|
HISTORY - A KEY ELEMENT IN MASONRY
CHAPTER VII
Masonic essays (1998)
W.M. DON FALCONER
In operative lodges, history was a key element used to illustrate the moral
teachings of masonry. Tradition also was an essential component in the
instruction of apprentices and craftsmen at all levels of competence. Although
the details differ and the English language has changed, the charges and
traditional histories of modern speculative freemasonry are derived from the Old
Constitutions of the lodges of operative masons in medieval England, from when
the craft guilds were established during the reign of Henry I around 1153, until
during the Reformation when all lodges were prohibited by Henry VIII's Act of
1547 disendowing all religious fraternities. In operative practice the Old
Constitutions, usually referred to as the Ancient Charges or Old Charges, were a
central part of the ceremonial and the basis of moral instruction in lodges. An
authentic copy of the Old Constitutions was the authority under which operative
lodges worked. They included the Traditional History, the Charges of Nimrod and
the Ancient Charges, which admonished candidates to behave in an appropriate
manner, cautioned them to preserve the rights and privileges of their craft and
warned them not to reveal their trade secrets and modes of recognition to
strangers not entitled to receive them.
No other medieval craft or religious body is known to have possessed
documents similar to the Old Constitutions. Their content and character differed
greatly from the Guild ordinances of other trades and clearly reflected the
moralising influence of the ecclesiastical environment in which most operative
masons worked and lived. A fundamental part of the Old Constitutions was the
traditional history, which recounted the development of civilisation and
highlighted the important part played by masonry in the improvement of mankind.
Although some of the anecdotes were allegorical, most were based on biblical
history. The ancient charges and traditional histories were not identical in all
copies of the Old Constitutions, nor were they handed down in unvarying form,
but they did have a common theme. The standardised lectures and traditional
histories that are used in modern speculative lodges do not include all of the
material incorporated in the Old Constitutions.
The oldest known copy of the Old Constitutions is a document written by a
priest, comprising thirty-three vellum sheets entitled the "Poem of the Craft of
Masonry". It is believed to have been based on a much older document and is
known as the Regius or Halliwell MS. It was discovered in 1839 and was thought
to have been written in about 1390, which was later revised to 1410. In modern
terminology it is classified as dating "from the first quarter of the fifteenth
century". The rules and regulations set out in the Regius MS are arranged under
fifteen "Articles" for ye maystur mason and fifteen "Points" for felows and
prentes. They are stated to have been established at a great assemblage of
masons ordered by King Athelstan, reputedly held at York in 926, though there is
no known record of the event. The Regius MS and the Cooke MS, which was written
about fifty years later, are both held in the British Museum. A later copy is
The Grand Lodge No. 1 MS held by the United Grand Lodge of England and dated
1583, after Henry VIII had prohibited all lodges. Probably transcribed in secret
to preserve the old traditions, it reveals a distinct transition from earlier
copies of the Old Constitutions, because it includes much of a purely
speculative nature.
The Old Charges were voluminous documents. Some of the older as well as a few
of the more recent copies are in book form, but many are written on skins and
stitched end to end to form rolls. The text is usually in three parts. The first
part is a prayer invoking a blessing, usually of the Holy Trinity, but El
Shaddai and other appellations also are used when referring to God, though
mainly in obligations and charges. The second part is an extended historical
statement which usually culminates with the requirement for the candidate to
take an obligation on the Holy Book, sometimes in Latin. The final part
comprises the actual Charges, which are very comprehensive. They were rehearsed
to the candidate, who was then required to take a vow to keep them well and
truly and to the utmost of his knowledge and ability, which he ratified by
saluting the Holy Book. As the prayer, the actual Charges and the associated
obligations are not historical in character, they are not relevant to this
discussion. Aspects of the traditional history will now be examined in respect
of their historical content without referring to any specific copy of the Old
Charges, but having regard to the usual context in which they are used.
It is not known when the seven liberal arts and sciences were first
incorporated into the Old Charges, but they are an important component in nearly
all of the known copies. A discourse on the characteristics of the arts and
sciences and how they are utilised by the various crafts may be given in the
opening statement, but it usually appears later in the traditional history
following the legend relating to their preservation on two pillars that together
would resist the ravages of fire and water. This discourse concludes by
emphasising that, in reality, all of the arts and sciences are dependant in some
way upon measurement and therefore that they are all founded on the one science,
that is called Geometry, which in medieval days was synonymous with masonry. The
references to the liberal arts and sciences included in the rituals of the
Second Degree of modern speculative freemasonry clearly evolved from the
discourse in the Old Charges. As the liberal arts and sciences were the
foundation of the curricula in all institutions of advanced learning in medieval
times, their inclusion in the Old Charges is to be expected and confirms that
the medieval master masons were men of considerable learning and skill. They
proved their ability by transforming the visions of their employers into the
glorious cathedrals and other stately edifices they designed and constructed.
This knowledge was regarded as an essential part of a craftsman's training,
especially geometry, because measurement is the foundation of a mason's work.
The history proper begins with the biblical story of how the various crafts came
into existence, which is paralleled in the legends of other peoples and has been
confirmed by archaeological investigations.
This section is about the beginnings of history, after the creation and
before the flood, commencing with Lamech, a descendant of Adam through Cain. It
is taken directly from the book of Genesis, chapter 4, verses 19-22, which in
the New English Bible translation says: "Lamech married two wives, one named
Adah and the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal who was the ancestor of herdsmen who
live in tents; and his brother's name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of those
who play the harp and pipe. Zillah, the other wife, bore Tubal-cain, the master
of all coppersmiths and blacksmiths, and Tubal-cain's sister was Naamah." The
biblical exposition is amplified in the traditional history by including the
Hebrew tradition that Jabal, while tending his sheep in the fields, was the
first to construct walls and later houses of stone, thus founding the craft of
masonry. It also ascribes the founding of the craft of weaving to Naamah, thus
completing the requirements for the rise of civilisation and urban dwelling.
Until about a century ago chronologers calculated the Old Testament dates
solely on the recorded genealogies, which do not provide all of the required
details. It was on this basis that in 1650 Archbishop Ussher dated the creation
of the world and the appearance of Adam at 4004 BC, from which the Year of Light
in speculative freemasonry was derived and by adding 4,000 years to the Common
Era date. Modern research, supported by archaeological discoveries, indicates
that the earliest biblical records relate to man at about 10,000 BC or possibly
earlier, with the flood probably before 5000 BC, the development of Noah's
descendants into nations around 5000 BC, the erection of the tower of Babel
around 4800 BC and the first great buildings in Babylonia very soon after. As
writing was invented many centuries after the events and the genealogies were
based on oral tradition, such differences in dating are to be expected. It is of
particular interest to note that archaeological investigations reveal that stone
fences and footings in houses were first used in Palestine, Syria and
Mesopotamia about 12,000 years ago, when the domestication of wild sheep and
goats also began, coinciding in place and time with those of Lamech and his
children.
This section is the original legend of the pillars and deals with the
preservation of the arts and sciences. The legend is not of masonic origin and
bears no relation to the two pillars erected at the entrance to King Solomon's
temple. The Greek historian Berosus transcribed the legend around 300 BC,
reputedly from a Sumerian account that had been recorded in cuneiform around
1500 BC. Flavius Josephus, the eminent Jewish author who lived in the first
century and wrote in Greek, also included the legend in his History of the Jews.
Ranulf Higden, a monk of Chester who died about 1364, copied the legend from
Josephus when he wrote his world history, Polychronicon. It is not known whether
the legend was included in the Old Charges before then, but in view of masonry's
close ecclesiastical connections in those days it seems likely. The legend is no
longer referred to in speculative craft freemasonry, but it is still a part of
the tradition in the Royal Ark Mariner and the Ancient and Accepted Rite.
The tradition records that Lamech's four children, who were the founders of
the crafts, "knew well that God would do vengeance for sin, either by fire or
water", thus foreseeing the flood of Noah's time. They therefore determined to
preserve the seven liberal arts and sciences against such a calamity by
inscribing them on two pillars, one which would survive a fire and the other
which would survive a flood, although accounts of the two materials vary. Some
say marble that cannot be burnt and laternes (laterite - a stone formed from
clay) that cannot be destroyed by water, whilst others more correctly say that
brick resists fire and either marble or brass resists water. Archaeological
discoveries reveal that the smelting and casting of copper and the open hearth
firing of earthenware were being used in the area by around 7,000 years ago,
which is before what probably would be the earliest period of the flood, so that
either method of preservation would have been possible. Tradition relates that
the knowledge thus preserved was providentially recovered after the flood by
Hermes, called the "father of wisdom" and reputedly a descendant of Noah through
Shem, who applied it to the benefit of mankind. The moral of this ancient legend
is that knowledge and truth must be preserved, but that corruption will be
punished.
An apparent problem with this tradition is that the oldest cuneiform
inscriptions presently known date from about 5,200 years ago and hieroglyphs
from a century or so later, which is after the likely period of the flood. But
some pre-flood inscriptions have been found, including a pictographic tablet
found by Dr Langdon under the flood deposit at Kish, seals found by Dr Schmidt
under the flood layer at Fara and pre-flood seals found by Dr Woolley at Ur. One
of the ancient Babylonian kings, Hammurapi who promulgated the famous code of
laws around 1750 BC, recorded that "he loved to read the writings of the age
before the flood". Hammurapi was a contemporary of Abraham and is usually
identified with Amraphel in Genesis 14. When Assur-ban-apli founded Nineveh's
great library around 600 BC, he also referred to "inscriptions before the time
of the flood". Around 300 BC, the Greek historian Berosus recorded a tradition
from the Sumerian accounts, which said that before the flood Xisuthrus, the
Babylonian equivalent of Noah, buried the Sacred Writings at Sippar on tablets
of baked clay and dug them up afterwards. Finally, there is a tradition among
Arabs and Jews that Enoch invented writing and left a number of records.
This part of the traditional history is derived from the biblical account of
events that took place in the first few hundred years after the flood, taken
from two sections of the book of Genesis, chapter 10, verses 8-13 and chapter
11, verses 2-9, which in the New English Bible translation say: "Cush (who was a
son of Ham and a grandson of Noah) was the father of Nimrod, who began to show
himself a man of might on earth; and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, . .
. His kingdom in the beginning consisted of Babel, Erech and Accad, all of them
in the land of Shinar. From that land he migrated to Asshur and built Nineveh,
Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen, a great city between Nineveh and Calah." "As men
journeyed in the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled
there. They said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and bake them hard';
they used the bricks for stone and bitumen for mortar. 'Come', they said, 'let
us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and make a
name for ourselves; or we shall be dispersed all over the earth.' . . . So the
Lord dispersed them from there all over the earth and they left off building the
city. That is why it is called Babel, because the Lord made there a babble of
the language of all the world; from that place the Lord scattered men all over
the face of the earth."
Archaeological investigations reveal that the ziggurat known as the Tower of
Babel was constructed in the manner described in Genesis. Ziggurat is derived
from the Assyro-Babylonian word ziqquratu which means a pinnacle or mountain top
and denotes a sacred temple tower. The traditional site of the tower is one at
Borsippa, about 15 kilometres south-west of the centre of Babylon (ancient
Babel). An inscribed cylinder found by Sir Henry Rawlinson in a foundation
corner states that a former king completed the tower to a height of 42 cubits,
but that it fell into ruins in ancient times. It further states that the
brickwork and roofing tiles were rebuilt as new at the behest of Marduk,
restoring the tower as it was in remote days. Marduk or Merodach was the
Babylonian God that Nimrod was said to be in human form. Tradition records that
masons were first made much of at the building of the Tower of Babel and that
Nimrod, the great King of Babylon, was himself a Master Mason who loved the
craft and made the masons Free Men and Free Masons in his kingdom. Tradition
also records that when Nimrod sent sixty lodges of masons to build Nineveh and
the other cities of the east, he gave them a Charter and the Charges of Nimrod,
which reputedly are those set out in the Old Charges. When an apprentice was
indentured in an English operative lodge, his obligation traditionally was
called the "oath of Nimrod".
The traditional history relates how Abraham, who was born at Ur of the
Chaldees in southern Babylonia about 2160 BC, responded to the Lord's call
recorded in the New English Bible translation of the book of Genesis, chapter
12, verses 1-4: "The Lord said to Abraham 'Leave your own country, your kinsmen
and your father's house and go to a country that I will show you. I will make
you into a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great . . .' And so
Abraham set out . . ." Although he lived in a world of idolatry Abraham was not
an idolater, but believed in one God. He set out from Ur in search of the land
where he could build a nation free from idolatry, reaching the ancient caravan
city of Haran 1,000 kilometres to the north-west about 2110 BC, where he stayed
for many years. After the death of his father Terah, he travelled south-east and
reached Shechem in Canaan about 2085 BC, where he built an altar to God as he
did later at Bethel and also at Hebron. Because of the famine in Canaan he
continued on into Egypt.
Tradition says the patriarchs taught the seven liberal arts and sciences in
Egypt, where Euclid was a worthy scholar who subsequently was commissioned by
the king to teach the sons of royalty the science of geometry and the practice
of masonry and all manner of worthy works. This is entirely allegorical, because
Euclid was not born until about 330 BC. In fact, one of the first Greek scholars
to visit and study in Egypt was Thales of Miletus, who was born about 630 BC.
When he returned from Egypt he was well versed in the techniques of Egyptian
geometry. The Egyptians knew from their experience in building that a triangle
with two sides of equal length also had two equal angles adjacent to them. They
also knew that a triangle with sides three, four and five units long had a right
angle opposite the long side. Thales devised a practical proof for the
properties of an isosceles triangle, but it was Pythagoras, born about sixty
years after Thales, who was credited with being the first to prove the famous
theorem of a right angled triangle, that the square of the hypothenuse equals
the sum of the squares of the other two sides. However it was Euclid who
formulated the theorems, including his Forty-seventh Proposition for a
right-angled triangle, which are still used as a basis for teaching classical
geometry.
This major episode in the traditional history could be regarded as the
culminating component, because it is a foundation for all instruction in moral
precepts that were imparted in the degrees of operative masonry. To appreciate
this section of the traditional history in its proper context, it would be
pertinent to comment on the ceremonials within which the degrees of operative
masonry were conferred. They were conducted in a specifically historical setting
in which the candidate personified a "living stone" being wrought from the
rough, as prepared in the quarry, to a state of perfection fit for erection in
the most glorious of all temples. In each degree the candidate represented a
particular stone in the construction of King Solomon's temple at Jerusalem. He
was required symbolically to undergo the preparation of that stone, its testing
prior to use and its erection in the temple. Each degree related to relevant
passages in the scriptures and was explained in practical terms with reference
to the work of an operative mason. The appropriate working tools also were
introduced and their practical uses and moral interpretations were explained.
The discourse in the traditional history is taken directly from the
scriptural record of King David's desire to build a temple at Jerusalem, the
preparations he made for its construction and its construction by King Solomon
with the assistance of Hiram King of Tyre and Hiram Abif, the son of a widow of
the Hebrew tribe of Dan and of a Tyrian father. Hiram Abif was the man of great
skill and ingenuity sent by King Hiram to execute the principal works of the
interior of the temple and the various utensils required for the sacred
services. Adoniram was the official appointed by King Solomon to superintend the
monthly levies of ten thousand men working in relays in Lebanon. All of this is
described I Kings chapters 5-10, I Chronicles chapters 21-22 and 28-29 and II
Chronicles chapters 1-9. The following especially relevant extracts are taken
from the New English Bible translation of II Chronicles chapter 3 verse 1, I
Kings chapter 5 verse 17 and I Kings chapter 6 verse 7: "Then Solomon began to
build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had
appeared to his father David, on the site which David had prepared on the
threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite." "By the king's orders they quarried
huge, massive blocks for laying the foundation of the Lord's house in hewn
stone." "In the building of the house, only blocks of dressed stone direct from
the quarry were used; no hammer or axe or any iron tool whatever was heard in
the house while it was being built."
The Old Charges variously refer to the master of geometry and chief master of
all masons as Aynon, Agnon, Ajuon or Dyon, whom they call the son of the King of
Tyre, although the context suggests that Hiram Abif is the person referred to.
It seems that the word could have been a corruption of the Hebrew word Adon
which signifies Lord, so that the title could refer to Adon Hiram, or even to
Adoniram with whom he is sometimes confused, though the latter seems less
likely. Another possible interpretation is the old use of Anon or Anonym
signifying one whose name is not divulged and from which the modern anonymous is
derived. Whatever the derivation of Anon, he takes on a purely allegorical
mantle after the completion of the temple at Jerusalem and is credited with
travelling to many lands with other masons to practice and teach the craft, thus
introducing masonry into Europe and Britain.
The allegorical story of Aynon is taken up in France under about twenty-five
different variations of what most probably was intended to be the same name,
among which Naymus Graecus and Maynus Grecus possibly are the best known,
although in the second edition of the Constitutions of the premier Grand Lodge,
Dr James Anderson refers to him as Ninus. When Pythagoras established his famous
school at Crotona in about 530 BC and later in other cities, Greece was known as
Magna Graecia, or "Greater Greece", which included Asia Minor, southern Italy
and Sicily and continued from the settlement of Syracuse around 750 BC until the
Punic Wars 264-241 BC. Pythagoras, who taught geometry and philosophy and
established a comprehensive system of symbolism to explain his esoteric
teachings, has a legendary connection with masonry which he is supposed to have
introduced into France.
It seems highly likely that Naymus Graecus and its variants were corruptions
of Magna Graecia, arising from the legendary connection between Pythagoras and
masonry. In any event, the legend says that "a curious mason named Naymus
Graecus, who had been at the making of Solomon's Temple, came into France and
there taught the craft of masonry". The legend then includes an anomaly similar
to that of Euclid in Egypt, asserting that a person of French royal blood,
Charles Martel, had learned the craft from Naymus Graecus and "loved it well",
establishing masonry in France with good methods of payment. Charles Martel
(688-741) was known as Charles the Hammer and although not actually the king of
France, he was a notable soldier and ruled France under the title "Mayor of the
Palace".
The historian Rebold says of Charles Martel that "at the request of the
Anglo-Saxon kings, he sent workmen and masters into England", which is the
reason why medieval operative masons in England regarded Charles Martel as one
of their patrons and included him in the traditional history. The traditional
history continues with an allegorical account of the establishment of masonry in
England and the fixing of good rates of pay. Briefly, it says that England was
pagan and had neither masonry nor the ancient charges until the time of St
Alban, when a worthy knight who was chief steward to the king constructed the
town walls. He is said to have cherished the masons for their good work, on
which account he obtained from the king and his counsel a charter, naming the
masons an Assembly. He also gave them charges and doubled their wages, which
previously had been only a penny a day throughout the whole land. The early
background to St Albans is worth recounting.
St Albans is the successor of the important Roman-British town of Verulamium,
which according to the records of the Roman historian Tacitus may have been one
of the few examples in Britain of a municipium, wherein the inhabitants had the
same rights as the citizens of Rome. The town owes its name to St Alban, a Roman
soldier who was the first Christian martyr in England, beheaded in 303 for
giving refuge to St Amphibalus, the priest who had converted him to
Christianity. In about 793 Offa, the king of Mercia, founded a Benedictine abbey
in honour of St Alban. It rose to such great power end wealth that its abbot was
the premier abbot in England from 1154 to 1396. Another contemporaneous legend
says that the emperor Gordianus (244-238 BC) sent many architects into England,
and that they constituted lodges and instructed the craftsmen in the true
principles of freemasonry. It also says that a few years later, when Carausius
(293-287 BC) was emperor in Britain, he was a lover of the craft and appointed
Albanus as Grand Master of Masons, who employed the fraternity in building the
palace of Verulamium. Despite the obvious discrepancies in the dates, it is a
fact that architecture and the craft of masonry were first encouraged in England
during the third century and that the earliest masons came from Europe.
In the light of the early history of St Albans, it is not surprising that its
establishment features in the traditional story of the origins of operative
masonry in England. Some researchers are of the opinion that the increase in
wages attributed to the time of St Alban was the increase that came into effect
after the period of the Black Death, the bubonic plague that swept through Asia
and Europe and reached England in 1348. Because of the unprecedented demand for
labour in the aftermath of the Black Death, a Statute of Labourers was enacted
in 1350 to regulate wages and prevent extortionate pricing. The wages of a
master freestone mason were then fixed at four pence per day and of other masons
at three pence per day, which are much higher than those referred to in the
traditional history, strongly suggesting that there were two different events,
that in the traditional history occurring much earlier. Some have expressed the
opinion that the Statute establishes that the traditional history is a product
of the period shortly after the Black Death, but it seems most unlikely to have
been compiled at a time of such misfortune and labour shortage. In any event, it
almost certainly is a collection of oral traditions that had evolved over a long
period.
The traditional history concludes with the legend of an Assembly held at York
in 926 during the reign of King Athelstan, whose half-brother Edwin (often
called his son), had learnt geometry and the mason's craft, then prevailed upon
the king to issue a Charter for the masons and a Commission to hold an annual
Assembly. There is no known record of the Assembly, but a tradition handed down
for many centuries often has a basis in fact. In any event, the continuing
association of York with masonry began with the conversion to Christianity of
the Northumbrian king, Prince Edwin, by his Kentish wife. He was baptised on
Easter Day 627 by Paulinus, the first Bishop of York, in a wooden chapel on the
site of the present Minster. The Venerable Bede, a renowned historian who lived
in the Jarrow monastery on Tyneside from 682 until his death in 735, records
that Edwin replaced the chapel with a stone church which became the centre of
the Bishopric, but it was burned down about 741 and replaced by a magnificent
stone church ruined around 1080, following the Norman Conquest. After
progressive rebuilding, the York Minster was erected between 1220 and 1474.
back to top |
