Transactions of the Discovery Lodge of Research No. 971, United Grand Lodge of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory direct descendant of the Research Lodge of New South Wales and the Sydney Lodge of Research The lodge generally meets in the Sydney Masonic Centre on the first Thursday of alternate months March (Installation), May, July, September & November, at 7 pm. Dress: lounge suit, lodge tie, regalia. Master WBro Ewart Stronach Secretary VWBro Neil Wynes Morse, KL PO Box 7077, Farrer, ACT 2607 ph. H (+61) (2) 6286 3482, M 0438 288 997 email:
[email protected] website: http://www.discoverylodge.org/ Foundation member of the Australian & New Zealand Masonic Research Council website: http://anzmrc.org/ Volume 4 Number 1 March 2012 How the medieval way of life affected our Masonic rituals 20 September 2011 by RWBro Rodney Grosskopff, KL (South Africa) Religion Religion played an enormous part in the life of medieval society; however, it had none of the freedom we enjoy today. There was one established Church and you belonged to it, or died. It was as simple as that. Heresy Heretics were not tolerated; they were put to death in the most painful ways. That great sixteenth-century intellectual, Sir Thomas More, put the matter very clearly. He believed that heretics should be burned alive, that ‘Princes should punish them according to justice, by a most painful death’, both as a punishment for heresy and as a deterrent to others.1 In England, being burnt alive at the stake was considered a sufficient punishment for a heretic.2 Later Henry VIII thought being hung, drawn and quartered was more appropriate.