Wednesday 8 December 2010

History of Freemasonry - Operative Beginnings

The term "Mason" was the name of someone who 'worked' with the building craft in the Middle Ages.  In England this craft was split into several disciplines - tilers, quarrymen, setters etc.  These craftsmen operated in different 'Guilds' or Lodges, each discipline had their own Lodge Officers, rules and regulations.  In these laws was also the law of the Church - which was linked to the law of the realm at that time - this was called the Ordinances of Religion.

One particular group of Masons worked with stone, these craftsmen were travellers by nature, therefore each discipline's lodge was faternal in nature, if a member of a lodge finished his work in one area, he travelled to the next place of work and attached himself to the lodge of that area.  Due to the nature of their work, they were called Freemasons, their work was listed as a ' fine art ' and their skills were in much demand.

Architects were called Freemasons, because of working with free-stone (Robert L. Cooper - The Rosslyn Hoax?).  The main body of their work was concerned with the construction of Cathedrals, Churches, Monasteries, Palaces - etc.  Their work contained the secret of architecture - which no man with a few tools and yeas experience building barns etc could penetrate - therefore the Freemasons work was a class apart from the other masons.

1 comment:

  1. Consider an era, where most individuals were incapable of reading or writing and the church had forbidden science. Freemasons of this era, carried the secrets of the 'pure' sciences - Geometry,orientation, design, engineering.

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