workers were divided into the labourers who cut the hard stones from the quarries (known as Rough Masons) and the skilled workmen who shaped the softer, more malleable rock known as free stone. These workers became known as Free Stone Masons, later shortened to Freemasons. A simpler explanation is that these Masons, freed from regular employment, were able to travel around the country looking for work, and thus were genuinely Free Masons.
by creating their own stonemasons’ trade guilds.
Part-educational college, part-fledgling trade union, these guilds were initially illegal and their members forced to convene in secret. Their dual goals were to train up future Master Masons in the skills of designing and erecting vast cathedrals, while at the same time zealously guarding the knowledge and tricks of the trade that enabled them to do so. To this end, members were given signs (passwords) and grips (handshakes) by which they could identify fellow Masons before sharing crucial information with them.
Furthermore, the guilds operated on a strictly hierarchical basis. Students admitted to the fraternity, who were often as young as twelve, were schooled both in theory and on the job by Master Masons. As these Masons continued their training they were allowed privileges along the way, such as the right to carve their own identifying ‘mark’ into some cathedral stones.
However, even the most gifted student was highly unlikely to become a Master Mason in less than ten years. Were he to divulge even the most minor trade secret to an outsider, he would be instantly banished from the guild and ostracized by all Master Masons.
As Church and State became aware of the existence of stonemasons’ guilds, there were attempts to legislate them out of existence. In 1360, King Edward III passed a law banning all secret Masonic pledges and societies, and sixty-five years later the Regency Government forbade Masons to gather in numbers in any circumstances. This law was soon deemed unworkable and was rarely applied.
The twelfth to fourteenth centuries saw Freemasons scale new heights of influence and importance. As Gothic cathedrals sprang up across Europe, their services were in sharp demand. Masons rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral along Gothic lines in 1174 after its eastern wing was destroyed by fire. However, Wells Cathedral, where construction work began in 1180, is generally regarded as the first major English cathedral built entirely in the Gothic style.
Westminster Abbey, York Minster, Ely Cathedral and Winchester Cathedral all had Gothic devices added to their existing edifices, and across the Channel in France imposing structures arose at Notre-Dame in Paris, Chartres, Amiens and Rouen. Unsurprisingly, the Catholic Church also built cathedrals nearer to home, in Milan, Florence and Siena, as well as across the Low Countries and Spain.
Yet despite their elevated social and occupational status, Freemasons were largely far from venal and self-serving. The stonemasons’ guilds may have been formed partly to protect their members’ business interests, but these bodies also strove to inculcate high standards of moral and personal behaviour amongst practitioners of the trade. Various rules, or ‘Charges’, urged Masons to render their own lives as noble and upright as the cathedrals they built—not a concern that you can imagine troubling the labour unions of today.
The Regius Manuscript
The Regius Manuscript is one of the most significant documents in Masonic history. Presented to the British Museum by King George II in 1757, it was written in 1390, possibly by a priest, although numerous clues within the text suggest that it was copied from even earlier documents, possibly dating from around 950-1000 AD. Entitled ‘A Poem of Moral Duties’, this 794-line loosely rhyming piece of verse summarized the professional, moral and philosophical levels of behaviour expected of Masons, as well as making some extravagant and fanciful historical claims.
The Regius Manuscript (also called the Halliwell Manuscript after James Halliwell, who translated it from the original Old English in 1840) opens with a Latin inscription: Hic incipiunt constitutiones artis gemetrioe secundum Euclydum. Translating as ‘Here begin the constitutions of geometry according to Euclid’, the motto shows the importance given to the science of geometry in Masonic theory and ritual: after all, these precise calculations enabled the building of their trademark towering cathedrals.
This elongated meditation on spirituality and Masonry (‘the most honest craft of all’) opens with the claim that Euclid, in addition to inventing geometry, was also the first Master Mason and had, indeed, founded the entire Craft in ancient Egypt. Scarcely missing a beat, the poem goes on to claim that Freemasonry was imported to England by King Athelstan, who instigated Masonic meetings and ‘loved this craft full well’.
The poem claims that King Athelstan called a vast meeting of Freemasons from the length of Britain, which was also attended by ‘Lords in their state / Dukes, earls and barons too’. This august assembly drew up the rules and strictures that
King Athelstan
The grandson of Alfred the Great, King Athelstan (895-939 AD) was the first king of all England. Taking York from the Danes, he also forced the surrender of King Constantine of Scotland, united Britain beneath his command and repelled all invasions. This otherwise little-celebrated historical figure occupies a crucial place in Masonic history.
The Regius Manuscript claims that King Athelstan was a keen supporter of Masonry and in 926 AD, one year after he came to the throne, called the very first Grand Lodge of Masons at York. Appointing his brother Edwin the Lodge Grand Master, he commanded it to convene annually thereafter, and also supported Freemasonry by commissioning a constant stream of new forts, castles and monasteries.
There is no doubt that Freemasonry’s York Rite takes its cue from the Regius Manuscript and the supposed 926 adYork Assembly. It is likely, however, that the document adds a few imaginative flourishes to the actual contribution to Masonry of King Athelstan.
were to govern the stonemasons’ guilds, dividing them into fifteen regulatory ‘articles’ and a further fifteen philosophical ‘points’, and looked to correct ‘defaults’ that Athelstan had noted in Masons’ work standards and general comportment.
The fifteen articles outline the basic requirements and responsibilities of a Master Mason. The first two explain that he should be honest (‘as a judge stand upright’), reliable, and pay his workmen fairly and on time. He should also attend every meeting of his chapter of Masons, unless ‘sickness hath him so strong / That he may not come them among’.
The majority of the articles thereafter deal with the relationship between the Master Mason and the Fellows of the Craft and Entered Apprentices beneath his command. The Mason should ensure that every apprentice is willing and able to study for seven years. He should not recruit a servant, lest his owner should remove him from service of the Craft, nor should he hire or initiate an apprentice who is ‘deformed’ or ‘maimed’ (in 1390, the more politically correct phrase ‘physically challenged’ clearly had yet to enter the lexicon).
The articles further inform the Mason not to recruit thieves, and swiftly to replace any Entered Apprentices who fall short of the Craft’s high standards. The Master Mason should not accept commissions that he knows he cannot fulfil, nor steal work from a fellow Mason. Nor should he withhold any trade secrets from his apprentices, but rather ensure that he ‘the craft ably may know / Wheresoever he go under the sun’.
The Regius Manuscript’s fifteen ‘points’ are of a more general nature, urging the Masons towards serene and contemplative behaviour. The Mason must ‘love God and holy church always / and his master also’, be discreet, treat all men equally and receive his pay and
