Origins of Freemasonry

[Huw]

Hi JTM.

yea, we've beat the hell out of this horse in the sanctum. no worries, it's always a new discussion with new ideas from new folks. fun times.

Ah. I didn't know that, since I haven't applied for access to the sanctum. Perhaps I should do so, in order to avoid duplicating what has already been discussed. What are the admission criteria?

T & F,

Huw

 

[Bro.Matthew]

Hi Bro. Matthew.



Oh? Perhaps it's different over there, but here in England we teach that SKI and HKT were also GMs. "Three rule a Lodge because there were but three GMs who bore sway at the building of the "Temple at Jerusalem, namely SKI, HKT and HAb" - don't you have that part?"

Huw

These men do enter into the degrees,but only in the appendent degrees,SR & YR.In the
BL we one WM and his Wardens.

"The main legend is Old Testament for the simple reason that the building of the Temple is by far the most detailed description of a building anywhere in the Bible, and therefore a natural choice for an Order based on a construction trade."

Huw

Fair enough,but is this opinion or is there references to this?

"In the old days there were a lot more explicitly New Testament references, but most of those were deliberately changed two hundred years ago when it was agreed to expand the Craft to non-Christians. None of these were central to the story, since that was Old Testament, so most of the New Testament references could be changed without spoiling the message for the existing (Christian) members whilst making it more compatible with the new (non-Christian) members. (Incidentally, you only did a partial job of this in the US - American rituals still tend to contain various explicitly Christian references, such as to the Sts. John.)"

Huw

I stand,or sit as the case is,corrected.I am aware that there were several developmental
changes in the years after the first Grand Lodge was formed, unfortunatly the references
at my disposal are incomplete at best.

"Not so. The MM came in sometime in the 1720s. I have a complete text of the MM ritual from 1730 (Prichard, "Masonry Dissected", published October 1730). And this uses the Hiramic legend, not the Noah version. It's only 3 pages long, so much less elaborate than it subsequently became, but the Hiramic legend is fully recognisable - HAb in the Temple, the ruffians, the crime, the search, the manner of discovery, the marking of the site, the f.p.o.f., the Wd., the re-burial - the essential elements are all mentioned briefly, except the fate of the ruffians."

Huw

Again,I accept correction,I will endevor to obtain a copy of the afore mentioned material
in order not to make the same assumption again.

"It's true that there was another version, around the same time or slightly later, which used a Noah legend instead. However, it seems likely that this was merely someone's attempt to experiment with a different version of a degree which hadn't yet settled into its final form. The Noah version didn't catch on very widely, perhaps because the Hiramic version fitted better with the Temple story of the previous degrees, so before long everyone settled down with the Hiram version and the Noah version was dropped."

Huw

This is quite contrary to what I have read before,but I will research further both the reading
you mentioned as well as any others that I can obtain.Thankyou.

"I think that's rather an exaggeration. Certainly several prominent early Brethren were involved in organisations such as the Royal Society which established the practice of real scientific research. However, they didn't invent the idea (Bacon had already done that a century earlier), and many non-Masons were also involved. But yes, we can be proud that our predecessors contributed significantly to the establishment of systematic research."
Huw

Was not intending to imply that all advances were due to Masonry or Masons,only that many
earlier researchers were declared heritics and faced excomunication and in some areas
execution.Further ,The references I have read hinted that the RS was mainly made up of Masons,
I will go back and re-read this in case I missinterpited the author.

"Obviously that's part of the intention now. But it wasn't the original concept to include non-Christians, that came along later."
Huw

I will gladly bow to your greater knowledge,Thankyou.

"Well it's a good thing that we're not in Lodge, then! However, fair point, I agree that we also shouldn't get involved in furious rows in forums."
Huw

:22:No Sweat Brother,,,,The fun is in learning.

"There's actually a fair volume of non-operative references in the years running up to 1717, but the record does get sparse when we try to look further back. By far the richest source of pre-1717 information is Scotland rather than England, because the Scottish rules (under the Schaw Statute of 1599) required Lodges to keep Minutes, whilst there was no such rule in England. The most amazing records are the Minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) #1 of the GL of Scotland, which still possesses continuous minutes from 1599 through to today (!) No other Lodge anywhere has a record like this. At the start of the Minutes, the Lodge is a wholly operative body of stonemasons, and meetings are entirely concerned with trade matters and so on. Then over the first half of the 1600s, a few non-operatives join, but the Lodge is still basically operative. Then over the second half of the 1600s, non-operatives join in increasing numbers, until around the end of the century the speculatives predominate, and not long after the operatives fade out of the picture (not because they're pushed away, but simply because major building projects in stone ceased around that time, everyone was using brick instead). A unique record in which you can actually see the transition happen."
Huw

I would love to read them,,,Are they by chance transcribed into PDF formate?

T & F,

Huw[/QUOTE]

 

[Huw]

Hi Bro. Matthew.

these men do enter into the degrees,but only in the appendent degrees,sr & yr. in the bl we one wm and his wardens.

Oh, I see. Interesting. Over here, we include that explanation in the Craft degrees. I hadn't realised that you kept it for the additional degrees. And my apologies if I'm giving away a spoiler for those who haven't yet taken the additional degrees.

Fair enough, but is this opinion or is there references to this?

There's no note by the original devisers of ritual saying why they did this, nor indeed why they did anything else. So it's a conclusion by inference, but it seems to me a fairly well-founded inference. There isn't really a good building-construction story anywhere in New Testament, and we know they were looking for a scriptural building theme because legends about various construction projects from the Old Testament were tried out in various versions of the Old Charges - the Temple as now, plus also stories about building Noah's Ark and building the Tower of Babel. They settled on the Temple theme, and this does seem natural because there's a much more detailed account in scripture.

I would love to read them,,,are they by chance transcribed into pdf formate?

So far as I'm aware, no. Lodge of Edinburgh naturally guards its ancient Minutes very carefully, because otherwise Brethren would be queuing around the block to read them and the fragile old paper wouldn't survive. But they occasionally allow approved historians access, and there are histories based on them which decribe the story. A PDF edition would be great, and perhaps they'll issue that at some point ... but a lot of it would need translation, because it's not much like modern English.

T & F,

Huw

 

[JTM]

You already have access, Huw.

Here, this thread is what I was talking about... it gets rehashed everyone 3-4 months.

http://www.masonsoftexas.com/showthread.php/168

that's the ~168th thread on this forum, made in 2008. We're now up to about thread 5000

 

[Huw]

Hi JTM.

You already have access, Huw.

Yes, I do now, Blake sorted it out for me between when I wrote and when you replied. (Thanks, Blake.)

Here, this thread is what I was talking about...

I'll go look in due course, then. But not right now, I'm short of time today. Thanks for the pointer.

T & F,

Huw

 

[rhitland]

Hi Chance.

I'm not sure which brother you mean. If you mean me, then no, that's not what I had in mind. The Christian origin to which I referred derives from the Old Charges.

That's utterly ridiculous! Did Coil really say such a thing?? If he did, then he must have had one too many beers that day.

The Old Charges (a.k.a. Gothic Constitutions) are full of requirements for religious belief - lots of references to God, lots of references to Biblical stories and characters, specific charges to be men of faith, etc., etc. No-one who has ever read any of the Old Charges could suppose that they were addressed to anyone except Believers! For example, look at this from the Cooke MS (c. 1400 - 1450, Speth's translation to more modern English), the earliest surviving prose version: the very first charge says "whosoever desires to become a mason, it behoves him before all things to [love] God and the holy Church and all the Saints". I've read numerous of the Old Charges, they're all broadly similar and they all very clearly expect religious belief, and indeed specifically Christian belief.

T & F,

Huw

Brother Huw I gathered something a little different when I read the Cooke Manuscript. First off the portion you are quoting is referencing masons in England in the time of Athelstan and not masons accross the world. The charges say in their time they where to adapt to the releigion of the country they lived in. It makes perfect sense that masons in England where christian at this time. The small quote which you selected from the manuscript does the document injustice. It clearly speaks of the origins being rooted well before the time of the king Athelstan and those rules he had laid down for masons in his country. That quote reflects masonry in England and in no way implies masonry as a whole was started as christian only.

 

[rhitland]

here is a link to a site with the Cooke Manuscript.

http://www.masonicsites.org/blue/Cooke%20Ms.htm

 

[rhitland]

Hi Owls.



No, Bro. There was operative stonework throughout history, of course. There were also various men throughout history who advocated philosophies of trying to be good guys, of course. But to call it freemasonry, you have to have some of the recognisable features: meetings in Lodges as a speculative fraternity, and so on. Without that, it's just a bunch of guys chipping a stone, or another bunch of guys saying "be nice", it's not something you can identify as "freemasonry". There's no identifiable freemasonry more than about 100 years before the foundation of the GL system in 1717.

The guys who invented freemasonry were all believing Christians, so of course there are a lot of principles in freemasonry which coincide with scripture and with what good men were saying at the time when scripture was being written. How could it be otherwise?

T & F,

Huw

Show me proof that the guys who invented freemasonry where christians? From my point of view what you have shown is speculation and believe Masonry was invented in England and Scottland. If the rules where not to write anything how could we know when and where? If it has to be on paper for you to believe it then we will never see eye to eye because I rely on the faithful breast as well, and I am not sure what gives one the right to claim the exact origins of the craft beside having factual evidence. You said earlier that Masonry did not just come about in a poof of smoke that it had been brewing for some time before 1717 and that written record was a no no so again alluding to the real origins being veiled. There were many version of the ritual in Freemasonry and what happen in 1717 was the first public attempt to unify them or maybe control it or maybe it was an attempt to claim credit for its origins, we will never know the true intent of the men who did what they did in those time. I also beleive those men who pounded on rock where much more connected to what they did. The works of art they created required much more than a hired hand to pound on a rock to make it smooth. What masons built was no less than greatness and without the help of the Almighty their contiued success could have never been possible. We know the stone mason did meet in lodges to conceal their secrets what is to say allot of the time they apllied their craft to the ways of God thus inspiring them with grander and better ideas each generation. They did combine speculative and operative masonry and it was for much more than to just be nice to each other. I thnk we are told that this was done in the FC lecture. I certianly appreciate your certianess of your claim to the origins of the craft but I have yet to see conclusive evidence that it was ever christian only everywhere or that England or Scottland was the birth place of Freemasonry.

 

[rhitland]

These men do enter into the degrees,but only in the appendent degrees,SR & YR.In the
BL we one WM and his Wardens.

[/QUOTE]

We do speak of SKI, HKT and HA in the craft degrees here in Texas. I need to come up to OK and see a degree there that would be fun. My cousin James Marchbanks also tell me Guthrie is the place to take your SR degrees maybe we can meet up somethime Brother Matthew I would love to sit and chat.

 

[rhitland]

here is a link tying the craft back to the 10th century

http://www.bradford.ac.uk/webofhiram/?section=lectures_craft&page=OliverLec.html

 

[JEbeling]

I think this was the first written record in scotland..?

There can be no doubt that the Masonic Lodge was in existence in Dunblane long before the first legible minute of 6th April 1695. A pamphlet containing statistics of The Parish of Dunblane compiled by Mr. John Monteith, Teacher, and published in 1831, states the organised Charter of this Lodge is lost, but the Institution is of considerable antiquity and is now ninth on the Roll. A new Charter was procured in 1760. The records of the Lodge extant go no further back than 1687, although mutilated and defaced scraps may be seen in the box of a date some twenty years earlier. Subsequently to 1687 the records are entire.

One has only to look at the magnificent structure of Dunblane Cathedral and the Masons' Marks found on the oldest parts of the stonework to imagine that a Lodge of operative Masons, in some form, could have been in existence in the town at a very early period.

 

[Ecossais]

This entire discussion depends on what we mean by the term "Freemasons." Is the term limited to speculative Masons only? Or does it apply to operative stonemasons who worked in freestone? The Latin term "lapidum liberorum" predates speculative Masonry. Early operative masons were franc-maçons in France because 1.) they were free men, 2.) they worked in freestone, and 3.) because lodges often worked under a "franchise" (from the French word "franc," meaning "free") granted by the monasteries, preceptories, churches, and diocesan officials to work free of municipal or even royal taxation and regulation. The term franc-maçon was therefore a logical derivation of this franchise, and had nothing to do with the later speculative Freemasonry that arose in Scotland in the very early 1600s, and later spread south into England.

 

[calo]

This entire discussion depends on what we mean by the term "Freemasons." Is the term limited to speculative Masons only? Or does it apply to operative stonemasons who worked in freestone?

Right. Also, does the term Freemasons include the philosophy, symbols etc.?

Freemasonry stems from a lot of sources that all substantially have the same idea; transmutation.

(getting closer to that one hundred.....)