The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 2 – Historical Background 69
So wie das deutsche Geistesleben selbst unter Einflüssen der
Aufklärung ein eigenes Profil entwickelte, so wirkte es auch prägend
auf die Freimaurerei ein. Ich meine hier einerseits den deutschen
Idealismus - im weiten Sinne von Leibniz bis Hegel -, die Ethik Kants
und daran anschließend Schellings Übergang vom deutschen Idealismus
zur Romantik, um nur die wesentlichsten Markierungspunkte zu setzen,
wobei die deutsche Klassik als Kunstepoche nicht vergessen werden
darf. Wenn man zunächst einmal von Kant absieht, so zeichnen sich der
deutsche Idealismus und die Klassik durch eine
Harmonisierungstendenz aus. [...] Realismus, das real Machbare und
das realistisch-kritische Denken, wurde in weiten Bereichen der
Geisteswissenschaft und der Politik ausgeklammert [...]. 172
A study of the beginnings of Freemasonry in Germany will help to
understand the peculiar development of the Craft in this country - in contrast to
its political engagement in France and Italy, and "all-round Masonry" in America
for the whole family. Like in England and France, there was an operative
stonemasons' trade in Germany. The earliest records of these "Steinmetzen"
approximate the date of the Gothic Constitutions of the English operative
masons, i.e. the middle of the 15 th century. The laws of the operative German
masons were written down in the Constitutions of 1459, the Torgau Ordinances
of 1462, and the Brother Book of 1563. 173 These rules were in substance
identical with the articles in the Ancient Charges of the English Freemasons.
Thus, they contained rules on brotherhood and mutual aid, on upright conduct,
and on the non-employment of dishonored men. The Steinmetzen, like the
Freemasons, were nominally Christian. They had their own myths and legends,
their principal legend being that of the "Four Crowned Martyrs" (cf. Chapter 7).
German operative masonic lodges, the "Bauhütten," were very well
organized, the lodges being subordinate to district lodges, which were subject to
provincial lodges, these working under the head lodge at Strassburg, over which
a chief Master presided. However, parallel to the development in England, the
Medieval Constitutions marked the beginning of the decay of operative masonry,
caused by the decline of Gothic architecture after the Lutheran Reformation of
1517. The German operative stonemasons' trade, being subjected to prohibitive
and restrictive legislation, became almost non-existant. It is an astonishing fact
that - although the operative basis was given in Germany, as well as in France, -
speculative Freemasonry was imported to Germany from England: "Though the
German stonemasons were as capable of development into a speculative society
as were the British, they did not do so. As in France, the lodges of Freemasons
entering Germany in the third decade of the 18 th century found nothing there
resembling themselves." 174
172 Ibid.
173 Cf. CME, p. 283.
174 CME, p. 283.