This ‘Alice in Wonderland’ illustration has been reproduced with the kind permission of the artist, Heather Dennis, a.k.a. Tavis Harts, Tavis Harts Gallery, http://tavisharts.kamiki.net Introduction
"Give your evidence,’ said the King; ‘and don’t be nervous,
or I’ll have you executed on the spot.’ (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)
Albert Mackey (above, on the left) proudly declared himself (Encyclopedia, p.500) to be the first Freemasonic writer to ‘distinctly enumerate’ the essential and unchangeable characteristics of the institution, which Freemasons call their ‘Ancient Landmarks’. His enumeration has since become widely acknowledged throughout the fraternity and officially adopted in many jurisdictions. Included among Mackey’s alleged landmarks was the rule, first published by Rev. James Anderson in 1723, excluding women from Freemasonry. Mackey’s inclusion of the rule among his ‘landmarks’ gave the impression that it was not just another rule, arising from the prevailing circumstances at the time and as subject to amendment or revocation as any other rule, but was, as it were, chiseled in stone. Mackey’s innovation, in enumerating this rule among the ‘Ancient Landmarks’ of the Order, has misled generations of Freemasons and has contributed to the reversal of Freemasonry’s formerly moral, progressive and egalitarian tendencies, making it instead a sexist, obstructive and divisive force in modern society. Freemasonry’s timeless principles still have much to offer to modern society. Sadly, its current practice of excluding women serves only as bad example and is contrary to pure and ancient Freemasonry’s peculiar system of morality. This paper examines the issue of Freemasonry’s ‘Ancient Landmarks’, Mackey’s role in enumerating them and his opinions on that subject. Ancient Landmarks‘If any one of them can explain it,’ said Alice, Paradoxically, the term ‘Ancient Landmarks’ is, among Freemasons, relatively modern. Their particular usage of the term has not been traced any earlier than the eighteenth century and, even then, it seems to have been coined by ‘Speculative’ Freemasons rather than by ‘Operative’ Stonemasons, from whose imperatives the landmarks were said to have derived. Even so, it is an apt term for the ancient, essential and unchangeable conditions of Freemasonry. However, those Freemasons who first referred to their ‘Ancient Landmarks’, neglected to specify what they were. Therefore, we find the bizarre situation whereby Freemasons strongly emphasize the importance of their Ancient Landmarks, but those who look carefully into the subject find they cannot be dogmatic as to what they are. A few broad definitions are generally agreed upon. Bernard Jones gave a ‘Definition of a Masonic Landmark’, in his Compendium, an extract from which reads: It is held that a landmark can be discovered, but not created; it cannot be changed or altered; it cannot be improved; it cannot be obliterated’ (p.334).Hence, modern Freemasons can neither create nor obliterate any genuine landmark that either mandates the exclusion of women or which permits their admission. Jones also wrote (p.335): Just as there is no authoritative definition, so no landmarks are named by the English Grand Lodge, which, in its wisdom, has neither defined nor specified them. It has been well said that “inferentially if the landmarks were approved by the Constitutions the same authority could disapprove, whereas landmarks are unchangeable.” It should be impossible, therefore, for anybody to dogmatize in a matter in which Grand Lodge makes no pronouncement, and in which experienced masons cannot agree.
Mackey's 'Landmarks'
"When I use a word," Hunmpty Dumpty said...
‘it means just what I choose it to mean’ (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)
Despite England’s cautious example regarding the Ancient Landmarks, some Freemasons have been guilty of, ‘... imprudently having had them numbered...’ (allusion, 1°, Tracing Board). Of such lists, the first, best known and most widely adopted is by Albert Mackey. In his Encyclopedia, Mackey declares (p.503, alluding to Matt. 5:18) that, ‘Not one jot or tittle of these unwritten laws can be repealed’ (jots and tittles are elements of writing, not of ‘unwritten laws’). When the Ancient Landmarks were indeed unwritten, they had to be discerned, both individually and collectively. Such discernment and oral transmission would have presented many difficulties, requiring study, good faith and precision. This need for discernment appears to be an essential characteristic of the Ancient Landmarks. In committing his opinions to writing and in presenting them as dogmatic facts, Mackey himself violated the Ancient Landmarks. Significant in this respect and of even greater significance when we consider the history of women and Freemasonry, we note that, in his Encyclopedia (p.500), Mackey admits that: The first requisite ... of a custom or rule of action to constitute it a landmark, is, that it must have existed from “time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.” Its antiquity is its essential element.Mackey also admits that he was the first Freemason to publish ‘a distinct enumeration of the landmarks’. Indeed, it was this innovation, his enumeration of the landmarks, which came to be widely adopted throughout the fraternity. More precisely, he wrote: Until the year 1858, no attempt had been made by any Masonic writer to distinctly enumerate the landmarks of Freemasonry, and to give to them a comprehensible form. In October of that year, the author of this work published in the American Quarterly Review of Freemasonry (Vol.II, p.230,) an article on “The Foundations of Masonic Law.” which contained a distinct enumeration of the landmarks, which was the first time that such a list had been presented to the Fraternity. This enumeration was subsequently incorporated by the author in his Text Book of Masonic Jurisprudence. It has since been very generally adopted by the Fraternity, and republished by many writers on Masonic law; sometimes without any acknowledgement of the source whence they derived their information. According to this recapitulation, the result of much labor and research, the landmarks are twenty-five in number …Mackey’s ‘No Women!’ Landmark
"That's not a regular rule: you invented it just now,"
(Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)
While the controversy about the ‘No Women!’ rule did not begin with Mackey, by enumerating it among his landmarks, Mackey effectively hindered free debate about the rule among Freemasons. Item 18 of Mackey’s enumeration reads (1917, p.502): Certain qualifications of candidates for initiation are derived from a landmark of the Order. These qualifications are that he shall be a man – unmutilated, free-born, and of mature age. That is to say, a woman, a cripple, or a slave or one born in slavery, is disqualified for initiation into the rites of Masonry. Statutes, it is true, have from time to time been enacted, enforcing or explaining these principles; but the qualifications really arise from the very nature of the Masonic institution, and from its symbolic teachings, and have always existed as landmarks.Thus, the formerly changeable rule excluding women from Freemasonry, (which arguably had more to do with their general legal and social conditions at the time, rather than with their gender, as such), was purportedly raised to the status of an unchangeable Ancient Landmark. According to the definition given by Jones (op. cit.), the adoption by some Grand Lodges of lists such as Mackey’s does not, by itself, raise the specified items to the status of Ancient Landmarks. Even so, Mackey is usually held in high regard among students of Freemasonry and we ought not dismiss his opinion lightly. Therefore, let us examine Mackey’s reasoning on the subject of women and Freemasonry by turning to the entries under ‘Woman’ in his Lexicon and, more especially, in his Encyclopedia. There is also Mackey’s Revised Encyclopedia, however this was revised and enlarged by Robert I. Clegg and it is Mackey’s opinions, as the original enumerator of the so-called ‘landmarks’ that we are presently trying to elucidate. Clegg’s contribution, under the heading of ‘Woman’ (v.2, pp.1112/1116) greatly enlarged Mackey’s original entry from half a page to three and a half pages. His additions add little, if anything, to the case for the ‘No Women!’ rule and mostly referred to exceptions to it. Mackey's Lexicon Mackey’s first book, his Lexicon, was published some thirteen years before he contrived his ‘Ancient Landmarks.’ His renowned Encyclopedia was published some twenty-nine years after his Lexicon and some sixteen years after his ‘landmarks’. Allowing for his subsequent growth in Freemasonic knowledge we ought not be too insistent upon Mackey’s earlier opinion on subjects which later informed the composition of his ‘landmarks’. Rather, it is in his later works that we might reasonably a fuller elucidation. Even so, if only to afford Mackey a fair hearing, we should briefly consider his earlier thoughts on the subject, before turning to his Encyclopedia. The entry in his Lexicon, reads:
Here, at the outset, Mackey concedes that women often object to their exclusion from Freemasonry, a point that is, in his Encyclopedia, conspicuous by its absence and which brings to mind Eugen Lennhoff’s observation (p.335), that: When in the past the enemies of Freemasonry were discussed, women, strange as it may seem, were often included amongst them.Sadly, as we shall see, this enmity was neither strange nor past. Mackey then briefly touches upon the Operative Theory of Freemasonry’s origins and how he considers only men capable of performing such work. This is a class-laden condescension: the concept of female delicacy was rarely extended to working class women, who have always had to labour, often in the most arduous jobs, such as stonemasonry, and, in some cultures, it has been women who did the most arduous work. Consider for instance, the following quote (pp.213/4) from an inspiring speech made in 1851, by a former slave, (her name, ‘Sojourner Truth,’ has Freemasonic connotations and it is likely a Holy Royal Arch Freemason had bestowed it upon her): Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles, or gibs me any best place!’ And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked. ‘And a’n’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my right arm! (and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power). I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a’n’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear de lash as well! And a’n’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen ‘em mos’ all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a’n’t I a woman?Consider also how Mackey’s condescension is culturally specific. One can find very different notions to his in other places and at other times. For instance, we find Robert Briffault’s account quoted by Evelyn Reed in her book Woman’s Evolution, (pp.121-2) under a section entitled ‘Architects and Engineers’, where he is reported as having written: When Mr. Bogoras was studying the language of the Chukchi, he enquired from some men the names of the various parts of the framework of the house. But they were quite unable to inform him on that point; ‘I don’t know,’ they would answer, ‘that is woman’s business.’ - The earth-lodges of the Omahas were built entirely by the women. The ‘pueblos’ of New Mexico and Arizona - curious round public buildings serving as clubs and temples, form part of those towns - Those edifices are built exclusively by the women.
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Mackey's Encyclopedia |
Commentary |
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WOMAN. The law which excludes women from initiation into Masonry is not contained in the precise words in any of the Old Constitutions, |
From Mackey's acknowledgment, not only is that silence made explicit but we are also led to infer that, if the Old Constitutions had contained any regulations explicitly excluding women, that would have settled the matter. By the same logic, if they had contained any regulations explicitly including women, (see 'Craftswomen' article this site) then that too should have settled the matter. |
| although it is continually implied, as when it is said in the Lansdowne MS., (year 1560,) that the Apprentice must be 'of limbs whole, as a man ought to be,' and that he must be 'no bondman.' | Mackey supposes that the examples he gives are exclusively masculine. However, the inclusive use of 'masculine' terms to refer to both genders has been a general rule in our language (Urdang, p.136). Indeed, we may refer to the over one hundred examples of ordinances in English Guilds, by Toulmin Smith. These examples were selected and compiled from over five hundred documents produced by various guilds, 'brotherhoods', mysteries and crafts, in response to parliamentary writs of 1388. Therein we find similar 'masculine' terms were routinely used by other organisations that were also known to have had women members. |
| All the regulations also refer to men only, | The regulations refer to 'brothers and sisters', 'masters and dames' and to 'he or she who is to be made a mason' (see 'Craftswomen' article). |
| and many of them would be wholly inapplicable to women. | Mackey fails to give any examples of regulations within the Old Constitutions 'wholly inapplicable to women'. We may surmise what he had in mind were those which charge masons to respect the chastity of their fellow masons' female relatives. Referring again to Toulmin Smith's English Gilds, we find that such respect is commonly required of male members even in other organisations that also explicitly refer to female members. For instance, the regulations of the Guild of the Holy Trinity and St. Leonard at Lancaster, refers to 'the brethren and sisteren of the gild', yet in them we read: 'No one of the gild shall wrong the wife or daughter or sister of another, nor shall allow her to be wronged so far as he can hinder it' (T. Smith, p.163). |
| But in the Charges compiled by Anderson and Desaguliers, and published in 1723, the word 'woman' is for the first time introduced, and the law is made explicit. | Anderson introduced the rule for the first time and made it explicit. Defending his innovation, we find few women at the time were 'free' as required for membership of Freemasonry. Most were legally and socially subject to their husbands or fathers. Even so, Anderson's rule was changeable and if the condition of women changed, so, too, could the rule. Mackey however purported to transform the rule into an unchangeable landmark. |
| Thus it is said that the 'persons admitted members of a Lodge must be good and true men, ... no bondmen, no women,' etc. | Here Mackey added a few jots or tittles of his own, (more precisely, ellipsis points '…' and 'etc.'), so as to omit the context in which Anderson wrote his rule. Restoring Mackey's omissions, we read: 'The persons "made masons or admitted members of a lodge must be good and true men, free-born, and of mature and discreet age and sound judgement, no bond-men, no women, no immoral or scandalous men, but of good report".' (Jones, p.158). This context suggests that Anderson's concern was indeed with the legal and social condition of women at the time. |
| Perhaps the best reason that can be assigned for the exclusion of women from our Lodges will be found in the character of our organization as a mystic society. | The quintessential mystic experience is the recognition of the essential unity of all that is. This mystic tie is perhaps the best reason that can be assigned for the admission of women to Freemasonry, on equal terms with men. To argue that because an organisation has a mystic character it may exclude any category of worthy people is utterly perverse. |
| Speculative Freemasonry is only an application of the art of Operative Masonry to purposes of morality and science. | Just as women have been Operative Stonemasons (see 'Craftswomen' article this site) so too have they been moralists and scientists. For instance, in AD 415 Hypatia, whose name means 'The Most High' and who was both a moralist and a scientist, was torn apart and burnt to ashes by a mob of bigots (Alic, pp.41/7). Her name and manner of death have Freemasonic connotations. She was the last head of the school of which Mackey, in his Encyclopedia (p.61), had said 'To no ancient sect, indeed, except perhaps the Pythagoreans [who also admitted women], have the Masonic teachers been so much indebted for the substance of their doctrines, as well as the esoteric method of communicating them as that of the School of Alexandria.' Among more recent examples, we find, in 1405, in her book The City of Ladies, Christine de Pizan used symbols of stonemasonry as vehicles of moral instruction, and, in 1945, Dame Kathleen Lonsdale was made a Fellow of, and later a Council Member of The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, better known as The Royal Society (Times, p.178). In his History Mackey devoted a chapter to critiquing the theory that Freemasonry derived from The Royal Society. |
| The Operative branch of our Institution was the forerunner and origin of the Speculative. | While the theory of 'Speculative' Freemasonry arising from 'Operative' origins is widely accepted, there is little evidence connecting the two in England (the connection is Scotland is fairly certain). There are other theories and, despite his unqualified statement to the contrary, Mackey even deals with some elsewhere in his Encyclopedia (p.629) and in his History (passim). In any case, we should bear in mind that Freemasonry's founders identified themselves as descendants of the 'Operative' Stonemasons, calling them their 'Ancient Brethren' and they bound themselves to observe the time-immemorial imperatives of 'Operative' Stonemasonry, calling them their 'Ancient Landmarks'. Thus, whatever Freemasonry's origins are, 'Operative' customs and usages, including the admission of women as members, remain fundamental to its system of jurisprudence. |
| Now, as we admit of no innovations or changes in our customs, | The readmission of women to mainstream Freemasonry would not entail innovation in a Freemasonic sense. Rather, it would be the restoration of a neglected, ancient custom that arguably may, either in its self or in relation to Freemasonry's 'universality', rank as an Ancient Landmark that has been suppressed. Therefore, there is no need to pursue the issue of innovation further in this case. Those interested in the subject of how, despite their institutional rhetoric, innovation has long been practiced by Freemasons, would do well to consider how and why 'innovations' are made in some cases but not in others. 'No innovation', as an absolute rule, is itself an innovation. This subject, is admirably discussed by K.H. Perdriau, in an article entitled, Innovation: A Long-standing Masonic Attribute, published in The NSW Freemason, (V.33, No.2, 2001, pp.13/4). As 'Bro. Gould wisely observed in his history, "the laws for the guidance of the Craft ... were not intended to be final, but alterable according to the necessities of the Craft, provided always that the spirit of the society was preserved'." (Macbride, p.209) |
| Speculative Masonry retains, and is governed by, all the rules and regulations that existed in and controlled its Operative prototype. | Not so! Arthur Waite in his New Encyclopædia, severely criticized Anderson's work in compiling, interpreting and reformulating those rules and regulations. Waite referred (p.25) to Anderson's, '… errors, omissions [and] inventions.' For instance, we find, 'The celebrated Charge "Concerning God and Religion," included in Anderson's "Constitutions", substituted for the direct injunction of loyalty to God and Holy Church, as given in the original Charges, the phrase: 'tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions to themselves.' (Jones, p.183). |
| Hence, as in this latter art only hale and hearty men, in possession of their limbs and members, so that they might endure the fatigues of labor, were employed, | As Ivy Compton-Burnett observed, 'There is more difference within the sexes than between them' (Pepper, p.308, q.2). There are many women, in possession of all the limbs and members required for such work, who are more hale and hearty than many men, admitted to Freemasonry. The admission of women among the Free Carpenters is well established (Crowe, pp.5/19), despite, as Gould remarked (v.1, p.91), 'The trade of a carpenter was not more favourable to the employment of women than that of a mason.' Gould maintained (ibid.) that while women could do the work they would not have been able to travel (a peculiar notion which, if true, would have precluded wives and daughters from accompanying their husbands and fathers from town to town and which would have precluded women from pilgrimages and from being among the camp followers of armies). |
| so in the former the rule still holds, of excluding all who are not in the possession of these prerequisite qualifications. | From the Old Charges, we deduce a well-established Doctrine of Physical Perfection, also known to Freemasons as the Doctrine of Perfect Youth. In an official history of the United Grand Lodge of England this doctrine is acknowledged (Stubbs, p.162) to be '…an inheritance from Operative Masonry..' In contravention of the supposed terms of this inheritance, this, the world's Premier Grand Lodge, following the First World War and faced with many disabled ex-servicemen seeking admission, sensibly decided to abandon the doctrine to admit candidates capable of understanding and exemplifying or explaining the 'secrets and mysteries of the Craft'. Despite the compassion, flexibility and commonsense demonstrated by this decision, in the next couple of pages the same Grand Lodge further entrenched its opposition to admitting women. |
| Woman is not permitted to participate in our rites and ceremonies, not because we deem her unworthy or unfaithful, or incapable, as has been foolishly supposed, of keeping a secret, | Mackey does not actually deny that women are unworthy, etc. Rather he asserts that there is a more compelling reason why they are excluded. On the other hand, his remark serves to remind some readers of more blatantly sexist diatribes. One instance of such misogyny, an offensive song described as 'quaint', entitled 'Advice to the Ladies' by 'Brother Riley',' and originally published in 1765, has even been added by Clegg (v.2, p.1115) to Mackey's original entry in Mackey's Revised Encyclopedia. |
| but because on our entrance into the Order, we found certain regulations which prescribed that only men capable of enduring the labor, or of fulfilling the duties of Operative Masons could be admitted. | The modern requirement for admission is little more than that candidates be men. Their physical robustness and their capacity '…of enduring the labour, or of fulfilling the duties of Operative Masons…' are no longer required. If they were, many women would be found to be as equally capable as many men. Indeed, under 'Stonemason,' in a contemporary job guide (DEET, p.39), we find the explicit statement that, 'This field is open to both females and males.' |
| These regulations we have solemnly promised never to alter; | Here Mackey resorts to a circular argument. Before him one would have found changeable regulations, after him one is stuck with unchangeable 'landmarks'. The difference is - Mackey. He altered them and here he is relying on having done so to defend his position. |
| nor could they be changed, without an entire disorganization of the whole system of Speculative Masonry. | If this were the case, Freemasons would still be expected to be 'steadfast in the pursuit of truth' (allusion 2°). However, such dedication is not required in this case. Effectively refuting such concerns are the examples of so-called, 'irregular' or 'spurious' exceptions to the 'No Women!' rule, from which the Craft has not only survived but has been enriched. For instance, individuals such as Elizabeth St. Ledger and organisations such as Co-masonry (Wright, passim). |
Conclusion
We have read Albert Mackey’s confession that it was he who first distinctly enumerated the ‘Ancient Landmarks’ of Freemasonry, and how, in doing so, violated them. His enumeration has since been widely accepted throughout modern, mainstream, Freemasonic jurisdictions. I have examined what Mackey has to say on the subject of ‘women and Freemasonry’ and found absolutely no merit therein. Rather, the chief, tangible criteria he nominated to justify the exclusion of women, namely, the wording of the Old Constitutions and the practices of Operative Stonemasons, rather mandate their admission. We are led to conclude that there is no ‘Ancient Landmark’ that excludes women from Freemasonry. Therefore, Freemasonry can change its rules to admit women.
The constrained legal and social position of most western women has greatly improved from the circumstances prevalent in the eighteenth century when James Anderson first wrote the rule excluding them from Freemasonry. At the time, women could not be held to be responsible for many of their own actions. Thus, at the time, one might reasonably doubt that an application by a woman to be made a Freemason had been made of her ‘own free will and accord’; women could not be said to have the ‘perfect freedom of inclination and action’ Freemasonry required of its candidates; nor could they legally withhold secrets from their male guardians. Where those obstacles have been overcome, there remains no Masonically sound justification for a general rule excluding women. I find instead that Freemasonry now acts as a symbol opposing further emancipation. Now, more than ever, the exclusion of women diminishes the character and honour of Freemasonry. Inappropriate discrimination against any group is contrary to modern sensibilities and conventions. It is especially contrary to Freemasonry’s tolerant and egalitarian principles. Therefore, Freemasonry should change its rules to admit women.
References
Alic, Margaret 1986, Hypatia’s Heritage: A History of Women in Science from Antiquity to the Late Nineteenth Century, The Women’s Press, London.
AQC = Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Transactions of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No 2076, London, (EC).
Brown, Michèle, & O’Connor, Ann (Editors), 1985, Woman Talk: A Woman’s Book of Quotes, Futura, London.
Carroll, Lewis (Charles Dodgson), Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, The Hunting of the Snark: and a Wonderful Miscellany of Poems, Letters, Games and Puzzles, The Book Company, Sydney, 1996.
Carter, P.A., 1991,Why We Should Now Admit Worthy Women, self-published paper, Charlestown, NSW.
Carter, P.A., 2006, Womenmasons website.
Crowe, Fred J.W., 1914, ‘The Free Carpenters’, in AQC Vol. XXVII, London.
DEET Department of Employment, Education and Training), 1990, New South Wales Job Guide 1990, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
de Pizan, Christine, 1983 (org. 1405), The Book of the City of Ladies, (trans. E.J. Richards), Picador, London.
Gould, Robert Freke, 1882, The History of Freemasonry, Thomas C. Jack, London.
Jones, Bernard, 1956, Freemason’s Guide and Compendium new & revised edition), A. Lewis, London.
Jung, Carl G., 1984, The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature, (trans. R.F.C. Hull), Ark Paperbacks, London.
Lennhoff, Eugen, 1978 (org. 1934), The Freemasons: The History, Nature, Development and Secret of the Royal Art, (trans. E. Frame), A. Lewis, London.
Macbride, A.S., 1924, Speculative Masonry, Southern Publishers, Kingsport, Tennessee.
Mackey, Albert Gallatin, 1883 (org. 1845), A Lexicon of Freemasonry: Containing a Definition of all its Communicable Terms, Notices of its History, Traditions, and Antiquities and an Account of the Rites and Mysteries of the Ancient World (11th edition), Charles Griffin & Co., London.
Mackey, Albert Gallatin, 1917 (org. 1874), Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences Comprising the Whole Range of Arts, Sciences and Literature as Connected with the Institution, McClure Publishing, Philadelphia.
Mackey, Albert Gallatin, 1946, Mackey’s Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, (revised & enlarged by Robert I. Clegg), The Masonic History Company, Chicago.
Mackey, Albert Gallatin, 1996, The History of Freemasonry, Gramercy Books, Avenel, New Jersey.
Macquarie Dictionary, Australia’s National Dictionary (third edition), 1997, (Delbridge et al., Editors), The Macquarie Library, Sydney.
Pepper, Frank S. (Editor), 1984, Handbook of 20th Century Quotations, Sphere Books, London.
Perdriau, Kelvin H., April, 2001, ‘Innovation: A Long-standing Masonic Attribute’, in The NSW Freemason, v.33, n.2, UGL of NSW & ACT, Sydney.
Reed, Evelyn, 1975, Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family, Pathfinder Press, New York.
Smith, Toulmin , 1963 (org. 1870), English Gilds: edited by L.T. Smith and with an essay by L. Brentano, Oxford University Press, London (for The Early English Text Society)
Stubbs, J.W., 1967, ‘The Last Fifty Years’, in Grand Lodge: 1717 – 1967, printed for the United Grand Lodge of England.
The Royal Society Tercentenary, Compiled from a Special Supplement of The Times, July 1960, The Times Publishing Company Ltd, 1961, London.
Truth, Sojourner, ‘And A’n’t I a Woman?’, in Kerber & De Hart-Mathews (Editors), Women’s America: Refocusing the Past, (2nd edition), OUP.
Waite, Arthur, n.d., A New Encyclopædia of Freemasonry, Rider & Co., London.
Wright, Dudley, 1922, Woman and Freemasonry, William Rider & Son, London.
Craftswomen
in the Old Charges, in the Building Trades,
and as Stonemasons.
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This article is an example of the new fraternal research with which the Centre of Fraternal Studies is pleased to be associated with and keen to continue supporting. Philip Carter is a scholar local to the Newcastle area whose personal experience with Speculative Freemasonry has led him to search for answers to previously neglected but obviously important questions The views contained in this article are not necessarily endorsed by the Centre for Fraternal Studies. |
Philip Carter, Newcastle, 2006.
... If there is not equal or sufficient space
given to women there can be no space given
in any dynamic sense to the "working class"
and thus no full account for even the working men themselves.
B James, Where are all the Women in Labour History?, p.28.
Introduction
That history is used selectively … to misinterpret the role of women in the lodges should not be surprising. Masonic historiography is not exempt from the prejudices displayed by historians in general. Indeed, it suffers from all the problems in extensor. Rich and Reyes, Black Women Freemasons, p.6.
The 'No Women!' rule is to women and Freemasonic history what the fiction of terra nullius has been to aborigines and Australian history. Just as that fiction was a stumbling block to reconciliation with the original Australians, so too has the fiction of 'No Women!' led Freemasons to prevaricate and dissemble.
Not only has the 'No Women!' rule compromised Freemasonic jurisprudence and its peculiar system of morality (see 'Albert Through the Looking Glass', this site) the notion of 'No Women!' has confounded Freemasonic history, becoming, as it were, an article of faith. Thus, the ample examples of the involvement of women among the predecessors of modern, mainstream Freemasonry have been discredited as awkward, 'singular' exceptions or as evidence of the implausibility or irrelevance of the evidence.
For instance, the 1389 Certificate of the Guild of Masons at Lincoln specifically mentions 'brothers and sisters' in every clause. Moreover, after the suppression of the Guilds, the property of the Lincoln lodge was given to the city with the 'with the consent of the fraternity, brethren and sisters' (Rae, pp.22/3), Yet, what began in 1929 as a simple translation and publication (AQC, v.XLII, pp.64/67), became contaminated through a chain of references (e.g., A.Q.C., v.LIV, pp.108/110), until suggestions that the Certificate and Lodge had no bearing upon Freemasonic history became transformed into established facts (e.g., Jones, p.70).
During this process, a document as old as their 'earliest' Old Constitution MS, their much-lauded Regius Poem (c.1390), has been neglected. Lincoln's suggested status as the headquarters of England's medieval building fraternity (Rae, pp.22/3) might have meant its Certificate meriting the highest veneration among Freemasons. Blinkered by their 'No Women!' article of faith, Masonic scholars have been unable to appreciate the document at its face value.
The intention of this article is to assist Brethren to 'repair their loss' (allusion 3°, Opening), not only regarding this supremely important Certificate but with regard to other evidence, there for all to see, but to which a blind eye has also been turned. I begin with the 'Old Charges' which specifically mention 'Sisters', 'Dames' and '..she who is to be made a Mason.'
Craftswomen in the Old Charges
Sisters:
In R.H. Baxter's translation of the Regius Poem or Halliwell MS, said to be the oldest of the Old Constitutions or 'Charges', c.1390, I find:
- An exhortation to improve each others' knowledge of the craft, 'And so each one shall teach the other, And love together as sister and brother' (Martin, v.1, p.6);
- A prohibition against displacement when a job has already commenced, 'There shall no master supplant another, But be together as sister and brother' (ibid., p.,13);
- And an injunction to take turns at being stewards, 'Amiably to serve each other, As though they were sister and brother' (ibid., p.19).
While the Regius Poem is well known among Freemasonic scholars, the Certificate of the Guild of Masons at Lincoln (1389), although of similar age and despite being the only surviving document of its kind, has received little attention and is not usually numbered amongst the Old Charges. However, W.J. Williams has noted in commentary (A.Q.C., v.XLII, p.66):
'In the following translation the verbiage of the original, in which every clause is introduced by a long formula, has not been preserved. The brothers and sisters are always specified, and he and she is written each time.'
Subsequent commentators, such as Knoop and Jones, have urged the dismissal of this evidence by virtue of the 'fact' that:
The guild of masons at Lincoln, founded in 1313, was a social or religious fraternity in 1389 and not a craft guild. (A.Q.C., v.XLV, p.293).
Prior to the Reformation's 'disendowment of the religion of the misteries' (Encyclopædia Britannica, 1962, v.10, p.966), all guilds were predominantly social or religious in character, with some also having a trade as a qualification of membership, akin to certain 'particular' lodges today, which admit as members only persons of a particular profession or interest group.
Dame Masons
According to Cryer (p.22):
In the records of the Corpus Christi Guild at York in 1408 it is noted that an Apprentice had to swear to obey "the Master, or Dame, or any other Freemason"...'
Likewise, Rich and Reyes (p.6) report:…a record from 1408 where newly initiated Masons swore to obey "the Master, or Dame, or any other ruling Freemason".'
Woodford has reported the word 'Dame' appearing in each 'Apprentice Charge' in the 'Old Manuscript Constitutions' (p.146). For example, we read:Again, Cryer :
- 'He shall be true to God and the Holy Church, his prince, his master and dame whom he shall serve.' (Cox, pp.97/8)
- 'He shall not steal or pack away his master's or dame's goods, nor absent himself from their service, nor go from them about his own pleasure by day or by night, without their consent.'(ibid.)
- You shall not maintain any disobedient argument with your Master, Dame or any Free-Mason.' (Gould, v.I, p.75)
... In case anyone should think that such a title meant perhaps only the Master's living partner, it is worth noting that as late as 1683 the records of the Lodge of Mary's Chapel in Edinburgh provide an instance of a female occupying the position of 'Dame' or 'Mistress' in a masonic sense. She was a widow of a mason but she exercised an equal right with other operative masons and took the same ceremonies. (p.23)
She Who is to be Made a Mason:
The manuscript entitled 'Constitutions of the Freemasons' (York Manuscript No. 4, 1693), included the following clause:
The one of the elders taking the booke, and that he or shee that is to bee made a Mason shall lay hands thereon, and the charge shall be given. (Wright, p.95).
Several authors have sought to dismiss this straightforward evidence with the suggestion that there may have been an error in reading or in translation, whereby 'he or shee' should have read 'he or they.' To those who suggest 'she' to be a misreading, Cryer has responded
Now I have to tell you, that my predecessors in Masonic Research in England from Hughen and Vibert and from all the rest onward, have tried to pretend that the 'shee' is merely a misprint for 'they.' I now am the Chairman of the Heritage Committee of York. I know these documents; I've examined them, and I'm telling you, they say 'she,' without any question. (Masonic Times, May 1995, Rochester, N.Y.)
Those who claim 'she' is a mistranslation I ask to consider that, if translated and transcribed from an earlier document, the work was likely to have been done by an esteemed master, well acquainted with the genuine imperatives of the Craft. Further, the manuscript seems to have been handed on to, read and accepted by subsequent masters without them perceiving any need for amendment or correction. As Woodford (p.146) acknowledged:
The words, 'hee or shee,' in York MS. No. 4, are only equivalent to what may be shown in other Guild regulations, and the suggestion that 'shee' should read 'they,' though made by so great an authority as Bro. D. Murray Lyon, is not, we venture to think, tenable in the face of the evidence of female Guild membership of some kind which may be adduced. The usage, as far as the Masons are concerned, proves the great antiquity of the instruction.
Craftswomen in the Building Trades and as Stonemasons
'As to the position of women in the Operative Lodges, that is a matter that can be gone into, though in the matter of absolute history we find ourselves in rather a difficulty... (W.R. Day, in Scott-Youngs' address, 'Women and Freemasonry', 1918, p.42)
His Royal Highness, the Duke of Kent, who, since 1967, has been the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, on being asked, 'Sir, in 1986 how do you justify the exclusion of women?' replied:
That is I think largely an historical affair. It's simply that Freemasonry as you may know stems right back into the Middle Ages, there were no practicing women Masons who operated on building sites as they were in those days, and it was from those origins that Masonry largely derives, and it is simply that this is the way it has grown up. (S.C.R.L., p.13)
General Involvement:
Claudia Opitz in, A History of Women in the West (p.301), tells us that
... women worked in fields that today are more likely to be considered "typically male," such as metalworking and the construction trade.
Although records of both men and women in such trades are sparse, (we know of most stonemasons only by their marks), most medieval illustrations depicting stonemasons are ambiguous as to gender. The many beardless faces shown may be either those of men, especially apprentices, or of women, their loose, work clothes covering any other clues. Consequently, only where some artistic license has been employed, showing workers in other than their work clothes, do we find a few unambiguous illustrations of women working in the field of stonemasonry.
Toulmin Smith's English Gilds was compiled from guild reports, etc., in the late fourteenth century. In it, his daughter, Lucy, reported by way of introduction to this posthumous publication: 'Scarcely five out of the [over] five hundred were not formed equally of men and women...' (T. Smith, p.xxx). The guilds of priests and those of scholars would more than account for the scarce five that did not admit women. This ratio of less than one percent is confirmed by R.F. Gould, who, while he maintained that stonemasons excluded women, never-the-less wrote of the guilds elsewhere: 'Not one out of a hundred but recruited their ranks from both sexes...' He continued:
And even in guilds under the management of priests, such as the Brotherhood of 'Corpus Christ' of York, begun in 1408, lay members were allowed (of some honest craft), without regard to sex, if 'of good fame and conversation' the payments and privileges being the same for the 'brethren and sisteren.' Women 'were sworne upon a book in the same manner as the men. History v.1, p.90
Trade Combinations
Masons routinely combined with other building trades, as in the Worshipful Society of Freemasons, Rough Masons, Wallers, Slaters, Paviors, Plaisterers and Bricklayers, and as other related trades amalgamated under a single guild or company:
This association of other trades with Masons was not at all an uncommon state of affairs in the 17th century. In Kendal, in 1667, the 12th Trade Company comprised Free Masons, Rough Masons, Wallers, Plaisterers, Slaters and Carpenters. In Oxford, in 1604, a company was incorporated entitled "The Company of Free Masons, Carpenters, Joiners and Slaters of the City of Oxford.' In Gateshead, in 1671, incorporation was granted to 'The Company of Free Masons, Carvers, Stone Cutters, Sculpturers, Brickmakers, Tilers, Bricklayers, Glaziers, Penterstainers, Founders, Neilers, Pewterers, Plumbers, Millwrights, Sadlers, Bridlers, Trunckmakers and Distillers. Carr (p.116)
The admission of women among the Free Carpenters is well established (Crowe, pp.5/19), despite, as Gould remarked, 'the trade of a carpenter was no more favourable to the employment of women than that of a mason.' (v.1, p.91). Gould is among those who have insisted, without corroborating evidence, that stonemasons were a special case, in that they excluded women. Erika Uitz, in her book, Women in the Medieval Town, (p.64), while noting the generally lower wages of female workers, remarked:
Even under such pay conditions, female employment rates were high. On Würzburg building sites, for example, a large amount of female labour was employed on a daily basis between 1428 and 1524. The low-skilled labourers received the following average wage, reckoned in pfennigs:
| Year | Number of female workers | Wage | Number of male workers | Wage |
| 1428 to 1449 | 323 | 7.7 | 13 | 11.6 |
| 1450 to 1474 | 1472 | 9.0 | 381 | 12.6 |
| 1475 to 1499 | 209 | 8.3 | 131 | 11.2 |
| 1500 to1524 | 420 | 9.2 | 237 | 12.7 |
The pay conditions in the Würzburg building trade were no exception. This can be seen in a decree on maximum prices and wages issued to all towns and markets in the Steiermark, according to which serving lads, who carried stones or mortar, were paid 8 pfennigs per day and women doing similar work were to be paid only 7 pfennigs.
Thus, women not only endured the fatigues of labour in the building trades but also, at least in the Würzburg case, they outnumbered the men! Indeed, because of the prevalence of women and their acceptance of lower wages the journeyman lodges agitated for their exclusion, and that of foreigners, from most trades in the late middle ages. Opitz has described tension over pay rates during the closing years of the middle ages:
The competition between various interest groups raged all the more fiercely, especially when times were hard. Journeymen played a key role in these battles; since female maids and apprentices earned a third less on average, the men fought successfully to have them excluded from virtually all guilds by the end of the Middle Ages. (p.302)
Rather than women being unsuited to the work of these guilds, their general exclusion was precisely because, as a result of a combination of relative wages, skill and productivity, employers had come to hire women in such numbers that men began to feel their prospects were at risk!
Widows
Even after women had been excluded from most trades, we find an instance of presumptive evidence of 'time-immemorial custom' being invoked among stonemasons to permit the involvement of widows. This instance not only bears witness to such a custom, but also shows that the custom, having fallen into abeyance, needed to be reaffirmed. A.S. MacBride, who doubts that such involvement entailed the admission of women to the mysteries and privileges of the craft, nevertheless has acknowledged:
It is true, in the minutes of "Mary's Chapel Lodge" it is written under date 17th April, 1683, "The whilk day, in presence of Thomas Hamiltone, deakone, and John Harrvy, warden, and remnant Masters of the mason craft, in corroboratione of the former practise, quhich was of use and wont amongst them, it is statute and ordained that it shall be in no tyme, or in no wayes, leithsome for a widow to undertake workes or to employ jurneymen in any manner or way ... providing always that they bespeake some freeman by whose advyse and concurrance the workes shall be undertaken," etc. (p.207)
Day, although asserting that in England no women were admitted to Operative Lodges, is reported as having said:
The question comes up in this way - supposing a Master or Fellow of the Craft had an Apprentice, and this Master or Fellow died, what would become of the Apprentice's articles? It is clearly laid down in the Minutes of the Lodge that the articles pass to the Master's widow. (Scott-Young, p.42)
Erika Uitz's account (above) further refers to:
… the building and building-related trades in the late Middle Ages: Written and pictorial sources suggest that women were employed in the hard physical work involved in the building, mortar-mixing, roof-making, and glazier trades…(p.162)
More specifically, she goes on to say:
In Strasbourg from 1452 to 1453, two women joined the masons' guild and were simultaneously granted the right to town citizenship.
Also in Strasbourg, Gould refers (vi., pp. 175/6) to an account, (which he says was elsewhere reported as being of 'undoubted authenticity', but which, nonetheless, he doubts, solely on the basis of the involvement of a woman), whereby the porch of its thirteenth century cathedral was completed by Sabina, a skilful mason and the daughter of the cathedral's famous architect, Erwin of Steinbach. While not denying the possibility of the account, Gould argued against its probability, maintaining:
Apprenticeship and travel were essentials, and these ordeals, though the fortitude of a determined woman might have sustained her throughout the labours of the former, it is scarcely to be conceived that a member of the gentler sex could have endured the perils and privations of the latter.
Against this class laden, Victorian condescension, the experience of female artisans on the Continent was that they trod the same tramping networks as their male colleagues. Gould seems to imply that stonemasons, and only stonemasons, left their womenfolk behind while they traveled to distant sites for work that might be decades in construction. If we reject this idea and women could travel as wives and daughters, then surely they could have done so as artisans, as they did in this and other trades. I also note that the perils and privations of pilgrimage did not deter many devout women from expressing their faith in that way.
According to Clegg (v.3, p.690):
Brother 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 punds. 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 none other than the right to do a freeman's work.
I presume that the Guild of Masons at Lincoln, already alluded to, was at least connected with and may well be identical with the city's Lodge of St Mary. In Rae's work, The Mediæval Mason: A Sketch of the Times and the Men (sic), the full quotation referred to above (pp.22/3) concerning what was stated to be the Masons' Lodge of St. Mary's at Lincoln is:
It is stated (W. Watkins) that it was a mason guild and the most important one in the country. M. Watkins says, 'I am emboldened to suggest that Lincoln was the place and St. Mary's Guild the building in which the arts and crafts were taught for several centuries,' and later the same authority says, 'I repeat the suggestion that the headquarters of our English mediæval building fraternity were established in this Guild building at Lincoln.' It is to be noted that when the Guilds were suppressed the property of St. Mary's was given to the city of Lincoln in 1548, 'with the consent of the fraternity, brethren and sisters.' (pp.22-3)
Reasoning from the mistaken 'No Women!' presumption, Rae then observes that the mention of 'sisters' casts doubt on whether or not the guild still retained its 'operative' nature. However, the wording of the Certificate, including both brothers and sisters and referring to the 'operative' practice of taking apprentices, should, if connected with this particular lodge, put his doubt to rest. On the other hand, were his doubt well founded, then this example would be even more relevant to the 'speculative' nature of modern, mainstream Freemasonry. Batham, in The London Company of Masons, observed on London Livery Companies in general that: 'Membership is largely male but there have been female members from very early time.' (p.102) In his Compendium, Bernard Jones referring specifically to the London Company of Freemasons, tells us:
Margaret Wild, widow, was a member in [1663] ... As late as 1713-14 we find the remarkable instance of Mary Banister, the daughter of a barber of Barking, being apprenticed to a mason for the term of seven years, the fee of 5s. being duly paid to the company. In 1696 the Mason's Court Book gives the names of two widows. (pp.77-8)
Conclusion:
From what has been advanced, not one doubt remains but the ladies may, and have an undoubted right to be admitted as members of the most ancient and most honourable Society of Free and Accepted Masons. (George Smith, 'The Use and Abuse of Freemasonry', 1783, p.365)
Challenging Freemasonry's 'No Women!' article of faith is this clear and ample proof, albeit a portion only of what's available, that the exclusion of women from Freemasonry cannot be justified either by appeal to the Old Constitution MS or by reference to medieval trade practices. Freemasons will therefore have to look elsewhere to legitimise this infringement of the truth, equality and universalism they espouse (see also Albert Through the Looking Glass, this site).
Alternatively, they could address the homosocial misogyny within their ranks and admit women to membership, in accordance with the international Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (DFAT). After all, Freemasons are entitled to be part of, '...A moral and altruistic organisation actually behaving according to its precepts' (Rich & Reyes, p.6).
References
AQC = Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Transaction of Quatuor Coranati Lodge, No. 2076 [EC], (the premier lodge of masonic research, founded 1884 in London)
Carr, Thomas, n.d., 'Operative Free Masons and Operative Free Masonry', in George M. Martin (ed), British Masonic Miscellany, Vol. 6, David Winter & Son, Dundee.
Carter, P.A., 1991, Why We Should Now Admit Worthy Women, self-published paper, Charlestown, NSW.
Cox, L.V., 1987, 'Mediaeval Masonry Today', in Kent Henderson (Editor), Insights into Masonry, Lodge of Research No. 218 (V.C.), East Melbourne.
Crowe, Fred J.W., 1914, 'The Free Carpenters', in AQC Vol. XXVII, Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 (E.C.), London.
Cryer, Neville Barker, 1995, A Masonic Panorama: Selected Papers of the Reverend Neville Barker Cryer, Australian Masonic Research Council, Williamstown, Vic.
DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), 1983, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, (New York, 18 December 1979), Australian Treaty Series 1983 No.9, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
Gould, Robert Freke, 1882, The History of Freemasonry: Its Antiquities, Symbols, Constitutions, Customs, Etc. - Embracing an Investigation of the Records of the Organisations of the Fraternity in England, Scotland, Ireland, British Colonies, France, Germany, and the United States - Derived from Official Sources, Thomas C. Jack, London.
James, Bob, 1992, 'Where are all the Women in Labour History?' in A Century of Social Change, Pluto Press, Leichhardt, NSW.
Jones, Bernard, 1956, Freemasons' Guide and Compendium (new & revised edition), A. Lewis, London.
Macbride, A.S, 1924, Speculative Masonry, Southern Publishers, Kingsport, Tennessee.
Martin, George M. (compiler), n.d., British Masonic Miscellany, David Winter & Son, Dundee.
Opitz, Claudia, 1992, 'Life in the Late Middle Ages', in Christiane Klapische-Zuber(Ed), A History of Women in the West: Vol. II, Silences of the Middle Ages, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts.
Rae, T. Herdman, 1931, The Mediæval Mason: A Sketch of the Times and the Men, Manchester Association for Masonic Research (reprinted from their transactions).
Rich, Paul & Reyes, Guillermo De Los, Sept. 2000, 'Black Women Freemasons: Gender, Race and Fraternalism in American Society: The ultimate test of social change in America?' (Draft: Mid Atlantic PCA & ACA, Philadelphia, October 1996), in G.D. Murray (Editor), Gleanings, Issue 61, South Australian Lodge of Research, Marden.
Scot-Young, S., 1918, 'Women and Freemasonry', in Transactions of the Sydney Lodge of Research, No. 290, U.G.L., N.S.W., Vol. V. - 1918, Bloxham & Chambers, Sydney.
S.C.R.L. (Southern California Research Lodge), 1989, 'Interview with H.R.H. The Duke of Kent, Grand Master', (transcript of interview broadcast on 9 July 1986), in The NSW Freemason, v.21, no.6, United Grand Lodge of NSW, Sydney.
Smith, George, 1783, The Use and Abuse of Freemasonry: A Work of the Greatest Utility to the Brethren of the Society, to Mankind in General and to the Ladies in Particular, printed by the author and sold by G. Kearsley, London.
Smith, Toulmin (Editor), 1963 (org. 1870), English Gilds, edited by L.T. Smith and with an essay by L. Brentano, Oxford University Press, London (for The Early English Text Society).
Uitz, Erika, 1990, Women in the Medieval Town, Barrie & Jenkins, London.
Woodford, A.F.A., (Editor), 1878, Kenning's Masonic Cyclopædia and Handbook of Masonic Archæology, History and Biography, George Kenning, London.
Wright, Dudley, 1922, Woman and Freemasonry, William Rider & Son, London.
GETTING THE QUESTION RIGHT
- written for Masonic Conference, Edinburgh, 2007.
Andrew Prescott’s talk to the 2006 Public History Conference included a sad tale concerning the appearance of David Stevenson, ‘eminent Scottish historian’, before the members of AQC Research Lodge. He was the first non-Mason to be so invited in approx 120 years. His address was on his research into Scottish Masonic history. Prescott says the paper was ‘very poorly received’ and that the response by AQC showed ‘an unwillingness by (its) members to engage with primary evidence’, a criticism which is pretty damning.
But then he appeared to soften his stance by suggesting the Stevenson experience represented a ‘collision of two historiographical traditions’, and by telling of the many lodge histories that have been produced by Masonic scholars over the years. He concluded by arguing that it was in ‘local study that academic historians and masonic [sic] historians can meet on common ground.’1
I believe this is far too optimistic in the face of a problem fast becoming intractable, if it is not so already.
The literature of Speculative Freemasonry (SF) is vast. It has attracted much, varied comment. As an historian looking in from ‘the outside’, I have been interested for some time in the interplay between credibility and historical ‘truth’. Because of a parallel, and directly relevant situation which I’ll speak to in just a moment, and because of my own deep and sympathetic interest in SF, I’ve noted recent Masonic scholars declaring Masonic history to be fanciful, even irrelevant from the point of view of serious, ‘professional’ history. Most notably, I recall Prestonian Lecturer, Markham, arguing in 1997 that if SF scholarship values its credibility as valid history it must engage with the wider world of scholarship.2
So, just comparing the response by Masonic ‘elders’, the AQC, with Markham’s call, I conclude that deep differences of opinion exist within SF over whether to open Masonic history to contributions from the un-initiated or not. Perhaps Stevenson upset the Masonic ‘elders’ as far back as 1988 when he wrote:
(Though) there have been many excellent masonic historians…their work has tended to be not just by masons but for masons, published by specialist publishers, and (though not kept secret) only published in masonic circles..Some masons [still] regard their history as virtually the property of members of the craft, and are unhappy at outsiders working in the field..3
Although heaping praise on their work, Stevenson went on to argue in 1988 that the way pre-eminent Masonic scholars Knoop and Jones had gone about rectifying that introspection problem in the 1940’s and 50’s had not solved it:
Unfortunately (their sentiments) failed to free Masonic history from the ghetto to which it has all too often been consigned…Knoop and Jones themselves failed to provide a properly balanced approach to Masonic history…(In) their enthusiasm for freeing Masonic history from past absurdities and excesses, Knoop and Jones dictated very narrow and puritanical definitions of the role of the historian which appear to have influenced some later writers into hardly daring to say anything.4
All of this is, I believe, extremely perceptive of Stevenson but unlikely to endear him to those who wish to maintain the barriers to non-initiated historians. For someone like me who believes that it is in SF’s own interests to take down the barriers, who has noted certain recent movement in this direction, and who has suffered the same sorts of response in a parallel world as Stevenson has, there is a sense of déjà vu here. And therefore I am here to argue that while the nature of the problem to be confronted is not sufficiently well understood it is unlikely to prove a positive experience for anyone involved.
The problem is the manner in which Freemasonry, itself, insists on being seen and the strategies it has used to maintain its image over 300 years of existence. It boils down to a gap between the theory and the practice of SF, ie, its politics.
I’m not arguing that ‘the problem’ is AQC’s alone, or even unique to Freemasonry, and here I go to that ‘parallel world’. About 20 years ago, as Secretary of a Labour History Society, a member of the National Executive of the Australian Society for the Study of LH, as Convenor of a National LH Conference, and doctoral student at the University of Newcastle, NSW, I found myself staring at trade union banners, and asking myself where did the angel come from, why did they have ‘the big eye’, and the temple formation? Why were supposedly ‘modern’ and ‘secular’ trade unions, at the bottom of the world, wearing regalia well into the 20th century, and ‘tyling’ their meetings up to the 1960’s?
People in the labour movement, scholars or rank and file members, could not answer my questions. I began calling the symbols ‘Masonic’, began to read books on Freemasonry, many of which insisted that the symbols had been borrowed from SF. Even when I discovered that Friendly Societies, which clearly pre-dated 1717, were using the same symbols and the same ‘paraphernalia’, this ‘borrowing’ argument persisted. But increasingly there was too much evidence that just did not fit, and most importantly an hypothesis began to form that could explain all of the evidence I was encountering.
Labour History is an intellectually-respected school of research in universities, with its own research associations, its own academic journals, its own university courses and career academics. These are the very things which SF must pursue if it is to take the Markham ‘path’ and be taken seriously by professional historians. While I am an outsider here, in that world I was an insider, but I came to see that authors of Labour History (LH), deliberately writing from one particular political perspective, often assumed their conclusions before beginning their research and so not surprisingly were able to ‘prove’ what they already believed. For example, enduring assumptions have been that the working class is the only section of the population capable of stemming the tide of materialist exploitation, that the workers only go on strike to defend their wages and working conditions, that labour leaders are unsullied heroes and so on.
This pro-labour literature was written as though it was serious ‘professional’ history, but I came to see it was written to sustain, and to nourish, the ‘true believers’, people inside the labour community who must believe in order to support and maintain labour institutions. Labour History has been, in effect, written from inside a walled community, to put its members in the best possible light, to overwhelm any claims made by internal critics, and to deny claims made by external enemies. Labour History was written because the labour community was in competition, some would say a war, for hearts and minds.
It’s a siege mentality, and it remains largely so despite the best efforts of some insiders to broaden the definitions and the numbers of people who might be regarded as ‘welcome’. In Australia, it’s not so long since our notion of Australian History was broadened to include our indigenous population, and to include women. Labour History has been shifted to allow these groups space within its envelope, but because the competition for cultural space has remained real, what I call the ‘founding myths’ remain largely in place, and the function of LH remains much the same. Let me repeat, its function is to nourish insiders, not to open itself up to issues, conflicts and problems introduced by outsiders.
Since SF was regarded by the labour movement as an enemy, certain facts were not to be acknowledged. The labour movement was to be projected as modern, forward looking, scientific and secular, and evidence of ‘pre-modern, superstitious mumbo-jumbo’ continuing well into the 20th century, was not to be heard.
This sleight-of-hand not only prevented an understanding of Freemasonry by LH, it prevented exploration of the hypothesis that trade societies and Freemasonry were separate derivatives of an earlier tradition.
I came to see that much of the structure of LH, even in Australia, was based on the work of just two people, the iconic British authors, the Webbs. In their very influential book The History of Trade Unionism, they articulated an argument which thereafter imposed a discipline about what was acceptable evidence and what wasn’t, just as I now see Knoop and Jones did for SF.
Trying to piece together an alternative LH was harder. It meant understanding the origins and the functions, of the oaths, regalia, passwords, etc, a process which brought me hard up against both the HISTORY and the historiography of Friendly Societies and SF. Getting more and more immersed in those worlds made it inevitable that by the time I had finished my PhD, which was ostensibly on May Day processions and their symbolism, I had been cast out as a heretic by the labour history community, dismissed particularly by the people I then saw as ‘chieftains’ making a career out of a narrow, self-serving ‘history’.
It was easier then to be scathing about such people. The truth is rather that they knew no better than to be defensive about their traditions, and protective of what they knew. It just happens to be the case that for me ‘history’ has to be warts and all, whatever the evidence tells me. Propaganda and history are just two different things.
In brief then: LH has built its success on the notion that ‘trade unions’ and ‘the labour movement’ were unique responses to industrialization. Secondly, the literature maintaining the notion of uniqueness was being written by ‘insiders’. Thirdly, because unique, and despite claims to be ‘serious’ history, LH was to be judged by rules set by the insiders not by any ‘un-initiated’ outsiders.
First Question: Has Masonic History also been written from inside a walled community, to support and maintain its particular ‘true believers’, while claiming that it is ‘serious’ history.
My answer to my own question would be yes, and that after 300 years we might judge the strategy successful, except for the debates going on within SF about exactly this issue, the credibility of the history of SF in the outside world. To judge whether I’m right or not, the next question has to be: Are these debates signs of internal decay and collapse, or signs that a healthy renewal process is underway?
As part of my attempt to examine the process underway, I looked closely at certain texts I judged to be relevant. Brief reviews follow of 4 key published works, 2 by initiates and 2 by non-initiates, published, with one exception, since Markham’s lecture. I use these to focus attention on whether the transition story – operative to speculative – makes any sense?’ – initially, again in the interests of brevity, by focusing on the given reasons for ‘the transition’.
For example, Margaret Jacobs, a non-Mason based in the USA, lists in her 2006 Origins of Freemasonry, (Uni of Penn, 2006) the following reasons for the entry of non-operatives into operative lodges:
* the stonemasons needed an external cash flow;
* there was conviviality and fellowship to be had;
* there was also ‘myth and lore’ tying geometry to ‘ancient learning’ to be had;
The need for funds, the conviviality, and the Bible-based allegories are not stonemason-specific so are not relevant to the question of why ‘non-masons’ wanted to join operative lodges. The notion that operative masons alone had special, secret knowledge is, and I return to that issue. She then comments:
The details of the historical process by which, after 1650, a guild of workers evolved into a voluntary society of gentlemen are probably forever lost.(p.13)
Her text discusses certain 18th century developments, in particular Masonic government, and female lodges in France. These, especially the use of non-English language materials, are major innovations for the genre. But they are built on her unexamined assumptions, that ‘a guild of workers’ did actually evolve ‘into a voluntary society of gentlemen’, and that that happened ‘after 1650’, in other words, it’s clear she’s accepted that the mainstream Masonic ‘narrative’ to that point need not be questioned.
Robert Cooper, an initiated brother, in his 2006 Cracking the Freemason’s Code, (Random House) has been saddled by his publisher with the claim that the book ‘reveals the truth’ about Freemasonry. Perhaps this explains its numerous bold assertions. He records briefly the Knights Templar theory, the ‘underground stream’ theory, the stonemasons of King Solomon’s Temple theory, what he calls ‘the most commonly accepted and historically credible’ theory(p.10), ie the one that begins with mediaeval stonemasons, and lastly, the ‘Big Bang’ theory, whereby SF somehow, almost spontaneously, took shape in the early 1700’s. He centres his own interpretation on Schaw, for him modern Freemasonry’s ‘architect’, and on the question:
(Why) does he want the stonemasons’ special knowledge preserved?
Cooper’s answer?
I think the answers lie in the fact that William Schaw was a member of a lodge and that he simply could not abide the casual, unrecorded, unregulated methods then used by stonemasons. For Schaw to have known that the stonemasons’ esoteric knowledge was worth preserving he must have been in possession of that knowledge. (p.23)(Cooper’s emphasis)
Bob Cooper allows that Schaw’s Masonic membership is unproven, but note that by his use of the word ‘known’ here he jumps, as Jacobs did, from a possibility to a certainty – he has assumed, without examination or reference, that the stonemasons had esoteric knowledge and that it was worth preserving. Note, too, that he has by-passed the usual formulation of the transition and ‘ancient learning’ altogether – one man had ‘craft’ information by way of being an ‘insider’ and simply passed it on, in official Statutes.
He then asserts that many aspects of Modern Freemasonry, such as records of meetings and proceedings, and terms such as ‘the craft’, ‘cowan’, ‘entered apprentice’ and ‘warden’ were ‘introduced by Schaw.’ Further, that ‘it seems obvious’ that by issuing his Statutes for stonemasons he was attempting to ‘create a national organization with himself at its head.’(p.25)
His certainty where others have been more cautious then extends to a startling demarcation between day and night-time lodge activities which he raises in the context of problems with the definition of ‘a Freemason’:
At work during the day, stonemasons cut, carved and dressed stone in order to build. In their lodges in the evening they did not.
After dark, he is quite sure, only esoteric ‘work’ was undertaken, by means of which secret knowledge was ‘discussed, elaborated and transferred to other members.’ (p.24.) On the one hand, this interpretation values stonemasons’ symbolic beliefs beyond the usual, and allows a whole chapter on the ‘Order’ of Free Gardeners, something no other Masonic scholar has done:
The parallels between the two orders show that these, and therefore other [occupations], had similar origins…and developed in a more or less similar manner. (p.201)
This surely implies another ‘transition’ from operative to speculative in this occupation, but while he doesn’t claim the Free Gardeners borrowed anything from ‘the Masons’ he does maintain that other long-standing belief that compared to all other mediaeval occupations, ‘masonry’ was always special.
The second work by ‘a brother’ is C Bruce Hunter’s 2003 The Masques of Solomon, published in the USA by Macoy. In his Preface he refers to an earlier volume Legacy of the Sacred Chalice, in which he and a co-author dealt ‘with the origins of the Masonic ritual’ by exploring ‘a series of clues that reached back to the 12th century’ (p.ix) His second volume, The Masques of Solomon, seeks to explore in more detail what he first calls simply ‘the ritual’ but which he then asserts ‘is, in fact, a collection of ceremonies which took years, if not centuries, to develop… under circumstances which leave many issues unresolved.’
He then describes the Edinburgh Register House Manuscript, dated to the late 17th century as ‘Our best example of the “original” ritual’. His major, extended argument, ties Wm Schaw and James VI of Scotland to the Speculatives’ Third Degree allegedly created around 1725, by way of the court entertainments known as masques. In particular, he argues a direct link between a deliberate effort by ‘the Masons’ to broaden the appeal of their lodges and the 1707 Act of Union whereby Scotland became part of ‘Great Britain.’ (pp.146-7)
Enterprising and innovative, but note that his concern to understand the process of transition has become a study of public ceremonial display, within a context of social elites engaged in religious and succession disputes. He asserts ‘the most important feature of the transition:
is that the simple ceremony with which the stonemasons began…eventually changed into a dramatic presentation. (p.28)
He has so far separated in time and in dynamic the people-transition from the ritual-transition, that he’s left no place for the seekers after those ancient ‘operative’ truths despite his earlier statements.
I now return to non-Masonic author David Stevenson’s The Origins of Freemasonry,(1988). His argument about SF’s Scottish origins was groundbreaking for non-initiates when it appeared, but in 2006, in comparison with Cooper and Hunter his thesis now appears less innovative. As with Jacobs, it will be very interesting to see at this Conference where he has taken his research.
But what was his underlying thesis?
* That ‘freemasonry’ was and is a ‘movement’, brought into serious and distinct form by that same William Schaw, Kings Master of Works in Edinburgh, in the years, 1598-1602.
* That ‘freemasonry’ is ‘a brotherhood of men bound together by secret rituals, and by secret codes of identification, organized in groups known as lodges’.(p.1.)
* That ‘masonry’ was qualitatively different to ‘all other crafts’, because of the systemisation introduced from 1598 and shown in documents known as ‘The Schaw Statutes’, which ‘transformation…(he says, gave) birth to freemasonry.’ (p.25.)
* That ‘masonry has provided the classic structure for secret organizations in the modern world.’ (p.7)
* ‘(Masonry) seems a protean institution that changes shape and content according to circumstances and membership…It could be committedly Catholic…or protestant. It could nurture conspiracies of left or right.’ (p.7)
Also in 1988 he placed the beginning of the transition from operative to speculative at the end of the 17th century, after ‘the Word’ had been created, ‘men became intrigued’ and ‘outsiders first learned that the masons had secrets.’(p.125)
Apart from his emphasis on Schaw as ‘the man’, and on Scotland as ‘the place’, these assertions have all been mainstream for a long time, certainly from well before Knoop and Jones. I have to conclude that the un-initiated Stevenson, in 1988, like Hunter in 2003, and Cooper and Jacob in 2006, has been far too respectful of Masonic traditions, by which I don’t mean ‘the landmarks’. Most importantly, while innovative in certain identifiable ways, and whatever AQC may think about their contributions, all these authors have chosen to repeat and maintain the essential SF beliefs relating to the transition:
* The ‘operatives’ used secret knowledge profound enough to build awe-inspiring cathedrals, but they were just simple folk, really, and had very little idea of the symbolic or esoteric nature of what they were doing;
* it was hundreds of years after the cathedrals had been built that ‘men became intrigued’, ‘first became aware that there were secrets’, to quote Stevenson;
* the operatives’ ritual evolved in line with their requirements, and presumably their ‘secrets’ also, but when it, the ritual, was ‘borrowed’, the important bits still had to be invented; and
* the ‘operatives’ had the secrets which the non-masons wanted, but it wasn’t clear then, and it’s not too clear now whether the secrets were about geometry, or about substitute words for God, or about stories in the bible, or ‘ancient mysteries’. The implication in a lot of SF commentary, and of course the Craft ritual, has been that the operatives’ secret knowledge amounted to the story of Hiram Abiff. Apart from anything else, why would such a story be kept secret?
It’s easy to show that these transition beliefs amount to a structure that is ramshackle at best, and that Jacob, etc, ought to have been far more critical. The protected ‘traditions’ continue to regard, for example, ‘secret’ and ‘lost’ information as though they are the same thing. Clearly, being ‘lost’ and being ‘secret’ are very different, and require different approaches by historians. If ’lost’, when lost?, how lost?, how long lost?, and how found?
If ‘secret’ why secret? Answers in the literature as it stands are not satisfactory. And there is a third leg which remains unexplained: if the information sought was so valuable, what were the consequences of people getting hold of it? So many of the alleged ‘seekers’, Ashmole, etc, don’t appear to have either maintained their interest or to have made use of any information gained from their induction into ‘the secrets.’
I could go further along this line. If the ‘Old Charges’ and/or the ‘Cathechisms’ contain the information sought by the non-operatives, in what sense was that information either ‘lost’ or being kept ‘secret’? If Schaw was responsible for the key information, or if that ‘key’ information only became valuable in the 17th century as it was being ‘created’, then it was not ‘ancient learning’, ‘it’ was not ‘lost’ in any meaningful sense, but neither was ‘it’ ‘secret’.
The important thing is, however, they all reduce to an assertion that the stonemasons were special and unique among mediaeval occupations and that therefore the knowledge they had was special and unique. Quoting Stevenson’s version makes this clearer. He wrote:
* That ‘freemasonry’ was ‘transformed …and given birth’ by Schaw, in Edinburgh, in 1598-1602;
* That ‘masonry’ was qualitatively different to ‘all other crafts’, because of the systemisation shown in ‘The Schaw Statutes’;
* That ‘masonry has provided the classic structure for secret organizations in the modern world.’ (p.7)
* ‘(Masonry) seems a protean institution that changes shape and content according to circumstances and membership…It could be committedly Catholic…or protestant. It could nurture conspiracies of left or right.’ (p.7)
If I now ask ‘where is the proof?’, either in Stevenson or in any other place, for these claims, the answer has to be that there is none. This is because the necessary research to justify the conclusions hasn’t been done. And thus we arrive at the central point. The claim that the operative stonemasons were unique and special has been taken over to support a claim of uniqueness for Speculative Freemasonry. And the claim that SF is unique and special is used to support the claim that the stonemasons were unique and special. One cannot survive, now, if the other does not.
Such assertions as the following from Harry Carr are part of the problem:
‘The story of the craft in Britain may be carried back safely to the middle of the 14th century, but the Freemasonry of today bears no resemblance to the craft organization of the 1300’s. During those 600 years…the craft has suffered enormous changes..’(as above, p.3)
The 3 uses of ‘craft’ here are, at best, confusing. Two uses appear to be to Freemasonry, the institution, and one to the occupation of stonemasonry. Why, then, are not the two given a capital letter as appropriate for an organization? The answer can only be that Carr is attempting to imply the word can be both the occupation and the institution simultaneously, which is not just poor English expression.
In 2002 Stevenson showed how he apparently continues to see ‘the transition’:
Traditions of the special importance of the stonemasons trade had survived from the Middle Ages, and some clubs adapted these older traditions to the new world of London clubs. In 1717 some of these Masonic theme clubs decided to come together, have an annual joint feast and achieve a degree of coherence and recognition for Freemasonry…Their beliefs in the importance of Masonry made a noble Master appropriate, and such exalted patronage would bring Masonry the respect it deserved.5
It is on that claim to uniqueness which was first expressed about ‘the operatives’ that SF has been built, and it is this claim which determines whether SF is indeed a fortress or ‘walled community’. Opinions can be expressed but proof sufficient to satisfy the requirements of professional historians is not available.
All but that second assertion of Stevenson’s depend on knowledge of the world outside SF – ie, claims that
‘masonry/Freemasonry’ was different/unique/special rely more on research done on those ‘other crafts’ than on SF the institution. And where in Masonic scholarship is that research? Cooper’s reflections on the Free Gardeners is the only reference to another ‘craft’ in the books I’ve cited today. Throughout the literature, the only other relevant Masonic references I know of are those of Andy Durr.6
Andrew Prescott, non-initiate, is the 5th of the authors I wish to briefly review. I regret very much that living on the other side of the world means that it’s impossible for me, in his words, to ‘get my hands dirty in the unopened boxes of documents at Great Queen Street.’
I’ve been impressed by his initiative and his insights from my first acquaintance with the fruits of his tenure at Sheffield. Whether I respond in this way simply because I agree with his analysis I’ll leave to others to judge, but my esteem for Andrew’s work is not because of his insistence on ‘the documents’ as the engine-house of research, which is self-evident in my view, but because of his further insistence that those researches ‘need to be framed within a broader engagement with historical debates.’ That is, he’s reiterating Markham’s plea, but he has attempted to match deeds with actions. For example, in his Farewell lecture in February this year:
We can look time and again at the second edition of Anderson’s Book of Constitutions, but it is only if we consider wider political history that we can understand why this new edition…was published in 1738.7
He goes on to substantiate his assertion about this event and others. He suggests a periodisation from 1425, the dates he chooses from then to the year 2000 having as much, if not more to do with ‘wider political history’ than the usual, inward-looking Masonic history. I’m sure he will have upset some insiders by asserting:
In short, the history of British Freemasonry will only begin to make sense if we interpret it in the light of wider history.8
It ‘will only begin to make sense’.. Is it only outsiders who find SF’s story doesn’t make sense? For insiders is it important that it make sense to outsiders? I would hate to see two separate ‘histories’ propogated, one for insiders and one for outsiders which had little or nothing to say to each other. I’ve read professional academic histories of modern Europe, which contain numerous references to Freemasonry in their Indexes, but which are of very little value precisely because their authors had made little attempt to understand what SF meant to insiders. The authors I’ve quoted today have all understood that need. I don’t believe that scholars writing from the inside have yet fully understood what ‘wider political history’ requires of them.
Speculative Freemasonry, the organization, is, for historical purposes, just another consequence of the modernisation process, like anti-slavery, steam engines, trade unions or female suffrage. The politics of all of those have been analysed, as have their economics and sociology but rarely has Freemasonry been so scrutinized. Freemasonry has clearly grown out of certain political circumstances, in particular, from what is now called ‘Labour History’, and so we come to the next question we must ask: How has Freemasonry brought the current situation on itself?
Flowing directly from its claim to uniqueness, SF for all of its official life has harboured a contradiction. The contradiction has particularly expressed itself in is the use of lower case letters for the institution ‘Freemasonry’ (Masonry/Masonic, etc). In the late 18th-early 19th century, a capital ‘F’ was invariably used for the institution, but the lower-case ‘freemasonry’ was also used whenever certain, outward trappings of ‘secret societies’ were observed. Grand Lodge policies and a gradual de-emphasising of rites and regalia by other fraternal societies have led over time to the erroneous assumption which Stevenson, for example reproduced in 1988 that any and every modern ‘secret society’ must have taken its ‘structure’ from ‘Freemasonry.’
In other words, SF is unique, THEREFORE it MUST be the source for any manifestation of oaths of secrecy, passwords and secret signs, closed-door rites, regalia, etc. THERE CAN BE NO OTHER.
This is a key assertion, but Again, where is the proof? Examples of ‘secret societies’ which don’t ‘fit’ the model, or which can be shown to have derived from some other source, come easily to mind: first, comments made in the 1790’s by a supporter of the Abbe Barruel and ‘Professor Robison’ whose work on the Illuminati of Weishaupt and the French Revolution have had a lot to do with popular association of Freemasonry with these two ‘events’. The anonymous (‘Anti Jacobin’) author of New Lights on Jacobinism (etc) ,‘a cheap abridgement of Abbe Barruel’, wrote in 1798:
Let not the Freemasons of England be alarmed at the title page [which mentions Freemasonry], as they will not find in the following sheets, the secrets of their order revealed, nor any aspersions upon them; neither are they charged in the least with being involved in the impious Jacobin conspiracy against religion and government; on the contrary this work must redound to their credit, as it will be made to appear that the conspirators, conscious of the general reception and high estimation of Freemasonry, foresaw the good policy of grafting their impious doctrines upon that foundation, as the most likely means of disseminating them universally, without having the tendency of their plan detected. (p.3)
This can’t mean infiltration of SF lodges by ‘Jacobins’, it can only mean establishment of new, bogus ‘lodges’ which having, say, a tyled door, a password, and an oath of secrecy, could maintain closed doors and an emotional hold on members, while conducting any business it liked, without necessarily having ceremonial of any kind. Now, I don’t believe anyone has claimed that SF consists of a tyler, an oath and a password. Yet, it has been the case that non-Masonic fraternities from well before the 1790’s have been asserted to be ‘Masonic’ or ‘proto-masonic’ simply because they had these visible signs of fraternal association.
The second contra example is from the acknowledged creator of the United Irish Brotherhood. Drennan, on 21 May 1791, outlined his plan for a ‘quasi-Masonic secret society within the Volunteers’, the Irish militia:
I should much desire that a Society were instituted in this city [ie, Dublin] having much of the secrecy and somewhat of the ceremonial of Freemasonry, so much secrecy…so much impressive and affecting ceremony …as without impeding business might strike the soul through the senses.9
[NB caps for ‘Masonic’ and ‘Freemason]
The author from whom this quote is taken strongly believes that real life Freemasons had a role to play in the formation of the UIB but not that Freemasonry was the model for the organization in any meaningful sense. The UIB oath is quite different, as is the token ‘regalia’, while it would be ludicrous to suggest the stories of stonemasonry, Knights Templar or of Hiram Abiff were adopted by these conspirators. Thus, again, by ‘impressive and affecting ceremony’ can only be meant an oath of secrecy and, probably, group expressions of fraternal bonds, such as clasped hands, nationalist rhetoric and the like.
Third: in 1781, the first lodge of the Ancient Order of Druids was established, in London. The acknowledged chief founder, Henry Hurle, described his intentions this way:
..Let us create a Society to be governed by a President whom we will call, ‘Most Noble Arch-Druid’..Let him be supported by two gentlemen to be called Bards..and we will adopt the endearing name of Brother universally among us. Our great prototypes held this doctrine, that their wish and intentions were to enlighten the mind, promote harmony, encourage temperance, energy and virtue. Let us in a more limited sphere, emulate them in their endeavours.10
The author of this ‘insider’s’ account then tells:
Rules for the government of the Society were then framed, ancient mystic rites adopted, Druids Vestments and ornaments selected, and a ceremony of initiation compiled.
A fourth example, from the same period, would be that of ‘The Ring’, a very secret society among convicts transported to Australia in the period 1788 to the 1840’s. Probably conducted in the main orally, the claimed ‘evidence’ contends that ‘The Ring’ had oaths of secrecy, secret signs and passwords, and an internal hierarchy headed by ‘The One.’11 Nowhere is there any reference to ‘Freemasonry’ nor would I expect any.
Nor are their any references to Freemasonry in the primary material relating to the ‘Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers’ established at Tolpuddle in Dorset in 1833, the infamous trial of 7 members of which for ‘swearing an illegal oath’ led to their being sentenced to 7 years exile in Australia. This is a fascinating case which I’ve examined in great detail. Though the ‘grand lodge’ in question had as officers a warden, outside and inside guardians, and a conductor, as well as passwords and ‘inner signs’, it had also a president, a treasurer, vice-president and secretary. Member contributions were to pay ‘strike allowances’ and the object of the executive of 7 was to assist and maintain the members and their families with regard to all work matters.12
In other words it was both a ‘benefit society’ and a ‘trade union’ with rites and regalia drawn from non-Masonic traditions.
Lastly: often the first non-Masonic society claimed to have emulated Freemasonry, and still often described today as ‘quasi-Masonic’, is ‘the Odd Fellows’. There is still much that is unknown about this group of ‘fraternal Orders’ but a major ‘insider’ and scholar of the American Order, the IOOF, James Ridgely, categorically denied in the mid-19th century that the IOOF ‘owed anything to Freemasonry.’
We have studiously endeavoured in the construction of our system to borrow nothing from Masonry; our ritual and our general idea is exclusively our own, and we differ essentially from it, except so far as each derives its moral from the same sources, uses the secret principle and is progressive in its gradations.13
I am the first to agree that some ‘non-Masonic’ societies can be shown to have ‘copied’ some element/s from SF, eg the Knights of Labor in the USA,14 but that is not what has been claimed. What has been claimed is that SF is unique, and must be judged by rules it makes itself.
Also on the basis of its claim to uniqueness, SF has throughout its existence, confused being ‘a-political’ with ‘loyalty to the status-quo’.
Not long after 1717, London’s Grand Lodge decision-makers determined that SF would align itself with, and seek patrons from among the rich and powerful. SF has, since that time, wanted to see itself as socially superior, despite its origins being clearly within ‘trade union’ history. Masonic historians often appear to be treating the pivotal stonemasons as flesh-and-blood members of real-time political, social, economic, religious, emotional combinations. But by the time the Masonic story reaches the 18th century, it’s obvious they have not been treated as live persons with human needs – political, social, economic, religious, emotional needs. Because by the 18th century, these ‘operatives’ in the Masonic literature, no longer have any needs of any kind – no aspirations, no families, no frustrations – they’re no longer human.
In practice, SF has not been politically and religiously neutral. In all ‘British’ cases, SF has aligned itself, not just with the status quo, but with a Protestant status quo.
I conclude that deliberate avoidance of social realities by claiming to be neutral politically is part of a strategy which has ‘allowed’ SF to present itself as both democratic and a repository of power and privilege.
To conclude: It is not simply that ambiguities around core terms, such as ‘craft’ and ‘freemason’, are preventing the sort of rigorous analysis which will help to provide a credible Masonic History.
It is that it is no accident that the ambiguities exist. SF has not wanted to ask the questions which would have removed them.
My research, and my personal experiences, both culminating in the Australian Centre for Fraternal Studies (www.fraternalsecrets.org), lead me to say that SF cannot be fully understood unless and until Masonic scholars come to grips with Labour History, with Friendly Society History, and so on. The reverse is also true in my view, that Labour Historians will not fully understand ‘their’ movement until and unless they come to grips with SF, ‘the friendlies’ and so on.
By these words - ‘fraternal, fraternalism, and fraternal society’ - I mean the practice of oaths, initiations, secret passwords and signs, regalia and a degree structure, all intended to make possible an ideology or philosophy of ‘brotherhood’.
Many organizations meet these criteria and I believe that as social formations they can only be fully understood when considered as elements of a single phenomenon, namely ‘fraternalism.’ There is plenty that can be said about each as isolated units, but especially is it the case that European-in-origin trade unions, friendly societies and SF have been so intertwined over a number of centuries that the story of one ‘strand’ is very nearly the story of the other. The last point, then, and the last reason for the siege mentality, is that as members of one ‘family’, siblings in fact, fraternal societies have been in competition with one another – for status, influence, members and resources.
There are no published books which will provide all the information I’m contemplating here. That is scattered throughout the primary records. I’m tempted to say that Masonic research has only just begun.
There is a willingness among some initiated and non-initiated scholars alike to ask new questions about SF. I hope to see that continue, and broaden, for it is my firm belief that only by getting the questions right can we get the answers right.
1 A Prescott, Paper to (UK)Public History Conference, 2006, p.1, p.5. (no other details on my copy)
2 . Markham, AQC, 1997, p.6.
3 D Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry, Cambridge, 1988, p.xii.
4 Stevenson, 1988, as above, p.2.
5 D Stevenson, ‘James Anderson: Man and Mason’, Heredom, Vol 10, 2002, p.100.
6 A Durr, ‘The Origin of the Craft’, Pts 1 & 2, AQC, 1984, p. 170; ‘Ritual of Association and Organisations of the Common People’, AQC, 1987.
7 Prescott, as above, p.1.
8 Prescott, as above, p.2.
9 A Stewart, A Deeper Silence: The Hidden Roots of the United Irish Movement, Faber & Faber, 1993, p.156.
10 C Beale, A Short Account of Modern Druidism..(etc), nd, 1926?, np, p.2.
11 See stories of Price Warung, eg The Bullet of the Fated Ten, reprint 1994, in ‘Small Tales of Early Australia’ series, Mulini Press, Canberra.
12 See my ‘The Tolpuddle Friendly Society’ at The Tolpuddle Martyrs web-site.
13 J Ridgely, as Grand Corresponding Secretary, to Hugo Wollheim, DD Grand Sire, Empire Prussia, 23 February, 1872, quoted in full at Journal of Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the United States, IOOF, Vol VII, 1871-73, IOOF, 1888, p.5428.
14 See my Secret Societies & the Labour Movement, self-published papmphlet, 1999.
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