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

426 LANTURELUS
LATRES
`No . 48 . A very foolish legendary account of
the original of the Order of Freemasonry '-
in the handwriting, it is said, of Sir Henry
Ellis "
Lanturelus, Ordre des . Instituted, according
to Clavel, in 1771, by the Marquis de
Croismare. Its purposes or objects are not
now understood .
Lapicida. A word sometimes used in
Masonic documents to denote a Freemason .
It is derived from lapis, a stone, and credo, to
cut, and is employed by Varro and Livy to
signify "a stone-cutter ." But in the low Latin
of the Medieval age it took another meaning ;
and Du Cange defines it in his Glossarium as
"tEdeficiorum structor ; Gall. Macon," i . e .,
"A builder of edifices ; in French, a Mason" ;
and he quotes two authorities of 1304 and
1392, where lapicidx evidently means builders .
In the Vocabularium of Ugutio, Anno 1592,
Laoicedius is defined "a cutter of stones ."
The Latin word now more commonly used by
Masonic writers for Freemason isLatomus ; but
Lapicida is purer Latin . (See Latomus .)
Larmenius, Johannes Marcus . According
to the tradition of the Order of the
Temple-the credibility of which is, however,
denied by most Masonic scholars-John Mark
Larmenius was in 1314 appointed by James de
Molay his successor as Grand Master of the
Templars, which power was transmitted by
La;•menius to his successors, in a document
known as the "Charter of Transmission ."
(Se-- Temple, Order of the .)
La Rochefoucault, Bayers, Le Marquis
de . G . Master of the "Rite Ecossais Philosophique"
in 1776 . A Mason of considerable
note.
Larudan, Abbe. The author of a work
entitled Les FrancMagons ecrases . Suite du
here intitule l'Ordre des Franc-Masons trahi,
traduit du Latin . The first edition was published
at Amsterdam in 1746. In calling it
the sequel of L'Ordre des FrancMagons trahi,
by the Abbe Perau, Larudan has sought to
attribute the authorship of his own libelous
work to Perau, but without success, as the internal
evidence of style and of tone sufficiently
distinguishes the two works . Moss says
(Bibliog., No. 1874) that this work is the
armory from which all subsequent enemies of
Masonry have derived their weapons . Larudan
was the first to broach the theory that
Oliver Cromwell was the inventor of Free-
Masonry .
Lasalle, Troubat de . One of the founders
of the Mother Lodge of the "Rite Ecossais
Philosophique ."
Lateran Councils. They were five in
number, regardpd as ecumenical, and were
held in the Church of St . John Lateran in
Rome, in 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215, and 1512 .
Latin Lodge. In the year 1785, the Grand
Lodge of Scotland granted a Warrant for
the establishment of Roman Eagle Lodge at
Edinburgh ; the whole of whose work was conducted
in the Latin language . Of this Lodge,
the celebrated and learned Dr . John Brown
was the founder and Master. He had himself
translated the ritual into the classical language
of Rome, and the minutes were written in
Latin. (Lyon's Hist . of the Lodge of Edinburgh,
p . 257 .) The Lodge is No . 160 on the
Scotch Roll, but ceased to work in Latin in
1794 .
Latomia. This word has sometimes been
used in modern Masonic documents as the
Latin translation of the word Lodge, with what
correctness we will see . The Greek Xaroµeiov,
latomeion (or xaroµta), from the roots laas, a
stone, and temno, to cut, meant a place where
stones were cut, a quarry . From this the
Romans got their word latomia, more usually
spelled lautumice, which also, in pure Latinity,
meant a stone-quarry . But as slaves were
confined and made to work in the quarries by
way of punishment, the name was given to any
prison excavated out of the living rock and
below the surface of the earth, and was especially
so applied to the prison excavated by
Servius Tullius under the Capitoline hill at
Rome, and to the state prison at Syracuse .
Both xaro a and lautumice are seldom used
by ancient writers in their primary sense of
"a stone-quarry," but both are used in the
secondary sense of "a prison," and therefore
"Latomia" cannot be considered a good
equivalent for "Lodge ."
Latomus. By Masonic writers used as a
translation of Freemason into Latin ; thus,
Thory entitles his valuable work, Acta Latomorum,
i. e., "Transactions of the Freemasons."
This word was not used in classical
Latinity. In the low Latin of the Middle
Ages it was used as equivalent to lapicida .
Du Cange defines it, in the form of lathomus,
as a cutter of stones, "Caesor lapidum ." He
gives an example from one of the ecclesiastical
Constitutions, where we find the expression
"carpentarii ac Latomi," which may
mean Carpenters and Masons or Carpenters
and Stone-Cutters . Du Cange also gives Latomus
as one of the definitions of Magonetus,
which he derives from the French Mason .
But Maconetus and Latomus could not have
had precisely the same meaning, for in one of
the examples cited by Du Cange, we have
"Joanne de Bareno, Magoneto, Latonio de
Gratianopolis," i . e ., "John de Bareno, Mason
and Stone-Cutter (?) of Grenoble ." Latomus
is here evidently an addition to Maconetus,
showing two different kinds of occupation .
We have abundant evidence in Medieval documents
that a Maconetus was a builder, and
a Latomus was most probably an inferior
order, what the Masonic Constitutions call a
"rough Mason ." The propriety of applying
it to a Freemason seems doubtful. The
word is sometimes found as Lathomus and
Latonius .
Latour d'Auvergne, Le Prince de . President
of the Mother Lodge of the "Rite Ecossais
Philosophique" in 1805, and member of
the Grand Orient of France in 1814 .
Latres. This word has given much unnecessary
trouble to the commentators on the
old Records of Masonry . In the legend of the
Craft contained in all the old Constitutions,