ft CONCISE HISTORY OF O^SBSl CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM THE INCOME OF A BEQUEST MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 Date Due THE CONCISE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY V — — "The curious subject of Freemasonry has unfortunately been treated only by panegyrists or calumniators, both equally mendacious." Henrv Hallam. "History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions." Lord Acton. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030281467 FRONTISPIECE TO THE FIRST BOOK OF CONSTITUTIONS, 1723 THE CONCISE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY ROBERT FREKE GOULD PAST GRAND WARDEN OF ENGLAND PAST MASTER LODGE "qUATUOR CORONATi'' 2076 Author of "The History of Freemasonry," "A Commentary on the Regius MS." "Military Lodges," Etc., Etc. REVISED AND BROUGHT UP TO DATE BY FREDERICK J. W. CROWE F.R.HIST.SOC. PAST ASSISTANT GRAND DIRECTOR OF CEREMONIES OF ENGLAND PAST MASTER LODGE "qUATUOR CORONATi" 2O76 P.S.G.W., G.L., IOWA; P.S.G.W. NATIONAL G.L., FRANCE, ETC., ETC. Author of 'The Master Mason's Handbook," "Things a Freemason Should Know," "What is Freemasonry ?" Etc., Etc. LONDON GALE & POLDEN LIMITED '95' MS First Published, 1903 Second (Revised) Edition, 1920 Reprinted, 1951 MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY GALE & POLDEN LTD., AT THEIR WELLINGTON PRESS, ALDERSHOT, HANTS. PREFACE / must here claim your attention the more, because before you I freely express my opinion as the best. My difficulty here is in each case to place the things before you in their right light, or in that light of which I am convinced it is the true one; but I hope I shall succeed, ifyou will give me your undivided attention. —B. G. NiEBUHR : Lectures on Ancient History. Singe the publication of my original History of Freemasonry, the first half-volume of which appeared in 1882 and the last in 1887, there has been a demand for an abridged edition, or for a History of the Society conducted on the same lines, but in a more compendious form. In the meantime, moreover, the boundaries of the historic domain embraced in my own Work have been greatly enlarged, by the successful investigations of many distinguished con- temporaries, and by the organized laboiu^ of the Quatuor CoRONATi Lodge. Learned books have been written on English, Irish, Scottish, German, American, and Canadian Freemasonry; and valuable monographs on the Manuscript Constitutions or written tradi- tions of the Society, the old and ruw degrees of the Fraternity, the customs of the German "Steinmetzen" and the French "Companions," the Masons' Company of London, Masons' Marks, the Religion of Freemasonry, and the Engraved, Printed, and Manuscript Lists of the English Lodges. The Transactions of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge are a perennial fount of information, and among the Essays of enduring value to be found there may be named the highly instructive papers on Masons' Marks, Masters' Lodges, The Proper Names of Masonic Tradition (a Philological Study), and The Com- panionage—by the late Professor Hayter Lewis and Mr. John Lane, the Rev. C. J. Ball, and Mr. W. H. Rylands respectively—all of which may be said to have at once become PREFACE the leading authorities on the subjects to which they relate. Nor can I leave unnoticed the interesting contributions of Mr. main- W. J. HuGHAN and Dr. W. Begemann, who have fuUy tained their pre-eminence as expositors of the Old Scrolls of the Fraternity. In the preparation of the present volume, therefore, my object has been to reconsider those portions of the original Work which have been criticized by careful writers since its publication, to illustrate and elucidate some passages which were imperfectly or obscurely treated, to incorporate the results of the latest discoveries, and to acknowledge with candour my own mistakes. In the execution of this design the whole subject-matter has been entirely re-cast, re-written and brought up to date. To use the words of Professor S. E. Thorold Rogers (in the preface to his Historical Gleanings), "I have not undergirded my pages with a single note," but evidential references to authorities cited /or the first time will be found within parentheses in the text. For a large number of the authorities, however, on which I have relied, the reader is referred to my original History of Freemasonry, which contains fuller particulars of the progress of the Craft in the various countries of the world than are to be met with in any other work; while in the present volume will be found a succinct account of Masonry in all its stages, together with the fruits of the most recent research. The first Chapter contains the leading theories with regard to the origin of Freemasonry. In each of the four succeeding Chapters will be found a sketch more or less connected with the immediate subject-matter, of the history of British Free- masonry during the period preceding the era of Grand Lodges. The second Chapter (which has been twice re-written) em- braces a subject which has always had a particular interest for architectural writers, whether members or not of our own Society. In its preparation I derived much assistance from the late Mr. Wyatt Papworth, who was not a Freemason, and the fuller draft from which the present sketch is abridged re- ceived the cordial approval of the late Professor Hayter Lewis, my fellow Past Master in the Qjjatuor Coronati Lodge. — PREFACE VI] I am greatly indebted moreover, to the Masonic collection of the former friend, kindly presented to me by Mrs. Wyatt Papworth, which ranges over a long series of years, and em- braces almost every topic connected either nearly or remotely with the Masons' Art. In the third Chapter there are some new speculations with respect to the problem of the Masonic Assembly; and in con- nection therewith I must not omit to record the obligation I am under to Mr. John Bilson for tracings of the Yorkshire Forests as existing in the time of Edward I. The fourth Chapter embodies several recent discoveries, including note- worthy entries in the records of the Masons' Company of London, and in the Paston I^etters, together with the account of a Speech deHvered at Dublin in 1688, which attests the existence of a system of Speculative Masonry at the Irish capital during and prior to that year. In the fifth Chapter Dr. Begemann rendered me an essential service, which is elsewhere acknowledged; and I have also to thank Mr. W. H. Rylands, who kindly figured for me the plates of Masons' Marks. A sufficiently exhaustive study of the written traditions of the Society having been given in this Chapter, the idea I had entertained (p. 146) of presenting a further classification of the Masonic Constitutions has been abandoned. Chapter VI contains a Digression on the early Symbolism of the Craft, for which a foundation was laid in the fourth half- volume of my History of Freemasonry—published in 1885 where I show that two degrees, and not three, were referred to by Dr. Anderson as existing in 1723. Of Old Regulation XIII, in the Constitutions of that year, it may be remarked that the number of degrees to which it points as being practised at the time was as little understood in those days as (at any date prior to 1885) in our own, and to the general ignorance on this subject by the Craft at large was probably due the evolution of an additional degree, in order to conform with an imaginary tri-gradal system which was supposed to be recog- nized by the Grand Lodge. Of this there is collateral evidence in the famous Speech of Francis Drake, Junior Grand Warden, at York, delivered after the publication of Anderson's Con- — Vlll PREFACE stitutions. He mentions, in 1726, three degrees, which, however, were certainly unknown (or not practised) at York, in that year and much later, as we learn from the records of his Grand Lodge. In this Chapter, indeed, as well as in the next one (VII), many points are discussed in which my views are not in harmony with those of other writers. But, to adopt the words of Mr. Frederic Harrison, in his lecture on The Meaning of History, "if opposite opinions are not noticed they have still been weighed. If I have spoken of many still debated topics almost as though they were decided, it is only because in such a plan as this any sort of controversy is out of place, not that I forget or slight all that has been urged on the other side. But discussion, like research, must have an end somewhere, and the great need now is not to increase but to use our stores of his- torical learning. After all, the only real answer to any theory of history"-, professing to be complete and not manifestly incon- sistent, is the production of a counter theory at once more complete and consistent." For the particulars relating to the "Ulster Schism" in Irish Masonry I am indebted to Dr. Chetwode Crawley. In the preparation of Chapter VIII I was greatly assisted by Dr. W. Begemann (Sweden—Norway—Denmark) ; Carl Wiebe, Grand Master of Hamburg (Germany—France) ; Ladislas A. de Malczovich (Austria—Hungary) ; and the late J. P. Vaillant (HoUand). Chapter X covers a wide field. The commentary, however, of the Nestor of American Masonry, Past Grand Master J osiah H. Drummond, of Maine, on my own history of the Craft in the United States, has smoothed many difficulties from my path; and the historiographer of the Grand Lodge of Canada, Past Grand Master John Ross Robertson, has kindly fiimished me with a.