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History of Freemasonry 11
H. L. Haywood
CHAPTER XI

THE OPERATIVE MASONS

IF the date assigned by scholarship is correct, the oldest

existing Masonic manuscript, the Regius poem, was
penned in the year 1390. In that year King Richard II was
on the throne of England; the battle of Agincourt had not
yet been fought; the War of the Roses as yet in the future
and the first voyage of Columbus to the New World was
not to begin for more than another century. Almost
three-quarters of a century were to pass before Martin
Luther's birth. All over Europe men were still building
cathedrals in the Gothic style, although that school of
architecture had entered upon its final phases of decline.
The guild system was in its heyday in England and on the
continent. It had not yet become fashionable — in
England at least — to burn heretics at the stake. Legal
issues might still be decided in trial by combat.
The Regius manuscript contains a set of rules and
regulations for the government of what was obviously a
guild of craftsmen; in the light of modern research it is
possible to ascertain that the society was organized upon
much the same general plan as were the majority of
operative guilds of that day. But the Regius poem is of far
greater importance than that. It was a patent attempt to
account to the English members of an English institution
for an antiquity of that institution in which they already
believed. Presumably it was to be read to men whose
fathers and grandfathers and probably great
grandfathers had belonged. It gave naive credence to a
tradition that the society had been in continuous
existence on English soil since the days of Athelstan —
which was to say since before the Norman conquest. It is
clear from the rhymed narrative itself that its author had
no real sense of the passage of time. What he did know,
however, was that the society was very old — or at least
so old that the traditions and memories of persons then
living did not run back to a time when it did not exist.
In some manner this particular manuscript was lost to
sight, to remain lost for some 450 years. At any rate when
the first Grand Lodge was formed, about 325 years after
it was penned, and diligent search was made for all the
writings having to do with Operative Masonry, this one
for the time escaped attention. There were other and
later ones, however, and these contained substantially
the same material, thus indicating the persistence of the
Regius tradition. At least six of these were in possession
of the old "immemorial" Lodge at York — a lodge which
held itself out to be the direct lineal descendant of the
masonry of Athelstan's day. Not a few such lodges were
scattered about England and Scotland at that time,
unmistakable survivors of the guild system of the Middle
Ages. One of the first tasks the new Grand Lodge set for
itself was to gather, digest and publish in literary form all
that could be learned of the operative guilds and
particularly their legends, customs, laws and regulations.
More than a century after that had been done, the Regius
manuscript was rediscovered, to bear eloquent testimony
to the fact that there had been no great alteration in the
practices and beliefs of the operative masons between
the reign of Richard II and the reign of George I, a period
of more than three centuries.
Taking the year 1400 as a point of departure from which
to measure English Masonic history both forward and
backward, it is therefore clear: (1) that before that time,
and probably for a considerable period before it,
operative masonic guilds were in existence in England;
that they had a substantial literary tradition and customs
established by immemorial usage; (2) that they continued
to exist for another 300 years with relatively little change
in either customs or traditions; and (3) that surviving
units or "lodges" of them participated in the eighteenth-
century movement which centered on the formation of
the first Grand Lodge, from which Speculative
Freemasonry dates its present form of existence.
For purposes of discussion it may be assumed that even if
there had been no operative societies coming down from
a remoter antiquity, the guild system itself would have
produced them. When artisans of all other classes and
callings were uniting themselves into such groups, it
would have been strange indeed if the stone masons had
not done so also. If not a single record of their medieval
existence could be found, it still would be safe to infer
they did exist. As a matter of fact there are records of
Masonic guilds both in England and on the continent. The
term Freemason occurs in the fabric rolls of Exeter
Cathedral in the year 1396. The guild at London in 1537
called its members Freemasons; at Norwich in 1375
masons appear to have been attached to the guild of
carpenters; whether that was a purely local or a general
arrangement at the time there is no way of knowing.
It is interesting to observe, however, that in the year 1350
two separate classes of masons were recognized. A
statute of that period describes a mestre mason de
franche pere — a master mason of free stone — as being
different from other masons and entitled to higher pay.
That distinction is maintained in a statute of 1360 except
that in the later one the preferred workman is called a
"chief mestre" of masons. The common mason appears to
have been classified generally with "carpenters, tilers,
thatchers, daubers and all other labourers." As late as
1604 an incorporation at Oxford included freemasons,
carpenters, joiners and slaters. It is evident from the
records of smaller towns that mason guilds were not
numerous or particularly important, a fact which in itself
is illuminating. It marks one great respect in which these
bodies differed from all other craft organizations, for
they were essentially local institutions, made up of
workmen who remained in one town and usually in one
quarter of the town, whereas the skilled masons who
worked in the building of the Gothic cathedrals had from
the nature of their calling to be more or less itinerant,
moving about from place to place as work was to be
found.
In an enumeration of the guilds entitled to
representation in the Common Council of London in
1370, a Company of Freemasons was listed and a
Company of Masons, standing respectively as No. 17 and
No. 34 on a roll of forty-eight. The Company of Masons
appears to have been of greater numerical strength than
the Company of Freemasons, since it had four
representatives as against two for the other. Whether, as
Mackey's History of Freemasonry suggests, this indicates
that the Freemasons formed a smaller and more select
society, is pure speculation, since no proof one way or the
other has been found, but as a guess it is decidedly
plausible. In any event, the list establishes the existence
of two separate guilds. Ultimately they were merged,
taking a coat of arms which displayed three white castles
with black doors and windows on a black field, together
with a silver or scalloped chevron and on it a pair of
black compasses.
It is therefore possible to be reasonably sure of the
following facts pertaining to the general situation of
Operative Masonry at the time the Regius manuscript
was presumably written, that is, in the year 1390:
I. That it was occasionally divided into two general
classes respectively mentioned as Freemasons and
as Masons;
II. That town guilds of masons were small and
relatively unimportant as compared with town
guilds of other kinds;
III. That town mason guilds frequently united with, or
formed parts of, guilds of other workers employed
in the building trades;
IV. That it is probable no wide gulf separated the two
classes of Masons, since separate guilds of them in
London found no insuperable obstacle in the way of
union and particularly since the Old Charges
mention their common art as Masonry, without
drawing invidious distinctions between Masons and
Freemasons;
V. That the rules laid down for practical guidance of
members of the Craft corresponded in the main
with similar rules laid down in other craft guilds of
that period.
But when the Regius poem was drafted, the active period
of Gothic architecture was already drawing to a close.
That period for centuries had given to the stone masons
of Northern and Western Europe their principal
occupation. Its work required a high degree of skill,
which for the most part could not be acquired except by
actual practice in the labor of building just such edifices
as the great churches themselves. The stonework of
successive cathedrals discloses that as fast as problems of
construction were solved, the solutions were passed
along to succeeding builders. From quarry to the finished
task every stone had its separate purpose, and
preparation of every stone involved conscious and more
or less skilled direction at the hands of every workman
through whose hands it must pass.
When the curtain first rises on the stage of organize
Operative Masonry, it discloses a society proudly an
profoundly self- conscious. It is a society of aristocrat
among workmen, boasting of an ancestry of incredible
age and distinction. It has noble traditions, and it has
dignity of a high order to maintain. Moreover, it has
secrets which at all costs must be preserved, and a
esoteric philosophy which is rooted in the lore of the
past. True, it is a guild and in many respects like all the
other guilds which then flourished as such societies had
not flourished before and as they have not flourished
since. But it is more than a guild; it is also a cult, for it
practices mystical rites which are now known to have
been survivals of magic rites and religious observances,
coming down from a past which was indefinitely remote.
The Old Charges bear abundant witness to all these
things. Most of them prescribe the ritualistic manner in
which oaths of secrecy must be administered. One
reveals that the candidate was compelled to swear, "in
the presence of Almighty God and my Fellows and
Brethren here present" that he would not by any act or
under any circumstance, "publish, discover, reveal or
make known any of the secrets, privileges or counsels of
the fraternity or fellowship of Free Masonry." (Harleian
MSS.) Those secrets were indeed well kept; so well, in
fact, that the modern Freemason is much in doubt as to
what many of them were and can only suppose that they
had to do with the mechanical science of the operative
calling. As Operative Masonry fell into disuse, some of
them undoubtedly became imbedded in the symbolism
and allegory of rite and ritual, where they remain to this
day. Of their origin, practical use, and indeed of their
scope, the present day knows almost nothing. It is by no
means unlikely that as cathedral building masons
merged with the guild masons of the towns, they saw no
reason to impart to their less skilled companions more of
their own secret art than was necessary to give it
symbolical or emblematical preservation; and as
"accepted," or non-operative, masons came in time to
outnumber them both, the value of purely mechanical
secrets naturally tended diminish and ultimately to
disappear.
The modern student must bear in mind also that from
their very nature it was unlawful for these things to be
written, carved or engraved upon any movable or
immovable thing, in such fashion that they might become
legible or intelligible to a "cowan," or outsider. The Old
Charges must therefore be studied for what they may
suggest "between the lines" as well as for what they
openly say. In actual practice Masons appear always to
have been singularly tenacious of their secret ritualistic
"work." Although no particular care appears to have
been taken to keep the Old Manuscripts from public
inspection, secretaries of many immemorial lodges
burned their records rather than have them fall into the
hands of historians appointed by the first Grand Lodge.
Even today conservative brethren, fearing improper
disclosures will be made, look askance upon public
discussions of esoteric matters, and although various
Monitors have been published officially for guidance in
the ritualistic labors of the Craft, by far the greater part
of modern ritual may not be lawfully written even in
cipher; Masons who compose ciphers for that purpose or
make use of them are subject to the severest penalties.
The only legal method of passing these secret things from
man to man and from generation to generation is that of
mouth-to-ear communication. It is truly astonishing how
accurate and uniform these oral transmissions have
been, and this accuracy is in itself the best justification of
a jealous zeal which forbids oral alteration or other
innovation upon the fundamentals of Craft Masonry.
In the operative days it is clear that mason guilds arose in
towns where there was enough work to support resident
craftsmen. Medieval cities for the most part, however,
were built not of stone but of wood. In such places
carpenters were far more in demand, and it is not
surprising to find that carpenter guilds were more
numerous and more important in local affairs than were
those of the workers in stone. Indeed, the stone worker
was likely to be only an auxiliary to the carpenter,
performing incidental tasks in laying foundations for
houses, shoring up banks, lining the walls of excavations,
and here and there constructing a small bridge or
culvert. Sometimes there were not enough of them in a
town to conduct their own mystery plays in connection
with great pageants. At Exeter the masons shared a play
with the goldsmiths; at York with the hatmakers.
But when great churches, monasteries, castles or manor
houses were toward, it was a different story. Here the
stone worker came into his own; the carpenter, tiler,
slater, glazier, sank into subordinate positions. Resident
mason guilds were neither numerous enough nor
possessed the necessary skill to conduct enterprises of
such magnitude. From afar off, perhaps from foreign
countries, would come the master builder to take the
work in hand. In many instances he brought with him a
few especially skilled assistants who possessed his
confidence and who knew how to do important parts of
the work as he liked to have them done. The bishop,
abbot or lord might have in mind a few especially skilled
craftsmen of his own and these of course would be
employed. Masons hearing of the undertaking would
begin to drift in from all directions. They came afoot,
making their way from town to town, visiting local lodges
by the way, sure of refreshment and hospitality and even
of financial assistance if they required it.
The gathering of so many strangers in one place would
naturally bring to local authorities unwonted burdens of
housing and policing. In those days, when serfs were tied
to their soil and a considerable proportion of the
population of every country was made up of bondsmen,
the masterless man was everywhere suspect. He might
be locked up or even be put to death if he couldn't give a
satisfactory account of himself. An apprentice not yet
free of his indentures was in most respects a bondsman;
only master workmen and fellows, free of their guild,
might travel about in safety, and it was essential that
these have with them the means of proving their identity.
It could be assumed, even if there were no traditions to
support the theory, that these traveling craftsmen
possessed methods of making themselves known to local
craftsmen who would vouch for them to the civil
authorities. As few could either read or write, and as
written certificates, even if they existed, might be lost or
stolen, they would need to know a method of proving
themselves free craftsmen which would be independent
of articles to be concealed in the clothing or carried
about the person. The method would have to be more or
less secret to prevent its use by impostors.
Common laborers and other classes of workmen would
be recruited from the neighborhood and would be under
the direction of their own masters. The masons, on the
other hand, would have to be subject to other
arrangements. But this was an old experience to them;
they knew precisely what ought to be done in such an
emergency.
Their first care was to set up a "lodge." Nearly every craft
guild had its building or other place of work, where the
men sometimes slept or gathered for social intercourse
as well as for labor, but the masons appear to have been
alone in applying the term "lodge" to the organization or
assemblage itself as well as to the place of assembly. In
town guilds, as at Aberdeen, where resident brethren
were sufficiently numerous, lodges were housed in
permanent structures. On the site of construction,
however, it was usually sheltered in a temporary shed or
lean-to. Here it was a custom for the craftsmen to take
counsel on all matters pertaining to their general
welfare. Here also, apprentices were placed under strict
obligation to preserve the secrets of the logge; to hele, or
conceal, the counsel of their brethren.
Whether initiatory ceremonies were performed in those
rooms is not altogether clear. Survivals in the ritual make
it most certain that at some time lodge meetings were
held in the open air, the roof being nothing lower than
the clouded or star-decked canopy of the heavens. If this
was the case, such congregations must have been in
secure places away from the general body of the work,
perhaps on the tops of hills or in deep valleys where
sentinels might observe the approach of "cowans" — that
is, non-organized workers or "scabs" as they are now
termed in labor parlance — and eavesdroppers. Some
arrangement of the kind would at least seem reasonable,
since the working hut was usually situated at the heart of
a busy camp surrounded by those of other crafts. Some of
the ceremonials which have come down to modern times
manifestly had their origin in magical practices —
practices maintained because they were supposed to
bring "good luck," long after their primitive function of
appeasing the divinities of nature had been forgotten.
Such exercises would serve to impress the novice with
the solemnity and inviolability of his undertakings in
addition to providing him with means of identifying
himself should he afterwards become a sojourner among
stranger masons. They naturally would be screened with
the greatest care from the eyes of the profane.
The principal function of a lodge at the scene of labor
was to bring the masons under a central government,
responsible to the general overseer or superintendent of
the work, who might be the master builder, his agents,
the ecclesiastical authorities, the civil authorities or a
committee of laymen. The lodge chose its own presiding
officer, sometimes known as a master, sometimes as a
warden, sometimes, and especially in Scotland, as a
deacon. A box master, or treasurer, was chosen to take
care of the common fund. There were bookkeepers or
rolls keepers, whose duty it was to keep track of the
workers and the pay due them or received by them. In
general the officers were as few as might be. Local
conditions sometimes dictated increasing or diminishing
the number. There are no records showing the
employment of tylers at that early day, although it is
apparent that some method must have been employed to
keep the lodge free from intrusion when it was engaged
upon its private business. Some of these officers
disappeared entirely in later days, hen the need for them
no longer existed; other officers were created as
circumstance might decree.
The Old Charges furnish indications of the kind of rules
and regulations to which the members were subject.
From another source, the Fabric Rolls of York Cathedral,
comes a sidelight upon the working conditions of that
period. It is a decree establishing "Orders for the Masons
and workmen," and reads as follows:
"The first and second Masons, who are called masters of
the same, and the carpenters, shall take oath that they
cause the ancient customs underwritten to be faithfully
observed. In summer they are to begin to work
immediately after sunrise until the ringing of the bell of
the Virgin Mary; then to breakfast in the fabric room
(logium fabricae), then one of the masters shall knock
upon the door of the lodge, and forthwith all are to
return to work until noon. Between April and August,
after dinner, they shall sleep in the lodge, then work until
the first bell for vespers; then sit to drink till the end of
the third bell, and return to work so long as they can see
by daylight. In winter they are to begin work at
daybreak, and to continue as before till noon, dine and
return to work till daylight is over. On Vigils and on
Saturdays they are to work until noon."
Masons of the lodge kept themselves strictly apart from
unskilled workers in stone, who were known as rough
setters, wallers, plasterers, layers, cowans and masons
without the word." Apparently there was free intercourse
among members of the cathedral builders' lodges and
those of the local mason guilds, but no master might lay
out plans or display trade sets in the presence of workers
of the cowan class. As certain amount of intercourse
between the craftsmen and the directors of the work was
essential, it was a custom to give the "freedom of the
lodge" to the more notable of these, as a bishop, an
architect or a man skilled in the mechanical sciences. In
Scotland persons so distinguished came to be known as
Geomatic Masons and Gentlemen Masons. This appears
Geoma
to have been one of the earliest plans for "accepting"
non- operatives. There can be little doubt that these
honorary members, coming thus in contact with the
esoteric practices of the society, were vastly interested by
them, and it may be that some of these learned brethren
were able to explain to the less erudite mechanics certain
meanings of their quaint ceremonials which had long
since been forgotten.
Occasions for this must have been numerous. These
working masons were constantly surrounded by symbols
and other reminders of the past. The cathedrals which
they built, from "turret to foundation stone," were full of
symbolism. The arches, the windows, the gargoyles, were
luminous with it. Strange and secret markings were
chiseled into the stones; a master mason himself might
employ a mark which had been used by his father before
him, the original significance of which he had perhaps
lost. Stained glass, mural decorations, altar cloths,
priestly vestments, were employed to teach to an
illiterate populace the most treasured doctrines of
Church and Bible. The ceremonial of the Mass was
symbolical in every detail, with every gesture and
intonation carefully prescribed so as to bear its proper
place in this great drama of the Passion of the Blessed
Saviour. To wits skilled in the reading of such things
there was scarcely an object upon which the eye could
rest which did not have its own esoteric significance.
Even to-day the Gothic cathedral is an open book to those
who know how to read it rightly.
Operative lodges did not employ the system of degrees in
use in modern Freemasonry. They recognized three
classes of workmen, apprentices, journeymen or Fellows,
and Masters, but the distinction between the Fellow and
the Master was not that which now differentiates the
Fellowcraft from the Master Mason. Apprentices were
precisely what the name implies. They were learners,
bound over for a term of years to serve their masters, in
return for which service they were to receive food,
lodging and clothing and to receive instruction which
would enable them afterwards to earn their own
livelihood at the trade. They began as mere boys of from
twelve to fourteen years of age and usually they served
for seven years. Their relation to the lodge appears to
have varied in different localities; perhaps also as the
lodge to which they were attached was one of cathedral
builders or merely a town guild and therefore stationary.
In at least one instance it is known that apprentices were
present at the making of a master, but whether that
means they witnessed the induction of a master into his
new rights or participated in some investment with the
secrets of the lodge is in doubt, the probabilities strongly
favoring the former suggestion.
What ceremonies of initiation apprentices were required
to undergo, beyond taking oath in due form in the
presence of the brethren, the present age has no way of
knowing; nor is it known whether initiatory rites were
commonly observed. Immediately after his Admission
the newly made Fellow could begin work as a
journeyman, since in England he was not expected to
undertake a travel tour. On the contrary, this practice was
forbidden by laws passed in the fourteenth century.
Wages as a rule were also fixed by law, the wage scale
sometimes requiring an employer to provide his men
with lodging and board and with aprons, gloves and
tunics.
The lodges were self-constituting bodies. In spite of
efforts which have been made to show that Operative
Masonry was one big fraternity, as modern Freemasonry
is, the evidence weighs overwhelmingly against that
theory. All that seems to have been necessary for forming
a lodge was the presence of a number of Masters and
Fellows. These no doubt had satisfactory means of
proving one another. In later years lodges which had
existed from time immemorial came to feel they had
exclusive jurisdiction over their respective communities,
and at least one of them, acting upon that theory,
proclaimed itself a Grand Lodge with the power to issue
warrants for constituting subordinate bodies.
The Old Charges make it plain that, from time to time,
general assemblies may have been held, but there is
nothing in this connection to support a belief that these
were central governing bodies in the sense that a Grand
Lodge is. They appear to have been district conventions
called by officers of the Craft and sometimes by sheriffs.
There is doubt that even these were exclusively Masonic
and not rather general meetings of all the crafts, masons
among the rest. At most they were — if exception be
made of the legendary assembly at York, spoken of in the
Regius poem — county, provincial or municipal affairs,
called to take counsel on matters pertaining to the
welfare or government of the craftsmen. There are
allusions in the Old Manuscripts to such gatherings at
York and to one or two held elsewhere, but nowhere,
with the exception noticed, is there record of one for the
masons of the entire country.
Each Master was under moral obligation to attend these
assemblies when they were held within a reasonable
distance of his place of abode. Some of the ancient
documents fix the distance at fifty miles, and those of
most recent date put it at five miles. On this matter the
Regius poem says:
That every Mayster that ys a mason
Must ben at the generale
congregacyon,
So that he hyt reasonably y-tolde
Where that the semble schal be holde;
And to that semble he most nede gon
But he have a resenabul skwsacyon.

That assemblies were sometimes summoned for

disciplinary purposes is indicated in the Cooke
Manuscript, which sets forth that while lesser excuses
might serve for other Masters unable to attend, "those
who have been disobedient at such congregations, or
been false to their employers, or had acted so as to
deserve reproof by the Craft, should be excused only by
extreme sickness, of which notice was to be given to the
Master is principal of the assembly." What power the
assembly may have had to enforce its decrees and to
administer punishment is not revealed. Since these were
district affairs, however, it is reasonable to suppose that
the Masters who did attend were neighbors of those who
did not and that by combining against an intransigent
brother or lodge they could exercise something more
than moral suasion. Moreover, as the, lodges were also
guilds, with certain responsibilities to the civil
authorities, it is safe to assume that the decrees of an
assembly might expect support from the secular arm. It
was probably to the interest of the Masters to rule
themselves through their own congregations, as it is
certain that the congregations themselves might, on some
matter of public policy, speak to greater effect than could
the separate lodges.
Dependable accounts of the operative days are
unfortunately too scant to enable the historian to do
more than glance at certain general principles. A good
deal of guesswork must necessarily enter into every
attempt to trace Masonry through this tortuous period,
uncertain in its beginning and extended over almost half
of the entire Christian era. There seems reason to believe,
however, that itinerant, cathedral building guilds of
masons came into frequent contact with stationary local
guilds and that these ultimately became amalgamated.
The itinerant guilds appear to have been ma up of men of
superior knowledge and wider experience moreover
they had innumerable points of contact with the world
outside of the British Isles. It is therefore to them that the
present age attributes most of the legends, symbolism
and cult practices which so evidently have descended
from remote antiquity. Even so, this is only a guess —
perhaps an intelligent one, certainly plausible, and at
least more credible than the wild and fanciful romances
in which gullible and not over critical writers have
sometimes put their trust.
Continue to Chapter 12

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