Masonic Encyclopedia

Back to Encyclopedia

Speculative Masonry, Early

The Masonic Fraternity writes its own history as it goes along in the form of Minutes and Proceedings. Unfortunately, it is not an easy history to read, nor convenient, nor is it furnished with an index, but it is a better and more reliable chronicle of the Craft than any work written by the historians. Below is a summary drawn from some 200 Minute Books and Lodge Histories of the oldest Lodges in Britain, Canada, and the United States; of these, about 60 are of the very earliest Speculative Lodges, of which one-half or so are long since defunct, or else have been merged with other Lodges.

The items are chosen to illustrate some point important to the history of the Fraternity; and to save space, names, numbers, and dates are omitted; also, the data are representative, not exhaustive; scarcely any two of the earliest Lodges were alike in the details of Lodge practice, and the same Lodge made changes in itself from time to time. The summary is not so much a portrait of early Speculative Freemasonry as a photo montage:

The majority of Lodges were very small; one of Sixty members was excessively large, almost too large to be managed; the majority had some fifteen or twenty members. Meetings with only six or seven members present were common.

During the Eighteenth Century and well into the Nineteenth they met in taverns inns hotels. Since the room was in use for other purposes, Lodge furniture was either the property of the landlord, or else had to be packed up and stored away between meetings. The arrangement was almost never satisfactory, and Lodges moved much about--one of them made twelve removals in ten years. It did the Fraternity no good to hold its meetings at the centers of hard drinking. Sometimes a " wine drawer " or waiter, or even the landlord, were 'made" expressly to enable him to enter and leave the Lodge Room while the Lodge was in session.

Lodges went by the name of the tavern in which they met--thus " the Lodge at the Goose and Gridiron, " the Lodge at " the Goat's Head, " etc. They were thus entered on the Grand Lodge's engraved lists of Lodges. They were not numbered until Dr. Thomas Dunckerley made the suggestion (he ranked with Desaguliers, Preston and Dermott as an architect of the Fraternity). In the center of the Lodge Room was placed a table, usually of the board and trestle type. The Lodge was opened with the members at table; Lodge business was conducted there; initiations were "made"; the Brethren ate and drank together for hours on end, the feasting being not an adjunct to Lodge business but as an integral part of it.

A Lodge "feast" was therefore a Lodge meeting, and when the old Lodges insisted that Grand Lodge "Quarterly Feasts " be restored, it was in reality a demand that full Grand Lodge meetings be held, "as according to the old customs. " The meals in the richer Lodges sometimes were elaborate and costly, with a dozen liquors, and a long list of " healths. " In one instance the Secretary of a rich Lodge set down one "feast," for 51 members, at a sum now worth about 8500. Many Lodges owned their own punch bowls, plate, glasses, pitchers; a few of them had their own wine cellars.

Dues were caned "subscriptions"; most of the money went to pay for the dinners. The charity fund usually was voluntary, a Charity Box being kept at hand. Fines were imposed right and left, for non-attendance, for "being disguised in liquor, " for quarreling, for "profane swearing, " etc. Visitors were " fined " a dollar or two as their share of the costs of the food and drink. The title of the Master was " Right Worshipful. " He was elected for six months, and in some instances appointed his own Wardens.

Only a few Secretaries received stipends, and almost none of them had any regular system of books, so that there was frequent trouble over Lodge accounts (The Grand Lodge of Scotland expelled a Grand Secretary for that reason.) The Tiler wore a sword or a " poignard, " and received pay- he was a "servant" and seldom belonged to the same "class" as the members. He had many duties: to stand guard, to examine visitors, to deliver summons, to care for the furniture, etc.; the office was sometimes held in succession from father to son in the same family. (Montgomery, a famous Grand Tiler, became a personage almost as well known as the Grand Masters.) In at least one ease a Brother made a profession of being Lodge Secretary to a group of Lodges; Tilers often did. Minutes were bare, brief, and never of large importance in the early years. For decades they were not countersigned by the Master. The Secretary kept his records " in ye bag," and either took the bag home with him, or stowed it in the bottom of a pedestal. Spelling went by ear, and a Secretary spelled words as they chanced to sound to him at the moment; in more than one Minutes the Master's name was spelled three ways in one entry.

Thus, one encounters apprentice as prentice, interprentice, prentiss, prentayee, etc. (The language was not pronounced then as now; thus, tea was pronounced to rhyme with " tay, " as one recalls from a couplet by Bro. Alexander Pope.) Minutes were meager because Secretaries did as little work as possible; or were afraid of violating secrecy; or as a protection from prying eyes when they kept the bag at home.

Candidates, it appears, wore robes, for there is often mention of the purchase of them in Lodge inventories or minuses; sometimes "trousies," or "drawers" are mentioned. (Present day British Masons have weird notions about American customs. Even a learned Lodge of research was recently told that " in the States Candidates go naked!")

The average early British Lodge was as local as it was small. and knew little about the Fraternity at large, still less about foreign countries To many of them "America" meant the West Indies. This lack of knowledge made them an easy prey to " foreigner " impostors. A number of Minute Books record relief being given to "Turks" who turned out to be frauds, to French counts, ditto, and to men coming over as " rich Americans "--the "rich American" myth is even now still alive in some British centers; a "Turk" was almost any dark-skinned foreigner.

The great majority of members were Fellowcrafts only. In one ease a Worshipful Master was an Apprentice. The two grades often were conferred at one time, in "emergency meetings." The Master Mason grade was at first given in Masters' Lodges, and was confined, it appears, to Masters or Past Masters only (actual or virtual.)

The oldest Lodges, such as constituted the first Grand Lodge in 1717, were familiar with the rites and customs; but after Lodges of 'new men" had multiplied by the hundreds, the Masons themselves had only a rudimentary understanding of Freemasonry, and made many experiments, changes, etc., trying out first one thing and then another. (One Lodge might use a Bible on the altar, another would use the Old Charges on a pedestal.)

The Lodges of Speculatives under the Grand Lodge with their two Degrees (and later, their Third) were only one of many developments which came out of the old Operative Masonry; there was a Right Worshipful Society of Operative Masons; Masons' Companies in the cities; there were many self-constituted (St. Johns') Lodges which were regular but did not belong to a Grand Lodge; in North Ireland there were many individual Masons who sometimes called themselves " clandestines " and who had no Lodges or only loose and temporary ones; there were many " high grades, " or " side orders " (sued as the "Seoteh Masons" who appear then disappear in English Lodge Minutes), etc.; that this was confusing to Chartered Lodges is exhibited by almost every Minute Book, and it took nearly a century to clear up and crystallize and unify a single system of Regular Masonry.

If Masons quarreled outside the Lodge, if one of them accused another of some dishonest practices they often brought the quarrel into the Lodge for adjudication. (This occurrence of private non-Lodge affairs is another reason for the brevity of the Minutes.)

Lodges (except in and about London) had little consciousness of Grand Lodge. or interest in it, and the Grand Lodge itself appears to have had even less interest in the Lodges because it was almost impossible oftentimes for a Lodge to secure a reply from the Grand Secretary. After a Provincial Grand Lodge was established, a Lodge was given to thinking of it, rather than "the London Grand Lodge," as "Grand Lodge."

Also, Lodges were not encouraged to submit their grievances to Grand Lodge; still less were they encouraged ever to question any act of Grand Lodge--one Lodge was rebuked for doing so by the Grand Secretary who told them they had " insulted H. R. H. the Grand Master." The Wigan secessionist Grand Lodge was formed partly in consequence of the almost complete inactivity of both Grand Lodge and a Provincial Grand Lodge for nearly four years.

An American Mason is always very conscious of "the Fraternity"; even when he has his own Lodge in mind he refers to it as "the Fraternity"; Masons 501) years ago had only a thin awareness of "the Fraternity" and their interest was almost solely concentrated in the local Lodge. But as against the present day Mason, with his dim consciousness of his own Lodge, a Mason 200 years ago loved his Lodge next only after his home. He filled it up with gifts-- silverware, glassware, pictures, furniture, paraphernalia, books, etc., until many old Lodges had scarcely a square yard of bare wall, and a very rich atmosphere of family feeling, of an intimate friendliness, and of Brethren gone but who had left many mementos in the Lodge Room.

Piecing together scattered hints it appears that a "Degree" followed in the main the same pattern as now, but with less of it enacted (wherein American Masonry still differs most from British). The Candidate was prepared; he took an OB--; a Tracing Board (or floor Cloth, or the "Lodge") contained the symbols of the Degree and these were explained.

It was only gradually that Degrees became in a strict sense "degrees," or separate ceremonies, each one complete in itself, and with its own members and officers, with the Lodge not permitted to alter the ceremonies, and with Lodges everywhere using the same ceremonies.

The earliest Speculatives spoke not of the "Degree" of Apprentice (etc.) but of the Lodge of Apprentices. To become a full-fledged member of the circle, was the principal aim of initiation; the ceremonies were a means to that end. A new movement began, and was destined to become triumphant, especially in America, when Preston and Hutchinson and a few others began to study the Ritual for its own sake.

Any Mason could belong to more than one Lodge-- in one Lodge record a member is listed as belonging to thirteen. The smallness of Lodges was partly responsible. As "class Lodges" became a rule, each with a specialized membership and interests, a new incentive to plural membership came into play. But the greatest incentive was the simple one, that many Masons enjoyed Lodge life for its own sake.

The Minute Books and Lodge Histories leave the history of the Master Mason Degree as unsettled as ever, not because these contradict each other but because for nearly a century there was no uniform rule. Some of the oldest (Time Immemorial) Lodges appear to have kept firm hold on the whole of ceremony. Some had the Master's Degree separate from the other two (a Candidate was "made" a Fellowcraft) but kept it under Lodge control.

There were Masters' Lodges, with their own rooms, officers, and meeting times; to them would go members from a number of surrounding Lodges. In some Lodges it looks as if any member could become a Master Mason; in others, only Masters or Past Masters; and in the latter, some had to be actual Past Masters, some could be "virtual" Past Masters by "passing the chair." The general tendency seems to have been to look upon the Grand Master as sovereign over the Craft, with Grand Lodge in a secondary role; which was in contrast to the present American tendency (in reality the Grand Master and the Grand Lodge have equal sovereignty but in different fields).

Since a Grand Master was a Prince of the Blood, a Duke, an Earl, etc., the prerogatives which belonged to his person remained with him in the Grand East; in consequence a deal of snobbishness and exclusiveness developed among the Lodges, titles and ranks were over- valued, and this exclusiveness was (the writer so takes it) the principal reason for the division of England between two Grand Lodges; such a Mason as Peter Gilkes refused to accept Grand Honors or to attend Grand Lodge because the gentlemen there were "above his station." This was not true of the Ancient Grand Lodge, or of Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the American Colonies.

The oldest American Minute Books could almost be interchanged with the oldest British, so alike were the customs of the two until the end of the Revolution.

There were, however, two fundamental differences in the Craft in general; first, Lodges of English, Scottish, Irish, and French origin worked here side by side, and this made more puzzling the questions the earliest American Masons were called upon to decide; second, the American Provincial Grand Lodges were left hanging in the air, because they could not obtain continuous cooperation or supervision from Britain, and at the same time did not possess complete sovereignty; expediency became the general rule. Also, the American Lodges could not obtain light on Masonry itself, because it had no teaching from Grand Lodge and no literature of its own.

(Note. One instance is that of Thomas Smith Webb, who had to move in the dark, and who adopted Preston with no clear knowledge of Preston's status in the Grand Lodge in England. Another is the odd fact that two of the first American Books of Constitutions begin with a paragraph explaining that the Book is designed for Operative ( ! !) Masons; further on in the Book it transpires that the authors had taken Operative" to mean the book-keeping of the Secretary, the care of Lodge rooms funds, etc.; by "Speculative" they meant the Ritual.)

The Eighteenth Century Lodges had no Order of the Eastern Star; yet the women had some connections with the Craft. In Ireland there were called "Masonic Dames." In England one Lodge purchased "gloves for the ladies." The history of Lodge symbolism is obscure; in old Tracing Boards are pictures of symbols no longer used, absence of symbols none in use, and symbols would be dropped and then resumed, etc.

The broached thurnel (a stone axe plus a certain type of stone); Common Gudge (or judge; a template); perpend ashlar; these are a few of the symbols or terms not familiar to us also on Tracing Boards were arches, the Star of David, a chisel, sometimes a pencil, etc.; the trowel v, as once widely used then widely discontinued. The Pps. of the OB. . was used at least as early as 1700, but not in its present elaborate form. The Ob.-. appears to have been shorter. The Box, for relief, was a fixture in a Lodge; but such monies were expended from it represent but a fraction of the relief given; for where Lodges were small, and relations were close, much help was given Masonically to widows and orphans which was not done by Lodge action.

Early American Lodges were those which worked between 1730 and 1780-5; and while, as stated above, they were in essential Lodges of the same sort as worked in Britain during the same period, there was as between the former and the latter one difference which though small at the time was to lead to an ever widening divergence: the British Lodge was small, its members were recruited (generally) from its immediate neighborhood, and their social evening around the table was their Lodge's greatest appeal to them;

an American Lodge was larger, had fewer sister Lodges near it, drew its members from a larger radius, its membership represented every type, and the Lodge's greatest appeal to them was as a meeting place, an opportunity to become acquainted, a social center, a place to see friends which a man could not see otherwise; there was far less emphasis on the "feast" (which usually was a lunch) and much more on the Work.

(At the present time, and not to make comparisons, the American Craft Ritual is larger, more complete, more interesting, and more artistically and self-consistently developed than its English counterpart in any one of the English Workings.) In their first impact on a Masonic student's mind the 200 or so Minute Books and Lodge Histories of which the above random notes are only slight indicia, alive him a sense of confusion, as if Speculative Masonry began with no clear understanding of itself; in the end he learns that the opposite was true. There never has been deviation or uncertainty in the things that count. Before even the Mother Grand Lodge waw dreamed of, Freemasonry was a fraternity of workmen, was a philosophy of work (the first ever given to the world). raised work to the level of an attribute of God whose name was appropriately Sovereign Grand Architect (or Workman), envisaged mankind as a Lodge, or body of workmen, taught that work was not a curse but belongs to what a man is and therefore it cannot be despised without abasing him.

It was these discoveries truths, and principles which brought Freemasonry into being; they drove it forward, they persisted unaltered among many changes, and in the long run, by the tests they imposed, determined what belonged to Freemasonry and what did not, what rites, ceremonies, symbols, lectures, rules. regulations, and customs; whatever has opposed them has died, or hangs withering on the branch; and it is they, working through the Lodges, which have made Masonry a power among men. Deviations, details, experiments, localisms, these have been unimportant in the long run. It is Freemasonry that has created the Lodges; not the Lodges that have created it. This stands clear and evident in the Histories and Minute Books themselves.

Artwork Antiques Apparel Emblems Pins Rings Jewelry Supply Custom RingsItems On Sale Masonic Military Products Ring Buyers Guide About The Freemasons Grand Lodges Becoming a Freemason Masonic Etiquette Lost and Found Masonic WallpaperFamous Freemasons Myths about Masons Masonic Rituals Site Seeing Tour Sketchley Tokens Famous Quotes Blogs By Masons Gift Certificates Cipher Fact CorrectionsArticles Toasts Graces Poetry Songs Encyclopedia Library Education Price MatchingHome Page Masonic Catalog Contact Us About Us Store Policy Privacy Policy Terms of Use Administration Shopping Cart info@MasonicShop.com The Ashlar A is a Registered Trademark of The Ashlar Company

The Ashlar A is a Registered Trademark of The Ashlar Company

Remember, if you don't see the Ashlar "A", it's not authentic.
By Brothers, For Brothers & always For the good of the craft... © 2024 Ashlar Group, LLC