things, O Lord, unto us, and what
else thou sees more necessarie for us, and that only for the love of thy
dear Son Jesus Christ, our alone Lord and Saviour; To whom, with thee,
O Father, and the blessed Spirit of Grace, wee render all praise, honor
and glory, for ever and ever, Amen."

The second prayer, or that used at the dismission or closing of the
lodge, is as follows:

"O Lord, wee most humbly acknowledge thy goodnesse in meeting with
us together at this tyme, to confer upon a present condition of this
world. O Lord, make us also study heaven and heavenly myndednesse,
that we may get our souls for a prey.  And O Lord, be with us and
accompany us the rest of this day, now and forever, Amen."

The importance of this record of prayers at opening and closing in the
Scottish lodges, is that it adds great force to the conjecture that a similar
custom prevailed in the English lodges at the same period.  The
statement made by the biographer of Wrenn and quoted by Findel, that
the mediaeval Masons of England commenced their labor each day at
sunise by a prayer, the Master taking his station in the East and the
Brethren forming in a half circle around him, is a mere tradition.  There is
the want of a contemporary record.  But the fact that there is such a
record, absolutely authentic in the minutes of a Scottish lodge of the
period, throws necessarily an air of great probability upon the tradition.

That the record of the Scottish lodge is a minute made in the last year
but one of the 17th century does not necessarily lead to the inference
that the custom had just then begun.  The record is more likely, when
there is no evidence to the contrary, to have been that of a custom long
previously in existence than of one that has just then been adopted.

So we may fairly conclude that it was the usage of the Scottish lodges of
the 17th century to open and close their meetings with prayer, a usage
that we have reason to infer was also practiced by the English lodges of
the same period.

The last of the Scottish Masonic customs to which it is necessary to refer
is that of the use of Marks, instead of, or sometimes as supplemented
to, the written signature.

This is an interesting subject and claims a very careful and thorough
consideration.

The presence of certain figures chiselled on the stones of a building has
been remarked by travelers as occurring in almost all countries where
architecture had made any progress and at very early epochs.  It has
been remarked by Mr. Ainsworth, an oriental traveler, that he found
among some ruins in Mesopotamia that "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 Chaldean letter or numeral."

On the floor of a tomb at Agra, in India, it was found that every stone
was inscribed with a peculiar mark chiseled upon it by the workman. 
Copies of over sixty of these marks were given in 1865 by a writer in the
London Freemasons' Quarterly Review.

In an interesting work on Architecture by Mr. George Godwin, (1) the
author, referring to the Freemasons of the Middle Ages, makes the
following remarks:

"Several years ago my attention was led to the fact that many of our
ancient buildings exhibited on the face of the walls, both inside and
outside, marks of a peculiar character on the face of the Stones which
were evidently the work of the original builders; and it occurred to me
that if examined and compared they might serve to throw light upon
these bands of operatives. I made a large collection of them in England,
France, Belgium and Germany, some of which were published in the
Archaeologia.  These are simply the marks made by the Masons to
identify their work; but it is curious to find them exactly the same in
different countries and descending from early times to the present day;
for in parts of Germany and Scotland tables of marks are still preserved
in the lodges, and one is given to the (practical) mason on taking up his
freedom.  He cuts it, however, on the bed of the stone now instead of on
its face.  The marks are usually two or three inches long."

These marks were, it is evident, prescribed by the Masters or
Superintendents of the buildings in process of construction to be used
by the workmen, so that each one's work might be identified when
censure or approval was to be awarded.  It was a measure of
precaution, and the employment of marks is no evidence, unless the
mark itself is of a purely Masonic character, that the workmen who used
them were Freemasons.

At first, it seems from the observations of Mr. Ainsworth, they were
merely letters or numbers.  Afterward those found at Agra were
principally astronomical or mathematical. But when used by organized
bands of Freemasons we find among these marks such symbols as the
hour-glass, the pentalpha, and the square and compasses.  When the
Freemasons followed the precautionary system of the ordinary
stonecutters and adopted the use of marks, they gave, most generally, a
symbolic character to them, though sometimes they made use of
monograms of their names.

M. Didron, who discovered these marks at Spire, Worms, Strasburg,
Rheims, Basle, and several other places, and who made a report of his
investigations to the Historical Committee of Arts and


(1) "History in Ruins; a Handbook of Architecture for the Unlearned."  By
George Godwin, F.R.S., London, 1858.


Sciences of Paris, believed that he could discover in them reference to
distinct schools or lodges of Masons.  He divides them into two classes,
those of the overseers and those of the men who worked the stones. 
The marks of the first class consist of monogrammatic characters, while
those of the second are of the nature of symbols, such as shoes,
trowels, and mallets.

It is possible that something like this distinction is to be found in the old
Scottish marks.  Of the 91 marks, copies of which are given infacsimile
by Bro. Lyon as taken from the minute-book of the Lodge of Edinburgh,
16 are evidently monograms, such as GI, ME, AL, VH, NI, etc., while the
remaining 75 are symbols, principally the cross in various forms, the
triangle, the hour-glass, represented by two triangles joined at their
apices, the pentalpha, etc.  In one instance the monogram and the
symbol are combined, where David Salmon adopts as his mark a fish or
salmon, with the head in the form of the Delta or Greek letter equivalent
to D.

There was undoubtedly a distinction of monogrammatic and symbolic
marks, but whether Didron's idea that they belonged to two different
classes of workmen is correct or not, it is impossible positively to
ascertain.  Bro.  Lyon, however, affirms that "in regard to the
arrangement of Marks into distinctive classes, one for Apprentices, one
for Fellow Crafts, and a third for Foremen - 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."

It has been supposed the degree now called the "Mark Master's Degree"
was originally manufactured by some ritual mongers toward the close of
the last century and attached as a supernumerary degree to the Ancient
and Accepted or Scottish Rite.  I have in my possession the original
charter granted in 1802 by the Grand Council of Princes of Jerusalem, of
Charleston, S.C., to American Eagle Mark Lodge No. 1. (1) When
Thomas Smith Webb was establishing his new system he incorporated
the Mark degree in his ritual and made it the fourth degree of the
American Rite, as it is practiced in the United States of America.  It has
been supposed that Webb derived his degree from the Ancient and
Accepted Rite, 


(1) It was published in 1851 by the author in the "Southern and Western
Masonic Miscellany," vol. ii., p. 300.


and it is not improbable that he did so.  But more recently it has been
discovered that the degree of Mark Mason and that of Mark Master
Mason was given in Scotland by some of the Craft lodges as early as
1778. An excerpt made by that indefatigable Archaeologist, Bro. W. J.
Hughan, from the minutes of the Lodge Operative Banff under date of
January 7, 1778, shows that the degree of Mark Mason was conferred
on Fellow Crafts, and that of Mark Master Mason on Master Masons.

I think, therefore, that we may fairly attribute the origin of the degree to
the Masons of Scotland.  The ritual has of course grown, as all rituals
do, by gradual accretions to its present extent. But it is hardly necessary
to say that the allegory and the tradition of the origin of the degree at the
Temple of King Solomon is a mere symbolic myth, which is wholly
unsupported by historical authority.

The statutes enacted by William Schaw, in 1598, for the government of
the Masons of Scotland, direct that on the reception and admission of
every Fellow Craft his name and mark shall be inserted in the book or
register of the lodge.

The subsequent lodge minutes show that giving or taking a mark was
accompanied by a fee, which was paid by the Fellow for this privilege.

The minutes also show that Apprentices were also permitted to select
and use a mark.

The position and the prerogatives of Apprentices in the Scottish lodges
is worthy of notice, especially as throwing some light on their condition
in the English lodge, of which so little is said in the old Constitutions.

The presence of Apprentices at the admission of Fellow Crafts, was
provided for in the Statutes of Schaw, as has already been seen.

Another prerogative granted to the Apprentices was that of giving or
withholding their assent to any proposed accession of their ranks in the
lodge.

They thus appear to have been so far recognized as active members. 
But Lyon says that this concession does not appear to have been
granted to all Apprentices, but only to such as being "bound for the
freedom" afterward became "Mason burgesses" and members of the
Incorporation - Apprentices whose aim was that of becoming qualified
for employment as journeymen.

If this view of Lyon is correct it would show an aristocratic distinction of
rank, which was certainly unknown to the English Masons.

Apprentices are sometimes permitted to undertake work, of no very
great value, on their own account, but with the consent of their Masters;
a privilege that does not appear to have been conceded by the English
Statutes.

The "passing" of an Apprentice to the rank of a Fellow Craft, although
not a ceremony which added anything to the store of his Masonic
knowledge, was still necessary to the extension of the influence and the
increase of the revenues of the lodge.  Apparently toward the end of the
17th century, many Apprentices were disinclined, at the expiration of
their time of service, to undergo the trouble and expense of passing, but
were disposed to work as unpassed journeymen.  So at the beginning of
the 18th century it was made imperative on Apprentices soon after their
time of apprenticeship was out to "make themselves Fellow Crafts."
 
Fellow Crafts, or journeymen, were permitted to have Apprentices of their
own, and it was provided by law that a Master might employ such
fellows and yet not also employ their Apprentices, or he might employ
the Apprentice and not the Fellow to whom he was bound.  This seems
to have been a peculiarity of Scottish Masonry in the 17th century.  No
similar provision is found in the English Constitutions.

Apprentices were prohibited from marrying, a very necessary provision,
considering their relation to their Master's houses, which it may well be
supposed existed in every other country.

In all of these usages of the Scottish Masons in the 17th century, we see
the characteristics of an operative system.  But this system was
admitting the gradual encroachment of the Speculative element exhibited
in the admission into the operative lodges of non-professional members.

The progress of this transition from an Operative to a Speculative
character is better marked or rather better recorded in the Scottish than
in the English history of Freemasonry.
 
In the latter we are aroused with suddenness from the contemplation of
the operative system as detailed in the manuscript Constitutions
extending into the very beginning of the 18th century, to the unexpected
organization, without previous notice, of a purely Speculative Grand
Lodge a very few years after the date of the last written Constitution,
which makes no reference to such an institution.

But the Grand Lodge of Scotland was not organized until nineteen years
after that of the sister kingdom.  The approaches to the change were
gradual and well marked, and the struggle which terminated in the
victory of Speculative or modern Freemasonry. has been carefully
recorded.

But the narrative of the events which led to the establishment in the year
1736 of the Grand Lodge of Scotland will form the interesting materials
for a distinct chapter.





CHAPTER XV

THE FRENCH GUILDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES


An account has already been given in this work of the character of the
English Craft guilds or corporations of workmen.  I have not been able to
concur in the views of Mr. Thorpe, nor in the qualified opinion of Brentano,
that we are to look for the origin of these guilds, not in the Roman
Colleges, but in the Scandinavian confraternities.

In Gaul and subsequently, with greater development, in France, we find the
existence of similar guilds or corporations of workmen, and here we are
able to trace them more directly to the Roman Colleges of Artificers, as
their models, because, after the fall of the Empire and the invasion of the
barbarians, the old inhabitants were not exterminated by the invaders.  On
the contrary, the Franks were well disposed to the Roman culture and
civilization, accepted many of the Roman laws and customs, imitated the
remaining monuments of Roman taste and skill, and finally adopted, in the
place of their own rough Teutonic dialect, a modified form of the Latin
language.

The Craft guilds or corporations of workmen which were in existence in
Gaul at an early period after the decay of the Roman Empire, continued to
exist with spasmodic interruptions until the 12th and 13th centuries,
when they were fully developed in the Corporations des Metiers.

The writers of the exhaustive article on this subject in Lacroix's massive
work on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, have advanced the
theory that the guilds came into Gaul with the conquerors, and were
therefore of Scandinavian or Teutonic origin, but in their subsequent
investigations they appear tacitly to admit the fact that there was a very
close connection between them and the Roman Colleges.

M. Aug. Thierry is of the opinion that the corporations, like the municipal
communes, found their origin in the principles that governed the Roman
Colleges.  The guild, he says, was the moving power; the Roman
Colleges the material on which it acted and out of which it was
generated, and he thinks it would be interesting to examine how this
motive principle as a new element has been applied to the ancient
element of municipal organization which we historically know to have
been of Roman origin and in what proportion it is combined with them.

In other words, he would seek to trace the connection between the
Guilds and the Roman Colleges and to determine the influence of one
upon the other.

Now this is the very investigation in which I propose to be engaged in
the present chapter, as I have already pursued in the previous
discussion of the early English guilds.

The theory that I have hitherto maintained, and which I have seen no
reasonable cause to repudiate, is that the Guilds were the successors,
as it were, by inheritance of the Roman Colleges.

Therefore, though the subject of these institutions has already been very
fully treated, it will be expedient to introduce the history of the early
guilds of Gaul and of their progress until they culminate in the 12th
century in the Corporations des Metiers, by a brief recapitulation of what
has been before said at length on the subject of the Colleges of
Artificers of ancient Rome.

The corporations of artisans, which received the name of Collegia
Artifum or Colleges of Artificers, are supposed to have been instituted by
Numa, who first divided the artisans of Rome into nine colleges gave
them regulations for their government, and prescribed peculiar rites and
customs to be observed by them.  They met in their course from the
Kingdom to the Empire with many vicissitudes.  They were abolished by
Tullus Hostilius, re-established by Servius, again interdicted and anew
instituted and enlarged in their faculties by the decemvirs.  Under the
republic they were a constant source of inquietude and danger; their
turbulent members, misled by demagogues, repeatedly threatened the
security of the state.  They were, during the latter years of the republic,
often dissolved and as often re-established.  Finally, Caligula definitively
re-constituted them and invested them with all their ancient prerogatives. 
Trajan and his successors showed the colleges but little favour; they
were, however, tolerated because the artisans, deprived of consideration
in the city, were much better received in the provinces, and could be
retained at the Capital only by securing to them their privileges.  At this
epoch they had become very numerous both at Rome and in its
provinces.  A contemporary of Alexander Severus names thirty two
colleges; Constantine designates thirty more, and the inscriptions
preserved by Heineccius, their most reliable historian, enumerates many
more.

The colleges required for their legal existence the authority of the law-in
modern phrase it was necessary for them to be incorporated.  Those
which were not were styled illicit and their existence was prohibited.

Into each college, the artisans of only a particular profession or
handicraft were admitted; slaves even might become members with the
consent of their masters; and at length, persons cd distinction who were
not of the profession practiced by the college were received as patrons
or honourary members, and these became the protectors of the college.

Some of the trade, as for instance that of the bakers, were hereditary,
and the practice of the trade descended from father to son.

No artist or handicraftsman was permitted to belong to more than one
college.

Each college had the right to enact its own regulations for its internal
government; for this purpose, and for the discussion of their common
interests, the members frequently assembled, they elected their officers,
and imposed a tax for the support of the common chest and decided
these and all other questions by a majority of suffrages.

Each college had its patron deity and exercised peculiar religious rites of
sacrifice and commemorative feasts, which sometimes degenerated into
Bacchanalian banquets.

Such is a brief outline of the Craft guilds, as they may justly be styled,
which prevailed in Rome at the time of the dissolution of the Empire, and
which, for the reason already assigned, flourished with great popularity
in all the provinces from southern Gaul to the northern limits of England,
the evidence of which is extant in the numerous inscriptions which have
been preserved commemorative of their residence and their labours in
every part of Europe.

The writers of the article on the Corporations of Craftsmen, in the work of
Lacroix, assert that under the conquering Germans, from the moment
that Europe emerged from the government of Rome, without ever
completely escaping from the influence of its laws, the confraternities of
workmen never for an instant ceased to exist.  The rare vestiges that we
possess of them do not permit us to believe in their prosperous
condition, but they attest at least their persistence. (1)

These fraternities of workmen were the Provincial colleges which the
invaders found when they entered the countries whence they had
expelled the former Roman masters.  But the Teutonic tribes, whose
invasion was for the purpose of a permanent settlement and not like that
of the Huns, merely for temporary occupation and devastation, were not,
as has been well observed, alien in mind and spirit from the Romans
whom they had conquered.  They had, to some extent, become familiar
with the civilization which in the trial of strength they had overcome. 
Some of them had been soldiers in the imperial service or at the court,
and many of them had likened to the teachings of Christian missionaries,
and, though in an imperfect way, adopted Christianity as their religion.
(2)

When, therefore, says Mr. Church, they founded their new kingdom in
Gaul, in Spain, and in Italy, the things about them were not absolutely
new to them.  The influences of the Christian religion, which they
imperfectly professed, of the Roman laws, which they did not altogether
abolish, and of the Latin language, which they began insensibly to
adopt, were exerted in producing a tolerance for the Roman
corporations of workmen, as well as for many other Roman customs,
and a facility for adopting the same system of organizing workmen,
which led in time to the establishment of the guilds.

Of the regular progress of these guilds in the earlier centuries, as if they
were a mere continuation of the corporations of the Roman colleges, we
have sufficient, if not abundant, records.

Lucius Ampelius, a Latin writer of the 5th century, mentions, 


(1) The article in Lacroix's "Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance," which
treats of the Corporations de Metiers," was written by MM. Monteil and
Rabutaux.  To their researches I have been indebted for much that is
contained in this chapter; but for the sake of brevity and convenience I
shall cite authority under the general reference to Lacroix.
(2) Church, "The Beginning of the Middle Ages," p. 46.


in his Liber Memorialis, a consul or chief of the locksmiths, whence we
may infer an organized body of those craftsmen.  Under the Merovingian
kings, or the first dynasty of France, we meet with a corporation of
goldsmiths.  The bakers were probably organized under Charlemagne,
as he took measures for their regulation, and in 630 they are distinctly
spoken of as a corporation in the ordinances of Dagobert.


In Lombardy, which after its conquest by Charlemagne was in close
relations with France, there were many colleges or corporations of
artisans.  We find in Ravenna, in 943, a college of fishermen, and ten
years afterward a chief of the corporation of merchants; in 1001 a chief
of the corporation of butchers.  In 1061 Philip I. granted certain
privileges to the Master chandlers.

The "ancient customs" of the butchers are mentioned in the time of Louis
VII., in 1162; the same prince, in 1160, granted to the wife and heirs of
one Yves Laccohre the faculty of practicing five trades, namely, those of
the glovers, the purse-makers, the belt-makers, the cobblers, and the
shoemakers. (1)

Under the subsequent reign of Philip II. similar grants or concessions are
more numerous.

This monarch, whose military exploits had won for him the title of
"Conqueror" and "Augustus," is said to have approved the statutes of
several corporations; in 1182 he confirmed those of the butchers, and
granted them several privileges; in the next year the skinners and the
drapers were also the objects of his favour. (2)
In all Europe, say the writers in Lacroix's work, toward the 12th century,
Italy gave the first impulse to that restoration to splendour of the
corporations which for some centuries had been diminishing in
importance.  The confraternities of artisans in the north of France also
constituted themselves into corporations, whence they spread into the
cities across the Rhine.  In Germany the guild had for a long time
preserved its primitive form, and therefore the German and the French
corporations are not to be confounded, though they had a common
origin.

The most important event that marked the reign of Louis VI. in the 12th
century was the affranchisement of the inhabitants of


(1) "Et Boileau, Livre des Metiers." introduction by M. Depping.
(2) Lacroix, "Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance."


the cities,' and the establishment of the Communes, or independent
municipal governments.  One of the results of this movement was the
revived organization of the Parisian Hanse.  This, which Lacroix calls the
oldest and most considerable of the French corporations, was a
company of the recently affranchised citizens of Paris under the name of
the Merchadise de l'eau.  It was a corporation to which was assigned
the control of river navigation.  A corporation similar in character had
existed during the Roman domination, but in the lapse of time and under
changes of government had become extinct.  To this ancient
corporation, however, it is probable that the new one owed its origin. 
The Parisian Hanse was always treated with great favour by the Kings. 
Louis VII. confirmed their privileges, and Philip II. increased them.  At
length it obtained the privilege of the navigation of the Seine and Yonde
between Mantes and Auvern. Foreign merchants could not pass these
limits and bring goods into Paris unless, they had affiliated with the
Hanse, and associated in their mercantile gains a citizen who served as
their guaranty.  It presided over the disembarkation of all goods brought
into Paris, and controlled all buying and selling.  After a short time
similar corporations were established in all the cities bordering on the
sea or on rivers.

Previous to the second part of the 13th century several corporations of
artists or Craft guilds had been authorized by different monarchs, but it
is only in the reign of St. Louis, from 1226 to 1270, that we are to date
the first general measures taken for the establishment of the
communities in France, and of the corporations on a legal basis.  Up to
that time the Prevostship of Paris had been a venal office, which was
sold to the highest bidder.  Louis resolved to reform this abuse, and
appointed Stephen Boileau to the office of Prevost of Paris.

Of Etienne, or Stephen Boileau, (2) French writers have not been
niggardly in their encomiums.  He was undoubtedly a magistrate worthy
of the greatest praise.  To him Paris is indebted for its police.  He
moderated and fixed the taxes and imposts which, under previous
Prevosts, had been levied arbitrarily on trade and


(1) It was not until the 14th century that the stain of serfdom was
removed from the peasants.
(2) The name has been indifferently spelled, Boileau, Boyleau, Boleaue,
or Boylesve.  I have adhered to the most usual orthography.


commerce.  But his most important act in relation to our present subject
was the distribution of the merchants and artisans into distinct
communities or corporations under the name of confraternities, with
specific statutes for their government.

He collected from old records and other ancient sources the customs
and usages of the various crafts, most of which had never been written;
collated them, and most probably improved them in many parts,
preserved them as monuments in the archives of the Chatelet, which
was the Guildhall of Paris, and thus composed his invaluable work
entitled Livre des Metiers, or the "Book of the Crafts." (1)

In his introduction to this work, M. Depping says that "it has the
advantage of being for the most part the work of the corporations
themselves, and not a series of regulations drawn up by the authority of
the State."

The systems of corporations now began to enter into the regular
framework of the social organization.  Royal confirmations of charters,
which had been rare during the 12th century, were multiplied in the 13th,
and became a universal usage in the 14th century. (2)

As an evidence of the growth of these fraternities in cities neighbouring
to France, it may be noted that in the year 1228 Bologna had twenty-one
corporations of crafts; in 1321 Parma had eighteen, and in 1376 Turin
had twenty-six.

The Livre des Metiers of Boileau contains the statutes or regulations of
one hundred different corporations, and these were not all that were then
existing in Paris.  Some, for various reasons, had neglected or declined
to have themselves inscribed at the Chatelet.

In succeeding reigns the corporations were greatly multiplied.  Under the
administration of the Chancellor Tellier, in the reigns of Louis XIII. and
Louis XIV., Sauval records in his Histoire des Antiquitis de la Ville de
Paris, that he had counted 1,531 corporations in that city.

Some of these Parisian corporations possessed distinguished privileges. 
Such were the guild or corporation of Drapers, who held a preeminence
over all others, the Grocers, the Mercers, the Skinners, the Hosiers, and
the Goldsmiths.


(1) This work, long in manuscript, was first printed and published in 1837
in one volume quarto at Paris by M. Depping, who has enriched it with a
learned Introduction.
(2) Lacroix, "Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance."


Some of the corporations were held directly under the royal authority
and some under certain high officers of the court.

In the first centuries after the dissolution of the Roman Empire the
Roman law as to illicit or unauthorized corporations seems to have
become obsolete or to have been wholly disregarded, and the
corporations were constituted and organized at the will of their
organizers.  But subsequently, and more especially after the 12th
century, the approval of their regulations by the King or other person, in
whose jurisdiction they were, was required to impart to them a legal
condition.

These corporations had their peculiar privileges conceded to them by
the royal or other competent authority, and their statutes and regulations
enacted, for the most part, by themselves.  They were distinguished from
each other by their coats of arms, which they displayed in their
processions and on other public occasions.

Each of the corporations held its General Assembly, to which the
members frequently came from a great distance.  Absentees were often
fined.

The number of craftsmen who attended was frequently great.  For
instance, in 136i, the General Assembly of the Drapers of Rouen was
composed of more than a thousand persons. (1)

These Assemblies were generally convened by the officers of the King,
who assisted at them either in person or by their delegates; but
sometimes they were called together by the artisans without royal
authority.

To render the attendance on them more convenient, artisans of the
same profession usually inhabited the same quarter of the city, and even
the same street.  Sometimes this common residence was made
obligatory as in the case of the booksellers of Paris, who were
compelled to dwell beyond the bridges on the right bank of the Seine.

The writers in Lacroix assert that these communities or corporations
were in possession of all the privileges that formerly attached to the
Roman Colleges.  They could possess property, sustain actions at law
through a procurator, and accept legacies.  They had a common chest,
exacted dues of their members, and exercised


(1) Lacroix, ut supra.


a police jurisdiction over them, and, to some extent, a criminal one. 
They struggled to preserve and to augment their privileges, and took
part in all the conflicts of those turbulent times and in the quarrels, which
were by no means few, between the Masters and the workmen.  Some
of them even exercised a jurisdiction over artisans who were not
members of the corporation.

In most of the corporations the officers were elected by the community,
though in some cases they were appointed by the King or other
extraneous authority.

The members of the corporation were divided into three classes:
Apprentices, Companions, and Masters.  The writers in Lacroix speak of
these clasms as degrees, but evidently without attaching to the word the
meaning conveyed in the modern Masonic use of it.  They were simply
ranks, or classes, the lower subordinate to the higher.

The duration of apprenticeship was from two to eight years, and in most
of the trades the Companion had to undergo a considerable probation
before he could become a Master.  The Companion was usually called a
varlet gaignant; that is, a man who earns wages equivalent to the
English journeyman, or, as he was called in the old Masonic charges, a
Fellow.

When the Apprentice, having completed his apprenticeship, or the
Companion was desirous of being promoted to the rank of Master, he
assumed the title of Aspirant. (1) He was subjected to frequent rigid
examinations, and was requited to prove hs fitness for advancement by
executing; some of the principal products of the trade or craft which he
professed.  This was called his chef-d'aeuvre, and in its execution he
was surrounded by minute formalities.  He was closely confined in an
edifice or apartment specially prepared for the occasion; he was
deprived of all communication with his relations or friends and worked
under the eyes of officers of the corporation.  His task lasted sometimes
for several months.  It was not always confined to the direct products of
the trade, but sometimes extended to the fabrication of the tools used in
his craft

The aspirant having successfully submitted to the examinations and trials
imposed upon him, and having renewed his oath of fidelity to the King,
an oath which he must have previously taken as an Apprentice,


(1) Lacroix, ut supra.


was required afterward to pay a tax, which was sometimes heavy, and
which was divided between the King or Lord and the corporation.  This
tax was, however, remitted or greatly reduced in the case of the son of a
Master of the Craft.  From this usage has been, undoubtedly, derived the
custom which still prevails in the Speculative Masonry of some countries,
and which was once universal, of initiating a louveleau, or the son of a
Mason, at an earlier age than that prescribed for other candidates.

The statues of every corporation exercised great vigilance over the
private life and morals of the members.

Bastards could not be accepted as Apprentices.  To be admitted to the
Mastership it was necessary that the Aspirant should enjoy a stainless
reputation.  To use the modern Masonic phrase, he must be "under the
tongue of good report."

If an artisan associated with heretics or excommunicated persons, or cat
or drank with them, he was subject to punishment.     

The statutes cultivated good feelings and affectionate relations between
the members.

The merchant or craftsman could not strive to entice a customer to enter
his shop when he was approaching that of his neighbor.

Improper language to each other subjected the offender to a fine.

In reference to religion, each corporation constituted a religious
confraternity, which was placed under the patronage of some saint, who
was deemed the special protector of the profession.  Thus St. Crispin
was the patron sent of the Shoemakers, and St. Eloy of the Smiths.

Every corporation possessed a chapel in some church of the quarter,
and often maintained a chaplain.

The corporations had religious exercises on stated occasions for the
spiritual and temporal prosperity of the community; they rendered funeral
honors to the dead, and took care of the widows and orphans of
deceased members; they distributed alms and sent to the hospitals the
contributions which had been collected at their banquets.

The brethren received a strange workman in their trade when entering a
city, welcomed him, provided for his first wants, sought work for him,
and if that failed the eldest Companion yielded his place to him.

But this character in time degenerated, the banquets became
debauches, conflicts took place between the workmen, and coalitions
were formed against the industrial classes.

The law then interfered, and these confraternities or guilds were
forbidden, but without much success.

It will be very evident to the reader that the details here given of the rise
and progress, the form and organization of the mediaeval corporations
or guilds do not refer to the Masons exclusively, but to the circle of the
handicrafts of which the Masons constituted only one, but an important,
portion.  Before the middle of the 12th, or the beginning of the 13th,
century, the corporations of Freemasons were not distinguished from the
other crafts by any peculiar organization.  They had undoubtedly derived
a prominence over the other guilds in consequence of their connection
with the construction of Cathedrals and other great public buildings; but
"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 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 arts."

Mr. Fergusson draws incorrectly a deduction that the Freemasons were
an insignificant body, and hence in his book, he pays no attention to
them outside of Germany.  He even underrates their constructive
capacity, and thinks that the designs of the Cathedrals and other
religious edifices were made by Bishops, who, taking as a model some
former building, verbally corrected its mistakes and suggested his
improvements to his builder.  But history has shown that in France, as
well as elsewhere, there were at art early period laymen who were
distinguished architects.

The only legitimate inference that can be deduced from the fact that all
the other handicrafts were organized on the same plan as the Masons, is
that the guild spirit universally prevailed, and that there was a common
origin for it, which most writers have correctly referred to the Roman
Colleges, which were the most ancient guilds with which we are
acquainted.


(1) "History of Architecture in all Countries from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day."  By James Fergusson, F.R.S., etc., London, 1867, vol. i.,
p. 477.



Having thus far treated of the guilds in general, or the corporations of all
the trades, it is now proper to direct our attention exclusively to the
Masonic Guilds as they present themselves to us in France during the
Middle Ages.

Larousse, who has compiled the best and most exhaustive
encyclopaedic dictionary in the French language, makes a distinction
between the associations of Masons and those of the Freemasons in
France, a distinction which has existed in other countries, but with more
especial peculiarities in France.  Like all the other crafts, they were
divided into three ranks or degrees of Apprentice, journeyman, and
Master.  But I fail to find any evidence that there was a separate initiation
or an esoteric knowledge peculiar to each rank which would constitute it
a degree in the modern and technical sense of that word.

Larousse mixes the history of the French with that of the German
Freemasons, but makes the Operative Masonic Guilds spring out of a
jealousy or rivalry on the part of the Operative with the better-cultured
architects.

He says that while the nomadic constructors of cathedrals and castles,
that is to say, the Traveling Freemasons, who, springing out of
Lombardy, were organized at Strasburg, at Cologne, and probably at
York, formed a kind of aristocracy of the Craft, other Masons, attached to
the soil and living, therefore, always in one place, formed independent
and distinct corporations in the 15th century.  I think, however, that such
organizations may be found at an earlier period.

These Masons did not, like the German and English Freemasons, claim
to be the disciples of St. John the Baptist, but placed themselves under
the patronage of St. Blaise.

St. Blaise was a bishop and martyr who suffered in the 3d century,
during the persecution of Diocletian.  His legend says that he was
tortured by having his flesh torn with iron combs, such as are used in
carding wool. Hence he has been adopted by the wool-staplers as their
patron.  But it is inexplicable why he should have been selected by the
Masons of France as their protecting saint, since there is nothing in the
legend of his life that connects him with architecture or building.

The Guild or Corporation of Masons comprised Masons proper; that is,
Builders, Stonecutters, Plaisterers, and Mortar Mixers. This we learn from
the Regulations for the Arts and Trades of Paris, drawn up by Stephen
Boileau and contained in the 48th chapter of his Livre des Metiers.

It will be interesting to compare these regulations of the French Masons,
drawn up or copied as is said by Boileau from the older ones enacted
by St. Eloy, with the statutes or constitutions of the English Masons
contained in their Old Records.  I have therefore inserted below a literal
translation of them from the Livre des Metiers.


REGULATIONS OF THE MASONS, STONECUTTERS, PLAISTERERS, 
AND MORTAR MIXERS.

1. Whosoever desires may be a Master at Paris provided that he knows
the trade and works according to the usages and customs of the craft.

2. No one can have more than one Apprentice and he can not take him
for less than six years of service, but he may take him for a longer
period and for money (a fee) if he has it.  And if he takes him for a less
period than six years he is subject to a fine of twenty sous of Paris, to be
paid to the Chapel of St. Blaise, except only that he should be his son
born in lawful wedlock.
3. A Mason may take another Apprentice, as soon as the other has
accomplished five years of his service, for the same period that the other
had been taken.

4. The present King on whom may God bestow a happy life has given
the Mastership of the Masons to Master William de Saint Pater, during
his pleasure.  The said Master William swore at Paris in the lodges of the
Pales before said, that he would to the best of his power, well and
loyally protect the Craft, the poor as well as the rich, the weak as well as
the strong as long as it was the king's pleasure that he should protect
the Craft aforesaid and then Master William took the form of oath before
said, before the Prevost of Paris in the Chdtelet (or town hall).

5. The Mortar Masters and the Plaisterers have the same condition and
standing, in all things as the Masons.

6. The Master who presides overthe Craft of Masons, of Mortar Mixers
and of Plaisterers, of Paris, by the King's order may have two
Apprentices, but only on the conditions before said, and if he should
have more, he will be assessed in the manner above provided for.

7. The Masons, the Mortar Mixers and the Plaisterers may have as many
assistants and servants as they please so long as they do not in any
point teach them the mystery of the trade.

8. Every Mason, every Mortar Mixer and every Plaisterer must swear on
the gospels that he will maintain and do well and loyally to the Craft,
each in his place and that if he knows that any one is doing wrong and
not acting according to the usages and Craft aforesaid he will every time
make it known, under his oath, to the Master.

9. The Master whose Apprentice has completed his time of service, must
go before the Master of the Craft and declare that his Apprentice has
finished his time well and faithfully; and the Master who presides over
the Craft must make the Apprentice swear on the gospels that he will
conform well and truly to the usages and customs of the Craft.

10. No one should work at the aforesaid trade on days when flesh may
be eaten after nones have been sounded at Notre Dame (i.e., 3 o'clock
in the afternoon) and on Saturday in Lent after Vespus have been
chanted at Notre Dame unless it be on an arch, or to close a stair way
or door opening on the street.  And if any one should work after the
aforesaid hours except in the above mentioned works of necessity he
shall pay a fine of four derniers to the Master who presides over the
Craft and the Master may take his tools for the fine.

11. The Mortar Mixers and the Plaisterers are under the jurisdiction of the
Master aforesaid appointed by the king to preside over the Craft.

12. If a Plaisterer should send any man plaister to be used in a work, the
Mason who is working for him to whom the plaister is sent, should by
his oath, take care that the measure of the plaister is good and lawful;
and if he suspects the measure he should measure the plaister or cause
it to be measured in his presence.  And if he finds that the measure is
not good, the plaisterer must pay a fine of 5 sous; that is to say, 2 sous
to the Chapel of St. Blaise, 2 sous to the Master who presides over the
Craft and 11 (12?) deniers to him who has measured the plaister.  And
he to whom the plaister was delivered shall rebate from each sack that
he shall receive in that work, as much as should have been in that which
was measured in the beginning.  But where there is only one sack, it
shall not be measured.

13. No one can become a Plaisterer at Paris unless he pays 5 sous to
the Master who, by the King's order presides over the Craft; and when
he has paid the 5 sous he must swear on the gospels that he will mix
nothing but plaister with his plaister, and that he wilt deliver good and
true measure.

14. If the Plaisterer puts anything which he ought not, in his plaister he
shall be fined 5 sous, to be paid to the Master every time that he is
detected.  And if the Plaisterer makes it a practice to do this, and will not
submit to fine or punishment, the Master may exclude him from the
Craft, and if he will not leave the Craft at the Master's order, the Master
must make it known to the Prevost of Paris, and the Prevost must
compel the Plaisterer to quit the Craft aforesaid.

15. The Mortar Mixer must swear before the Master and before other
syndics of the Craft, that he will make Mortar only out of good limestone,
and if he makes it of any other kind of stone or if the mortar is made of
limestone but of inferior quality he should be reprimanded and should
pay a fine of 4 deniers to the Master of the Craft.

16. A Mortar Mixer can not take an Apprentice for a less time of service
than six years and a fee of 100 sous for teaching.

17. The Master of the Craft has petty jurisdiction and the infliction of
fines over the Masons, Plaisterers, and Mortar Mixers, their assistants
and apprentices, as it will be the King's pleasure, as well as over those
who intrude into their trades and over the infliction of corporal
punishment without drawing blood and over the right of clamor or
immediate arrest and trial if it did not affect property.

18. If any one of the Craft departs before the Master of the Craft, if he is
in contempt he must pay a fine of 4 deniers to the Master; and if he
returns and asks admission he should give a pledge; and if he does not
pay before night, there is a fine of 4 deniers to the Master; and if he
refuses and acts wrongly, there is a fine of 4 deniers to the Master.

19. The Master who presides over the Craft, can inflict only a fine for a
quarrel; and if he who has been fined is so hot and foolish that he will
not obey the commands of the Master nor pay the fine, the Master may
exclude him from the Craft.

20. If any one who has been excluded from the Craft by the Master,
works at the trade after his exclusion, the Master may take away his
tools and retain them until he pays a fine; and if he offers resistance, the
Master must make it known to the Prevost of Paris who must overcome
the resistance.

21. The Masons and the Plaisterers are liable to do watch, to pay taxes,
and are subject to all the duties which the other citizens of Paris owe to
the King.

22. The Mortar Mixers are exempt from watching, and also the
stonecutters as the syndics have heard said from father to son from the
time of Charles Martel.

23. The Master, who by the King's order presides over the Craft, is
exempt from watching in consequence of that he does in presiding over
the Craft.
24. He who is over sixty years old, or whose wife is dead, ought not to
serve on the watch; but he ought to make it known to the King's Keeper
of the Watch.

From these Regulations we learn that there was an officer who presided
over the Craft in general, and who in many respects resembled the Chief
Warden or Master of the Work of the Scottish Masons and the similar
officer among the English, upon whom Anderson has gratuitously
bestowed the title of Grand Master.  He was appointed by the King, and
in the Regulations is sometimes called "the Master who protects the
Craft" (le mestre qui garde le mestier), and sometimes "the Master of the
Craft" (le mesire du mesher).

At a later period he was styled "Master and General of the Works and
Buildings of the King in the Art of Masonry," and still later "Master
General of the Buildings, Bridges, and Roads of the King."

It is worthy of notice that one of these Regulations refers to a privilege as
having been enjoyed by the Craft according to an uninterrupted tradition
from the time of Charles Martel.  This reference to the great Mayor of the
Palace as being connected with Masonry, in a French document of the
13th century, and which is believed to have a nmch earlier origin, would
authorize the hypothesis that the story of the connection of Charles
Martel with Masonry which is attributed to him in the English legend was
derived by the English Masons from those French builders who both
history and tradition concur in saying brought their art into England at a
very early period.

The confounding of the name of Charles Martel the Warrior with that of
his grandson Charlemagne, the Civilizer - if confusion there was, as is
strongly to be suspected - must be attributed to the French and not to
the English Masons.

The statutes of the Community, Corporation, or Guild of Masons were
confirmed by Charles IX. and Henry IV. in the 16th, and by Louis XIII.
and Louis XIV. in the 17th century.  A great many letters-patent and
decrees of the King's council are in existence, which define the
jurisdictional powers of the Masters-General of the Buildings, and which
contain regulations that release the Masons from all judicial summonses
and from all judgments pronounced against them in other jurisdictions,
remitting them to the Masters-General of the Buildings as their natural
judges.

Some of these letters-patent related to the police of the Craft.  Thus
those of 1574 prescribed that Apprentices should be received by the
Warden (Maitre Garde), and regulated the fee which should be paid
under various circumstances.  By an edict of October, 1574, sworn
Master Masons were appointed as assistants to the Warden, who were
to visit and inspect the works in Paris and the suburbs. These were at
first twenty in number, but they were subsequently increased to sixty.

The Master-General of the Buildings had two jurisdictions, one which
had existed for several centuries, and the other, which was established
in the year 1645.  The seat of the former was at Paris, in the Chatelet;
that of the latter at Versailles.

Three architects, says Lacroix, who bore the title of "King's Counsellors,
Architects, and Masters-General of the Buildings," exercised their
jurisdiction year by year.  They decided all disputes between the
employers and the workmen and between theworkmen themselves. 
Their courts were held on Mondays and Fridays, and there was an
appeal from their judgment to the parliament.

In 1789 the Revolution in proclaiming freedom of labor abolished all
corporative regulations and exempted the workmen from any sort of
restraint, while at the same time they were deprived of all special
privileges.


The Operative Masons of France, at the present day, constitute a large
Confraternity, who have a kind of organization, but very singularly they
are the only body of workmen who do not practice the system of
compaganage or fellowship adopted by the other trades.

They have, however, their legend, and pretend that they are the
successors of the Tyrians, who wrought at the building of the Temple in
Jerusalem, calling themselves, therefore, the children of Solomon.

But they have no corporate existence and must be considered as
working only on an independent and voluntary principle.  There is,
apparently, no similitude between them and the Compagnons de la tour,
or brotherhoods of the other handicrafts in France.  According to
Larousse, they do not possess nor practice the topage, challenge, or
formula of salutation by which the members of any one of these
brotherhoods are enabled to recognize each other when meeting in a
strange place.

From the sketch of the progress of architecture as a science and its
practical development in the art of building in Gaul and in France, as
presented in this chapter, we learn that the origin of the French
Freemasons can not be traced as precisely as we do that of the German
and British.

Rebold (1) says, very correctly, that the Masonic corporations never
presented in France the peculiar character that they had in England and
Scotland, and that hence their influence on the progress of civilization
was much less than in those countries.

He further affirms that the custom adopted by the architectural
corporations of affiliating men of learning and condition as patrons or
honorary members, appears to have resulted in France, as it had in
other countries, namely, in the formation, outside of the corporation, of
lodges for the propagation of the humanitarian doctrines of the
institution; and he adds that when the Masonic corporations were
dissolved in France at the beginning of the 10th century, lodges of this
nature appear then to have existed.

All this is, however, mere assumption - an hypothesis and not an
historical fact.  Rebold himself admits that there is no longer any trace to
be found of these Speculative Lodges. (2)


(1) "Histoire des Trois Grandes Loges," p. 31.
(2) Nous n'en trouvons plus aucune trace.  Rebold, ut supra


In fact, there never was in France that gradual development of
Speculative out of Operative Masonry which took place in England and
in Scotland.

The Speculative Masonry of France came to it, not out of any change in
or any action of the Masonic guilds or corporations, by which they
abandoned their Operative and assumed a Speculative character. The
Speculative lodges, the lodges of Free and accepted Masons, which we
find springing up in Paris about that epoch, were due to a direct
importation from London and under the authority of the Speculative
Grand Lodge of England.

The history of the rise and progress of Speculative Masonry in France
comprises, therefore, a distinct topic, to be treated in a future chapter.

But we must first discuss the condition of Masonry in other countries and
at other epochs.





CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAVELING FREEMASONS OF LOMBARDY OR THE MASTERS OF
COMO


IN the effort to trace the gradual growth of the modern system of
Speculative Masonry out of the ancient organization of Operative Masons,
we are arrested by an important era when the Guilds of architects and
builders, issued about the 10th century, from the north of Italy and under
the name of "Traveling Freemasons," perambulated Europe, and with the
patronage of the churches extended the principles of their art into every
country from Germany to Scotland.

Before we can properly appreciate the events connected with the origin of
this body of organized Masons as the undoubted link which connects the
artificers of the Roman Colleges with the Masonic Guilds which sprang up
in Gaul, in Germany, and in Britain, we must take a brief view of the
condition of the Roman Empire in respect to the cultivation of the arts at the
time of its declension and after the seat of government had been removed
from Rome to Byzantium.

Mr. Thomas Hope has devoted some thirty pages of his Historical Essay on
Architecture to an investigation of the circumstances which toward the end
of the 10th century affected architecture, generally and extensively,
throughout Europe.  To this admirable inquiry I shall be
indebted for many of the details and leading ideas which will constitute
the present chapter.

In this work, Mr. Hope remarks that the architecture of Christian Greece
and Rome, that is to say, the Byzantine and the Roman styles, exhibited,
while it was confined within the limits bounded by the Alps, more local
diversities than after it had crossed the mountain-ranges and advanced
successively through France and Germany to the farthest inhabited
regions of northern Europe. (1)

(1) Hope, "Historical Essay on Architecture," P. 220.


But as this advancement from the plains of Italy into more northern
regions was accompanied by a style of architecture the adoption of
which was at once the cause and the effect of that united action which
distinguished the Freemasons of the Middle Ages, it will be necessary to
give a brief glance at the condition of architecture in the times which
preceded the exodus of artists from Italy.

It must be remembered that it is impossible to trace with any prospect of
certainty, the progress of events which finally led to the institution of
Speculative Masonry, unless we direct our attention to the early history
of Operative Masonry.

Though Speculative and Operative Masonry never were and never can
be identical - a mistake into which early Masonic historians like Dr.
Anderson have fallen - yet it must be always remembered that the former
sprung by a process of mental elaboration out of the latter.  Operative
Masonry is the foundation and Speculative Masonry the superstructure
which has been erected on it.

This is the theory which is advanced in the present work, in
contradistinction to that untenable one which traces a connection of the
modern society with any of the religious institutions of antiquity.

If then the old Masonry of the mediaeval builders, which was essentially
operative in its character, is the foundation on which the Freemasonry of
the modern philosophers, which is essentially speculative in its
character, is built, we can not pretend to write a history of the
superincumbent building and at the same time totally ignore the
underlying foundation.

It is necessary, therefore, to glance at the history of architecture and at is
condition before and after the 10th century, if we would understand how
Freemasonry in the beginning of the 18th century was transmuted from
an Operative to a Speculative system, from an art of building to a
science of philosophy.

It has been noted as an evidence of the union of principles which began
to distinguish the architects of and after the 10th century, who called
themselves Freemasons, that in the time of Caesar a habitation in
Helvetia differed more from a dwelling in the northern part of Italy,
though the regions were adjacent, than the church reared in England or
Sweden did from one erected in Sicily or Palestine, remote as the
countries were from each other. (1)


(1) Hope, "Historical Essay on Architecture," P. 220.


Now let it be remembercd that this unity of design was introduced by the
Traveling Freemasons; that these derived a knowledge of the great
principles of the art of building from the artificers sent by the Roman
Colleges, in company with the Legions of the Roman army, into all the
conquered provinces and who there established colonies; that those
Traveling Freemasons communicated their knowldedge to the
Stonemasons of Germany, France, England Scotland, and other
countries which they visited in pursuit of employment and in the practice
of their craft; and finally that those stonemasons having from time to
time, for purposes of their own aggrandizement, admitted
non-professional, that is to say non-masonic members into their ranks,
the latter eventually overcame the former in numbers and in influence
and transmuted the Operative into a Speculative institution.

Remembering these points, which give the true theory of the origin of
modern Freemasonry, as it were, in a nutshell, (1) it will be at once seen
how necessary it is that the Masonic student should be thoroughly
acquainted with the history of these mediaeval Masons, and with the
character of the architecture which they invented, with the nature of the
organization which they established, and with the method of building
which they practiced.

To attain a comprehensive view of this subject, it is necessary that we
should, in the first place, advert to the history of the kingdom of
Lombardy, which is admitted to have been the cradle of mediaeval
architecture.


At the close of the 5th century, the Ostrogoths, instigated and supported
by the jealousy of the Byzantine Emperor, had invaded Italy under the
celebrated Theodoric.  Odoacer, who then ruled over the Roman Empire
of the East, having been treacherously slain, Theodoric was proclaimed
King of Italy by the Goths.  He reigned for thirty-three years, during the
greater part of which long period he was distinguished for his religious
toleration, his administration of justice, and the patronage of the arts.

In a passage written by Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, who was the
Chancellor of Theodoric, the Minister describes, in a glowing panegyric,
the exalted condition of architecture during the reign of that monarch. 
Tiraboschi, who cites the passage in his History of


(1) Translation by W.H. Leeds, London, 1836, p. 17.


the Sciences in Italy, attributes this flourishing state of the art to the
influence of the Goths.  But Moller, in his Memorials of German Gothic
Architecture, dissents from this view, especially as the Gothic domination
in Italy lasted scarcely more than half a century, and contends that were
it even demonstrable that architecture had been at that time such as
Cassiodorus describes it, the fact is to be ascribed rather to the
Byzantine Romans, among whom he thinks that we must search for all
that, at that era, was preserved of the city and the sciences.

The Goths were finally driven out of Italy in the reign of Justinian, and by
the armies of the renowned Belisarius.  This event occurred about the
middle of the 6th century.

They were succeeded by another tribe of semi-barbarians, who, though
they did not, as the Ostrogoths had done, assume the domination of the
whole of the Italian peninsular, yet exerted an influence on the state of
mediaeval architecture that produced results of most interesting
character.

The Longobardi, a word which by a generally accepted etymology
signifies the Longbeards, a title which they obtained from their manner of
wearing that appendage to the face, were a Scandinavian tribe who,
coming down from their almost arctic home, first settled on the eastern
banks of the Elbe, but gradually extended their migrations southwardly
until in the year 568 they invaded Italy, and founded in its northeastern
part the kingdom which to this day bears the name of Lombardy.

The kingdom of Lombardy existed in a condition of prosperity for two
hundred years, but was finally obliterated toward the end of the 8th
century, in 774, from the roll of independent monarchies by the
victorious arms of Charlemagne.

During that period it had been governed by one-and-twenty kings,
several of whom displayed great talents and who left their monuments in
the wisdom and prudence of the laws which they gave to the kingdom.
(1)

In their first invasion under Alboin, their King, the Longobards,


(1) Sismondi, "Histoire des Republiques Italiennes du Moyen Age," tome
i., p. 14, Charles Butler says that no ancient code of law is more famous
than the "Law of the Lombards;" none discovers more evident traces of
the feudal policy.  It survived the destruction of that empire by
Charlemagne, and is said to be in force even now in some cities of Italy. 
"Horae Judicae Subsecivae," p. 85.



or, as they were more briefly called, the Lombards, who were a fierce
and warlike people, were pagans, and inflicted many persecutions on
the Roman Christians.  But their manners became gradually more mild,
and in the year 587, Anthairs, their third monarch, embraced Christianity
according to the faith of the Arians.  His successor afterward adopted
the orthodox or Catholic creed.

It was in the 6th century that the germs of the interference of the Church
with the arts and sciences, and the control of architecture, were first
planted.  During the repeated incursions of barbarians, the gradual
decline and ultimate fall of the power of the Roman Empire, and the
continual recurrence of wars, the arts and sciences would have been
totally extinguished had they not found a place of refuge among the
priests, the bishops, and the monastic orders.

Whatever there was remaining; of the old culture was preserved from
perishing in the monasteries, the churches, and the dwellings of the
ecclesiastics.  Schools were erected in the cathedral churches in which
youths were instructed by the bishop or someone appointed by him, in
the knowledge of the seven liberal arts and sciences.  In the monasteries
the monks and nuns devoted as a part of their discipline a certain
portion of their time to reading the works of the ancient doctors, or in
copying and dispersing manuscripts of classical as well as Christian
writers.

To these establishments, says Mosheim, are we indebted for the
preservation and possession of all the ancient authors who thus escaped
the fury of barbaric ignorance.

Architecture, which because its principles were generally and almost
exclusively applied to the construction of churches and other religious
edifices had become almost a sacred art, was at first and for a long time
under the entire control of the clergy.  The laity were either an ignorant
peasantry or soldiers trained to war; the ecclesiastics alone exercised
the arts, and especially architecture.  Missionaries sent to teach the
Christian faith carried with them into the fields of their labor, builders
whom they directed in the construction of the new churches which they
made their converts erect. (1)

Ecclesiastical writers have remarked upon the incredible number of
churches which, under the influence of religious enthusiasm, were

(1) "Historical Essay on Architecture," P. 213.


erected all over Europe, but more especially in Gaul and Italy at so early
a period as the 6th century.

Lombardy is, as Mr. Hope has remarked, "the country in which
associations of Freemasons were first formed, and which from its more
recent civilization afforded few ancient temples whence materials might
be supplied, was the first after the decline of the Roman Empire to
endow architecture with a complete and connected system of forms,
which soon prevailed wherever the Latin Church spread its influence
from the shores of the Baltic to those of the Mediterranean." (1)

Moller, a learned German writer on architecture, (2) asserts that the
Lombards were in the habit of building much, and appear to have
quickly attained a higher degree of civilization than the Goths, to whom
they succeeded.  As a proof of their skill and architectural culture we
may refer to D'Agincourt's History of Art by its Monuments, (3) where is
exhibited a plate of the church of St. Julia near Bergamo, that of St.
Michael at Pavia, and that of the round church of St. Momus, all of which
he ascribes to the Lombards.  Hope also enumerates among the
churches erected in what he calls the Lombard style the Basilica of St.
Eustorgio, which was built in the 7th or 8th century.

But, as in the case of the Goths, Moller ascribes whatever there was of
excellence in Lombard architecture not to the Lombards themselves,
who were originally a rude, invading people who adopted the civilized
manners of the people whom they conquered as well as their
architecture, but to the Byzantine Romans.

Other writers on this subject do not concur with Moller in this view. (4) It
is not denied that there was a constant influx of Grecian artists from
Byzantium into Lombardy, who unquestionably must have influenced the
condition of the arts by their superior skill; it can not be doubted that at
the time of the extinction of their kingdom they had attained a very
considerable share of civilization, and had made much progress in the
art of building.  This is evident from the few monuments that still remain
as well as from the fact


(1) "Historical Essay on Architecture," P. 250.
(2) See Moller's "Memorials of German Gothic Architecture," translated
by W.H. Leeds London, 1836, p. 18.
(3) " L'Histoire de I'art par les monumens," Pl. xxiv.
(4) See Sismondi, "Histoire des Repub. Italy," ch. i.


that Charlemagne made but little change in their govemment when he
established his Lombard Empire by their conquest.

Nicholson speaks of these Lombards in terms of commendation.  He
says that "Italy does not seem to have suffered much but rather the
reverse from their government, and during their possession the arts
flouished and were cultivated with greater success than during the
periods either immediately preceding or following. It is certain that they
gave a great impetus to building, for during the two hundred years of
their sway the northern and central portions of Italy had become studded
with churches and baptisteries." (1) We may therefore very safely say
that the ancient architecture of the Romans derived from their Colleges
of Artificers was imitated by the Lombards and with its inevitable
improvements brought to them from Byzantium by Grecian architects
was subsequently extended over Europe.

But it was only after the conquest of Lombardy by Charlemagne that that
province began to assume that high place in architecture which was won
for it by the labors of the builders who disseminated over all Europe the
principles of the new style which they had invented.

This style, which was designated as the Lombard from the place of its
origin, differed both from the Roman and the Byzantine, though it
adapted and appropriated portions of both.

Notwithstanding that the rule over Lombardy by Charlemagne, a
monarch whose genius in acquiring empires was equalled by his
prudence in preserving them, must have tended to advance the
civilization of the inhabitant, the long succession of a race of degenerate
descendants had a retarding effect and it was not until two centuries
after his death that the architects of Lombardy established that
reputation as builders which has so closely connected their labors with
the history of Freemasonry in the Middle Ages.

It has been already seen, when this subject was treated in a previous
part of this work, that the Roman Colleges of Artificers continued to exit
in all their vigor until the complete fall of the Empire.  The invasion of the
hordes of barbarians which led to that result had diminished their
number and impaired their organization, so long as paganism was the
religion of the State.  But when the


(1) "Dictionary of Architecture" in voce Lombardii Architecture.


people were converted to Christianity, the Colleges, under the new name
of Corporations, began to flourish again.  The bishops and priests, who
were admitted into them as patrons and honorary members, soon
assumed the control of them and occupied the architects and builders in
the construction of churchs, cathedrals, monasteries, and other religious
edifices.

What Whittington (1) has said of Gaul, may with equal propriety be
applied to the other portions of Europe.  The people were degraded, the
barons only semi-civilized, commerce had not yet elevated the lower
classes, and the arts had made but little progress among the higher
classes.  It was therefore chiefly through the clergy that the art of
building was revived, which under these barbaric influences had
previously led to its decay.


All the writers who have made this subject a study agree in the
statement of the great influence of the clergy in the practice and
propagation of mediaeval architecture.  Fergusson goes so far as to say
that in the 13th century the Masonq though skilled in hewing and setting
stones and acquainted with all the inventions and improvements in their
art, never exercied their calling, except under the guidance of some
superior person, who was a bishop, an abbot, or an accomplished
layman. (2)

This too broad assertion is, however, hardly reconcilable with the fact
that in France alone in the 13th century, to say nothing of England, Italy,
or Germany, there were many architects who, though neither bishops
nor abbots, both designed and built great works.  Such, for instance, as
Hugues Libergier, the builder of the Cathedral of Rheims, Robert de
Lusarches, the builder of the Cathedral of Amiens, and Eudes de
Montreuil who, says Whittington, was "an artist equally remarkable for his
scientific knowledge and the boldness of his conceptions.  He
accompanied St. Louis in his expeditions to the Holy Land, where he
fortified the city and port of Joppa, and on his return to France, was
employed by the King in the constructing of several religious buildings."
(1)

The important place occupied by the Church in the revival of architecture
can not, however, be too highly estimated.  Though it


(1) "An Historical Survey ofthe Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France."
London, 1811, p. 19.
(2) "History of Architecture in all Countries," etc., vol. i., p. 479.
(3) "Historical Survey," p. 68.



would be an error to suppose that there were no laymen who were
architects, it must be confessed that the most eminent ecclesiastics
made architecture a study, and that in the construction of religious
houses, the bishops or abbots designed the plans and the monks
executed them. And even if the architect and the Masons were laymen,
the house was almost always built under the superintendence and
direction of some ecclesiastic of high rank.

The view taken of this subject is the one that is historically the most
tenable.  Whittington's language is worthy of quotation.


"In those ages of barbarism, when the lay portion of the community was
fully employed in warfare and devastation, when churches and convents
were the only retreats of peace and security, they also became the chief
foci of productive industry.  Convents have long been celebrated as the
chief asylums of letters in those ages.  They also deserve to be
remembered as the sole conservators of art; not only painting, sculpture,
enameling, engraving, and portraiture, but even architecture was chiefly
exercised in them; and the more as the edifices which showed any
elegance of skill were only required for sacred purposes.  In every region
where a religious order wanted a new church or convent, it was an
ordinary thing for the superior, the prior, the abbot, nay, the bishop, to
give the design and for the monks to fulfill, under his direction, every
department of the execution from the meanest to the highest." (1) It is
important that the reader should be thoroughly impressed with the
position and the services of the clergy in the architecture of the Middle
Ages, because it accounts for the character of the institution of
Stonemasons, who succeeded the ecclesiastical artists, and who though
released from the direct service of the Church still remained under its
influence.  This is well shown in the symbols used by them in the
decoration of the buildings which they erected, most of which belong to
Christian iconography, in the charters and constitutions by which they
were governed, which inculcate religious faith and respect for the
Church, and finally in the transmission of a religious character to the
Speculative Masons who succeeded them, and of whose institution it
has been said that if Freemasonry be not an universal religion, it forms
an auxiliary to every system of faith.

The only difference between the Freemasonry of to-day and that


(1) "Historical Essay," P. 222.


of the 10th or the 11th century, in respect to the question of religion is
that the former is cosmopolitan and universal in its creed, whose only
unalterable points are the existence of God and the immortality of the
soul, while the latter was strictly Christian according to the orthodox,
catholic form in its belief and practice.

But notwithstanding the change from intolerance to liberality of sentiment
which the progress of the age has introduced, it must never be forgotten
that whatever there is of a religious or sacred character in the
constitution or the ritual of the Freemasonry of today must be traced to
the influences of the Church over the Operative Masons of the Middle
Ages.

But it is necessary to resume the thread of our history.  At the beginning
of the 11th century Lombardy was the active center of civilization in
Europe.  It had prospered under the free institutions of its kings for two
centuries, and on the extirpation of the royal line, the people shared in
the benefits of the wise policy and prudent government of their
conqueror, Charlemagne.

The workmen of Lombardy still maintained the relics of those ancient
Sodalities, which had carried under the Roman domination the principles
and practices of the Colleges of Artificers into the conquered provinces
of the Empire.

The policy of the kings had led them to give various craftsmen the
exclusive privilege of exercising their own trades, and under the form of
guilds or corporations to establish bodies, which were governed by
peculiar laws, and which were sought to be perpetuated by the
introduction into them of youths who were to be instructed by the
Masters, so that having served a due probation as apprentices, they
might become associates and workers in the guild or corporation.

It was in this way that at that time all trades and professions were
organized.  In so far as respects the union in a corporation endowed
with peculiar privileges, the Masons did not differ essentially from the
shoemakers, the hatters, or the tailors.  Each had its Masters, its
Wardens or equivalent officers, and each was governed by its own laws
and was recruited from a body of apprentices. (1)

There was, however, one very important difference between the Masons
and the other crafts which was productive of singular resuits.

(1) Fergusson, "History of Architecture," vol. i-, p. 477.


This difference arose from the nature of the work which was to be done,
and which affected the relations of the craftsmen to each other.
 
The trade of the tailor or the shoemaker was local.  The custom was
derived from the place in which he lived.  The members of the
corporation or guild all knew each other, they lived in the same town or
city - and their apprentices, having accomplished their time of service
and gone forth to see the world, almost always returned home and
saded among their relatives and their friends.

Hence the work done by these trades was work that came to them.  It
was brought to them by the neighbors who lived around them.  Every
shoemaker in a city knew every other shoemaker in the same place;
every tailor was familiar with the face, the life, and the character of every
other tailor.  While such intimacy existed there was no necessity for the
establishment of any peculiar guards against impostors, for the trade
was seldom troubled with the presence of strangers.

But it was not so with the Masons. Theirs was not a local craft.  Work did
not come to them, but they had to go to the work.  Whenever a building
was to be erected which required a force of workmen beyond the
number who resided usually near the place, Masons had to be sent for
from the adjacent towns and districts, and sometimes from even much
greater distances.

There was therefore a great necessity for caution in the admission of
these "strangers among the workmen" lest some should intrude who
were not legally entitled to employment by having acquired a knowledge
of the craft in the regular way; that is, by having passed through the
probation of an apprenticeship to some lawful Master.

Hence arose the necessity of adopting secret modes of recognition, by
which a stranger might be known on his first appearance as a member
of the Craft, as a true craftsman, or be at once detected as an impostor.

Mr. Fergusson has adopted this view of the origin of signs and
passwords among the Masons.  As a scholar of much research, but
who, not being a member of the modern confraternity, derives his
opinions and deductions from history unconnected with any guild
traditions, his remarks are interesting.  He says:

"At a time when writing was almost wholly unknown among  the laity,
and not one Mason in a thousand could either read or write, it is
evidently essential that some expedient should be hit upon by which a
Mason traveling to his work might claim assistance and hospitality of his
brother Masons on the road, by means of which he might take his rank
at once on reaching the lodge without going through tedious
examinations or giving practical proofs of his skill.  For this purpose a
set of secret signs was invented which enabled all Masons to recognize
one another as such, and by which also each man could make known
his grade to those of similar rank without further trouble than a manual
sign, or the utterance of some recognized password.  Other trades had
something of the same sort, but it never was necessary for them to carry
it either to the same extent nor to practice it so often as Masons, they
being, for the most part, resident in the same place and knowing each
other personally."  (1)

Freemasonry was therefore in the following condition at the beginning of
the 11th century, so far as respects the Kingdom of Lombardy, to which
the honor has been universally assigned of being the center from which
the Masonic corporations spread abroad into the rest of Europe.

Lombardy being, as has already been shown, the active center whence
the arts and sciences were radiated into other countries, architecture, as
one of the most useful of the arts and one of an almost sacred character
from its use in the construction of religious edifices, took a prominent
place among the crafts that were cultivated in that country.  Schools of
architecture and corporations of architects principally ecclesiastics, were
formed.  These, passing into other countries and disseminating the
principles of their science which they had acquired in the schools at
home, have been hence known in history by the title of the "Traveling
Freemasons of the Middle Ages."

Among these schools one of the most distinguished was that of Como.

The ancient city of Comum, lying at the southern extremity of the Lacus
Larius, now called the Lake of Como, was, even under the Empire, a
place of some distinction, as it had obtained from Coesar the full
franchises of a Roman community.  It was probably the birthplace of the
elder and the younger Pliny, and was certainly


(1) "History of Architecture," vol. i., p. 478.


the favorite residence of the latter, who writes of it in one of his letters to
Canidius Rufus in words of endearing fondness, calling it his darling. 
"What," he says, "is doing at Como, our darling? " (1) Pliny established
there a school of learning, and at an early period it was noted for its
foundries of iron.  It retained its prosperity until the fall of the Empire,
and continued in a flourishing condition under the Goths and under the
Lombards.  It retained its importance during the Middle Ages and is still
populous and flourishing.

The architectural school of Como was of such repute in the 10th century
that, according to Muratori, the historian of Italy, the name of Magistri
Comacini, or Masters from Como, came to be the geneic name for all
these associations of architects.

The influx of Grecian artists from Byzantium into Italy at that time was,
most probably, one of the means by which the Lombardic architects
were enabled to improve their system of building.  It was from the Greek
Empire of Byzantium that the light of the arts and sciences, and of
literature, proceeded, which poured its intellectual rays into the darkness,
of western Europe. At that time the word Greek, or Grecian, was
synonymous with all intellectual culture.

We find a curious illustration of this in the Legend of the Craft, where
Charles Martel, evidently a mistake for Charlemagne, is said to have
been indebted for the improvements in architecture or Masonry in his
Kingdom to the visit of Naimus Grecus.  I have shown, in the first part of
this work, that this expression simply means "a certain Greek." The
legend thus recognized the fact that Europe was instructed in
architecture by the Greeks of Byzantium, who visited Italy and Gaul.

The labors of these Masons could not long be confined within the
narrow limits of Lombardy.  Opulent as it was and populous, it could not
fail to be fitted with churches and religious edifices, so that in time the
need and the means of building more must have become exhausted.

There being no further demand for their services at home, they looked
beyond the Alps, which formed their northern boundary, for new fields in
which to exercise their skill and to avail themselves of the exclusive
privileges which they are said to have possessed.


(1) Quid agit Comum, tuae mem que deliciae? Pliny, "Epistles," lib. i.,
cap. 3.


A certain number, says Mr. Hope, united and formed themselves into a
single greater association or fraternity which proposed to seek for
occupation beyond its native land, and in any ruder, foreign region,
however remote, where new religious edifices and skillful artists to erect
them were wanted, to offer their services and bend their steps to
undertake the work. (1)

The connection of these Freemasons with the Church forms an
interesting and important part of their history.

Governor Pownall, in an article on this subject in the Archaelogia, was
one of the first to make the statement that the origin of Freemasonry as
an organized institution is to be traced to the builders who issued from
Italy about the 12th century and traveled all over Europe, disseminating
the principles of their art and erecting religious buildings under the
patronage of the Pope.  On this subject he writes as follows: "The
churches throughout all the northern parts of Europe being in a ruinous
state, the Pope created several corporations of Roman or Italian
architects and artists, with corporate powers and exclusive privileges,
particularly with a power of setting by themselves the prices of their own
work and labor, independent of the municipal laws of the country
wherein they worked, according as Hiram had done by the corporations
of architects and mechanics which he sent to Solomon.  The Pope not
only thus formed them into such a corporation, but is said to have sent
them (as exclusively appropriated) to repair and rebuild these churches
and other religious edifices.  This body had a power of taking
apprentices, and of admitting or accepting into their corporation
approved Masons.  It will be found that, claiming to hold primarily and
exclusively under the Pope, they assumed a right, as Freemasons, of
being exempt from the regulations of the statutes of laborers, laws in
England which made regulations for the price of labor; secondly, in
order to regulate these matters amongst themselves as well as all
matters respecting their corporation, they held general chapters and
other congregations.  Doing this they constantly refused obedience or to
conform themselves to these statutes, which regulated the price of the
labor of all other laborers and mechanics, although they were specifically
mentioned therein."  (2)

Dr. Henry, the historian, in speaking of them in his History of

(1) "Historical Essay," pp. 230, 231.
(2) "Archaeologia," p. 117.


Great Britain, says that "the Popes, for very obvious reasons, favored the
erection of churches and convents, and granted many indulgences by
their bulls to the society of Masons in order to increase their numbers. 
These indulgences produced their full effect in those superstitious times,
and that society became very numerous and raised a prodigious
multitude of magnificent churchen about this time, in several countries."
(1) 

Sir Christopher Wren makes the same statement, and I quote at length
the passage contained in the Parentalia (which is one of the rarest of
modern English books), because it not only repeats the statement of
Papal encouragement, but gives a very detailed account of the mode of
traveling adopted by these wandering Masons and their usages in
constructing buildings.  His words are:

"We are told by one who was well acquainted with their history and
constitutions that the Italians, with some Greek refugees, and with them
Frenchmen, Germans, and Flemings, joined into a fraternity of architects,
procuring Papal bulls for their encouragement and their particular
privileges; they styled themselves Freemasons, and ranged from one
nation to another as they found churches to be built; for very many, in
those days, were every day building through piety or emulation; their
government was regular; and where they fixed near the building in hand,
they made a camp of huts.  A surveyor governed in chief; every tenth
man was called a Warden, and overlooked each nine.  The gentlemen in
the neighborhood, either out of charity or commutation of penance, gave
the materials and carriage.  Those who have seen the accounts in
records of the charge of the fabrics of some of our cathedrals near four
hundred years old, can not but have a great esteem for their economy
and admire how soon they erected such lofty structures." (2)

Hope is still more explicit in referring to the Papal patronage which is
said to have been bestowed upon these Traveling Freemasons. He says
that when they were no longer restricted in the exercise of their
profession to Lombardy, but had begun to travel into the most distant
countries, wherever their services as builders might be required, it was
found necessary to establish a monopoly in the construction of religious
edifices by which all craftsmen, even


(1) "History of Great Britain," vol. viii., p. 275
(2) "Parentalia," p. 306.


the natives of the country where they went as strangers were, if not
members of their body, to be excluded from employment.

Now this exclusive privilege was one which no temporal potentate could
give to have effect beyond his own dominions.  In all those countries
which recognized the Pope as the head of the Church - that is to say in
all the countries of Europe - the authority of a Papal bull was the only
power by which this monopoly could be universally secured.

The Masons, says Mr. Hope, could be regarded only as different troops
of laborers working in the cause of the Pope, extending his estates by
the erection of new churches; and he thinks that they thus obtained the
requisite powers soon after Charlemagne had put an end to the rule of
the Lombards in Italy, and had annexed that Kingdom to his own
Empire.

"The Masons were," he says, "fraught with Papal bulls or diplomas not
only coneraing the corporate powers given to them by their own native
sovereign, on their own native soil, but granting to them, in every other
foreign country which they might visit for purposes connected with their
association, where the Latin creed was avowed, and the supremacy of
the spiritual creed acknowledged, the right of holding directly and solely
under the Pope, alone, entire exemption from all local laws and statutes,
edicts of the sovereign or municipal regulations, whether with regard to
the force of labor or any other binding upon the native subjects; they
acquired the power, not only themselves to fix the price of their labor,
but to regulate whatever else might appertain to their own internal
government, exclusively in their own general chapters; prohibiting all
native artists, not admitted into their society, from entering with it into
any sort of competition, and all native sovereigns from supporting their
subjects in such rebellion against the Church, and commanding all such
temporal subjects to respect these credentials and to obey these
mandates under pain of excommunication." (1)

This statement in reference to the granting of bulls or charters of
privilege to the Traveling Freemasons is given by Mr. Hope, probably on
the authority of Governor Pownall.

In February, 1788, a letter from Governor Pownall was read before the
Society of Antiquaries of London, and subsequently published



(1) "Historical Essay on Architecture," P. 232.


in the ninth volume of the Archaeologia, (1) under the title of
"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."

Governor Pownall commences his letter by the assertion of his belief that
the College or Corporation of Freemasons were the formers of Gothic
architecture into a regular and scientific order by applying the models
and proportions of timber frame-work to building in stone.  Without
stopping to discuss the question of the correctness of this theory of the
origin of the Gothic style, which must be a subject of future
consideration, I proceed to analyze those parts of the letter which refer
to the patronage of the Freemasons by the Papal See.

According to Governor Pownall, the churches throughout all the northern
parts of Europe being in a ruinous state, the Pope erected several
corporations of Roman or Italian architects and artists with corporate
powers and exclusive privileges, (2) particularly with a power of setting
by themselves the prices of their own work and labor, independent of
the municipal laws of the country wherein they worked.  The Pope not
only thus formed them into such a corporation, but is said to have sent
them with exclusive powers to repair and rebuild the churches and other
religious edifices which in different countries had fallen into decay, but
also to build new ones when required.  In England, into which these
builders had penetrated at an early period, they were styled "Free and
Accepted Masons."
In respect to the historical authority for the existence of this Papal bull,
charter, or diploma, which is said to have been issued about the close of
the 12th or the beginning of the 13th century, Pownall says that being
convinced from "incontrovertible record" that the Corporation of
Architects and Masons had been thus instituted, he was very solicitous
to have inquiry and search made among the archives at Rome, whether
it was not possible to find there some record of the transaction.

Application was accordingly made to the librarian of the Vatican



(1) "Archaeologia," vol. ix., pp. 110-126.
(2) Although it was never competent for the Pope to create a corporation
in England, yet according to Mr. Ayliffe, on the Continent that power was
conceded to him and shared by him with the prince or temporal
sovereign.  "Treatise on the Civil Law," P. 210.


and the Pope himself is said to have ordered minute search to be made. 
But the report was that "not the least traces of any such record" could be
found.  Governor Pownall, notwithstanding this failure, thought that some
record or copy of the charter must be buried somewhere at Rome
amidst forgotten and unknown bundles and rolls - a circumstance which
he says had frequently occurred in relation to important English records.

Unfortunately for the positive settlement of the historic question, it by no
means follows because the Roman Catholic librarian of the Vatican could
not or would not find a bull or diploma which in the 12th century had
granted special indulgences to an association which the Popes in the
18th century had denounced and excommunicated, that no such bull is
in existence.  The policy of the Papal Church overrules, without
compunction, all principles of historic accuracy and by its undeviating
course, whenever the end seemed to justify the means, forged or
suppressed documents are of no uncommon occurrence.

This question still divides Masonic writers.  Krause, for instance, on the
supposed authority of a statement of Elias Ashmole, communicated by
Dr. Knipe to the compiler of his Life, admits the fact of a Papal charter,
while Stieglitz, accepting the unsuccessful application of Pownall to the
Vatican librarian, contends for the absurdity of any such claim.

The preponderance of historical authority is, however, in favor of the
statement.  There is certainly abundant evidence of the subordination of
these Masons to ecclesiastical authority.  And it is not unreasonable to
suppose that the entire supervision of church buildings exercised by
bishops and abbots, who, as Fergusson says, made the designs while
the Masons only followed the plans laid down for them, must have been
supported by the express authority of the head of the Church.

The Traveling Freemasons were at an early period simply the servants of
the Church.

Another fact worthy of attention is that the relationship of trade and the
frequency of intercourse for other reasons between the different cities of
Lombardy and Constantinople brought to Italy many Greeks, some of
whom came seeking for employment and others were driven from their
homes by political or religious persecutions.  Among these emigrants
were many artists who united with the Masonic Corporations of
Lombardy, and infused into them a large portion of their Byzantine art.

These Freemasons, thus armed with the authority of the Pontiff, having
been well organized at home, were ready to set forth, like missionaries at
the call of the Church, to build cathedrals, churches, and monasteries as
they might be needed by the extension of the Christian religion.  From
the 10th to the 12th century, and in some places even earlier, we find
them perambulating Europe and spreading the knowldge of the art in
Germany, in France, in England, Scotland, and elsewhere.

The remarks of Mr. Hope on the professional wanderings of these
Craftsmen of the Middle Ages, though they have the air of romance, are
really well supported by historical authority.

"Often obliged," says that pleasing writer, "from regions the most distant,
singly to seek the common place of rendezvous, and departure of the
troop, or singly to follow its earlier detachments to places of employment
equally distant, and that at an era when travelers met on the road every
obstruction and no convenience, when no inns existed at which to
purchase hospitality, but lords dwelt everywhere, who only prohibited
their tenants from waylaying the traveler, because they considered this,
like killing game, one of their own exclusive privileges; the members of
these communities contrived to render their journeys more easy and safe
by engaging with each other, and perhaps even in many places, with
individuals not directly participating in their profession, in compacts of
mutual assistance, hospitality, and good services, most valuable to men
so circumstanced.  They endeavored to compensate for the perils which
attended their expeditions, by institutions for their needy or disabled
brothers; but lest such as belonged not to their communities should
benefit surreptitiously by these arrangements for its advantage, they
framed signs of mutual recognition as carefully concealed from the
knowledge of the uninitiated as the mysteries of their art themselves. 
Thus supplied with whatever could facilitate such distant journeys and
labors as they contemplated, the members of these Corporations were
ready to obey any summons with the utmost alacrity, and they soon
received the encouragement they anticipated.  The militia of the Church
of Rome, which diffused itself all over Europe in the shape of
missionaries, to instruct nations and to establish their allegiance to the
Pope, took care not only to make them feel the want of churches and
monasteries, but likewise to learn the manner in which the want might be
supplied.  Indeed they themselves generally undertook the supply; and it
may be asserted that a new apostle of the Gospel no sooner arrived in
the remotest corner of Europe, either to convert the inhabitants to
Christianity or to introduce among them a new religious order, than
speedily followed a tribe of itinerant Freemasons to back him and to
provide the inhabitants with the necessary places of worship or
reception.

"Thus ushered in, by their interior arrangements assured of assistance
and safety on the road; and by the bulls of the Pope and the support of
his ministers abroad assured of every species of immunity and
preference at the place of their destination; bodies of Freemasons
dispersed themselves in every direction, every day began to advance
farther and to proceed from country to country to the utmost verge of
the faithful, in order to answer the unceasing demand for them or to
seek more distant custom." (1)

One fact peculiarly worthy of remark is that throughout all Europe, from
its southern to its northern, from its western to its eastern limit - wherever
the Christian religion had penetrated and churches had been crected - a
surprising uniformity existed in the style of all edifices wheresoever built
at the same period.  No better evidence than this could be furnished of
the existence of an association whose members, wherever they might be
scattered, must have been controlled by the same rules of art.

Sidney Smith, Esq., in a paper in the Archaeologia, alludes to this fact in
the following language, in which he speaks of this association as having
been established in the early part of the 13th century by a Papal bull:

"Thus associated and exclusively devoted to the practice of Masonry, it
is easy to infer that a rapid improvement, both in the style and execution
of their work, would result.  Forming a connected and corresponding
society, and roving over the different countries of Europe, wherever the
munificent piety of those ages promised employment to their skill, it is
probable, and even a necessary, consequence, that improvements by
whomsoever introduced would quickly become common to all; and to
this cause we may refer


(1) "Historical Essay on Architecture," p. 235.


the simultaneous progress of one style throughout Europe which forms
so singular a phenomenon in the history of architecture." (1)

Mr. Hope is subsequently still more elaborate in his remarks on this
subject.

"The architects," he says, "of all the sacred edifices of the Latin Church,
wherever such arose - north, south, east, or west - thus derived their
science from the same central school; obeyed, in their designs, the
same hierarchy; were directed in their construction by the same
principles of propriety and taste; kept up with each other, in the most
distant parts to which they might be sent, the most constant
correspondence; and rendered every minute improvement the property
of the whole body and a new conquest of the art.... The result of this
unanimity was, that at each successive period of the Masonic dynasty,
on whatever point a new church or new monastery might be erected, it
resembled all those raised at the same period in every other place,
however distant from it, as if both had been built in the same place, by
the same artist.... For instance, we find at particular epochs, churches as
far distant from each other as the north of Scotland and the south of Italy
more minutely similar than those erected within the single precincts of
Rome or Ravenna." (2)

Paley also speaks of this uniformity of style which prevailed everywhere
throughout all counties as one of the most remarkable facts connected
with the history of mediaeval architecture.  And he cites the remark of
Willis in his Architecture of the Middle Ages, that whereas in our own age
it is the practice to imitate every style of architecture that can be found in
all the countries of the earth, it appears that in any given period and
place our forefathers admitted but of one style, which was used to the
complete exclusion of every other during its prevalence.

Paley very correctly accounts for this by the fact that Freemasonry was
in the Middle Ages "a craft in the hands of a corporate ecclesiastical
confraternity the members of which seem to have been bound down to
certain rules."  (3)

After what has already been said in this work, it is very evident that this
"craft in the hands of a corporate ecclesiastical confraternity



(1) "Archaeologia," vol. xxi., P. 521.
(2) "Historical Essay on Architecture," pp. 238, 239.
(3) Paley, "Manual of Gothic Architecture," p. 206.


"must make a very important link in the great chain which connects the
history of Freemasonry in one continued series from the first
development of the art in a corporate form in the Colleges of Numa, until
that transition period when the Operative was merged in the Speculative
element.

Mr. Hope, who devoted much labor to an investigation of the influences
which toward the end of the 10th century affected architecture generally
and diffusively throughout Europe, wrote an exhaustive chapter on this
subject in his Historical Essay, whence copious citations have been
made in the present work.  It will be sufficient in making a summary of
what has been already presented to the reader, to say of these
influences he considered the most important to be the establishment of
a school of architecture in Lombardy and the organization of Guilds of
Builders who, under the name of "Freemasons," perambulated the whole
continent, passing over to England and Scotland, and taught the art of
building under the inspiration of the same principles of architecture,
directed by the same ideas of taste, and governed by the same guild
spirit of fraternity.

Subsequently to the appearance of this work of Mr. Hope, Lord Lindsay
entered the same field of investigation and presented the public with the
result of his inquiries in a work entitled Sketches of the History of
Christian Art, from whose pages much interesting information may be
gleaned in respect to the condition of mediaeval Freemasonry and
architecture.

These mediaeval Freemasons at first adopted the principles of Byzantine
art in their construction of churches and afterward invented that new
system known as the Gothic style of architecture.  Before the
organization of the Lombard school the architecture of Europe was that
which had been derived from the builders of Rome, and all the churches
constructed in Italy, in Gaul, and even as far as Britain, were built upon
the model of the Roman basilica, an edifice which in pagan Rome
served as a court of law and an exchange, or a place of public meeting
for merchants and men of business.

As after the conversion of the Empire to the new religion, many of these
edifices were converted into Christian places of worship, the word was
used in the low Latin of the period to designate a cathedral or
metropolitan church, and the style was readily adopted and followed in
the construction of new churches.

The style of architecture which prevailed in Byzantium or Constantinople
was very dimerent from the Roman.  The principal differences were the
four naves as parts of a cross of equal limbs, and especially the
surmounting dome or cupola, which was, generally, octagonal in shape.

This style the Lombard Freemasons adopted in part, modifying it with
the Roman style, and finally developing the Gothic as a new system
peculiarly their own.  The history of this style, its progress in different
countries, and the gradual changes it underwent, is therefore intimately
connected with Freemasonry.

The question naturally arises why these Lombard Masons, who had
derived their first lessons from the descendants of the old builders of the
Roman Colleges of Artificers and who were surrounded by the examples
of Roman art, should have so materially modified their system as to have
given to it a much greater resemblance to the Byzantine than to the
Roman style.

The answer to this question will be found not only in the fact that
between the shores of northern and eastern Italy there was a very
frequent, continuous intercourse with Byzantium, but also in the
additional fact that the religious architects of Lombardy were very
thoroughly imbued with the principles of the science of symbolism, and
that they found these principles far better developed in the Byzantine
than in the Roman style.  "The basilica," says Lord Lindsay, "is far less
suggestive, far less symbolical than the Byzantine edifice, and hence the
sympathy always manifested for Byzantium by the Lombard architects."
(1)


How the Freemasons of Lombardy became imbued with the science of
symbolism and made it a prominent part of their art of building, are
questions of very great interest, because they refer to the only bond
which connects the Speculative Masons of the present day with the old
Operative Masons of the Middle Ages.  This important topic will be
hereafter discussed in a separate chapter when I come to the
consideration of that period of time in the history of Freemasonry which
is marked by the transition of the Operative into the Speculative
institution.

All that is necessary to be said here is that this symbolic style of
architecture, beginning in Lombardy somewhere between the 7th


(1) "Sketches of Christian Art."


and the 10th centuries, diffused itself gradually at first, but rapidly
afterward over the whole of Europe.
For this diffusion of a peculiar religious architecture Lord Lindsay assigns
the following reason as germane to the subject of the present chapter:

"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 Magisiri 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 these 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 of perfection which, now that their secrets are lost, it may be
considered hopeless to attempt to rival." (1)

The result of all these observations has been, I think, to strengthen and
substantiate the theory which, all through this work, has been
maintained, of the origin of Freemasonry as a Speculative institution
founded on an Operative art.  In every country where it has been
founded we are enabled to trace its first beginning as a craft organized
into a Guild, Corporation, or Confraternity, to the Roman Colleges of
Artificers - the Collegia Fabrorum - which were originally established, or
are said to have been established, by Numa.

Thus we find the architects who came out of these Colleges following
the Roman legions in their marches to conquest, settling to work in the
colonies, municipalities, and free cities which were established by the
Roman government in the colonies of Gaul and Britain, and perpetuating
the Roman taste and the Roman method of work.

So have we traced the progress of these Masons of Rome in the
different colonies where they settled and continued their labors after the
Empire had fallen.


(1) "Sketches of Christian Art," vol. ii., p. 14.

And now we see the links of the historical chain more distinctly visible in
the rise and progress of these Masons of Lombardy.  Originally,
undoubtedly Roman Colleges must have had their seats in the northern
part of Italy, that highly favored province which, more than any other had
received its civilization and its art cultivation from the imperial city.  Then,
when the glory of Rome had departed, the Lombard kings preserved the
Roman architecture, and after their conversion to Christianity, practiced it
under the auspices of the Church.

Then came, toward the 10th century, those Corporations of Freemasons,
who, imitating in their form of government the example which had been
set by the Colleges, presented themselves as a Confraternity of
workmen who, first having filled their own country with specimens of
their skill, at length leaving Como and other cities of Lombardy, crossed
the Alps and proceeded to communicate to other countries the
knowledge of that art and the mode of practicing it, which they had
acquired at Como.

One of the first countries into which these Traveling Freemasons
penetrated - perhaps the very first - was Germany.  There we find, in the
12th century, the Steinmetzen, or the Stonemasons, who appear to have
been almost a direct continuation of the Comacine Masters, or Traveling
Freemasons of Lombardy.

These German Stonemasons have played too important a part in the
history of Masonry to permit them to be passed over without an
extended survey of all that is connected with their rise and progress, and
with their wonderful achievements in medioeval Masonry or Architecture.

The Stonemasons of Germany will then be the topic discussed in the
following chapter.