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“FREE”AND
“ACCEPTED” MASONS
How
did the words “Free” and “Accepted” originate?
The
ancient craftsmen were very skilled and their craft was considered to be
indispensable to the welfare of both church and state. They were the men who
built castles and cathedrals. For this reason, they were not placed under the
same restrictions as were other workers. They were ‘free” to do their work,
travel, and live their lives in a manner which was in line with their duties. No
one could become an Apprentice unless he was free born.
The
Masons organized into “guilds”, something akin to a trade union, and
individual companies or groups of Masons contracted for specific construction
projects.
In
the England of that time, various crafts (carpenters, distillers, pewterers,
ironworkers, etc.) also organized into guilds, but most of the population worked
under bond to the owners of the land on which they lived.
The
word “Accepted” also goes back to the time of the Operative Mason.
During
the later years of the Middle Ages, there were few educated outside the
monasteries of the church. The “accepted” mason was originally a man who, in
a lodge operative in origin or still partly so in character, was for all
practical purposes of membership accepted as a mason. From this practice grew in
course of time the use of the words “accepted” and “adopted” to indicate
a man who had been admitted into the inner fellowship of Symbolic Masons.
Candidates were “accepted” into freemasonry no earlier than the
mid-seventeenth century. We first meet the phrase “free and accepted” in
1722.
By
the late 1600’s the demand for the type of architecture that lent itself to
the guild type of operation was declining. Architecture itself was changing; and
the number of men, as well as the number of operative lodges, were declining.
Increasingly, Masonry adopted the legends and habits of the old operative
lodges, for spiritual and moral purposes. As time went on, there became many
more “Accepted” members than there were Operative members. Sometime in the
eighteenth century, the “Accepted Masons” outnumbered the “Operative
Masons” and Masonry became exclusively a speculative organization rather than
an operative one.
THE
TWO TYPES OF MASONRY
As you can see,
there
are actually two kinds of Masonry. One we call “Operative” and the other
“Speculative”.
Operative
Masonry can be traced back to the Middle Ages and beyond. Operative Masons,
formed groups with Lodge structures similar to ours today. We have officers
similar to theirs. Men were admitted only after they had served a number of
years of apprenticeship, usually seven years. This is the origin of the first or
Entered Apprentice degree. In Operative Masonry, Masons actually did the
physical labour of building. They were the best at their craft, and they kept
secret their methods of building.
When
the organization became what is called Speculative Masonry, men were accepted
into the Craft without being actual builders, that is, they were spiritual
builders. Speculative Masonry adopts the terms and concepts, of the actual
builders, but substitutes men for stone and mortar, and works toward
self-improvement rather than the actual construction of buildings.
Click to learn more about the Origins
and Evolution of Speculative Masonry
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