History of Freemasonry

[Marulus]

Albert G. Mackey

PREHISTORIC MASONRY

CHAPTER I TRADITION AND HISTORY IN MASONRY

IN the study of Freemasonry there are two kinds of statements which are presented to the mind of the inquiring scholar, which are sometimes concurrent, but much oftener conflicting, in their character.

These are the historical and the traditional, each of which appertains to Freemasonry as we may consider it in a different aspect.

The historical statement relates to the Institution as we look at it from an exoteric or public point of view; the traditional refers only to its esoteric or secret character.

So long as its traditional legends are confined to the ritual of the Order, they are not appropriate subjects of historical inquiry. They have been invented by the makers of the rituals for symbolic purposes connected with the forms of initiation. Out of these myths of Speculative Masonry its philosophy has been developed; and, as they are really to be considered as merely the expansion of a philosophic or speculative idea, they can not properly be posited in the category of historical narratives.

But in the published works of those who have written on the origin and progress of Masonry, from its beginning to the present time, the legendary or traditional has too much been mingled with the historical element. The effect of this course has been, on adversely prejudiced minds, to weaken all claims of the Institution to an historical existence. The doctrine of "false in one thing, false in all," has been rigidly applied, and those statements of the Masonic historian which are really authentic have been doubted or rejected, because in other portions of his narrative he has been too credulous.

Borrowing the technical language of archoeology, I should say that the history of Masonry 1may be divided into two periods - prehistoric and the historic. The former is traditional, the latter documentary. Each of these divisions must, in any historical inquiry, be clearly defined. There is also another division, into esoteric and exoteric history. The first is exclusively within the arcana of the Order, and can not, as I have said, be the subject of historical investigation. The second properly comes within the sphere of historical study, and is subjected to all the laws of historical criticism.

When we are treating of Freemasonry as one of the social organizations of the world - as one of those institutions which are the results of civilization, and which have sprung up in the progress of society; and, finally, when we are considering what are the influences that the varying conditions of that society have produced upon it, and what influences it has reciprocally produced upon these varying conditions - we are then engaged in the solution of a historical problem, and we must pursue the inquiry in a historical method and not otherwise. We must discard all speculation, because history deals only with facts.

If we were treating the history of a nation, we should assert nothing of it as historical that could not be traced to and be verified by its written records. All that is conjectured of the events that may have occurred in the earlier period of such a nation, of which there is no record in contemporaneous or immediately subsequent times, is properly thrown into the dim era of the prehistoric ago It forms no part of the authentic history of the nation, and can be dignified, at its highest value, with the title of historical speculation only, which claims no other credence than that which its plausibility or its probability commands.

Now, the possibility or the probability that a certain event may have occurred in the early days of a nation's existence, but of which event there is no record, will be great or little, as dependent on certain other events which bear upon it, and which come within the era of its records. The event may have been possible, but not probable, and then but very little or no importance would be im-

1in the progress of this work I shall use the terms Masonry and Freemasonry without discrimination, except on special, and at the time specified, occasions.

puted to it, and it would at once be relegated to the category of myths. Or it may have been both possible and highly probable, and we may be then permitted to speculate upon it as something that had exerted an influence upon the primitive character or the subsequent progress of the nation. But, even then, it would not altogether lose its mythical character. Whatever we might predicate of it would only be a plausible speculation. It would not be history, for that deals not in what may have been, but only in that which actually has been.

The progress in these latter days of what are called the exact sciences has led, by the force of example and analogy, to a more critical examination of the facts, or, rather, the so-called facts, of history.
Voltaire said, in his Life of Charles XII of Sweden that "incredulity is the foundation of history." Years passed before the axiom in all its force was accepted by the learned. But at length it has been adopted as the rule of all historical criticism. To be credulous is now to be unphilosophical, and scholars accept nothing as history that can not be demonstrated with almost mathematical certainty.

Niebuhr began by shattering all faith in the story of Rhea Sylvia, of Romulus and Remus, and of the maternal wolf, which, with many other incidents of the early Roman annals, were consigned by him to the region of the mythical.

In later times, the patriotic heart of Switzerland has been made to mourn by the discovery that the story of William Tell, and of the apple which he shot from the head of his son, is nothing but a medioeval fable which was to be found in a great many other countries, and the circumstances of which, everywhere varying in details, still point to a common origin in some early symbolic myth.

It is thus that many narratives, once accepted as veracious, have been, by careful criticism, eliminated from the domain of history; and such works as Goldsmith's Histories of Greece ana Rome are no longer deemed fitting text-books for schools, where nothing but truth should be taught.

The same rules of critical analysis which are pursued in the separation of what is true from what is false in the history of a nation should be applied to the determination of the character of all statements in Masonic history. This course, however, has, unhappily, not been generally pursued. Many of its legends are unquestionably founded, as I shall endeavor hereafter to show, on a historical basis; but quite as many, if not more, are made up out of a mixture of truth and fiction, the distinctive boundaries of which it is difficult to define; while a still greater number are altogether mythical, with no appreciable element of truth in their composition. And yet for nearly two centuries, all of these three classes of Masonic legendary lore have been accepted by the great body of the Fraternity, without any discrimination, as faithful narratives of undoubted truthfulness.

It is this liberal acceptation of the false for the true, and this ready recognition of fables as authentic nauatives whereby imaginative writers have been encouraged to plunge into the realms of absurdity instead of confining themselves to the domain of legitimate history, that have cast an air of romance over all that has hitherto been written about Freemasonry. Unjustly, but very naturally, scholars have been inclined to reject all our legends in every part as fabulous, because they found in some the elements of fiction.

But, on the other hand, the absurdities of legend-makers, and the credulity of legend-readers, have, by a healthy reaction, given rise to a school of iconoclasts (to whom there will soon be occasion to refer), which sprang up from a laudable desire to conform the principles of criticism which are to govern all investigations into Masonic history to the rules which control profane writers in the examination of the history of nations.

As examples of the legends of Masonry which have tempted the credulity of many and excited the skepticism of others, those almost universally accepted legends may be cited which attribute the organization of Freemasonry in its present form to the era of King Solomon's temple - the story of Prince Edwin and the Grand Lodge congregated by him at the city of York in the 10th century - and the theory that the three symbolic degrees were instituted as Masonic grades at a period very long anterior to the beginning of the 18th century.

These statements, still believed in by all Masons who have not made the history of the Order an especial study, were, until recently, received by prominent scholars as veracious narratives. Even Dr. Oliver, one of the most learned as well as the most prolific of Masonic authors, has, in his numerous works, recognized them as historic truths without a word of protest or a sign of doubt, except, perhaps, with reference to the third legend above mentioned, of which he says, with a cautious qualification, that he has "some doubts whether the Master's degree, as now given, can be traced three centuries backwards." 1

But now comes a new school of Masonic students, to whom, borrowing a word formerly used in the history of religious strifes, has been given the name of "iconoclasts." The word is a good one. The old iconoclasts, or image-breakers of the 8th century, demolished the images and defaced the pictures which they found in the churches, induced by erroneous but conscientious views, because they thought that the people were mistaking the shadow for the substance, and were worshipping the image or the picture instead of the Divine Being whom it represented.

And so these Masonic iconoclasts, with better views, are proceeding to destroy, by hard, incisive criticism, the intellectual images which the old, unlettered Masons had constructed for their veneration. They are pulling to pieces the myths and legends, whose fallacies and absurdities had so long cast a cloud upon what ought to be the clear sky of Masonic history. But they have tempered their zeal with a knowledge and a moderation that were unknown to the iconoclasts of religion. These shattered the images and scattered the fragments to the four winds of heaven, or they burnt the picture so that not even a remnant of the canvas was left. Whatever there was of beauty in the work of the sculptor or painter was forever destroyed. Every sentiment of zesthetic art was overcome by the virulence of religious fanaticism. Had the destructive labors of these iconoclasts been universal and long continued, no foundation would have been left for building that science of Christian symbolism, which in this day has been so interesting and so instructive to the archoeologist. 2

Not so have the Masonic iconoclasts performed their task of critical reformation. They have shattered nothing; they have destroyed nothing. When in the course of their investigations into true Masonic history, they encounter a myth or a legend, replete, ap-

1"Dissertation on the State of Masonry in the Eighteenth Century." 2Thus the Emperor Leo, the Isaurian, caused all images and pictures to be removed from the churches and publicly burnt - an act of vandalism not surpassed by that Saracen despot who (if the story be true) ruthlessly committed the books of the Alexandrian library to the flames as fuel for the public baths.

parently, with absurdities or contradictions, they do not consign it to oblivion as something unworthy of consideration, but they dissect it into its various parts; they analyze it with critical acumen; they separate the chaff from the wheat; they accept the portion that is confirmed by other and collateral testimony as a legitimate contribution to history; what is undoubtedly fictitious they receive as a myth, and either reject it altogether as an unmeaning addition to a legend, or give it an interpretation as the expression of some symbolic idea which is itself of value in a historical point of view.

That lamented archaeologist, Mr. George Smith, late of the British Museum, in speaking of the cuneiform inscriptions excavated in Mesopotamia, and the legends which they have preserved of the old Babylonian empire, said: 1"With regard to the supernatural element introduced into the story, it is similar in nature to many such additions to historical narratives, especially in the East; but I would not reject those events which may have happened, because, in order to illustrate a current belief, or add to the romance of the story, the writer has introduced the supernatural."

It is on this very principle that the iconoclastic Masonic writers, such as Hughan and Woodford, are pursuing their researches into the early history of Freemasonry. They do not reject those events related in the old legends, which have certainly happened, because in them they find also mythical narratives. They do not yield to the tendency which George Smith says is now too general, "to repudiate the earlier part of history, because of its evident inaccuracies and the marvelous element generally combined with it." 2It is in this way, and in this way only, that early Masonic history can be rightly written. Made up, as it has been for centuries past, of a commingled tissue of historical narrative and legendary invention, it has been heretofore read without judicious discrimination. Either the traditional account has been wholly accepted as historical, or it has been wholly rejected as fabulous, and thus, in either case, numerous errors have been the consequence.

As an example of the error which inevitably results from pursuing either of these methods of interpretation, one of which may be distinguished as the school of gross credulity, and the other as that of great skepticism, let us take the legend of the Temple origin of

1Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 302. 2Ibidem.

Masonry - that is to say, the legend which places the organization of the Institution at the time of the building of the temple at Jerusalem.
Now, the former of these schools implicitly receives the whole legend as true in all its details, and recognizes King Solomon as the first Grand Master, with Hiram of Tyre and Hiram as his Wardens, who, with him, presided over the Craft, divided into three degrees, the initiation into which was the same as that practiced in the lodges of the present day, or at least not very unlike it.

Thus Dr. Anderson, who was the first to publicly promulgate this legend and the theory founded on it, says, in the second edition of his "Constitutions," that Hiram Abif, "in Solomon's absence, filled the chair as Deputy Grand Master, and, in his presence, was the Senior Grand Warden"; 1and, again, that "Solomon partitioned the Fellow Crafts into certain lodges, with a Master and Wardens in each"; 2and, lastly, that "Solomon was Grand Master of all Masons at Jerusalem. King Hiram was Grand Master at Tyre, and Hiram Abif had been Master of Work." 3 The modern rituals have made some change in these details, but we evidently see here the original source of the legend as it is now generally believed by the Fraternity.

Indeed, so firmly convinced of its truth are the believers in this legend, that the brand of heterodoxy is placed by them on all who deny or doubt it.

On the contrary, the disciples of the latter school, whose skepticism is as excessive as is the credulity of the former, reject as fabulous everything that tends to connect Freemasonry with the Solomonic temple. To the King of Israel they refuse all honor, and they contemptuously repudiate the theory that he was a Masonic dignitary, or even a Freemason at all. One of these Pyrrhonists has gone so far as to defile the memorpy of the Jewish monarch with unnecessary and unmerited abuse.

Between these two parties, each of which is misdirected by an intemperate zeal, come the iconoclasts - impartial inquirers, who calmly and dispassionately seek for truth only. These disavow, it is true, the authenticity of the Temple legend in its present form. They deny that there is any proof which a historian could, by applying the just canons of criticism, admit as competent evidence, that Freemasonry was organized at the building of the temple of Solomon,

1Anderson, "Constitutions," 2d ed., chap. iii., p. 12. 2Ibid., p. 13 3 Ibid., p. 15

and hence they look for its origin at some other period and under different circumstances.

But they do not reject the myth connected with the temple as being wholly unworthy of consideration. On the contrary, they respect this legend as having a symbolic significance, whose value can not be overestimated. They trace its rise in the Old Constitutions; they find it plainly alluded to in the Legend of the Craft; and they follow it in its full development in the modern rituals. They thus recognize the influence that the story of the temple and its builders has exerted on the internal construction of the Order, and hence they feel no disposition to treat it, notwithstanding its historical inaccuracy, with contumely.

Knowing what an important part the legends and symbols of Freemasonry have performed in the progress of the Institution, and how much its philosophic system is indebted to them for all that is peculiar to itself, they devote their literary energies, not to the expurgation of this or any other myth or legend, but to the investigation of the questions how and when it arose, and what is its real significance as a symbol, or what foundation as a narrative it may have in history. And thus they are enabled to add important items to the mass of true Masonic history which they have been accumulating.

In short, the theory of the iconoclastic school is that truth and authenticity must always, and in the first place, be sought; that nothing must be accepted as historical which has not the internal and external evidences of historical verity, and that in treating the legends of Masonry - of almost every one of which it may be said, "Se non vero, e ben trovato" - if it is not true, it is well invented - we are not to reject them as altogether fabulous, but as having some hidden and occult meaning, which, as in the case of all other symbols, we must diligently scek to discover. But if it be found that the legend has no symbolic significance, but is simply the distortion of a historical fact, we must carefully eliminate the fabulous increment, and leave the body of truth to which it had been added, to have its just value.

Such was the method pursued by the philosophers of antiquity; and Plato, Anaxagoras, and Cicero explained the absurdities of the ancient mythologists by an allegorical mode of interpretation.

To this school I have for years been strongly attached, and in the composition of this work I shall adopt its principles. I do not fear that the claims of Freemasonry to a time-honored existence will be injured by any historical criticism, although the era in which it had its birth may not be admitted to be as remote as that assigned to it by Anderson or Oliver.
Iconoclastic criticism can not depreciate, but will rather elevate, the character of the Institution. It will relieve it of absurdities, will often explain the cause of anachronisms, will purify the fabulous element, and confine it within the strict domain of history.

It was a comnmon reproach against the great Niebuhr that he had overthrown the whole fabric of early Roman history, and yet Dr. Arnold, the most competent of critics, has said of him that he had built up much more than he had destroyed, and fixed much that modern skepticism had rejected as fabulous on firmer historic grounds.

Following such a method as that pursued by the most learned of modern historians, it will be necessary, for a faithful and comprehensible investigation of the history of Masonry, to discriminate between the two periods into which it is naturally divided, The PREHISTORIC and The HISTORIC.

The HISTORIC embraces the period within which we have authentic documents in reference to the existence of the Order, and will be considered in the second part of this book.

The PREHISTORIC embraces the period within which we have no authentic memorials, and when we have to depend wholly on legends and traditions.
The legendary history of Masonry will, therefore, be commenced in the next chapter.

[source]

[Marulus]

CHAPTER II

THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY

IN the history of every ancient nation there is a prehistoric and a historic period.

The prehistoric period is that which has no records to prove the truth of the events that have been attributed to it. It is made up of myths and legends, founded - some of them, in all probability - on a distortion of historical facts, and some of them indebted entirely to imagination for their invention.

The historic period is that which begins with the narration of events which are supported by documents, either contemporary with the events or so recently posterior to them as to have nearly all the validity of contemporary evidence.

Just such a division of periods as this we find in the history of Freemasonry.

The prehistoric period, more commonly styled the legendary history, embraces the supposed history of the rise and progress of the Institution in remote times, and details events said to have occurred, but which have no proof of their occurrence other than that of oral tradition, unsupported by that sort of documentary evidence which is essentially necessary to give a reliable character to an historical statement.

The historic period of Freemasonry commences with the time when written or printed records furnish the necessary testimony that the events narrated did actually occur.

In treating of the history of nations, scholars have found great difficulty in precisely defining the point of separation between the prehistoric and the historic periods. As in natural history, it is almost impossible to define the exact line of demarkation between any two consecutive classes of the kingdoms of nature so as to distinguish the highest species of a vegetable from the lowest of an animal organization, so in political history it is difficult to tell when the prehistoric period ends and the historic begins.
In Freemasonry we meet with the same embarrassment, and this embarrassment is increased according; to the different standpoints from which we view the institution.

If we adopt the theory (as has been done by a few writers too iconoclastic in their views) that Speculative Masonry never was anything but that which its present organization presents, with Grand Lodges, Grand Masters, and a ritual of distinct degrees, then we are compelled to place the commencement of the historic era at that period which has been called the Revival in the second decade of the 18th century.
If, with more liberal views, we entertain the opinion that Speculative Masonry was founded on, and is the offspring of, the Operative system of the Stonemasons, then we must extend our researches to at least the Middle Ages, where we shall find abundant documentary evidence of the existence and character of the Operative parent to which the Freemasonry of the present day, by a well-marked transition, has succeeded.

Connecting the written history of the Operative Masons with that of its speculative offshoot, we have an authentic and continuous history that will carry us back to a period many centuries anterior to the time of the so-called Revival in the year 1717.

If I were writing a history of Speculative Masonry merely, I should find myself restricted to an era, somewhere in the 17th century, when there is documentary evidence to show that the transition period began, and when the speculative obtruded into the Operative system.

But as I am really writing a history of Freemasonry, of which the Operative and the Speculative systems are divisions, intimately connected, I am constrained to go farther, and to investigate the rise and the progress of the Operative art as the precursor and the founder of the Speculative science.

The authentic details of the condition of Operative Masonry in the Middle Ages, of its connection, if it had any, with other organizations, and its transmutation at a later period into Speculative Masonry, will constitute the historic narrative of Freemasonry.

Its prehistoric narrative will be found in the myths and legends which were, unfortunately, for a long time accepted by the great body of the Craft as a true history, but which, though still credited by many, are yet placed by most modern Masonic scholars in their proper category.

These legends, some of which are preserved in the rituals, and some are becoming almost obsolete, have a common foundation in that traditional narrative which is known as the Legend of the Craft, 1and which must first be understood before we can with satisfaction attempt to study the legendary history of the Institution.

But this legend is of such length and of so much importance that it demands for its consideration a separate and distinct chapter.

I, by no means, intend to advance the proposition that all the myths and legends now taught in the Lodges, or preserved in the works of Masonic writers, are to be found in the Legend of the Craft, but only the most important - those that are still recognized by the more credulous portion of the Fraternity as genuine and authentic narratives - receive their first notice in the Legend of the Craft, although they are indebted for their present, fuller form, to a development or enlargement, subsequently made in the course of the construction of the modern ritual.

1The Rev. Bro. Woodford calls it the "Legend of the Guild." But I prefer the title here used, because it does not lead to embarrassing questions as to the relation of the mediaeval Guilds to Freemasonry.

[source]

[Marulus]

CHAPTER III

THE OLD MANUSCRIPTS

ANDERSON tells us, in the second edition of the Book of Constitutions, that in the year 1719, "at some private Lodges several very valuable manuscripts concerning the Fraternity, their Lodges, Regulations, Charges, Secrets, and Usages, were too hastily burnt by some scrupulous Brothers, that these papers might not fall into strange hands." 1

Fortunately, this destruction was not universal. The manuscripts to which Anderson alludes were undoubtedly those Old Constitutions of the Operative Masons, several copies of which, that had escaped the holocaust described by him, have since been discovered in the British Museum, in old libraries, or in the archives of Lodges, and have been published by those who have discovered them. 2

These are the documents which have received the title of "Old Records," "Old Charges," or "Old Constitutions." Their general character is the same. Indeed, there is so much similarity, and almost identity, in their contents as to warrant the presumption that they are copies of some earlier document not yet recovered.

The earliest of these documents is a manuscript poem, entitled the Constitutiones artis geometriae, secundum Eucleydem, which is preserved in the British Museum, and which was published in 1840 by Mr. Halliwell, in his Early History of Freemasonry in England. The date of this manuscript is supposed to be about the year 1390. A second and enlarged edition was published in 1844.

The next of the English manuscripts is that which was published

1Anderson's " Constitutions," 1738, P. 111 2Among these writers we must not omit to mention Bro. William James Hughan, facile princeps of all Masonic antiquarians, who made, in 1872, a valuable contribution to this literature, under the title of "The Old Charges of the British Freemasons," the value of which is enhanced by the learned Preface of Bro. A.F.A. Woodford.

in 1861 by Bro. Matthew Cooke from the original in the British Museum, and which was once the property of Mrs. Caroline Baker, from whom it was purchased in 1859 by the Curators of the Museum. The date of this manuscript is supposed to be about 1490.

All the English Masonic antiquarians concur in the opinion that this manuscript is next in antiquity to the Halliwell poem, though there is a difference of about one hundred years in their respective dates. It is, however, mere guesswork to say that there were not other manuscripts in the intervening period. But as none have been discovered, they must be considered as non-existent, and it is impossible even to conjecture, from any groundwork on which we can stand, whether, if such manuscripts did ever exist, they partook more of the features of the Halliwell or of the Cooke document, or whether they presented the form of a gradual transmission from the one to the other.

The Cooke MS. is far more elaborate in its arrangement and its details than the Halliwell, and contains the Legend of the Craft in a more extended form.

In the absence of any other earlier document of the same kind, it must be considered as the matrix, as it were, in which that Legend, in the form in which it appears in all the later manuscripts, was moulded.

In the year 1815, Mr. James Dowland published, in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1the copy of an old manuscript which had lately come into his possession, and which he described as being "written on a long roll of parchment, in a very clear hand, apparently early in the 17th century, and very probably is copied from a manuscript of an earlier date." Although not as old as the Halliwell and Cooke MSS., it is deemed of very great value, because it comes next to them in date, and is apparently the first of that series of later manuscripts, so many of which have, within the past few years, been recovered. It is evidently based on the Cooke MS., though not an exact copy of it. But the later manuscripts comprising that series, at the head of which it stands, so much resemble it in details, and even in phraseology, that they must either have been copies made from it, or, what is far more probable, copies of some older and common original, of which it also is a copy.

1Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 85, P. 489, May, 1815.

The original manuscript which was used by Dowland for the publication in the Gentleman's Magazine is lost, or can not now be found. But Mr. Woodford and other competent authorities ascribe the year 1550 as being about its date.

Several other manuscript Constitutions, whose dates vary from the middle of the 16th to the beginning of the 18th century, have since been discovered and published, principally by the industrious labors of Brothers Hughan and Woodford in England, and Brother Lyon in Scotland.
The following list gives the titles and conjectural dates of the most important of these manuscripts: 1
Halliwell MS............. supposed, 1390. Cooke MS................. " 1490. Dowland MS. ............. " 1500. Landsdowne MS............ " 1560. York MS., No. 1.......... " 1600. Harleian MS., NO. 2054... " 1625. Grand Lodge MS........... " 1632. Sloane MS., NO. 3848..... certain, 1646. Sloane MS., NO. 3323..... " 1659. Harleian MS., No. 1942... supposed, 1660. Aitcheson-Haven MS. ..... certain, 1666. Edinburgh-Kilwinning MS.. supposed, 1670. York MS., No. 5 ......... " 1670. York MS., No. 6.......... " 1680. Lodge of Antiquity MS.... certain, 1686. York MS., No. 2.......... " 1693. Alnwick MS............... " 1701. York MS., No. 4.......... " 1704. Papworth MS.............. supposed, 1714.
All of these manuscripts begin, except the Halliwell poem, with an invocation to the Trinity. Then follows a descant on the seven liberal arts and sciences, of which the fifth, or Geometry, is said to be Masonry. This is succeeded by a traditional history of Masonry, from the days of Lamech to the reign of King Athelstan of England. The manuscripts conclude with a series of "charges," or regulations, for the government of the Craft while they were of a purely operative character. 1I have relied on the excellent authority of Rev. A.F.A. Woodford for the dates. See Hoghan's "Old Charges of the British Freemasons," p. xii.

The traditional history which constitutes the first part of these "Old Records" is replete with historical inaccuracies, with anachronisms, and even with absurdities. And yet it is valuable, because it forms the germ of that system of Masonic history which was afterward developed by such writers as Anderson, Preston, and Oliver, and from whose errors the iconoclasts of the present day are successfully striving to free the Institution, so as to give its history a more rational and methodic form.
This traditional history is presented to us in all the manuscripts, in an identity of form, or, at least, with very slight verbal differences. These differences are, indeed, so slight that they suggest the strong probability of a common source for all these documents, either in the oral teaching of the older Masons, or in some earlier record that has not yet been recovered. The tradition seems always to have secured the unhesitating belief of the Fraternity as a true relation of the origin and the progress of Masonry, and hence it has received the title of the Legend of the Craft.
From the zealous care with which many manuscripts containing this legend were destroyed in 1719 by "scrupulous brothers" who were opposed to its publication, we might believe that it formed a part of the esoteric instructions of the Guild of Operative Masons. If so, it lost this secret character by the publication of Roberts's edition of the "Constitutions" in 1722.

In the earlier German and French Masonic records, such as the Ordenung dey Steinmetzen at Strasburg in 1462, and the Reglements sur les Arts et Metiers at Paris in the 12th century, there is no appearance of this legend. But it does not follow from this that no such legend existed among the French and German Masons. Indeed, as it is well known that early English Operative Masonry was derived from the continent, it is natural to suppose that the continental Masons brought the legend into England.
There is, besides, internal evidence in the English manuscripts of both French and German interpolations. The reference in the Legend to Charles Martel connects it with the French Masonry of the 12th century, and the invocation to the "Four Crowned Martyrs" 1in the Halliwell MS. is undoubtedly of German origin. 2

1Die heiligen Vier gekronten, "Ordenung der Steinmetz, zu Strasburg, 1459," and in all the other German Constitutions, 2Findel thinks that this invocation to the Four Crowned Martyrs " must be regarded as a most decided proof of the identity of the German and English Stonemasons, and of their having one common parentage." ("Geschichte der Frei Maurerei." Lyon's translation, p. 31.) Woodford does not concur with this view, but I think without good reason.

The importance of this Legend in the influence that it exerted for a long period on the Craft as the accredited history of the Institution makes it indispensably necessary that it should form a part of any work that professes to treat of the history of Masonry.

For this purpose I have selected the Dowland MS., because it is admitted to be the oldest of those that assumed that general form which was followed in all the subsequent manuscripts, between which and it there is no substantial difference.

[source]

[Marulus]

CHAPTER IV

THE LEGEND OF THE CRAFT

THE might of the Father of Kings, 1with the wisdome of his glorious Son, through the grace of the goodness of the Holy Ghost, there bene three persons in one Godheade, be with us at our beginninge, and give us grace so to governe us here in this mortall life liveinge, that we may come to his kingdome that never shall have endinje. Amen.

"Good Bretheren and Followes: Our purpose is to tell you how and in what manner this worthy science of Masonrye was begunne, and afterwards how it was favoured by worthy Kings and Princes, and by many other worshippfull men. And also to those that be willings, wee will declare the charge that belongeth to any true Mason to keepe for in good faith. And yee have good heede thereto; it is well worthy to be well kept for a worthy craft and a curious science.

"For there be Seaven liberall Sciences, of the which seaven it is one of them. And the names of the Seaven Seyences bene these: First is Grammere, and it teacheth man to speake truly and write truly. And the second is Rhethoricke; and teacheth a man to speake faire in subtill termes. And the third is Dialectyke; and teacheth a man for to discern or know truth from false. And the fourth is Arithmeticke; and that teacheth a man for to recken and to accompte all manner of numbers. And the fifth is called Geometrie; and that teacheth mett and measure of earth and of all other things; of the which science is called Masonrye. And the sixth science is called Musicke; and that teacheth a man of songe and voice, of tongue and orgaine, harpe and trompe. And the seaventh science is called Ashonomye; and that teacheth a man the course of

1In the Landsdowne, and most of the other MSS., the formula is "the Father of the Heavens," or "of Heaven."

the sunn, moone and starts. These be the Seaven liberall Sciences, the which bene all founded by one Science, that is to say Geometric. And this may a man prove, that the science of the work is founded by Geometric, for Geometrie teacheth a man mett and measure, ponderation and weight, of all manner of things on earth, for there is no man that worketh any science, but he worketh by some mett or measure, nor no man that buyeth or selleth, but he buyeth or selleth by some measure or by some weight, and all these is Geometric. And these use merchants and all craftsmen, and all other of the Seaven Sciences, and in especiall the plowman and tillers of all manner of grounds, graynes, vynes, flowers and setters of other fruits; for Grammere or Retricke, neither Astronomie nor none of all the other Seaven Sciences can no manner find mett nor measure without Geometric. Wherefore methinketh that the science of Geometrie is most worthy, and that findeth 1all other.

"How that these worthy Sciences were first begunne, I shall you tell. Before Noye's flood, there was a man called Lameche, as it is written in the Byble in the iiijth chapter of Genesis; and this Lameche had two wives, and the one height Ada, and that other height Sella; by his first wife Ada he gott two sons, and that one Jabell and thother Tuball, and by that other wife Sella he got a son and a daughter. And these four children founden the beginning of all sciences in the world. And this elder son Jabell found the science of Geometric, and he departed flocks of sheep and lambs in the field, and first wrought house of stone and tree, 2as is noted in the chapter above said. And his brother Tuball found the science of musicke, songe of tonge, harp and orgaine. And the third brother, Tuball Cain, found smithcraft of gold, silver, copper, iron and steele; and the daughter found the craft of Weavinge. And these children knew well that God would take vengeance for synn, either by fire or by water; wherefore they writt their science that they had found in two pillars of stone, that they might be found after Noye's flood. And that one stone was marble, for that would not burn with fire; and

1Used in its primitive Anglo-Saxon meaning of "to invent, to devise." Geometry invented or devised all the other sciences. 2This is an instance of the inaccuracy of these old records in historical lore. So far from Jabal being the first who "wrought house of stone and tree," he was the originator of the nomadic life, in which such buildings are never used. He invented tents, made most probably of skins, to be the temporary residence of a pastoral people, led by the exigency of a want of food to remove their flocks from time to time to new pastures.

that other stone was clepped laterns, 1and would not drown in noe water.
"Our intent is to tell you trulie how and in what manner these stones were found that these sciences were written in. The great Hermarynes, that was Cuby's son, the which Cub was Sem's son, that was Noy's son. This Hermarynes afterwards was called Harmes, the father of wise men; he found one of the two pillars of stone, and found the science written there, and he taught it to other men. And at the making of the Tower of Babylon there was Masonrye first made much of. And the Kinge of Babylon that height Nemrothe, 2was a mason himself; and loved well the science, and it is said with masters of histories. And when the City of Nyneve and other cities of the East should be made, Nemrothe, the King of Babylon, sent thither three score Masons at the rogation of the King of Nyneve, his cosen. And when he sent them forth, he gave them a charge on this manner. That they should be true each of them to other, and that they should love truly together, and that they should serve their lord truly for their pay; soe that the master may have worshipp and all that long to him. And other moe charges he gave them. And this was the first time that ever Masons had any charge of his science.

"Moreover when Abraham and Sara his wife went into Egipt, there he taught the Seaven Sciences to the Egiptians; and he had a worthy scoller that height Ewclyde, 3 and he learned right well and was a master of all the vij Sciences liberall. And in his days it befell that the lord and the estates of the realme had soe many sonns that they had gotten, some by their wives and some by other ladyes of the realme; for that land is a hott land and a plentious of generacion. And they had not competent livelode to find with their children, wherefor they made much care, and then the king of the land made a great Counsell and a Parliament, to witt, how they might find their children honestly as gentlemen; and they could find no manner of good way. And then they did crye through all the realme, if there were any man that informe them, that he should come to them, and he should be soe rewarded for his travail, that he should hold him pleased.
1This word is a corruption of the Latin "later," brick. 2Nimrod. 3 Bro. Matthew Cooke, in his Notes to the MS. which he was the first to publish, and which thence bears his name, protests against being held responsible for the chronology which makes Abraham and Euclid contemporaries. It will hereafter be seen that this legend of Euclid is merely a symbol.
"After that this crye was made, then came this worthy clarke Ewclyde and said to the king and all his great lords, 'If yee will take me your children to governe, and to teach them one of the Seaven Scyences, wherewith they may live honestly as gentlemen should, under a condition, that yee will grant me and them a commission that I may have power to rule them after the manner that the science ought to be ruled.' And that the kinge and all his Counsell granted to him anone and sealed their commission. And then this worthy Doctor tooke to him these lord's sonns, and taught theat the scyence of Geometrie in practice, for to work in stones all manner of worthy worke that belongeth to buildinge churches, temples, castells, towres, and mannors, and all other manner of buildings; and he gave them a charge in this manner.

"The first was that they should be true to the Kynge, and to the Lord that they owe. And that they should love well together and be true each one to other. And that they should call each other his fellowe or else brother and not by servant nor his knave, nor none other foul name. And that they should deserve their pale of the lord or of the master that they serve. And that they should ordaine the wisest of them to be master of the worke and nether for love nor great lynneage, ne riches ne for no favour to lett another that hath little conning for to be master of the lord's worke, wherethrough the lord should be evill served and they ashamed. And also that they should call their governors of the worke, Master, in the time that they worke with him. And other many moe charges that longe to tell. And to all these charges he made them to sweare a great oath that men used in that time; and ordayned them for reasonable wages, that they might live honestly by. And also that they should come and semble together every yeare once, how they might worke best to serve the lord for his profitt and to their own worshipp; and to correct within themselves him that had trespassed against the science. And thus was the seyence grounded there; and that worthy Mr. Ewclyde gave it the name of Geometrie. And now it is called through all this land, Masonrys.

"Sythen longe after, 1when the children of Israell were coming into the land of Beheast, 2that is now called amongst us, the country of
1Since then long after-long after that time. 2The Land of Promise, or the Promised Land. "Beheste Promissio," says the Promptorium Parvulorum.
Jhrlm. Kinge David began the Temple that they called Templum D'ni, and it is named with us the Temple of Jerusalem. And the same Kinge David loved Masons well and cherished them much, and gave them good pale. And he gave the charges and the manners as he had learned of Egipt given by Ewclyde, and other charges moe that ye shall heare afterward. And after the decease of Kinge David, Solomon, that was David's sonn, performed out the Temple that his father begonne; and sent after Masons into divers countries and of divers lands; and gathered them together, so that he had fourscore thousand workers of stone, and were all named Masons. And he chose out of them three thousand that were ordayned to be masters and governors of his worke. And furthermore there was a Kinge of another region that men called Iram, 1and he loved well Kinge Solomon and he gave him tymber to his worke. And he had a sonn that height Aynon, 2and he was a Master of Geometric, and was chief Master of all his Masons, and was Master of all his gravings and carvinge, and of all manner of Masonrye that longed to the Temple; and this is witnessed by the Bible, in libro Regum, the third chapter. And this Solomon confirmed both charges and the manners that his father had given to Masons. And thus was that worthy Science of Masonrye confirmed in the country of Jerusalem, and in many other kingdoms.

"Curious craftsmen walked about full wide into divers countryes, some because of learning more craft and cunning, and some to teach them that had but little cunnynge. And soe it befell that there was one curious Mason that height Maymus Grecus,' that had been at the making of Solomon's Temple, and he came into France, and there he taught the science of Masonrye to men of France. And there was one of the Regal line of France that height Charles Martell; 4 and he was a man that loved well such a science, and drew to this Maymus Grecus that is above-said, and learned of him the science, and tooke upon him the charges and manners; and afterwards by the

1It is scarcely necessary to explain that this is meant for Hiram. 2The true origin and meaning of this name, for which some of the modern Speculative Masons have substituted Hiram, Abiff, and others Adoniram, will be hereafter discussed. 3 This name has been a Sphinxian enigma which many a Masonic CEdipos has failed to solve. I shall recur to it in a subsequent page. 4 The introduction of this monarch into the Legend leads us to an inquiry into an interesting period of French Masonic history that will be hereafter discussed.

grace of God, he was elect to be Kinge of Fraunce. And when he was in his estate, he tooke Masons, and did helpe to make men Masons that were none; and set them to worke, and gave them both the charge and the manners and good pale, as he had learned of other Masons; and confirmed them a charter from yeare to yeare, to hold their semble when they would; and cherished them right much; and thus came this science into Fraunce.

"England in all this season stood voyd, as for any charge of Masonrye unto St Adbones 1tyme. And in his days the King of England that was a Pagan, he did wall the towne about, that is called Sainct Albones. And Sainct Albones was a worthy Knight and stewart with the Kinge of his household, and had governance of the realme, and also of the makinge of the town walls; and loved well Masons and cheished them much. And he made their paie right good, standing as the realme did; for he gave them ij.s. vjd. a weeke and iij.d. to their nonesynches. 2And before that time, through all this land, a Mason tooke but a penny a day and his meate, till Sainct Albones amended it, and gave them a chartour of the Kinge and his Counsell for to hold a general councell, and gave it the name of Assemble; and thereat he was himselfe, and helped to make Masons and gave them charges as you shall heare afterward.

"Right soon after the decease of Sainct Albone, there came divers wars into the realme of England of divers Nations soe that the good rule of Masonrye was destroyed unto the tyme of Kinge Athelstone's days that was a worthy Kinge of England and brought this land into good rest and peace; and builded many great works of Abbyes and Toures, and other many divers buildings; and loved well Masons. And he had a sonne that height Edwinne, and he loved Masons much more than his father did. And he was a great practiser in Geometric; and he drew him much to talke and to commune with Masons, and to learn of them science; and afterwards for love that he had to Masons, and to the science, he was made Mason, and he gatt of the Kinge his father, a Chartour and Commission to hold every yeare 1St. Alban, the protomartyr of England. Of his connection with the Legend, more hereafter. 2A corruption of the old English word noonshun, from which comes our modern luncheon. It meant the refreshment taken at noon, when laborers desist from work to shun the heat. It may here mean food or subsistence in general. St. Alban gave his Masons two shillings a week and three pence for their daily food. (See Nonesynches in ,Mackey's " Encyclopzedia of Freemasonry.")
once an Assemble, wher that ever they would, within the realme of
England; and to correct within themselves defaults and trespasses that were done within the science. And he held himselfs an Assemble at Yorke, 1and these he made Masons, and gave them charges, and taught them the manners, and commanded that rule to be kept ever after, and tooke then the chartour and commission to keepe, and made ordinance that it should be renewed from kinge to kinge.

"And when the Assemble was gathered he made a cry that all old Masons and young that had any writeinge or understanding of the charges and the manners that were made before in this land, or in any other, that they should show them forth. And when it was proved, there were founden some in French, and some in Greek, and some in English and some in other languages; and the intent of them all was founden all one. And he did make a booke thereof, and how the science was founded. And he himselfe bad and commanded that it should be readd or tould, when that any Mason should be made for to give him his charge. And fro that day into this tyme manners of Masons have been kept in that form as well as men might governe it. And furthermore divers Assembles have beene put and ordayned certain charges by the best advice of Masters and fellows."
Then follow the charges that are thus said to have been enacted at York and at other General Assemblies, but which properly constitute no part of the Legend, at least no part connected with the legendary details of the rise and progress of the Institution. The Legend ends with the account of the holding of an Assembly at York, and other subsequent ones, for the purpose of enacting laws for the government of the Order.

1This part of the Legend which refers to Prince Edwin and the Assembly at York is so important that it demands and will receive a future comprehensive examination.

[source]

[Marulus]

CHAPTER V

THE HALLIWELL POEM AND THE LEGEND

THERE is one manuscript which differs so much from all the others in its form and in its contents as to afford the strongest internal evidence that it is derived from a source entirely different from that which gave origin to the other and later documents.

I allude to what is known to Masonic anti-quaries as the Halliwell MS. As this is admitted to be the oldest Masonic document extant, and as some very important conclusions in respect to the early history of the Craft are about to be deduced from it, a detailed account of it will not be deemed unnecessary.

This work was first published in 1840 by Mr. James Orchard Halliwell, under the title of "A Poem on the Constitutions of Masonry," 1from the original manuscript in the King's Library of the British Museum. Mr. Halliwell, who subsequently adopted the name of Phillips, is not a member of the Brotherhood, and Woodford appropriately remarks that "it is somewhat curious that to Grandidier and Halliwell, both non-Masons, Freemasonry owes the impetus given at separate epochs to the study of its archaeology and history." 2

Halliwell says that the manuscipt formerly belonged to Charles Theyer, a well-known collector of the 17th century. It is undoubtedly the oldest Masonic MS. extant. Messrs. Bond and Egerton of the British Museum consider its date to be about the middle of the 15th century. Kloss 3 thinks that it was written between the years 1427 and 1445. Dr. Oliver 4 maintains that it is a transcript of the Book of Constitutions adopted by the General Assembly, held

1In a brochure entitled "The Early History of Freemasonry in England." A later improved edition was published in 1844. 2In Kenning's "Encyclopeadia," voc. Halliwell. 3 "Die Freimaur in ihrer wahren Bedentung." S. 12. 4 American Quart. Rev. of Freemasonry, vol. i., p. 547.

in the year 926, at the City of York. Halliwell himself places the date of the MS. at 1390. Woodford 1concurs in this opinion. I am inclined to think that this is the true date of its transcription.

The manuscript is in rhymed verse, and consists of 794 lines. At the head of the poem is the inscription: "Hic incipiunt constitluciones artis gemetria, secundum Euclydem." The language is more archaic than that of Wicliffe's version of the Bible, which was written toward the end of the 14th century, but approaches very nearly to that of the Chronicles of Robert of Gloucester, the date of which was at the beginning of the same century. Therefore, if we admit that the date of 1390, attributed by Halliwell and Woodford to the transcription in the British Museum, is correct, we may, I think, judging by the language, safely assign to the original the date of about 1300. Further back than this, philology will not permit us to go.
Lines 1-86 of this MS. contain the history of the origin of geometry, or Masonry, and the story of Euclid is given at length, much like that which is in the Legend of the Craft. But no other parts of that Legend are referred to, except the portion which records the introduction of Masonry into England. From the narrative of the establishment of Masonry in Egypt by Euclid, the poem passes immediately to the time when the "craft com unto Englond." Here the legendary story of King Athelstan and the Assembly called by him is given, with this variation from the common Legend, that there is no mention of the city of York, where the Assembly is said to have been held, nor of Prince Edwin, who summoned it.

Lines 87 - 470 contain the regulations which were adopted at that Assembly, divided into fifteen articles and the same number of points. There is a very great resemblance, substantially, between these regulations and the charges contained in the subsequent or second set of Manuscript Constitutions. But the regulations in the Halliwell poem are given at greater length, with more particularity and generally accompanied with an explanation or reason for the law.

After an interpolation, to be referred to hereafter, the poem proceeds under the title of "Ars quatuor coronatorum," The Art of

1Preface to Hughan's "Old Charges," p. vii.

the Four Crowned Ones, a title never applied to Masonry in the later and purely English manuscripts. We have first an invocation to God and the Virgin, and then the Legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs, which ends on line 534.

Now this Legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs 1- die Vier Gekronten - is found in none of the purely English manuscripts, but is of German origin, and peculiar to the German Steinmetzen or Stone Masons of the Middle Ages. Its introduction in this manuscript is an evidence of the German origin of the document, and, as Findel 2says, "must be regarded as a most decided proof of the identity of the German and English Stone Masons, and of their having one common parentage."

The details of this Legend close at the 534th line, and the poem then proceeds to give a small and imperfect portion of what is known in our later manuscripts as the Legend of the Craft.

I am persuaded that all this part of the poem has been dislocated from its proper place, and that in the original the lines from 535 to 576 formed a portion of the Legend of the Craft, as it must have been inserted in the introductory part of the second manuscript. I think so, first, because in all other manuscripts the Legend forms the exordium and precedes the charges; secondly, because it has no proper connection with or sequence to the Legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs which precedes it, and which terminates on the 354th line; and lastly, because it is evidently an interruption of the religious instructions which are taken up on line 577, and which naturally follow line 534. The writer having extolled the Christian steadfastness and piety of the four martyrs whose feast he tells us is on the eighth day after Allhalloween, proceeds on line 576 to admonish his readers to avoid pride and covetousness and to practice virtue. There is here a regular and natural connection, which, however, would be interrupted by the insertion between the two clauses of an imperfect portion of a legend which has reference to the very beginning of the history of Masonry. Hence I conclude that all that part of the Legend which described the events that were connected with Noah's Flood and the Tower of Babel is an interpolation, and belongs to another manuscript and to another place.

1See the full details of this Legend in Mackey's "Encyclopeadia of Freemasonry," art. Four Crowned Martyrs. 2"History of Freemasonry," Lyon's Trans., p. 31.

In fact, the copyist had two manuscripts before him, and he transcribed sometimes from one and sometimes from the other, apparently with but little judgment, or, rather, he copied the whole of one and then interpolated it with extracts from the other without respect to any congruity of subjects.

The rest of the poem is occupied with instructions as to behavior when in church, when in the company of one's superiors, and when present at the celebration of the mass. The whole ends with what we find in no other manuscript, the now familiar Masonic formula, "Amen, so mote it be."
Line 471 furnishes, I think, internal evidence that the poem was originally composed of two distinct works, written, in all probability, by two different persons, but in the copy which we now have, combined in one by the compiler or copyist. Mr. Woodford also is of the opinion that there are two distinct poems, although the fact had not attracted the attention of Halliwell. The former gentleman says that "it seems to be in truth two legends, and not only one." This is evident, from the fact that this second part is prefaced by the title, "Alia ordinacio artis gemetriae," that is, "Another Constitution of the art of geometry." This title would indicate that what followed was a different Ordinacio or Constitution and taken from a different manuscript. Besides, line 471, which is the beginning of the other or second Constitution, does not fall into its proper place in following line 470, but is appropriately a continuation of line 74. To make this evident, I copy lines 70-74 from the poem, and follow them by lines 471-474, whence it will be seen that the latter lines are an appropriate and natural continuation of the former.

Line 70. He sende about ynto the londe 71. After alle the masonus of the crafte, 72. To come to hym ful evene stragfte 73. For to amende these defaultys alle 74. By good counsel gef it hyt mytgh falle. ............ 471. They ordent ther a semble to be y-holde 472. Every yer, whersever they wolde 473. To amende the defautes, gef any where fonde 474. Amonge the craft withynne the londe.

The second manuscipt seems to have been copied from line 471, as far as line 496. There, I suppose, the charges or regulations to have followed, which having been given from the first manuscript the copyist omitted, as a needless repetition, but went on immediately with the "ars quatuor coronatorum." This ended at line 534. It is now evident that he went back to a preceding part of the second manuscript and copied the early account of Masonry from line 535 to 576. The bare reading of these lines will convince the reader that they are not in their proper place, and must have formed a part of the beginning of the second poem.

Line 577 appropriately follows line 534, when the interpolation is left out, and then the transcription is correctly made to the end of the poem. The first manuscript was apparently copied correctly, with the exception of the two interpolations from the second MS. There is a doubt whether the Legend of the Crowned Martyrs belonged to the first or to the second poem. If to the first, then we have the whole of the first poem, and of the second only the interpolations. This is, however, a mere conjecture without positive proof. Yet it is very probable.

On the whole, the view I am inclined to take of this manuscript is as follows:

1. There were two original manuscripts, out of which the copyist made a careless admixture.
2. The first MS. began with line 1 and went on to the end at line 794. But this is only conjectural. It may have ended, or rather the copying ceased, at line 470.
3. If the conjecture just advanced be correct, then from a second MS. the copyist made interpolations, in the following way.
4. The beginning of the second MS. is lost. But from very near the commencement, which probably described the antediluvian tradition of Lamech, the copyist had selected a portion which begins with line 535 and ends at line 576. He had previously interpolated the lines from 471 to 496.
5. We have, then, the whole of the first manuscript, from the 1st line to the 794th, with the addition of two interpolations from the second, consisting only of 68 lines, namely: from line 471 to 496, and from line 535 to 576.
6. The first manuscript is deficient in any references to antediluvian Masonry, but begins with the foundation of Masonry in Egypt, as its title imports. This deficiency was, in part, supplied by the second interpolation (535-596). This part begins with the building of Babel. But it is evident from the words, "many years after," that there was a preceding part to this manuscript that has not been copied. The "many years after" refer to some details that had been previously made. The account of the Seven Sciences, found in all later manuscripts, is not given in the first poem. It is inserted in this from the second.
7. So of the poem in the form we now have it, the parts copied from the second MS. consist only of 68 lines, which have been interpolated in two places into the first MS. - namely, lines 471 - 496, and lines 535-576; and these have been dislocated from their proper places. All the rest of the poem constitutes the original first manuscript. If I hesitate at all in coming to the positive conclusion that the first and last parts of the poem were composed by the same author, it is because the latter is written in a slightly different metre. This, therefore, leaves the question where the first poem ends and where the second begins, still open to discussion.

The variations which exist between the Halliwell poem, or, rather, poems, and other Masonic manuscripts of later date, are very important, because they indicate a difference of origin, and, by the points of difference, suggest several questions as to the early progress of Masonry in England.

1. The form of the Halliwell MS. differs entirely from that of the others. The latter are in prose, while the former is in verse. The language, too, of the Halliwell MS. is far more antiquated than that of the other manuscripts, showing that it was written in an earlier stage of the English tongue. It belongs to the Early English which succeeded the Anglo-Saxon. The other manuscripts were written at a later period of the language.
2. The Halliwell MS. is evidently a Roman Catholic production, and was written when the religion of Rome prevailed in England. The later manuscripts are all Protestant in their character, and must have been written after the middle of the 16th century, at least, when Protestantism was introduced into that country by Edward VI. and by Queen Elizabeth. 1
The different religious character of the two sets of manuscripts

1Edward VI. reigned from 1547-1553; Elizabeth reigned from 1558-1603; the interval was occupied by the Roman Catholic reign of Mary. But the archaic style of the "Halliwell MS." forbids any theory of its having been written during that intermediate period.

is very patent. We see ecclesiastical influence very strongly manifested in the Halliwell MS. So marked is this that Mr. Halliwell supposes that it was written by a priest, which, I think, is not impossible, although not for the reason he assigns, which is founded on his incorrect translation of a single word. 1

But the Roman Catholic character of the poem is proven by lines 593-692, which are occupied in directions how the mass is to be heard; and, so ample are these directions as to the ritual observance of this part of the Roman Catholic worship, that it is very probable that they were written by a priest.

In the subsequent manuscripts we find no such allusions. Freemasonry, when these documents were written, was Christian in its character, but it was Protestant Christianity. The invocation with which each one begins is to the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but no mention is made, as in the Halliwell MS. of the Virgin and the saints. The only reference to the Church is in the first charge, which is, "that you shall be a true man to God and the holy Church, and that you use no heresy nor error by your understanding or teaching of discreet men" - a charge that would be eminently fitting for a Protestant Christian brotherhood.

On referring to the first charge adopted after the revival in 1717 by the Grand Lodge of England, we find that then,