It has been seen in the preceding chapter how much information as to the usages of the craft in medieval times may be derived from the statutes and regulations contained in the manuscript Constitutions, and more especially in that most valuable and interesting one, the Harleian MS. This document differs very materially from all the others that preceded it, and suggests to us that there were important changes which about that time took place in the usages of the craft. Of this manuscript, the date of which is supposed to be 1670, Bro. Hughan has said that it "contains the fullest information of any that we are aware of and is of great value and importance in consequence." *

(* "Old Charges of the British Freemasons," p. 11.)

An analysis of this manuscript will sustain the statement of this indefatigable explorer of old records and to whom we are indebted for a correct transcription from the original which is deposited in the British Museum. No analysis, so far as I know, has ever been attempted of this important manuscript, so as to deduce its true character from the internal evidence which it contains. It has been already shown that the Masons' Company received a new charter or act of incorporation from Charles II just about the time that the Harleian MS. appears to have been written. It has also been suggested that the granting of the new charter would probably be considered as a very opportune period for the Masons' Company to make some changes in its Book of Constitutions by the adoption of new regulations.

Now, I have supposed that the Harleian MS., differing so much, as it does, from all preceding manuscripts, is a copy or transcript of the Book of Constitutions of the Masons' Company as it was modified in the reign of Charles II. In presenting us with the laws of the Craft which were at that day in force, it supplies us with a very accurate and authentic exposition of the usages and customs of the fraternity as they then prevailed. A brief analysis therefore of some of the most important articles will certainly advance us very considerably in our knowledge of the progress of Freemasonry in the 17th century, about a hundred years before the Operative element of Freemasonry was absolutely extinguished by the Speculative. Hence it is that I call the Harleian MS. a germ of Masonic history. We may profitably commence our analysis of the historical points developed in this manuscript by directing our attention to the origin and meaning of the words "Accepted Mason," which are so familiar at the present day in the title given to the Order as that of "The Free and Accepted Masons."

The 26th Article of the Harleian Constitutions directs that "no person shall be accepted a Mason, unless he shall have a lodge of five free Masons;" and the next article says that "no person shall be accepted a Free Mason but such as are of able body, honest parentage," etc. The word "accepted" here used is of some importance as having been one of the titles afterward adopted by the Speculative Masons, who called themselves "Free and Accepted," in allusion to this very article. The word is first employed in the Harleian MS. In the older manuscripts we find the expression "Masons allowed," which, however, evidently means the same thing. In the two articles cited above it is very plain that an "Accepted Mason" is one who has been admitted into the fraternity by some ceremony, which is called his "acception," or acceptation. It is equivalent to the modern word initiation." But in the 28th Article we find the same word used in a double sense, of both "initiation" and "affiliation."

It prescribes that "no person shall be accepted a Free Mason nor shall be admitted into any lodge or assembly until he hath brought a certificate of the time of acception from the lodge that accepted him unto the Master of that Limit and Division where such lodge was kept which said Master shall enroll the same in parchment in a roll to be kept for that purpose to give an account of all such acceptions at every General Assembly." There is a very large and interesting amount of knowledge of the character of the Masonic organization and of its usages in the 17th century to be derived from this article, if understandingly interpreted. No one was to be accepted a Freemason, that is, admitted into the fellowship or made free of the Guild or Company, or, as we would say in modern phrase, "affiliated," in contradistinction to a "cowan" or "rough layer," one who was not permitted to work or mingle with the Freemasons, unless he had brought to the Master of the limit or division in which a certain lodge was situated a certificate that he had been accepted (the word here signifying initiated or admitted by some ceremony into the craft) in that lodge.

The Master of that division or limit must have been possessed of an authority or jurisdiction over several lodges, something like the Provincial Grand Masters in England or the District Deputy Grand Masters in the United States. This Master kept a list of the Masons thus made whose making had been certified to him and made a return of the same to the General Assembly at the annual meeting. This is much the same as is done at the present day, when the lodges make a return to the Grand Lodge at its annual communication of the number and names of the candidates that have been initiated by it during the year. So there were two kinds of acceptation.

The acceptation into the lodge, which was also called "making a Mason," and the acceptation afterward into the full fellowship of the Society or Company, which was to be done only on the production of a certificate of the time and place when the first acceptance or initiation occurred. We find an analogous case in the modern usage. A man is first initiated in a lodge, and then he is made a member of it. The one usually follows the other, but not necessarily. A candidate may be initiated in a lodge and yet not claim or receive membership in it Such cases sometimes occur.

The candidate has been accepted in the old sense of initialed, in the lodge, but if he goes away and desires to be accepted into the full fellowship of the fraternity, which act in modern language is called "affiliation," by uniting with another lodge, he can not be so accepted or affiliated into its fellowship unless he brings a certificate of his previous acceptation or initiation in the lodge in which he was made. There is an apparent confusion in the double sense in which the word acceptation or acception is used, which can only be removed by this interpretation, which explains the two kinds of acceptance referred to in the same article. This will hereafter be applied to an explanation of some interesting Masonic circumstances that occurred in the life of the celebrated antiquary Elias Ashmole.

One more point, however, in this important article must be first referred to. It is prescribed that when a Mason is to be made or accepted, it must be in a lodge of at least five Free Masons, one of whom must be a Master or Warden, of the limit or division where the said lodge shall be kept. Masters and Wardens were therefore ranks (it does not follow that they were degrees) in whom alone was invested the prerogative of presiding at the making of Masons. It was not necessary that he should be the Master or Warden of the lodge where the initiation or acceptation was made. The lodge might, indeed, be a mere extemporary affair, consisting of five Free Masons called together for the especial purpose of accepting a new brother of the craft. But it was essential that a Free Mason, not a stranger brought from some other section of the country, but one residing or working in the vicinity, and who was not a mere Fellow, but who had reached the rank of a Master or a Warden, should be present and, of course, preside at the meeting. Preston confirms this in a note in his Illustrations of Masonry, where he says:

"A sufficient number of Masons met together within a certain district, with the consent of the sheriff or chief magistrate of the place, were empowered, at this time, to make masons and practice the rites of Masonry without warrant of Constitution." *

(* Preston, "Illustrations," Oliver's edition, p. 182, note.)

The consent of the sheriff or chief magistrate which Preston supposes to be necessary to the making of a Mason is not required by the Harleian or any subsequent regulations which represent the Constitutions of the Masons' Company. The Halliwell poem and the Cooke MS., which closely follow it, do say that the sheriff of the county, the mayor of the city, and many knights and nobles are to be at the General Assembly. But I have endeavored to show that the Halliwell statutes belonged to a different organization of the craft. Another expression in this 28th Harleian regulation elucidates an important point in the organization of the Masonic sodality at that time.

Of the five Free-Masons who were required to be present at the acceptance of a candidate, one was to be a Master and Warden "and another of the trade of Free Masonry." Hence it follows that the other three might be non-Masons, or persons not belonging to the craft. This is the very best legal evidence that we could have that in the middle of the 17th century non-professional persons were admitted as honorary members into the fraternity. The Speculative element, as we now have it, was of course not yet introduced, but the craft did not consist exclusively of working Masons.

These explanations will enable us to understand the often - quoted passages from the Diary of Elias Ashmole, which without them would seem to bear contradictory meanings. Mr. Ashmole says, under the date of October 16, 1646, at half past four in the afternoon:

"I was made a Free Mason at Warrington in Lancashire with Colonel Henry Mainwaring of Karticham in Cheshire, the names, of those that then were at the lodge, Mr. Richard Penket Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Richard Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam and Hugh Brewer."

The circumstances of the ceremony here detailed are strictly in accord with the regulations which were then in force and which were not long afterward incorporated in the Constitutions as these are preserved in the Harleian MS. That manuscript says that at the acceptance of a Free-Mason there shall be "a Lodge of five Free Masons." The Landsdowne MS. says there should be "at least six or seven."

The "new regulations" in the Harleian MS. reduced the number to five, which is the exact quorum required at the present day in Speculative Masonry for the admission of a Fellow Craft. Of these five, one was to be a Master or Warden. And here we find Mr. Richard Penket acting as Warden. Another one of the five was to be "of the trade of Free Masonry." We know what respect was in those days paid to the distinction of ranks, so that the titles of Esquire and Gentleman were carefully observed, the former having the magic letters "Esq." affixed and the latter the letters "Mr." prefixed to his name, while the yeoman, merchant, or tradesman was entitled to neither, but was designated only by his simple name.

"He who can live without manual labor," says an old heraldic authority, * "or can support himself as a gentleman without interfering in any mechanic employment, is called Mr. and may write himself Gentleman."

(* "Laws of Honour," P. 286.)

As Ashmole was a distinguished herald and careful in observing the rules of precedency, we may safely conclude that "Mr. James Collier" and "Mr. Richard Sankey" were gentlemen and not professional Masons, while plain "Henry Littler, John Ellam and Hugh Brewer," who are recorded without the honorable prefix,, were only workmen "of the trade of Free Masonry." So far Ashmole had only been made a Free-Mason; that is, been received as a member of the Craft. According to the regulations another step was necessary before he could be accepted into the freedom and fellowship of the Company.

"No person shall hereafter be accepted a Free Mason," says the. New Articles, "until he hath brought a certificate of the time of his acceptance from the lodge that accepted him;" and further, that "every person who is now a Free Mason shall bring to the Master a note of his acception, to the end the same may be enrolled in such priority of place as the person shall deserve and to the end the whole Company and Fellows may the better know each other." And here is the way in which Ashmole obeyed this regulation, which was then in full force. He writes in his Diary, under the date of March 10, 1682, about five o'clock in the afternoon, as follows:

"I received a summons to appear at a lodge to be held the next day at Masons Hall in London." On the next day, or March 11th, he writes as follows: "Accordingly I went and about noon was admitted into the fellowship of Free-Masons by Sir William Wilson, Knight, Captain. Richard Borthwick, Mr. William Wodman, Mr. William Grey Mr. Samuel Taylor and Mr. William Wise.

"I was the senior fellow among them (it being thirty-five years since I was admitted) there was present besides myself the fellows after named. Mr. Thomas Wise, Master of the Masons-company this present year; Mr. Thomas Shorthose, Mr. Thomas Shadbolt, - Waidsfford, Esq. Mr. Nicholas Young, Mr. John Shorthose, Mr. William Hamon, Mr. John Thompson, and Mr. William Stanton. "We all dined at the Half-Moon Tavern in Cheapside, at a noble dinner prepared at the charge of the new-accepted Masons."

To many who have read these two extracts from Ashmole's Diary, the eminent antiquary has appeared to involve himself in a contradiction by first stating that he was made a Mason at Warrington in the year 1646, and afterward that he was admitted into the fellowship of Free Masons in 1682. But there is really no contradiction in these statements. The New Articles in the Harleian MS. afford the true explanation, which is entirely satisfactory.

In 1646, while Ashmole was on a visit to Lancashire, he was induced to become a Free Mason; that is, as a non-professional member to unite himself with the Craft. This had been frequently done before by other distinguished men, and the regulations, which are not necessarily of the date of the manuscript, had provided for the admission or initiation of persons who were not workmen or professional Masons. A lodge for the purpose had been called at Warrington. Whether this was a permanent lodge that was there existing or whether it was only a temporary one called together and presided over by a Warden of that district is immaterial.

The passage in the Diary throws no light on the question. It was, however, most probably a temporary lodge, called together by Warden Penket for the sole purpose of admitting Ashmole and Mainwaring, or making them Free Masons. The regulations authorized this act. The only restrictions were that there should be five Free Masons present, one of whom was to be a Master or Warden and another a workman of the Craft or Operative Mason. All these restrictions were duly observed in the admission of Ashmole and his companion. But this act, though it made him a Free Mason, did not admit him to a full fellowship in the Society.

To accomplish this another step was necessary. As persons were often made in temporary or occasional lodge, which were dissolvent after they had performed the act of admitting new-comers, for which sole purpose they had been organized, it was necessary that the person so admitted should present a certificate of the time when and the place where he had been admitted or accepted, to some superior officer, who is called in the regulations "the Master of that limit and division where such lodge was kept;" and who was probably the Master Mason who presided over the Craft, who lived and worked in that section of the kingdom, or perhaps also the Master of the permanent lodge, composed of all the Craft in that division which assembled at stated periods. This permanent lodge, to which all the Craft repaired, might have been called an "Assembly." If so that would account for the frequent use of the word "Assembly" in all the old manuscripts, to which every Mason was required to repair on due notice if it was within five or ten, or, as some say, within fifty miles of him. And this surmise will also explain the meaning of the regulation which says that no one, unless he produced a certificate of his previous acception, could be "admitted into any lodge or assembly," where the words "Lodge" and "Assembly" would seem to indicate two different kinds of Masonic congregation, the former referring to the lodges temporarily organized for special purposes, and the latter to the regular assemblage of Masons in a permanent body upon stated occasions and for the transaction of the general business of the Craft there congregated, and to which body the certificates were to be presented of those who had been accepted or initiated in the temporary lodge. But Ashmole did not at the time, or at any time soon after, present such a certificate to the Master of that limit in Lancashire that he had been made a Free Mason in a lodge at Warrington on October 16, 1646. If he had done so we may be sure that he would have mentioned the fact in his Diary, which is so excessively minute in its details as to frequently make a record of matters absurdly unimportant. Accordingly, though a Free Mason by virtue of his acceptance or making at Warrington, he was not admitted to the fellowship of the Craft, he was not "free of the Company," was not entitled to an entrance into any of its lodges or assemblies, nor could he take part in any of the proceedings of the sodality. He was a regularly made Free Mason, and that was all; he was in fact very much in the isolated position of those who are called "unaffiliated Masons" in the present day. He had received initiation but had not applied for membership. Thirty-five years afterward Ashmole did what he had neglected to do before and perfected his relationship to the Craft.

On March 11, 1682, he attended the meeting of a lodge held in Masons' Hall the place of meeting of the Masons' Company. The lodge was thus held under the sanction of that Company. Mr. William Wise, the Master of the Company, was present, but is not spoken of as one of the members of the lodge. The lodge consisted of Sir William Wilson and six others. As Wilson is mentioned first, we may presume that he was the Master. By these seven Ashmole and some others (who it seems paid the scot for a dinner eaten on the occasion) were "admitted into the fellowship of Free Masons." In 1646 he was made a Free Mason; in 1682 he was admitted to the fellowship of the Society. Thenceforth be became not only a Free Mason but an Accepted Mason; he was, in other words, by the ceremony performed at Masons' Hall, a "Free and Accepted Mason," and his name was enrolled in the parchment roll "kept for that purpose," that he and the company might "the better know each other."

The account of the acceptance of Elias Ashmole, recorded by himself and therefore of the most undoubted authenticity, when thus interpreted, supplies us with nearly all the details which are necessary to understand the usages of the Craft in respect to initiations and admissions in the 17th century. They will be more fully analyzed at the close of the present chapter. But it will be necessary first to refer to another authority of great importance on the same subject. Robert Plott, who was the keeper of the Museum presented by Elias Ashmole to the University of Oxford, wrote, and in 1686 published, The Natural History of Staffordshire, in which work he gives an account of the Masonic customs prevailing at that time in the country. Plott was not a Free Mason. "The evidence of Dr. Plott is extremely valuable," says Oliver, "because it shows the existence of Lodges of Masons in Staffordshire and the practice of certain ceremonies of initiation in the 17th century in accordance with the regulations laid down in the manuscript Constitution whose authenticity is thus confirmed."

Dr. Plott says that they had in Staffordshire a custom "of admitting men into the Society of Free Masons, that in the moorlands of this country seems to be of greater request than anywhere else, though I find the custom spread more or less all over the nation, for here I found persons of the most eminent quality, that did not disdain to be of this fellowship." He then proceeds to relate and unfavorably to criticize the Legend of the Craft, which it is not necessary to quote. He afterward continues his account of the customs of the Masonic Society, in the following words: "Into which Society, when they are admitted, they call a meeting (or Lodge as they term it in some places), which must consist at least, of five or six of the Ancients of the Order, whom the candidates present with gloves, and so likewise to their wives, and entertain with a collation, according to the custom of the place. This ended they proceed to the admission of them, which chiefly consists in the communication of certain secret signs, whereby they are known to one another all over the nation, by which means they have maintenance whither ever they travel; for if any man appear, though altogether unknown, that can show any of these signs to a fellow of the society, whom they otherwise call an Accepted Mason, he is obliged, presently to come to him, from what company or place so ever he be in; nay, though from the top of a steeple, what hazard or inconvenience so ever he run, to know his pleasure and assist him; viz., if he want work he is bound to find him some; or if he can not do that to give him money or otherwise support him till work can be had, which is one of their articles; and it is another that they advise the Masters they work for, according to the best of their skill acquainting them with the goodness or badness of their materials; and if they be anyway out in the contrivance of the buildings, modestly to rectify them in it, that Masonry be not dishonored; and many such like that are commonly known; but some others they have (to which they are sworn after their fashion) that none know but themselves." *

(* Plott, "Natural History of Staffordshire," chap. viii., p. 316.)

There is another document of far more importance than those which have been cited, and which gives a more complete description of the usages of the Craft in the 17th century. I refer to the old record which has been designated as the Sloane MS. NO. 3329.

Of the three copies of the Constitutions which are preserved in the British Museum and known as the Sloane MS. the one numbered 3329 is by far the most valuable and interesting. A part of it was inserted by Mr. Findel in the Appendix to his History of Freemasonry. But the complete text was published by Bro. Hughan in the Voice of Masonry for October, 1872, and in the National Freemason for April, 1873. There has been some doubt about the exact date of the manuscript. Hughan thinks it was written between 1640 and 1700. Messrs. Bond and Sims, of the British Museum, experts in old manuscripts, suppose that its date is "probably of the beginning of the 18th century."

Bro. Woodford mentions a great authority in manuscripts, but he does not give the name, who declares it to be previous to the middle of the 17th century. Finally, Findel thinks it originated at the end of the 17th century, and that "it was found among the papers which Dr. Plott left behind him on his death, and was one of the sources whence his communications on Freemasonry were derived." But if Plott used this manuscript in writing his article on Freemasonry, of which there is certainly very strong internal evidence, then the date of the manuscript could not have been later than 1685, for he published his book in 1686, and it was most probably written some time before. We are safe then, I think, in assuming the middle of the 17th century as the approximate date of the Sloane MS. It differs from all the other manuscripts in containing neither the Ordinances nor the Legend of the Craft. It is simply a description of the Ritual of the Society of Operative Masons as practiced at the period when it was written, namely, as is conjectured, about the middle of the 17th century.

From all these important documents - the Harleian Constitutions, the Diary of Ashmole, the narrative of Dr. Plott, and the Sloane MS. - collated with each other and confirming each other, we are enabled to form a very accurate notion of what were the usages of the Craft in the 17th century, and approximately in the 10th and 15th centuries. A careful analysis will lead to the following results:

There was an incorporated Company of Masons, just as there were incorporated companies of other trades and crafts, such as the Mercers, the Drapers, the Carpenters, the Smiths, etc. As this Company had been originally chartered in 1410, it must have exercised its influence over the Craft from that early period, and the early manuscript Constitutions were doubtless copies of its Guild Book of Laws and Records; but it is not mentioned by name in any of the manuscripts anterior to the middle of the 17th century.

There is a frequent allusion to lodges as the place where Masters and Fellows worked, and there are references to an Assembly, which, from the language used, must have been a congregation of several Masters and Fellows. But there is no express recognition of the Company in any manuscript before the Harleian. From that time forth the Masons' Company seems to have constituted the head of the Craft in a certain district. There were several of these companies in different cities but the principal one was that at London. However or wherever a person was admitted as a Free Mason, he could only be considered as "Accepted" when he had reported the fact to some superior authority in the district where he had been made, whereupon his name was enrolled in a parchment book or roll. There were, besides these companies, lodges in various parts of the country. Some of these lodges, at least toward the close of the century, were permanent bodies. But many were merely extemporaneously organized for the purpose of initiating a candidate, who was afterward reported to the Master of the limit or division in which the lodge had been held.

There was some ceremony, though a very brief one, at the time of admitting a newly made brother. There were secret signs and words, and an oath of secrecy and fidelity, but there are no documents extant to enable us to determine the nature of the ceremony of initiation. We have no evidence of the existence of any degrees of initiation. Indeed, Masonic scholars have now come very generally to the conclusion that what are called in the modern rituals the First, Second, and Third Degrees were the later invention of the Speculative Free Masons of the 18th century. But this subject will hereafter be discussed at length in a chapter exclusively devoted to its consideration. On the whole it will be readily seen that the sodalities of the Operative Masons of the 17th and preceding centuries were the germ which afterward was developed in the 18th century into the full fruit of Speculative Masonry.

The Harleian Constitutions present us with the basis of the laws which still govern the institution, the Diary which details Ashmole's reception and Plott's narrative prove that many usages of the present day were in existence at that period, and from the Sloane MS. we learn that certain points of esoteric instruction which prevailed in the 17th century have been incorporated, with necessary modifications of course, into the modern rituals. By comparing the Sloane document with the rituals that were published soon after the Revival, in 1717, and these again with those of the present day, we will be able to see how the later and perfected system has been gradually developed out of the primitive one of the middle of the 17th century, and we will be justified in believing that the same system was in existence at a much earlier period. Not only, then, is there no difficulty in tracing the connection between the lodges of Operative Masons which were existing before the year 1717 with those of the non-operative Free Masons who, in that year, established the Grand Lodge of England, but it is absolutely impossible to exclude from our minds the conviction that there has been a regular and distinct progression by which the one became merged in the other.

We have now arrived at that period in the history of English Freemasonry which brings us into direct contact with the events that immediately preceded and accompanied the organization of the Grand Lodge of England, or as it has been also called, the Revival of Masonry, in 1717. But before that subject can be discussed it will be necessary for us to return, in our historical inquiries, to the events connected with the transmission of Masonry in the sister kingdom of Scotland and afterward on the Continent of Europe, and more especially to the Traveling Freemasons, who came from Lombardy in the 10th century, and to the later organization of the Stonemasons of Germany, interesting and prolific subjects which will require several chapters for their treatment.

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