When I was in my early 20s, prior to going to graduate school where I eventually earned a Ph.D., specializing in Baroque Spanish Drama & Poetry, I went into used bookstore -- Ninth Street Books, if I remember correctly -- in Columbia, Missouri, in search of books about Freemasonry. If I weren't charitable toward youthful and exuberant naïvité, I'd be embarrassed to tell how I approached the owner and told him that I wanted to know "all about" the history of Freemasonry.
From my youthful perspective, his reply was filled with crusty cynicism. Pointing vaguely toward an area on a shelf toward the back of the store, all he said was: "Good luck with that one."
The study of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque cultural artifacts involves a lot of reading and subsequent pondering about the transmission of culture and the nature of that transmission. It is a rough and rugged road indeed, one fraught with the equal dangers of jumping to conclusions as well as missing details. Often, both errors are due to the difficulty of removing the cultural filters through which we read and interpret the past. Imagine a world lit by fire and recorded by the quill...
The adventure into the past involves the risk of being wrong and so responsible scholars, among whom I like to number myself, will include caveats and disclaimers along with their balanced use of source material. Consider my caveat already expressed and allow me to offer a trail through which we might find the origins of modern Freemasonry, that is, prior to 1717 when the first Grand Lodge was formed in London. Let's work backward from that moment and examine a list of names who seem to suggest linkage in terms of personal relationships, as well as intellectual, spiritual and (to our modern way of thinking) occult, interests.
Dr. David Stevenson, a Scottish historian (a non-Mason), offers a glimpse of the birth of modern Freemasonry through his scholarly examination of the oldest extant minutes from Kilwinning Lodge, dating from the 1590s. The first name that stands out as an educated man associated with the Craft guild is Robert Moray (d. 1602), "master of works" for King James. It is suggested that Moray's esoteric (read "scientific") interests influenced the development of Freemasonry.
Stevenson's account of the origins of Freemasonry in Scotland are not univesally accepted. Prior to his work, Dame Frances Yates postulated that the influential Rosicrucian-related writings and activities of John Dee on the Continent had made their way back to the court of Elizabeth and there exerted an influence that gave birth to Freemasonry. Stevenson does not agree and the problem is probably unsolvable, unless one considers the possibility -- a likely one in my opinion -- that these two points of view only are mutually exclusive if one is looking for "the" birthplace of Freemasonry.
Under Elizabeth I, the name of John Dee stands out as one who also excelled in his knowledge of astrology and the occult. He was her court astrologer, so able, it is said that he predicted the precise date, time and manner of the death of Sir Phillip Sydney.
Chronologically, Dee precedes Moray somewhat, but their careers and influence in the upper reaches of society in England and Scotland definitely overlapped. The question is whether they mingled and if so, where, how and in what context.
The cultural waters of the Baroque are murky enough without asking questions so arcane as those that concern themselves with Freemasonry. But one recent source that dares to venture into those waters and does so with success is John Churton's The Golden Builders: Alchemists, Rosicrucians and the First Freemasons. Churton is thoroughly familiar with Stevenson's and Yates' works as well as with those of Margaret Jacobs, who has published extensively about Freemasonry for the past thirty years. One of her more significant is The Origins of Freemasonry, now in its second edition.
Next, considering the generation after Dee and Moray, also with sufficient overlap for cultural transmission in England, we find Sir Francis Bacon. His eerily modern work The New Atlantis (1626), coincides with the birth of empirical science and foreshadows the fanciful works of Jules Verne (also a Freemason). The New Atlantis is noteworthy in the context of conjectures about Masonic history due Bacon's use of "Saloman's House" -- a place of learning which his narrator explains thus:
"It was the erection and institution of an order, or society, which we call Saloman's House, the noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the earth, and the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God. Some think it beareth the founder's name a little corrupted, as if it should be Solomon's House. But the records write it as it is spoken. So as I take it to be denominate of the King of the Hebrews, which is famous with you, and no strangers to us; for we have some parts of his works which with you are lost; namely, that natural history which he wrote of all plants, from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall; and of all things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our King finding himself to symbolize, in many things, with that King of the Hebrews, which lived many years before him, honored him with the title of this foundation. And I am the rather induced to be of this opinion, for that I find in ancient records, this order or society is sometimes called Solomon's House, and sometimes the College of the Six Days' Works, whereby I am satisfied that our excellent King had learned from the Hebrews that God had created the world and all that therein is within six days: and therefore he instituted that house, for the finding out of the true nature of all things, whereby God might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and men the more fruit in their use of them, did give it also that second name."
For the complete, online text of The New Atlantis, prepared by William Uzgalis at the University of Oregon, click here.
Bacon's career in turn overlaps neatly with that of Elias Ashmole who is often referred to as the first Freemason of record, since he noted his initiation in his diary. He was also one of the charter members of the Royal Society, along with Sir Isaac Newton and Christopher Wren, who was the architect of the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire in 1666. Wren is often said to have been the first Grand Master, although that seems implausible and unlikely, since there was no Grand Lodge for him to be Grand Master of prior to 1717. Still, the period from 1717 to 1721 is poorly documented and, since he died in 1723, it is at least possible but unprovable.
Once we pass the time of the founding of the Royal Society, we have only to sort out the details of the four years following the formation of the first Grand Lodge. After that, we are in the "historical" period of Freemasonry.
What may we make out of earlier times, prior to even the 1580s? There surely is some gold amid the dross, but there has been so fodder for Masonic publishing ghettoes that the general public will probably remain perplexed and, with reason, annoyed at the lack of any clear picture as to the history of Freemasonry. One day, I may even publish my own private opinions on the matter... in the meantime, feel free to ask!
