FREEMASONRY: ITS HISTORY AND AIMS. 



259 



1482 and 1500. All others are either of later 

 date, or doubtful copies of documents no longer 

 extant. 



The so-called Constitutions of Athelstane, said 

 to have been written in 926, and a dialogue at- 

 tributed to the pen of Henry VI., have been just- 

 ly condemned by Dr. Klosz as forgeries. 



The name of Freemason has been supposed to 

 denote a worker in free-stone ; but, plausible as 

 this derivation may appear to some, it will not 

 explain the early assumption of the name by the 

 Masons of Germany (Freimaurer), in whose lan- 

 guage such stone is known as Quader-stein. It 

 was, doubtless, both here and abroad iutended to 

 indicate their independence of the clergy under 

 whose control and direction they had formerly 

 acted : to mark them as companies of skilled ar- 

 tificers working under their own masters, and 

 lending their services at their own terms to their 

 clerical employers. 



Palpable and amusing evidence of this early 

 acquired independence is afforded by many ludi- 

 crous and irreverent devices introduced into the 

 carving of sundry German churches. At Stras- 

 burg, for instance, in one of the transepts oppo- 

 site the pulpit, an ass is reading mass at the altar, 

 while a bear carrying a cross, a wolf with a taper, 

 a hog, a goat, and a bitch, are forming a proces- 

 sion ; in the cathedral at Brandenburg a fox in 

 priestly vestments is preaching to a congregation 

 of geese ; at Dobberan, in Mecklenburg, in a beau- 

 tifully-carved altar-piece, two priests are grinding 

 dogmas out of a mill ; at Berne, in a representa- 

 tion of the " Last Judgment," the pope is among 

 the damned ; while, in the church of St. Sebaldus 

 at Nuremberg, and elsewhere, are to be seen gross 

 and profane satires on the corruption and immo- 

 rality of the religious orders of both sexes. 



In England the name of Freemason first oc- 

 curs, according to Wyatt Papworth, in a statute of 

 25 Edward III. (1350). In the constitution of the 

 Court of Common Council of the City of London 

 in 1376, we find among the several trade-guilds 

 the Masons sending four members, and the Free- 

 masons two, thus proving their mutual indepen- 

 dence at that early period; in a statute of 19 

 Richard II. (1396), we have the "lathomos voca- 

 tos ffremaceons" as distinguished from the "la- 

 thomos vocatos ligiers," i. e., stone-layers; and 

 in the fabric rolls of Exeter Cathedral the word 

 " simentarius " (cementarius) occurs before, and 

 " fremason " after that date, all these instances 

 being prior to the adoption of the name by the 

 mother-lodge of Strasburg, the members of which 

 were, until 1440, styled the brethren of St. John. 



During the stormy period of the civil wars, 

 and of the Reformation, we meet with nothing to 

 arrest our attention; but, in the reign of Eliza- 

 beth, the English nobility began to travel on the 

 Continent, and introduced into this country a 

 taste for Italian art, men of rank and wealth vy- 

 ing with one another in their encouragement of 

 architecture and Freemasonry. Foremost among 

 these was Sir Thomas Sackville, who devoted his 

 whole life to the promotion of the fine arts, and 

 was, until his death in 1567, a munificent patron 

 of the fraternity. 



Early in the reign of King James, William 

 Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, returned from his 

 antiquarian researches in Italy, where he had 

 been accompanied by a young artist, Inigo Jones. 

 Palladio was dead, but his style was dominant in 

 Italy. Jones devoted himself to the study of this 

 school, and on his return to England, having been 

 through the interest of Pembroke appointed sur- 

 veyor-general of the royal buildings, he intro- 

 duced into this country the so-called Augustan 

 style. Italian architects came over, and were 

 distributed among the various lodges, which were 

 now constituted somewhat on the model of the 

 Italian seminaries of art. 



From 1607 to 1618, Inigo Jones was Patron 

 of the Freemasons, the fraternity flourished under 

 his direction ; noble, learned, and wealthy men 

 were admitted as a sort of associates or honorary 

 members, or as they were called by way of dis- 

 tinction, "Accepted Masons." Quarterly meet- 

 ings and festivals were held, and lodges of in- 

 struction founded. 



During the wars of the Parliament and the 

 Commonwealth, Freemasonry, as might have been 

 expected from its close connection with art and 

 with the Church, suffered greatly ; but it experi- 

 enced something of a revival in 1663, when Hen- 

 ry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, was elected Grand 

 Master; Sir John Denham, D. G. M., and Sir 

 Christopher Wren, and Joseph Webb, Grand 

 Wardens. In the reign of Queen Anne, however, 

 it gradually declined, until, to prevent its total 

 extinction, it was resolved " that the privileges 

 of Masonry should no longer be restricted to 

 operative Masons, but extended to men of every 

 profession, provided they were regularly approved 

 and initiated into the order." 



" Here, then," to quote the words of Dr. Findel, 

 the great historian of the craft, " we are at the end 

 of ancient Masonry. The operative masons, who 

 for a long time past had been decreasing in num- 

 ber, now acknowledged, by this resolution, that it 

 was out of their power, as operative masons, to con- 



