The art of building in the Middle Ages is presented to us by authentic history as being practiced by two distinct classes of workmen; first, the association of builders who have already been repeatedly described under the name of "Freemasons;" and, secondly, another class of workmen who were not members of the fraternity, though they were often in the cities incorporated as independent bodies. Thus we find that in London in the 14th century, during the reign of Edward III, there was an incorporated Company of Masons who sent four delegates to the Common Council, and a Company of Freemasons, which being a smaller, and probably a more select body, sent only two. *

(* Herbert, "History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies," vol i., p. 34.)

The Strasburg Constitutions prohibited those who had been admitted as members of the Fraternity of Freemasons from working with any other craftsmen, * evidently referring to other Masons whether incorporated or not, and who had not been made free of the Guild or Fraternity. The old English Charges furnish the evidence that the same distinction of workmen existed in England as in Germany.

(* "Strasburg Ordinances," No. 2, mit keinem Antwerk dienent: thus interpreted by Krause - daher solien sie auch mit keinem andern Handwerke dienen.)

For instance the "Mason, allowed," that is, he who had been accepted by the Fraternity, is forbidden to instruct the "layer" by furnishing him with moulds or patterns for work. "Also," says the York MS., "that no Master or Fellow make any mould, rule, or square of any layer nor set any layer (within the Lodge) or without to hew any mould stones."

The date of the York MS. is about the close of the 16th century. But the same regulation is found in all the subsequent manuscripts. In the Landsdowne MS., however, as well as in the Antiquity MS., which appears to be only a copy of the Landsdowne, the word is Lowen. This is evidently a blunder of a careless or an ignorant copyist, who has retained the initial capital, because in it there could have been no chance of confounding it for C, but has changed the rest of the word layer, badly written most probably in the exemplar from which he copied, into Lowen. The correct word is, therefore, layer; and from this regulation we learn that the division of the builders in the Middle Ages was into two classes: a superior one, who are always designated in the English manuscript Constitutions and Charges as Masons, and an inferior class called layers, and sometimes, as in the Alnwick MS., rough layers. In contemporary works of the same period, not Masonic Constitutions, we also find the distinction of free mason and rough mason, being no doubt the same thing as a stone layer in contradistinction to a brick layer, a craft which belonged no more than the carpenter to the great body of Masons. *

(* In a work published in 1559, entitled "The Booke for a Justice of the Peace," is the following passage: "None artificer, nor laborer hereafter named, take no more nor greater wages than hereafter is limited....... that is to say, a free mason, master carpenter, rough mason, bricklayer," etc., fol. 17.)

Now what is the meaning of this word layer, which is to be classed among "the lost beauties of the English language," being retained only in the compound bricklayer ? There can be no difficulty in answering this question. In the Promptorium Parvulorm, the oldest dictionary of our language extant, which was compiled in the year 1440 by a Dominican Friar of Norfolk, and the latest edition of which was published in 1865 by the Camden Society, with copious and learned annotations by the late Mr. Albert Way, is the following: "Leyare, or werkare wythe stone and mortere."

And the Latin equivalent given for it is Caementarius. In classical Latinity, as well as in the Low Latin of the Middle Ages, a caemeniarius was a builder of walls, who handled the caementa or rough stones as they came from the quarries. St. Jerome, in one of his Epistles (53), defines a camentarius as one who builds rough walls of caementa, or unhewn stones. A layer or stonelayer (the word "stone" being understood), which the Promptorium Latinizes by caementarius, was a rough mason whose business was simply to follow the plan of the architect, and in the erection of the walls of an edifice to lay one stone upon another, just as the bricklayer does at the present day with bricks.

Mr. Way has this interesting note on the word Leyare and its definition. in the Promptorium Parvulorum: In the account of works at the palace of Westminster and Tower during the 14th century, preserved among the miscellaneous records of the Queen's Remembrancer, mention is made continually of cubatores, * or stone layers. See also the abstract of accounts relating to the erection of St. Stephen's Chapel in the reign of Edward III, printed in Smith's Antiquities of Westminster. In this contract for building Fotheringhay Church, the chief mason undertakes neither to 'set more nor fewer freemasons, rough setters ne leye(r)s' upon the work but as the appointed overseer shall ordain." The same distinction between the two classes is preserved in a statute passed in the reign of Edward VI, anno 1548.

(* To make "cubator" signify a man who lays stone, a layer, because a poet in the iron age of the Latin language, Plotinus, of Nola, had used the same word to designate a man who lies down (that is to denote a lier and a layer by the same word), is a travesty well calculated to astound an etymologist. But the Low Latinists were not purists.

It is then enacted "that noe person or persons shall at anye tyme after the firste daye of Aprille next conyngq interrupte, denye, lett or disturbe any Freemason, rough mason, carpenter, bricklayer, playsterer," etc.*

(* "Statutes of the Realm," vol. iv., p. 59.)

The appellation of rough mason, rough setters, or rough layers bestowed upon these workmen of an inferior class was derived from the German. In the Strasburg Ordinances ruh or roh is applied to an unskilled or ignorant apprentice. In the German rituals rohenstein is the rough ashlar. Richardson defines the word rough as meaning it coarse, unpolished, savage, rude, uncivil." When the English Charges speak of a "rough mason," they mean one whose work is coarse and unpolished, and who has not the skill in stonecutting, possessed by the members of the fraternity of Freemasons.

To the Freemasons, who were a brotherhood devoted to the erection principally of cathedrals and other religious edifices, every other Mason was looked upon with a species almost of contempt as rude and ignorant; he was called a rough Mason, and they refused to work with him or to impart to him any information which would assist him in his own work. Now as to the higher class, called by historians the "Freemasons," but who in the English Constitutions are always designated as "Masons." But in other documents of the Middle Ages we frequently meet with the word "Freemason," used in a sense evidently denoting a particular class of artisans.

As early as the year 1350, in the reign of Edward III, of England, an act of Parliament was passed in which the wages of a Master Freemason are fixed at 4 pence and that of other Masons at 3 pence. This is the earliest date for the use of the word, but it was subsequently used in other statutes, in monumental inscriptions, and in old records, and always so as to indicate that the Freemason was of a class differing from other Masons. Whence then comes the term, from what is it derived, and what was in former times its exact meaning? These are questions that have greatly exercised the minds of Masonic etymologists who have arrived at three very different conclusions. The first of these conclusions, namely, that free in the word Freemason was originally Frere or Brother, which was prefixed by the workmen who used the French language to the word Mason, so as to make the word Frere Mason or Brother Mason, which was afterward corrupted into Free Mason, is mere etymological fancy hardly worth a serious refutation. Paley says, quite dogmatically The name Freemasons is a corruption of Freres Macons, or fraternity," and he quotes Dallaway as his authority for the opinion. *

(* "Manual of Gothic Architecture," p. 211.)

But Dallaway, in his Historical Account of Master and Freemason, has expressed an opinion the reverse of this. He admits that a passage in the Leland MS. authorizes the conjecture that the denomination of Freemasons in England was merely a corruption of Frere Macons, but immediately afterward he says, "but I am not borne out by their appellations on the continent," and he gives their appellations such as Franc-Macon in French, Frei Maurer in German, and Libero Muratore in Italian. *

(* Dallaway, "Master and Freemason," p. 434.)

None of these titles could of course have been translations of Frere, but must have been intended to convey, in each of these languages, the idea conveyed in English by the word Free. It is strange, too, that Dallaway should have laid any stress on the Leland MS. as authorizing even a conjecture (admitted afterward to be unplausible) that Freemason was originally Frere Macon. Now the word Frere Macon does not occur in the Leland MS. Only once do we meet with freres, in its usual sense of brothers or members of a confrerie or confraternity, a sense in which it is still employed. The word invariably used is Masons, or rather Maconnes and Maconrye.

There is no mention of either Freemasons or Frere Macons, and nothing can be learned from it of the derivation or original meaning of the word Free. But in fact the Leland MS. is now very generally admitted to be of no value as an historical document. Purporting to have been written in the reign of Henry VI, and by the king himself, it is now known to have been a forgery in the middle of the last century. I think we may dismiss the attempted derivation of Free from Frere, as one of those allusions to which etymologists are unfortunately too often addicted.

Again it has been supposed that Freemasons were so called because they worked in Freestone, and because they were thus distinguished from other Masons, who were called Rough Masons, because they worked in rough stones. But for several reasons I cannot accept this derivation, although it is not as objectionable as the preceding one. In the first place, if the name of the class was derived from the character of the stone worked, the proper words would be Free Stone Mason and Rough Stone Mason, and Free Mason and Rough Mason. Again, Free Stone is not the apposite or antithesis of Rough Stone.

There is no relation, contradictory or otherwise, between them. Free Stone is any stone composed of sand or grit, which, on account of its softness, is easily cut or wrought. Rough Stone is any ston, no matter what may be its geological character, that is still in its native state, and has not been formed or polished by the hands of the workmen. A stone may be at the same time free stone and rough stone. The word juh or roh - English rough - is used in the German Constitutions to signify unskilled or unpolished. An Apprentice is spoken of in them as being taken "from his rough state" (von Ruhem auff), which Krause interprets as "one still wholly ignorant." *

(* Als einen noch ganz Unwissenden Krause, "Kunsturkunden," ii., 28.)

And so, also, the unpolished stone which we call the rough Ashlar, the German rituals name das rohen Stein. By a "rough Mason" or a "rough layer," the old English Masons meant a Mason who had not been thoroughly educated in the art, one who was ignorant of the principles and geometrical secrets which were possessed by the higher fraternity. The etymology is, therefore, I think, not tenable, which would derive the two appellations Free-Mason and Rough Mason from the different geological nature of the stones on which the two classes worked. The Rough Mason often used free stone in building his walls, but he did not thereby become a Free Mason. It must be observed that the word Free Mason is never employed in the English, German, or French Constitutions or Regulations of the Craft.

There the simple word Mason or its equivalent is used. The appellation is to be found only in statutes and contracts. But it is not to be supposed that the framers of these were acquainted with the fact that there was a distinction between the two classes founded on the possession of certain secrets. They simply intended, by the words "Free Mason" and "Rough Mason," to recognize the fact that there were two classes of workmen, one of superior skill and superior station to the other. But though the word "Free Mason" is not to be found in the Masonic Constitutions, it is evident that the Masons themselves had recognized it as a distinguishing title as early as the 14th century, because in the year 1377 we meet with the Company of Freemasons and the Company of Masons in the Catalogue of those which were authorized to send delegates to the Common Council of London. *

(* Herbert, "History of Livery Companies," i. 34.)

It is then evident that the word "Free" was employed, no matter what was its original meaning, to designate a superior class. I think it may justly be considered as referring to the fact that the persons called "Freemasons" were me of superior abilities, who, by being accepted into the fraternity, had become free of the guild or corporation. Masons who were not possessed of this amount of skill, and who were employed in labors of a less artistic character, were not permitted to work with these Freemasons - were not accepted into their fraternity; in other words, were not made free of the guild. A writer in the London Freemason says:

"Originally the Operative Mason was free of his guild, and probably we have in the word a remembrance of emancipation through honest labor in towns of those who were originally villani adscripti gleba" - serfs who were attached to the soil, and who could not be admitted to the freedom of the guild because the lord who owned them might at any time reclaim them.

In the earliest periods of the feudal system, before the municipalities began to assert their rights, the handicrafts were for the most part pursued by slaves. At a later period freemen also practiced the trades, but there was always a distinction between the free and the servile craftsman - a distinction which the Masons apparently retained after the cause had ceased. Krause says that these Masons were called Free because they possessed certain municipal privileges. *

(* Krause, "Kunsturkunden," i., p. 74.)

These privileges, according to Hope, Pownall, and many other writers, consisted in the monopoly of building churches, cathedrals, and other religious edifices, and in certain franchises granted them by Popes and other sovereigns. Dallaway, it is true, denies, at least so far as England is concerned, that any such privileges existed. "No proof," he says, "has been as yet adduced from any chronicle or history of this country that as a fraternity or guild the Freemasons in England possessed or held by patent any exclusive privilege whatever." *

(* "Mastu and Freemason," p. 425.)

But if there is no positive testimony extant of patents or charters granting such privileges, the whole course of history, the phraseology of contract between Masons and their employers, the distinction made between the Freemasons and the Rough Masons in the matter of wages and many other incidental circumstances, clearly show that the Freemasons were looked upon as a superior class, and were in possession of certain privileges, social as well as professional, which were denied to the lower order of workmen.

A proof of the rank and estimation which Master Masons, Architects, or Freemasons held in society during the Middle Ages is to be found in the contract made in the year 1439 between the Abbot of St. Edmundsbury and John Wood, "Masoun," for the repairs and restoration of the great towers "in all manner of things that longe to Freemasonry." In this contract, Wood, the Master Mason, is allowed "borde for himself as a gentilman and his servant as a yeoman, and thereto two robys, one for himselfe after a gentilman's livery." *

(* "Anthologia," vol. xxiii., p. 331.)

Though in the English Constitutions we do not meet, as I have already said, with the word "Freemason," yet its equivalent is found in the constant use of the phrase "Mason allowed" to designate one who had become a member of the fraternity; that is, who had been made "free of the guild." But I have heretofore shown that the meaning of "allowed" is "accepted," and therefore a Freemason was a Mason who had been accepted into the Fraternity. The founders of Speculative Masonry, who in the year 1717 seceded from the operative branch of the Institution and formed the Grand Lodge of England, seemed to be aware of this signification of the word "Free," as designating one who had been "allowed" or "accepted" into the fraternity, for they assumed for themselves the title of "Free and Accepted Masons."

In this way, they meant to put forward the claim that they were Freemasons who had been Accepted into the Fraternity. "Free and Accepted Masons" now denoted Speculative Masons, and by this title they distinguished themselves from the lower class of Operative Masons. Just in the same way, when they were all Operatives, the higher class were called "Freemasons" to distinguish themselves from the lower class, who were known as "Rough Masons." Toward a perfect understanding of the true organization of the medieval Masons, it is not necessary that we should know the correct derivation of the word Free.

It is not material to this purpose that we know whether it comes from the French frere, and consequently that the word "Freemason" signifies a Brother Mason; or from freestone, and that it means a Mason who works on that material; or lastly that it is derived from freeman and denotes one who had been made free of the fraternity. All that is really material to be known on this subject is that there was always a division of the medieval builders into two classes, distinctly separate the one from the other; and that the Freemasons occupied the superior place, superior in skill, superior in the possession of certain privileges, and therefore superior in social standing.

There are, however, two points worthy of notice in connection with this subject. In the first place, the word "Freemason" was confined as a descriptive term to the workmen of England. Neither this nor any equivalent of it is to be found in the Masonic documents of France or Germany. The words Franc-Macon and Frei Haurer, now so common in these languages, were not known until after the organization of Speculative Masonry in England and its propagation in those countries by the "Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons" established in 1717 in London. The words Franc-Macon and Frei Maurer were never applied in any document, Masonic or non-Masonic, to any of the builders of the Middle Ages in France or Germany, as Freemason was in England.

The growth of those words in those languages appears to have been in this way. There were in England, as early as the 14th century, a class of skillful builders who excluded from their companionship all other builders whose standard of knowledge and skill was lower than theirs. This exclusive and more skillful class were recognized in the statutes of the realm, in contracts made with them, in sepalchral inscriptions, in church registers, * and in some other documents by the title of "Freemasons."

(* Thus in the church register of the parish of Astbury are the following entries "1685. Smallwod, Jos. fils Jos. Henshaw Freemason bapt. 3 die Nov, " "1697. Jos. fils Jos. Henshaw, Freemason, buried 7 April.")

In the 17th century, at least, if not before, the word began to be used by the Masons themselves as a distinctive appellation. Thus in 1646 Ashmole wrote that he had been "made a Freemason at Warrington," and he calls those who had been just received into the fraternity, "new Accepted Masons." *

(*) Ashmole's "Diary," October 16, 1646, and March 11, 1682.)

In 1717, when the Speculative Institution was established the founders adopted both the words "Free" and "Accepted," and called themselves "Free and Accepted Masons."

In the "Charges of a Free-Mason," published in 1723 in the first edition of the Constitutions, the word "Freemason" is adopted as the recognized title of the members of the Fraternity, being there adopted in place of the simple word "Mason," which was used in all the Old Charges. Thus the Old Charge which forbade "Masons to work within or without the Lodge with rough layers," reads in the Book of Constitutions of 1723 that Freemasons shall not work with those that are not Free." The title "Freemason" afterward came quite commonly into use.

In 1734 a book was published called the "Free Masons' Vade Mecum," and it is several times employed in Masonic publications of that period. "Free and Accepted Masons" and "Freemasons" were then, as it appears from contemporary publications, terms adopted by and in common use immediately after what has been called the Revival, in the beginning of the 18th century. Now when deputations began to be "sent beyond sea" to establish lodges in foreign countries - beginning with the Deputation granted in 1728 by the Earl of Inchiquin, Grand Master, "to some Brothers in Spain to constitute a lodge at Gibraltar," succeeded very rapidly by others in Germany, Holland, France, and other countries - the title of "Freemasons," which had been adopted by the Speculative Masons of England to distinguish themselves from the purely Operative Masons, from whom they had separated, was carried into these foreign countries by those who had been appointed under the various deputations to disseminate the system.

Necessarily the English word was in each of these countries translated by those who entered the Order into an equivalent word in their own language. So "Freemason" became in Germany "Freimaurer," in France "Franc- Macon," in Italy "Libero Muratore," and so on. In all of these it will be seen that the expression "Free" has been translated by a word that has no relation either to frere, brother, or to freestone. Freimaurer, in German, and Franc-Macon, in French, like Freemason in English, conveys the idea of a freeman, who is a Mason; originally indicating a freeman of the guild, and afterward, and now, a man of a superior class. For example, in the 17th century a Freemason was a Mason of great skill engaged in the deigning and erecting of cathedrals, as distinguished from the common workman, who only built walls and laid or set stones.

In the 18th century a Freemason was a Speculative Mason, engaged in the erection of a spiritual temple, as distinguished from the purely Operative Masons, who labored without symbolism or philosophy at the construction of material edifices. This same distinction into two classes was still more explicitly marked in the medieval Masonry of Germany. If, for instance, we refer to the Strasburg Ordinances, we find a very distinct reference to two classes of Masons under various names. The fraternity of Masons who were united together for the construction of Cathedrals and other religious and important edifices, was called the Craft of Stonework. *

(* Das handwerk der Steinwerk. "Strasburg Ordinances.")

Each member of this body is denominated in the ordinances either a Meister, Master, a Gesell, Companion or Fellow, or a Werkmann * Workman, or, as it has been generally translated, a Craftsman.

(* In that old English dictionary of the 15th century, the "Promptorium Pavulorum," Masone is defined to be a werkemann with the Latin equivalent lathomus.)

The word Maurer (in the old German, Murer) is the name given to those Masons of the lower class who in the English Constitutions are designated as rough layers. They were permitted to work only on inferior tasks, in cases of necessity. Thus one of the ordinances of Strasburg provides as follows: If there be a need of Masons (Hurer) to hew or set stone, the Master may employ them, so that the employers' work may not be hindered, and the men so employed shall not be subject, except with their own free will, to the regulations of the Craft. *

(* Wer es auch das man der Murer, es were Stein zu bauwen oder zu muren die mag ein Maister wol furdern, u.s.w. "Strasburg Ordinances," No. 8.)

But the exclusive position maintained by this higher class is distinctly expressed in the second of the Strasburg Constitutions in the following words: "Whosoever wishes to be received into this fraternity as a member, according to these regulations as they are written in this book, must promise to keep all the points and articles of our Craft of Stonework, which consists only of Masters (Meyster) who are skilled in constructing costly buildings and works which they have been made free * (have the privilege to erect).

(* Uffgefreyget, befreiheitel, made free, that is, as Krause interprets it, authorized and privileged to do these things; and such, I think, is the true meaning of the word free in the word Freemason.)

They shall not work with the men of any other Craft." The distinction between the Werkmann, or Freemason, and the Murer (Maurer), or Wall Builder, is expressly made in one of the Strasburg regulations which relates to Apprentices. It is there said that "if any one who has served with a Murer comes to a Werkmann to learn of him, the Werkmann can not receive him as an Apprentice unless he consent to serve for three years." *

(* Wer es auch das einer vor einem Murer gedient und bun zu einem Werkmann kummen, u.s.w. " Strasburg Ordinances.")

But the Freemasons of Germany had another and a still more significant method of distinguishing themselves from the lower class of rough Masons; while these latter were known as Maurer, literally wall builders (for the German for wall is maurer), the higher class, the Freemasons, the men who invented and practiced Gothic architecture, called themselves Steinmetzen. Now in German the verb metzen signifies to cut with a knife, a chisel, * or any other cutting instrument.

(* Thus a knife is messer, a chisel meisel, and a butcher one who cuts flesh, a metzger.)

A Steinmetz is, therefore, a Stonecutter - one who with the chisel cuts the stone into various forms or decorates it with objects in relief. On the other hand, a Maurer is a builder of walls - a mason who roughly sets or lays one stone upon another, without any reference to beauty of design or skill of art. The Steinmetz, or Stonecutter, was the Freemason; the Maurer, or wall builder, was the rough mason or rough layer. Now the adoption of this word Steinmetzen, or Stonecutters, by the Masons who invented Gothic architecture in the Middle Ages, throws a flood of light upon the history of Masonry at that period. A Master Stonecutter was an honourable term, and whoever wished to become an architect had to begin by learning to cut stone. *

(* Boisseree, "Histoire de la Cathedral de la Cologne," p. 14.)

The cutting of stone ornaments was not used before the 12th century. In the early Norman work, says Parker, the chisel was very little employed. Most of the ornaments in the churches anterior to that period are such as could have been readily wrought by the axe, and could have been readily produced by stone hewers. Whatever sculpture there is appears to have been executed afterward, for it was a general practice to execute sculptured work after the stones were placed in position. *

(* Parker, Introduction to the "Study of Gothic Architecture," p. 41.)

We do not find that the chisel was used, as it must have been, for deep cutting, and especially under-cutting, in any buildings of ascertained date before the year 1120. *

(* Ibid., p. 66.)

Carving in stone occurred in Italy and the south of France at an earlier period; later in northern France and Germany, and still later in England. This gradual extension northwardly of the art of stonecutting - the Freemasons' art-confirms the theory maintained by Mr. Hope and other writers, that the Freemasonry of the Middle Ages arose in Lombardy and spread thence over the rest of Europe.

The monk Gervase, in his description of the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Canterbury, * tells us that in the old work there was no deep sculpture with the chisel. He says that in the old Cathedral, "the arches and everything else were plain or sculptured with an axe and not with a chisel."

(* The work of the monk Gervasius Dorobornensis, or Gervase of Canterbury, is contained in the collection of the "Decem Scriptores Angliae.")

But when with their geometrical system of building the Freemasons had introduced the art of deep stonecutting with the chisel, they reveled in the art and the profusion of sculptured ornaments; most of them having a symbolic meaning, became wonderful in the churches and cathedrals which they erected. Rightly, therefore, did the Freemasons of Germany, the builders of the great Cathedrals of Magdeburg, of Cologne, and of Strasburg assume the title of Stonecutters, and held themselves above the mere wall builders, who only hewed stone. The Steinmeiz, or Stonecutter in Germany, like the Mason or the Freemason of England, was of a higher class than the Maurer or builder of walls, the rough Mason or the rough layer.

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