lodges, which came together “in chapter” (another reminiscence of the
monastic origin of these unions) at Ratisbon in 1459, drew up a trade
constitution entitled “Ordnung und Vereinigung der gemeinen Bruderschaft
des Steinwerks und der Steinmetzen” (Regulation and Combination of the
general brotherhood of stonework and stonemasons): it was revised and
amended at Basel in 1497, and at Strasburg 1498. From this and other
ancient documents relating to the organization of the brotherhood we
gather that the Brethren were classed as Masters, “Parleyers” and
Comrades (meister, parlirer, gesellen), and to these were added, though
not as brethren, yet as dependents, Helpers,—that is, apprentices. At
the head of a lodge stood the Master of Works, or Master-Builder. The
masters of the three lodges at Strasburg, Cologne and Vienna were the
Chief Judges of the league, and he of Strasburg held the foremost rank
among these. To the judicial district of Strasburg belonged the left
bank of the Rhine down to the Moselle, and on the right bank Suabia,
Franconia, Hesse; to the district of Cologne belonged the region on the
other side of the Moselle; and to that of Vienna, Austria, Hungary,
Italy. Switzerland stood apart under a separate master, who had his seat
at Berne; Zurich afterward succeeded to the place of Berne. The masons
of Northern Germany, on the right bank of the Rhine (Thuringia, Saxony,
etc.), were only nominally members of the league: as matter of fact they
were subordinate to none of these lodges, but they adopted a special
“order” for themselves at Torgau in 1462. In these regulations we find
many striking evidences of the sturdy good sense of the masons. For
example, they were forbidden to disparage deceased masters and their
works; also to teach others their art for money, for they ought to deal
with each other as friends; one master was not to expel a fellowcraft;
to do so he must not only take counsel with two other masters, but also
a majority of the fellowcrafts must approve; differences between masters
should be settled by arbitrators chosen from members of the league.
In the brotherhoods brotherly comradeship played an important part.
Meetings were held monthly, and the business ended with a feast. Each
General lodge yearly held a grand assembly; and the festivals of Saint
John the Baptist, and of the so-called “Four Crowned Ones,” were
holidays for the league. Each meeting of a lodge was opened and closed
with questions and answers of the master and the comrades. To the
journeyman, as soon as he began to travel, were communicated the secret
signs of the brotherhood—passwords, grip, etc. With these he identified
himself as a brother mason wherever he went, and so had the right to
learn the trade gratis. On coming to a hut where stone-cutting was going
on, he first shut the door, so as to knock on it after the masonic
fashion; then asked, “Are German masons at work here?” Forthwith the
comrades made search through the hut, shut the doors, and ranged
themselves in a right angle; the visitor placed his feet at right
angles, saying, “God bless the worthy masons;” to which the answer was
“God thank the worthy masons,” and so on, questions and answers many,
among them these: “Who sent you forth”? “My honored master, honored
sureties, and the whole honored masons’ lodge at X.” “What for?” “For
discipline and right behavior.” “What is discipline and right behavior?”
“The usages of the craft and its customs.”
Of the rites of initiation in those times we know nothing: what Fallou
has on that head regarding the usages of the German stonemasons is
simply borrowed from the Freemasons’ ritual of the present time. It is
highly probable that in the medieval masons’ lodges the technical
details of the craft and its secrets played the chief part in the
ceremonies of initiation. The medieval stonemasons also employed as
symbols of their craft the hammer, the circle, the square, etc., also
mystic figures, e. g., the flaming star (which was the Pythagorean
pentagram, or the magic hexagram—two triangles laid across each other),
the two pillars of Solomon’s temple, wine skins, ears of corn,
interlaced cords, etc. The only other point of any consequence of which
we have certainty is that the postulant swore to observe secrecy. But
there is no doubt that the drinking usages as handed down to us are
authentic. For example, the glass was never to be handed to the
banqueter, but set on the table before him; then, he must not touch it
save with the right hand—covered with a white glove or a white napkin,
when a special toast is drunk.
The masons’ brotherhoods were a distinctly Christian institution: the
members were required by the “Ordinances” to comply with all the usages
of the Church. This was a survival from the time when the lodges had
their origin in monasteries. The sects that arose on every side despite
bloody persecutions, and the illuminism spread abroad by them,
contributed to bring about a change in the spirit of the masons which
was noticeable in the 14th and 15th centuries: many, perhaps a majority,
of them acquired a spirit of opposition to Roman ecclesiasticism, and it
was very plainly manifested in their sculpture. More bitter satire
cannot be imagined than they employed; and what is most significant is
that it found expression in the churches themselves. Thus in a
representation of the Last Judgment in the Berne minster a pope wearing
a glittering tiara of gold is seen tumbling headlong into Hell; and in
the vestibule the Wise and the Foolish Virgins are shown keeping vigil,
but the foolish ones wear cardinals’ hats, bishops’ mitres and priests’
caps. The Doberan Church in Mecklenburg shows a mill in which church
dogmas are ground out. At Strasburg was seen a procession of all manner
of beasts with blazing torches and an ass performing the mass; at
Brandenburg was shown a fox preaching to a flock of geese, etc.
Illuminism is the foe of knighthood and ecclesiasticism, for illuminism
knows no privilege of birth or of rank or of vocation. Hence, in so far
as such bodies as the Templars and Stonemasons favored illuminism, they
undermined the institutions to which they owed their existence, and so
were working for their own extinction. The downfall of the Stonemasons’
brotherhood had its causes even in the age before the Reformation, in
that there was no lack now of churches, and that hardly any new churches
were erected. What the relation was of the lodges to the Reformation we
shall see later on. The savageries of the 16th and 17th centuries,
particularly the Thirty Years’ War, dealt a severe blow at the
building-craft; but the deathblow to the Stonemasons’ league was the
treacherous seizure of the seat of the principal lodge, Strasburg, by
Louis XIV. Naturally, the German princes interdicted communication of
their subjects with foreign associations, and, of course, with the
principal lodge in Strasburg, 1707. And as the discords of the German
masons and their weakness prevented them from instituting a new head
lodge, the Emperor at one stroke did away with all lodges, principal and
subordinate, and forbade the oath of secrecy, the use of the
“nonsensical form of salutation” (so ran the text of the decree), and
the distinction between “salutation-masons” and “letter-masons”
(grussmaurer, briefmaurer). Nevertheless, the lodges remained as secret
societies until modern freedom of industrial trades stripped them of all
meaning, and cut the ground under their feet.
3. FRENCH CRAFTSMEN.
Very different from the German societies of craftsmen were those of
France. Whereas, in Germany we find strenuous endeavor toward perfection
in the craft, cultivation of the beautiful, and a disposition no less
elevated in a moral sense than devoutly religious; in France we see only
rude, undirected effort, with here and there some encouraging features.
In France there is sharp distinction between the gilds of the masters
and the lodges of the journeymen. The masters have neither a common bond
of union, nor any common property; the craftsmen form strong societies,
with secret constitutions and usages.
There are several societies of French craftsmen (compagnonnages), but
they are not distinguished according to locality, but according to the
supposed manner of their first institution and the branch of the craft
which they represent. They are divided, first, into two great sections,
the Compagnons du Devoir (companions of duty), and the Compagnons de la
Liberte (companions of liberty). The former are again divided into the
Enfants de Maitre Jacques (Master James’s children), and the Enfants de
Maitre Soubise (Master Soubise’s children), but the latter commonly
called themselves Enfants de Salomon. Between the Compagnons du Devoir
and the Compagnons de la Liberte, as well as between the children of
James and those of Soubise, there exists the bitterest enmity which is
mirrored in their myths and traditions. According to the story of the
Devoir comrades, at the building of Solomon’s temple, Hiram,
master-builder, to maintain discipline and order among the workmen,
instituted societies with special passwords and secret ritual. But that
act was the occasion of his death, for some workmen slew him because he
refused to give them the countersign of the masters: those evildoers
were the founders of the Compagnonnage de la Liberte! Now among the
faithful workmen were two Gaulish masters, James, stonemason, and
Soubise, carpenter: these, after the completion of the temple, returned
home, and landing, one at Marseilles, the other at Bordeaux, founded
societies after the pattern of those instituted by Hiram; and these
societies, little by little, admitted craftsmen other than builders, but
the two bodies lived in perpetual hatred of each other, each claiming
priority. Each of them refers its own institution (on what grounds is
unknown) to the years 558 B. C. and 550 B. C., respectively, and each
possesses authentic documents in proof, though none has ever seen them.
The Liberte tradition is the same as that of the Devoir, only the
respective parts of the chief actors are reversed. In the bosom of La
Liberte are gathered four crafts—stonemasons, carpenters, joiners,
locksmiths. The Devoir includes 28 crafts, and of these the children of
Soubise comprise the carpenters, roofers and plasterers; to the children
of James belong the stonemasons, joiners, locksmiths, and 22 other
trades, introduced in later times, but all connected with housebuilding,
except hatmakers. All other craftsmen whose work is the production of
clothing and foodstuffs are excluded from the compagnonnages, and form
separate societies of their own. The shoemakers and the bakers, in
particular, are held in contempt, and persecuted in every way by the
compagnons; while among James’s children even the members of the
building crafts despise their juniors (trades of less ancient lineage),
and in their ignorance derive the word compagnon from “compas” (a pair
of compasses), the symbol of the art of building; hence in their eyes
the other trades are quite destitute of art or skill.
Even craftsmen of the same trade, but belonging to different leagues,
whether Devoir or Liberte, oppose each other in every way. The
carpenters of Paris have made an end of this strife by dividing the
cosmopolitan city between themselves, the compagnons du Devoir taking
the left and those of La Liberte the right bank of the Seine. With the
other trades and in the provinces the case is worse, the hostile leagues
often engaging in street fights and pitched battles. Even in the same
trade and in the same league hostilities often break out.
Of the French corporations of craftsmen, those of the building trades,
especially the stonemasons, probably arose about the same time as the
German masons’ lodges: at least there existed in the Middle Age in
southern France, a society of bridge-builders, who, for the behoof of
pilgrims to the Holy Land and wayfarers in general, maintained bridges,
roads and inns. The earliest known charter was granted in 1189, by Pope
Clement III., who, like his third predecessor, Lucius III., took them
under his protection. As emblem they wore on the breast a pointed
hammer. The other compagnonnages can show no authentic records of
earlier date than the 14th century. The most ancient of them is the
society of the Dyers, dating from 1330. Admission to these societies
involves many ceremonies derived from the ritual of the Catholic Church;
hence, the Tailors and Shoemakers were in 1645 denounced to the
ecclesiastical tribunals, and their meetings forbidden by the
theological faculty of Paris.
4. THE ENGLISH STONEMASONS.
While the German societies of handicraftsmen were oppressed by the
imperial power, and the French societies lived in obscurity, the English
masons’ lodges, on the contrary, attained high importance. Tradition
traces English (operative) masonry back to King Alfred the Great
(871–901), and his successor, Athelstan, whose younger son, Edwin, is
said to have called meetings of masons, and to have given laws to their
lodges. However that may be, it is certain that in England, as in
Germany, important edifices were erected by the clergy, and that
Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, was an accomplished architect; but
after the rise of Gothic architecture the builders were laymen, and in
all probability many of them Germans. In the early English societies of
masons we find rules and usages that clearly follow German precedent,
and the lists of master masons contain many decidedly German names.
Nevertheless, English masonry showed some peculiar features, e. g., the
station of the master in the east, the holding of the lodge meetings in
open air in fair weather, the posting of guards around the lodge, the
drenching of peepers with the drip from the roof “till the water ran out
of their shoes,” etc.
The English Freemasons may have got their name from the fact that the
original founders of lodges were workers in freestone—freestone masons,
as distinguished from workers in rough stone; freestone mason, it is
supposed, was afterward contracted to the form “freemason.” In an act of
parliament of the year 1350 the word freemason is found for the first
time. By that act congregations and chapters of masons were forbidden.
But the masons survived this persecution. Among themselves all masons
were equals, comrades or fellows; in the lodges no distinction was made
of master and fellow, though, of course, the actual master of a lodge
presided over the meetings. The members studied mutual improvement in
technical knowledge, and aided one another in misfortune. In the reign
of Edward III. the laws prohibiting assemblage of masons was relaxed so
as to permit meetings when held in presence of the sheriff of a county
or the mayor of a city. Out of these societies of operative masons arose
the modern institution of “speculative” freemasonry.
_Astrologers and Alchemists._
The epoch of the Reformation closed with the recovery to the Catholic
Church of a large proportion of its lost territory through the labors of
the Jesuits. Long before the Thirty Years’ War the zeal for religious
creeds had died out; people had grown weary of theological strifes,
though they had little taste for other serious matters; and thus it came
about that in the transition from the 16th to the 17th century such
pseudo-sciences as Alchemy and Astrology had great vogue. The study of
Astrology had for its aim only fame and glory, and, therefore, was
pursued openly; while Alchemy being inspired mainly by avarice, had its
laboratories in dark cellars, and made a strict secret of its processes.
Hence, it was natural that Alchemy, or the pretended art of producing
gold and silver, should give rise to secret associations, especially as
it employed sundry mystic, theosophic, and kabbalistic means for
attaining its ends, such as were used by the pupils and followers of the
famous Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus, reformer of the medical art,
and one of the most zealous of astronomers and alchemists. That was the
era of a Jacob Boehme, shoemaker and philosopher, who, though he had
none of the “accurst hunger” for the precious metals, gave an impetus to
fatuous investigations of divine things.
At the beginning of the 17th century a multitude of writings about this
mystic and superstitious business appeared, pro and contra. In this
battle of goosequills the Lutheran theologian, John Valentine Andraea of
Tuebingen (b. 1586, d. 1654), took a very prominent part. Andreae in
1614 conceived the thought of playing a trick on these mystics by
publishing two satirical pieces, in which was given an account of an
alleged secret society designed to promote studies of that kind; to this
society he gave a name suggested by the design of his own family seal (a
Saint Andrew’s cross, with roses at the ends of its four
arms)—Rosicrucians. These writings, “Fama Fraternitatis Roseae Crucis”
(Fame of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross) and “Confessio
Fraternitatis” (Confession of Faith of the Brotherhood) traced the
pretended society back to a monk named Christian Rosenkreuz, who, in the
14th and 15th centuries, visited the holy land, was instructed in the
occult sciences in the East, founded among his fellow-monks the
brotherhood called by his name, and died at the age of 106 years. After
a lapse of 120 years, in his tomb, which, in accordance with the rule of
the order, was kept secret, but which was a magnificent structure in a
vault, was found resting on his incorrupt body a parchment book
containing the constitution and the secrets of the order. A later
document “Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreuz” (alchymic nuptials
of Christian Rosenkreuz), which appeared in 1616, span the story out to
greater length. Now, so great was the alchemistic furore of that time
that the tale passed for solemn truth, and a swarm of writings followed,
championing or battling against the Society of the Rosicrucians. To the
opponents of the Rosy Cross belonged the theologians, who sniffed
heretical tenets in the “documents,” and the medical men who scented
danger to their close gild; while the alchemists, and particularly the
followers of Paracelsus, inquired diligently after the Rosicrucians, and
maintained the authenticity of their Constitution. Nor was there lack of
attempts at interpreting in a mystical sense the symbol of the Rosy
Cross: it signified Holiness joined with Silentiousness; it typified the
rose-colored Blood of Christ poured out on the cross. Astounded by the
war of no-wits against little-wits occasioned unintentionally by
himself, Andreae tried to undo the mischief by putting forth two pieces,
“Mythologia Christiana,” and “Turris Babel,” to prove that the whole
thing was a joke, that the Brotherhood was a fiction and non-existent.
But as he neglected to name himself as author of the first two writings,
in vain did he pour out on the Rosicrucianistic partisans all the
vitriol of his contempt. In vain, with a view to lead men’s fancy in
other directions, did he found a “Christian Brotherhood” for the purpose
of purging religion of abuses and planting true piety. The insanity
persisted. Alchemy, barely alluded to in Andreae’s writings, became the
subject of a multitude of new books, whose authors gave out that they
were members of the alleged society. The incident was also turned to
account by adventurers and by factions of every sort; the thing went so
far that in the Rhineland and the Low Countries secret alchemistic
societies were founded under the name of Rosicrucians, which also took
the style Fraternitas Roris Cocti (Brotherhood of Boiled Dew), that is,
of the Philosophers’ Stone; but these societies had no general
organization among themselves. Many a wight was choused out of his money
by these schemers. There were branch societies in Germany and Italy. In
England Dr. Robert Fludd, an ardent mystic and alchemist, propagated the
singular order by publishing a number of writings. With regard to the
usages of the societies, we are told that the members roamed about
meanly clad, with hair cropped close near the forehead, wearing as a
token a black silken cord in the top buttonhole, carrying, when several
went together, a small green banner. They claimed that their society was
an offshoot of the great knightly order of St. John (Hospitalers). At
their lodge meetings they wore a blue ribbon, on which was a gold cross
inscribed with a rose, and their president (styled Imperator, emperor)
was dressed in priestly togs. They observed strict secrecy as toward
outsiders. They disappeared little by little in the 18th century, and
there is no means of determining the relation between them and the
masonic Rosicrucians, of whom more anon.
_PART NINTH._
_Rise and Constitution of Freemasonry._
1. RISE OF FREEMASONRY.
The Reformation and the events connected with it had given people much
matter of meditation. But the intolerance shown by the authorities and
by the members of both creeds, in maltreating and persecuting their
opponents, so alienated all humane minded men that secretly people began
to care neither for the interest of Protestantism nor for that of
Catholicism, and in the common brotherhood of mankind to disregard all
differences of creed. Illuminism, which had been “good form” though in a
frivolous sense among the Templars, and in a satiric sense among the
Stonemasons, took a more dignified shape, not of incredulity but of
earnest desire to build up, and to this consummation the English masons
contributed materially. In England people had had enough of strife over
creeds, enough of persecution of Protestants under “Bloody Mary” and of
Catholics under the inflexible Elizabeth, and they longed for tolerance.
They derived the principles of tolerance from renascent literature and
art, which made such impression that as in an earlier age the Romanic
architecture, so now the Gothic, as the expression of a definite phase
of belief, lost its following, and the so-called Augustan or
“Renaissance” style—an imitation of the ancient Grecian and Roman
styles—won the day with all who knew anything of art. The Renaissance
style was brought to England by the painter Inigo Jones, who had learned
his art in Italy, and who, under James I., became in 1607 superintendent
general of royal constructions, and at the same time president of the
Freemasons, whose lodges he reformed. Instead of the yearly general
meetings he instituted quarterly meetings: such masons as adhered to the
manual craft and cared nothing for intellectual aims were permitted to
go back into the trade gilds; while, on the other hand, men of talent
not belonging to the mason’s trade, but who were interested in
architecture and in the aspirations of the time, were taken into the
lodges under the name of “accepted brethren.” Under the altered
circumstances a new, bold spirit awoke among the Freemasons, and it
found support in the sentiment of brotherliness, irrespective of creeds,
then everywhere prevalent. This disposition of minds was promoted in an
incalculable degree by the pictures drawn by Sir Thomas More in his
“Utopia,” and by Sir Francis Bacon in his “New Atlantis,” of countries
existing, indeed, only in their imagination, but which presented ideal
conditions, such as enlightened minds might desire to realize upon this
earth; also by the writings of the Bohemian preacher, Amos Komensky
(latinized Comenius), who, during the Thirty Years’ War was expelled
from his country by the partisans of the Emperor, and came to England in
1641—writings that condemned all churchly bigotry and pleaded for
cosmopolitanism. As men of the most diverse views, political and
religious, were in the lodges, the order suffered severely during the
civil commotions of the first and second revolution, but on the return
of peace it more than recovered lost prestige. The rebuilding of London,
and in particular St. Paul’s Cathedral (1662), added greatly to the fame
of English masonry: Sir Christopher Wren, builder of Saint Paul’s, was
of the brotherhood. But about the time of the death of William III.
(1702), owing to slackness of occupation in the building trades, the
Freemason lodges became conscious of a serious defect in their
organization. The members who were practically connected with the
operative craft of masonry were steadily declining in number, and the
“accepted” masons had become the majority. The lodges, therefore, had
come to be a sort of clubs, and this transformation spread rapidly in
London.