Before it became an initiatory society of gentlemen, Freemasonry was a trade. The builders of medieval cathedrals, castles and bridges were organised in working groups with their own rules, traditions and stories of origin. The documents that preserve this memory are known to scholars as the Old Charges. Reading them helps us understand where many of the symbols of modern Freemasonry come from.
The medieval mason
In the English-speaking world the word mason meant a worker in stone. There were several roles: those who cut blocks in the quarry, those who squared them, those who carved decorative parts. The freemason was originally the worker in freestone, the fine-grained stone suitable for carving, although the etymology of the term is debated.
The lodge was the wooden structure set against the building site, where masons worked, stored their tools, ate and sometimes slept. From the material sense of a work shed the word passed to mean the community of the men who worked there.
The Regius Poem
The oldest known document of this kind is the so-called Regius Poem, also known as the Halliwell Manuscript after the scholar who drew attention to it in the nineteenth century. It is a poem in Middle English verse, generally dated to around 1390 and kept in the British Library.
The text contains:
- a legendary history of the art of building, attributed to Euclid in Egypt;
- an account of the arrival of the craft in England in the time of King Athelstan;
- a series of articles and points of conduct for masters and fellows;
- instructions on good behaviour in church and at table.
The Cooke Manuscript
Slightly later is the Cooke Manuscript, dated to the first half of the fifteenth century. Compared with the Regius, it develops the legendary history of the craft more fully, going back to the sons of Lamech in the Bible and to the two pillars on which knowledge was said to have been preserved before the Flood.
Geometry holds a place of honour: it is presented as the fundamental science, mother of all the arts. This centrality of geometry would pass intact into speculative Freemasonry.
What the old charges required
The many versions of the Old Charges, copied and adapted until the eighteenth century, contain fairly consistent rules:
- be faithful to God and the Church;
- be loyal to the king;
- take no apprentice for less than seven years;
- do not take work away from another master;
- pay fellows fairly;
- do not reveal the counsels of the lodge;
- attend the periodic assembly.
| Document | Approximate date | Feature |
|---|---|---|
| Regius Poem | c. 1390 | In verse, the oldest |
| Cooke Manuscript | first half of 15th century | Expanded legendary history |
| Schaw Statutes | 1598 and 1599 | Organisation of Scottish lodges |
The Schaw Statutes
A decisive step was taken in Scotland. William Schaw, Master of Works to King James VI, issued in 1598 and 1599 two sets of statutes regulating the lodges of Scottish masons. These documents provided, among other things, for:
- keeping minutes of meetings;
- testing the memory of apprentices and fellows;
- a hierarchy among lodges, with Edinburgh in first place.
From this point onwards Scottish lodge minutes survive, such as those of the Lodge of Edinburgh, known as Mary's Chapel, which begin in 1599. They are the oldest continuous records of the life of a lodge.
The "Mason Word"
In seventeenth-century Scottish sources the Mason Word appears, together with signs of recognition. It probably served to identify qualified workers at a time when written documents were rare. This practice of recognition is one of the clearest bridges between operative and speculative Freemasonry.
The first non-masons admitted
Already in the seventeenth century some Scottish and English lodges admitted people who did not work in stone: gentlemen, scholars, soldiers. These "accepted" members were the seed of the transformation. Within a few generations, non-masons became the majority in many lodges.
The symbolic value of the Old Charges
The Old Charges contain no esoteric doctrine, but they offer something just as important: a story of origins. In their legendary history the art of building is traced back to Adam, to Euclid, to Solomon. Speculative Freemasonry would inherit from them the idea that work on stone is an image of work on the human being.
In short
- The Old Charges are documents of medieval masons containing trade rules and legendary histories.
- The Regius Poem, from around 1390, is the oldest; the Cooke Manuscript of the fifteenth century follows.
- The lodge was originally the work shed beside the building site.
- The Schaw Statutes of 1598-1599 organised the Scottish lodges and introduced minutes.
- From the seventeenth century lodges admitted non-masons, preparing the birth of speculative Freemasonry.
