but without any justification, the legend being met with in
England centuries prior to the date of the Regius MS., and long
prior to its incorporation in masonic legends on the Continent.
The next MS., in order, is known as the “Cooke” (Ad. MS. 23,198, British Museum), because Matthew Cooke published a fair reproduction of the document in 1861; and it is deemed by competent paleographers to date from the first part of the 15th century. There are two versions of the Old Charges in this little book, purchased for the British Museum in 1859. The compiler was probably a mason and familiar with several copies of these MS. Constitutions, two of which he utilizes and comments upon; he quotes from a MS. copy of the Policronicon the manner in which a written account of the sciences was preserved in the two historic stones at the time of the Flood, and generally makes known the traditions of the society as well as the laws which were to govern the members.
Its introduction into England through Egypt is noted (where the Children of Israel “lernyd ye craft of Masonry”), also the “lande of behest” (Jerusalem) and the Temple of Solomon (who “confirmed ye chargys yt David his Fadir” had made). Then masonry in France is interestingly described; and St Alban and “Æthelstane with his yongest sone” (the Edwin of the later MSS.) became the chosen mediums subsequently, as with the other Charges, portions of the Old Testament are often cited in order to convey a correct idea to the neophyte, who is to hear the document read, as to these sciences which are declared to be free in themselves (fre in hem selfe). Of all crafts followed by man in this world “Masonry hathe the moste notabilite,” as confirmed by “Elders that were bi for us of masons [who] had these chargys wryten,” and “as is write and taught in ye boke of our charges.”
Until quite recently no representative or survival of this particular version had been traced, but in 1890 one was discovered of 1687 (since known as the William Watson MS.). Of some seventy copies of these old scrolls which have been unearthed, by far the greater proportion have been made public since 1860. They have all much in common, though often curious differences are to be detected; are of English origin, no matter where used; and when complete, as they mostly are, whether of the 16th or subsequent centuries, are noteworthy for an invocation or prayer which begins the recital:—
“The mighte of the ffather of heaven |
They are chiefly of the 17th century and nearly all located in England; particulars may be found in Hughan’s Old Charges of the British Freemasons (1872, 1895 and supplement 1906).[1] The chief scrolls, with some others, have been reproduced in facsimile in six volumes of the Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha; and the collection in Yorkshire has been published separately, either in the West Yorkshire Reprints or the Ancient York Masonic Rolls. Several have been transcribed and issued in other works.
These scrolls give considerable information as to the traditions and customs of the craft, together with the regulations for its government, and were required to be read to apprentices long after the peculiar rules ceased to be acted upon, each lodge apparently having one or more copies kept for the purpose. The old Lodge of Aberdeen ordered in 1670 that the Charge was to be “read at ye entering of everie entered prenteise”; another at Alnwick in 1701 provided—
“Noe Mason shall take any apprentice [but he must] |
and still another at Swallwell (now No. 48 Gateshead) demanded that “the Apprentices shall have their Charge given at the time of Registering, or within thirty days after”; the minutes inserting such entries accordingly even so late as 1754, nearly twenty years after the lodge had cast in its lot with the Grand Lodge of England.
Their Christian character is further emphasized by the “First Charge that you shall be true men to God and the holy Church”; the York MS. No. 6 beseeches the brethren “at every meeting and assembly they pray heartily for all Christians”; the Melrose MS. No. 2 (1674) mentions “Merchants and all other Christian men,” and the Aberdeen MS. (1670) terms the invocation “A Prayer before the Meeting.” Until the Grand Lodge era, Freemasonry was thus wholly Christian. The York MS. No. 4 of 1693 contains a singular error in the admonitory lines:—
“The [n] one of the elders takeing the Booke and that |
This particular reading was cited by Hughan in 1871, but was considered doubtful; Findel,[2] however, confirmed it, on his visit to York under the guidance of the celebrated masonic student the late Rev. A. F. A. Woodford. The mistake was due possibly to the transcriber, who had an older roll before him, confusing “they,” sometimes written “the,” with “she,” or reading that portion, which is often in Latin, as ille vel illa, instead of ille vel illi.
In some of the Codices, about the middle of the 17th century and later, New Articles are inserted, such as would be suitable for an organization similar to the Masons’ Company of London, which had one, at least, of the Old Charges in its possession according to inventories of 1665 and 1676; and likewise in 1722, termed The Book of the Constitutions of the Accepted Masons. Save its mention (“Book wrote on parchment”) by Sir Francis Palgrave in the Edinburgh Review (April 1839) as being in existence “not long since,” this valuable document has been lost sight of for many years.
That there were signs and other secrets preserved and used by the brethren throughout this mainly operative period may be gathered from discreet references in these old MSS. The Institutions in parchment (22nd of November 1696) of the Dumfries Kilwinning Lodge (No. 53, Scotland) contain a copy of the oath taken “when any man should be made”:—
“These Charges which we now reherse to you and all others ye secrets and misterys belonging to free masons you shall faithfully and truly keep, together with ye Counsell of ye assembly or lodge, or any other lodge, or brother, or fellow.”
“Then after ye oath taken and the book kissed” (i.e. the Bible) the “precepts” are read, the first being:—
“You shall be true men to God and his holy Church, and that you do not countenance or maintaine any eror, faction, schism or herisey, in ye church to ye best of your understanding.” (History of No. 53, by James Smith.)
The Grand Lodge MS. No. 2 provides that “You shall keepe secret ye obscure and intricate pts. of ye science, not disclosinge them to any but such as study and use ye same.”
The Harleian MS. No. 2054 (Brit. Mus.) is still more explicit, termed The ffree Masons Orders and Constitutions, and is in the handwriting of Randle Holme (author of the Academie of Armory, 1688), who was a member of a lodge in Cheshire. Following the MS. Constitutions, in the same handwriting, about 1650, is a scrap of paper with the obligation:—
“There is sevrall words and signes of a free Mason to be revailed to yu wch as yu will answr. before God at the Great and terrible day of judgmt. yu keep secret and not to revaile the same to any in the heares of any p’son, but to the Mrs and fellows of the Society of Free Masons, so helpe me God, &c.” (W. H. Rylands, Mas. Mag., 1882.)
- ↑ The service rendered by Dr W. Begemann (Germany) in his “Attempt to Classify the Old Charges of the British Masons” (vol. 1 Trans. of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, London) has been very great, and the researches of the Rev. A. F. A. Woodford and G. W. Speth have also been of the utmost consequence.
- ↑ Findel claims that his Treatise on the society was the cause which “first impelled England to the study of masonic history and ushered in the intellectual movement which resulted in the writings of Bros. Hughan, Lyon, Gould and others.” Great credit was due to the late German author for his important work, but before its advent the Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, D. Murray Lyon and others in Great Britain were diligent masonic students on similar lines.
