Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

282 FREEDOM
FREEMASON
fervency and zeal as embodying a symbolic
idea. Gadicke, under the word Freiheit, in his
Freimaurer-Lexicon, thus defines the word :
"A word that is often heard among us, but
which is restricted to the same limitation as
the freedom of social life . We have in our assemblies
no freedom to act each one as he
pleases . But we are, or should be, free from the
dominion of passion, pride, prejudice, and all
the other follies of human nature . We are free
from the false delusion that we need not be
obedient to the laws ." Thus he makes it
equivalent to integrity; a sense that I think it
bears in the next article .
Freedom, Fervency, and Zeal . The earliest
lectures in the eighteenth century designated
freedom, fervency, and zeal as the qualities
which should distinguish the servitude of
Apprentices, and the same symbolism is found
in the ritual of the present day. The word
freedom is not here to be taken in its modern
sense of liberty, but rather in its primitive
Anglo-Saxon meaning of frankness, generosity,
a generous willingness to work or perform one's
duty. So Chaucer uses it in the Prologue to
the Canterbury Tales (1 . 43) :
"A knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the time that he first began
To riden out, he loved chivalrie,
Trouthe and Honour, Freedom and Courtesy."
(See Fervency and Zeal.)
Freeman . The Grand Lodge of England,
on September 1, 1847, erased from their list of
the qualifications of candidates the word "freeborn,"
and substituted for it " free-man ."
Their rule now reads, "every candidate must
be a freeman ." This has been generally considered
an unauthorized violation of a landmark .
Freemason. One who has been initiated
into the mysteries of the Fraternity of Freemasonry
. Freemasons are so called to distinguish
them from the Operative or Stone-
Masons, who constituted an inferior class of
workmen, and out of whom they sprang. (See
Stone-Masons and Traveling Freemasons .) The
meaning of the epithet free, as applied to
Mason, is given under the word Free . In the
old lectures of the last century a Freemason
was described as being "a freeman, born of a
freewoman, brother to a king, fellow to a
prince, or companion to a beggar, if a Mason,"
and by this was meant to indicate the universality
of the brotherhood .
The word "Freemason" was until recently
divided into two words, sometimes with and
sometimes without a hyphen ; and we find
in all the old books and manuscripts " Free
Mason" or "Free-Mason ." But this usage
has been abandoned by all good writers, and
"Freemason" is now always spelled as one
word . The old Constitutions constantly used
the word Mason. Yet the word was employed
at a very early period in the parish registers of
England, and by some writers . Thus, in the
register of the parish of Astbury we find these
items :
"1685 . Smallwood, Jos ., fils Jos . Henshaw,
Freemason, bapt. 3° die Nov.
"1697 . Jos. fil Jos . Henshaw, Freemason,
buried 7 April ."
But the most singular passage is one found
in Cawdray's Treasurie of Similies, published
in 1609, and which he copied from Bishop
Coverdale's translation of Werdmuller's A
Spiritual and most Precious Perle, which was
published in 1550 . It is as follows : "As the
Free-Mason heweth the hard stones . .
even so God the Heavenly Free-Mason buildeth
a Christian church ." But, in fact, the
word was used at a much earlier period
and occurs, Steinbrenner says (Orig . and
Early Hist. of Mas., p . 110), for the first
time in a statute passed in 1350, in the
twenty-fifth year of Edward I ., where the
wages of a master Freemason are fixed at
4 pence, and of other masons at 3 pence.
The original French text of the statute is
"Mestre de franche-peer." "Here," says
Steinbrenner, "the word Freemason evidently
signifies a free-stone mason--one who works in
free-stone, (Fr . franche-peer, i . e ., franchepierre,)
as distinguished from the rough
mason, who merely built walls of rough, unhewn
stone ." This latter sort of workmen was
that class called by the Scotch Masons cowans,
whom the Freemasons were forbidden to work
with, whence we get the modern use of that
word . Ten years after, in 1360, we have a
statute of Edward III ., in which it is ordained
that "every mason shall finish his work, be it
of free-stone or of rough-stone," where the
French text of the statute is "de franche-pere
ou de grosse-ere ." Thus it seems evident
that the word free-mason was originally used
in contradistinction to rough-mason . The old
Constitutions sometimes call these latter
masons rough-layers .
[Dr . Murray's New English Dictionary has
the following (s.v. Freemason) :
"The precise import with which the adj .
was originally used in this designation has been
much disputed. Three views have been propounded.
(1) The suggestion that free mason
stands for free-stone mason would appear unworthy
of attention, but for the curious fact
that the earliest known instances of any similar
appellation are mestre mason de franche peer,
`master mason of free stone' (Act 25, Edw .
III ., at . II ., c . 3, A. D . 1350), and sculptores
lapidum liberorum, 'carvers of free stones,'
alleged to occur in a document of 1217 (tr .
Findel's Hist. Mas ., 51, citing Wyatt Papworth)
: the coincidence, however, seems to be
merely accidental . (2) The view most generally
held is that free masons were those who
were `free' of the masons' guild . Against this
explanation many forcible objections have
been brought by Mr . G. W. Speth, who suggests
(3) that the itinerant masons were called
'free' because they claimed exemption from
the control of the local guilds of the towns in
which they temporarily settled . (4) Perhaps
the best hypothesis is that the term refers to
the mediaeval practice of emancipating skilled
artisans, in order that they might be able to
travel and render their services wherever any
great building was in process of construction . '