Footnotes
Preface
a [The term operative freemasonry as used throughout this book refers to freemasonry in its original form, as represented by brotherhoods of builders. It is opposed in this study by the term speculative Freemasonry, having to do with those organizations that emerged in the seventeenth century divorced from the worker and the meaning of his tradition and made up of “accepted” Masons. Throughout this book and especially in part 2, the author strives to make a strong distinction between speculative Freemasonry and the operative freemasonry that is its origin and between more or less “accepted” Masons and those craftsmen—masons—who actually practiced the building crafts. To make these distinctions clearer, an upper case F and M are used to distinguish speculative and modern Freemasonry and Freemasons/Masons and a lower case f and m are used to refer to operative or original freemasonry/masonry and freemasons/masons. —Editor]
Chapter 1—The Ancient Corporations: Colleges of Builders in Rome
a [This Roman term designates an elective or legislative assembly of the people. —Trans.]
b For more on the symbolic myth of Hercules and its connection with builders, see my book Les Loges de Saint-Jean (Paris: Éditions Dervy, 1995), 71 ff.
c Baronius, Annales (XXXVI): “It was permissible for the Holy Church to appropriate rituals and ceremonies used by the pagans in their idolatrous worship because it regenerated them with its consecration.” Saint Gregory did not wish to see these customs suppressed. “Purify the temples,” he wrote to his missionaries, “but do not destroy them, for so long as the nation witnesses the survival of its former places of prayer, it will use them out of habit and you will win them all the easier to the worship of the true God.” This same saint said, “The Bretons perform sacrifices and give feasts on certain days: Leave them their feasts; suppress only the sacrifices.” We can conclude, with Eliphas Levi (Histoire de la magie, Éditions de la Maisnie, 1974): “Far from encouraging ancient superstitions . . . Christianity restored life and soul to the surviving symbols of universal beliefs.” This explains how Celtic traditions maintained in Gaul were later to be found again in Romanesque art. See also M. Moreau, La tradition celtique dans l’Art Roman (Paris: Éditions Le Courrier du Livre, 1963) and Henri Hubert, Les Celtes et l’expansion celtique jusqu’a l’époque de la Tène (Paris: Albin Michel, 1950), 17–18.
Chapter 2—The Collegia and the Barbarian Invasions
a A. Esmein, Histoire du droit français, 4th ed. (Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1892), 291. Esmein cites the following text from Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francorum, III, 34), the address of a bishop to Austrasian king Theodebert (sixth century): “Rogmo, si pietas tua habet aliquid de pecunia, nobis commodes . . . cumque hi negucium exercentes responsum in civitate nostra, sicut reliquae habent, praestiterint, pecuniam tuam cum usuries legitimis reddimus.”
b Research has supplied evidence of the persistence of Roman legal precepts in the social life of southern Gaul (Narbonnaise and Aquitaine) until the end of the seventh century. See M. Rouche, L’Aquitaine des Visigoths aux Arabes (418–781) (Lille: 1977); E. Magnou-Nortier, La Société laïque et l’Eglise dans la province ecclésiastique de Narbonne (VIIIe–Xie siècles) (Toulouse: 1974); and M. Banniard, Le Haut Moyen Age Occidental (Paris: Éditions Seuil, 1980).
c These authentic documents are well known to legal historians but are apparently unknown to historians of Freemasonry such as Knoop and Jones (Genesis of Freemasonry, Quator Coronati Lodge No. 2076, 1978, 60–61). In their opinion, the word comacinus does not derive at all from Como, but from the English co-mason! This logic reveals how circumspect the use of earlier works can be. For more on the comacins, see M. Salmi, Maestri comacini e maestri lombardi Palladio: 1938).
d The surviving description of this cathedral seems to suggest some resemblance to Saint Vital of Ravenna. Cf. Ramée, Histoire générale de l’Architecture (Paris: Aymot, 1860), 1055.
e We have seen how the art of the magistri comacini betrayed a Byzantine influence, but this is secondary. It is not visible in the art of building itself, which remained Roman and did not evolve, but is apparent in ornamentation (e.g., in the comacine knot).
Chapter 3—Ecclesiastical and Monastic Associations
a As we have seen, this was built by “Goth” architects.
b Anthyme Saint-Paul, Histoire monumentale de la France (Paris: Éditions Hachette, 1932), 89. We cannot stress too strongly the inexactitude of this legend, still commonly accepted by some Freemasons, such as L. Lachat, who view these Gothic cathedral builders as the precursors of freethinkers and anticlericalists.
c Ibid., 241. For more on the Cistercian influence on the continuity between the Romanesque and the Gothic, see also Henri Focillon, Art d’Occident, vol. 2 (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1971), 56 ff.
d The same could be said of Armenian construction. As the first Christianized region of the East, it was subject to the strong influence of Rome and Byzantium. The use of square crossed ribs, as in the Lombard model, appeared there at the end of the tenth century in the fullness of its architectural function. It is not impossible that the West was familiar with it at this time. It would have adapted it to its principles and existing architectural styles. Here again, we can assume the role of monks in its propagation—cf. H. Focillon, Art d’Occident, Le Moyen Age Roman, vol. 1 (Paris: Librairie Arand Colin, 1971), 117 ff.
e [This refers to the bridge of Avignon. —Trans.]
Chapter 4—Secular Brotherhoods: The Germanic and Anglo-Saxon Guilds
a Hist. Litt. de la France par les Religieux Benedictines, vol. 12 (Paris: M. Paulin, 1865–1866), 356; Mabillon, Ann. Benedict., vol. 128, (Paris: Billaine, 1668–1701), n. 67. It should be noted that the English legend places among the ancestors of the order a certain Aymon, son of Hiram, who was the greatest of master masons. Should we view as a coincidence the fact that the elements of the legend of Hiram are also present in the earlier chanson de geste, “The Four Sons of Aymon”? In this text we see Renaud de Montauban, who, after following a life that has been hardly edifying and wishing to atone for his sins, hires on to the construction of the cathedral of Cologne. His uncommon strength and dexterity create a situation about which all the masters argue. But then his fellow workers become alarmed and find common cause: They fear he will spoil their trade. They plot to knock him over the head with a hammer when he is not looking and then put his body in a sack, and throw it into the Rhine. At the time they customarily eat, when “the master masons and the top workers” leave the construction site to go to osteaux (vespers), they put their plan into operation. Their crime does not remain a secret for long, however. The fish in the Rhine, gathered together by a miracle, push up the body, now lit by three tapers. The murderers, in complete confusions, have no alternative but to make penitence.
b This manuscript takes the name of its first publisher, Matthew Cooke.
c According to some historians, the Council of Nantes condemned these guilds as early as 658, but the authenticity of the canons issued by this council is dubious.
d In his Description des Pays-Bas (Anvers: 1582) Guichardin claims to have seen documents attesting that Flemish corporations were established as early as 865 by Baudoin, son of Arnould the Great. There are solid grounds for doubting this assertion.
e Esmein, Histoire du droit françois, 292–93. [A commune is equivalent to the English or American district. —Trans.]
Chapter 5—The Crusades and the Templars
a Guillaume de Tyr, Histoire des Croisades, vol. 2 (Paris: Éditions Guizot), 202. Guillaume was born in Jerusalem around 1130 and became counselor to Amaury of Jerusalem and tutor of his son Baudoin, royal chancellor in 1173, and archbishop in 1174. He fulfilled numerous missions and attended the Council of Latran in 1176. He died from poisoning in 1193. His testimony of the strong campaign against the Templars that was based on a conflict over ecclesiastical rights makes Guillaume’s history of the Crusades particularly valuable. In his Historia Orientalis (written in the thirteenth century), Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre, who was closely aligned with the Templars, ceaselessly refers to Guillaume’s book.
b With the council’s consent, Saint Bernard, responsible for writing the new rule of the Templars, would have delegated this task to Jean Michel (Jean Michaelensis). See alsoH. de Curzon, La Regle du Temple (Paris: 1886). It should be noted that the rule of the Temple had much in common with the rule of Citeaux.
c From 1146 on these robes were embellished with a red patty cross embroidered on the chest, which referenced the privilege bestowed upon them by Pope Eugene III on the authority of Bernard of Clairvaux. The servant brothers were clad in brown.
d The Templars recognized themselves as “brothers and companions” of the Cistercians, to whom they owed assistance and protection.
e Guillaume de Tyr, Histoire des Croisades, vol. 4, 243, 414. Geoffrey de Tyr, who was hostile toward the Templars, appears to have inflated the importance of the murder by aTemplar of an envoy from the Old Man of the Mountain to King Amaury. It turns out that according to de Tyr himself this Templar, Gautier de Mesnil, had acted on his own. The grand master Eude de Saint-Armand did not refuse to punish him; instead he refused to surrender him to the king, making the argument that it was up to the sovereign order or the pope to judge him. How Grousset (Histoire des Croisades, vol. 2, 600), who is normally so perspicacious, could deduce from this murder that the Templars were the sworn enemies of the Ismailis is puzzling.
f Saint Louis refused to profit from these negotiations and sharply criticised Guillaume de Sonnace. This occurred during the Seventh Crusade (Boulenger, La Vie de Saint Louis, Paris: Gallimard, 1929, 101).
g It should be noted that the Middle East, cradle of the Christian world, had long been disposed to the synthesis of religions and philosophies.
h Bands, archivolts, modillons à copeaus [the console figures that have a design element, copeaux, resembling wood shavings], multifoil porches, and polychrome stonework give Notre Dame du Port and Notre Dame du Puy a resemblance to the mosque in Cordova, which left such a strong impression on Emile Malé (Arts et Métiers du Moyen Age, 33 ff).
i The Templars were not completely uneducated, however. In one sermon, Jacques de Vitry speaks of “educated brothers who the commanders pointed in the direction of theological schools and secular studies” (Marion Melville, La Vie des Templiers, Paris: Gallimard, 1951, 175).
j We should recall that the Essenes also dressed in white linen and practiced a form of solar worship. The uniform of the Assassins consisted of a white robe, red cap, belt, and boots. The Templars, at least the knights in the Order, wore a white robe with a red cross on the chest. White is the symbol of light and red is the symbol of fire.
Chapter 6—The Templars, the Francs Metiers, and Freemasonry
a [Corvee is the unpaid labor owed by peasants and bourgeois to their sovereign lord. —Trans.]
b [It is located in the Marais district of Paris. —Trans.]
c It should be noted that the rue Francs Bourgeois was located in the censive district and was under the jurisdiction of the Temple. Maps from the time of Louis XIV show the existence of another rue Francs Bourgeois located on the left bank (today it forms the upper part of rue Monsieur le Prince). See also Lefeuve, Histoire de Paris, rue par rue, maison par maison, vol. 5 (Paris: C. Reinwald, 1875), 244.
d La Curne de Saint Palaye, Dict. hist. de l’ancien langage français (1879), who quotes here a text by Froissart. In the ancient custom of Alost we find the expression francs bateliers [free boatmen].
e It should be noted that in such cases the franchise does not provide complete exemption, for the craftsman must still pay the tallage.
f G. W. Speth, “Free and Freemasonry: A Tentative Inquiry,” Ars Quatour Coronatorum (1897). L. Vibert, La Franc-Maçonnerie avant l’existence des Grandes Loges (Paris: Gloton, 1950), 36. “The oldest free masons were free of any company or any kind of guild,” writes Bernard E. Jones, who does not specify, however, that such an exemption could result only from affiliation with the Church (“Le mot ‘Franc’ dans Franc-Maçon,” Le Symbolism, July/August, 1954, 340).
g Abbe Auber sensed this and drew some tendentious conclusions from it in his small tract, Francs-Maçons du Moyen Age (Tours: 1874).
h de Tyr, Histoire des Croisades, vol. 4, 65–67, 183, 201. It should be noted that the same circumstances applied to Philip Augustus. Aymard, treasurer of the Temple in Paris, was his trustworthy ally when he was the administrator of the Royal Treasury (cf. Leonard, introduction to the Cartulaire manuscrit du Temple, 119).
i Rebold, Histoire des trois Grandes Loges, (Paris: Franck, 1864), 671, 681. This author, who is serious and capable all the same, indicates that the nomination of Richard the Lionheart to the chief mastery association of the Templars would have occurred in 1154 or 1155. Richard, however, was not born until 1157!
j H. de Curzon, in La maison du Temple de Paris, cites fifteen bulls of confirmation that were issued from the time the Hospitallers assumed the Templar’s position until 1629.
k This miniature is reproduced in Pierre du Colombier’s book Les Chantiers des Cathedrales.
l The current nomenclature of the old streets of Moissac dates from 1824, but the names used then would have been even older ones that had been suppressed at the time of the Revolution. See also Lagreze-Fossat, Etudes historiques sur Moissac (Montauban: Forestié Printers, 1870). This author believes that the “seat of the Temple” that could still be seen in the eighteenth century “on the west side of the corner formed where rue Malaveille meets rue Saint Paul, was a vast building that displayed all the appearances of a former monastery inside. This monastery, according to tradition, had belonged to the Templars, which explains why rue Saint Paul was called rue des Templiers in 1824, in the alignment map of the city.”
Chapter 7—The Templars and the Parisian Builders
a [Now the Place de la Republique and the rue Faubourg du Temple. —Trans.]
b [Cité refers to the original borders of the city of Paris. —Trans.]
c Originally, the Enclos was designated as only the actual fortified enceinte (Seat of the Temple, church, and tower), but eventually this term was applied to the entire domain that can be approximately traced along the following streets: Place de la Republique, avenue de la Republique, rue de la Folie Mericourt, rue Oberkampf, boulevard and rue des Filles du Calvaire, rue de Turenne, rue de Throigny, place de Thorigny, rue Elzevir, rue des Francs Bourgeois, rue pavee, rue Malheur, rue du Roi de Sicile, rue de la Verrerie, rue du Renard, rue Saint Merri, rue Saint Martin, rue des Etuves, rue Beaubourg, rue Simon le France, rue du Temple, rue Reamur, rue Bailly, rue de Turbigo, and back to Place de la Republique. When the king undertook his struggle against the manorial justices, the original and more restrictive Enclos was restored. In its last incarnation, its perimeter was framed by what are now the rue Temple, rue Beranger, rue Charlot, and rue de Bretagne, and it was surrounded with thick, high walls with round defense towers. By 1820, however, the last traces of this enceinte had disappeared.
d This was the motive that prompted the bitterness of William, archbishop of Tyre.
e It should be noted that the Saint Eloi Monastery first followed the rule of Saint Columban, then later that of the Benedictines of Saint Maur (cf. Abbe Lebeuf, Histoire de la Ville et de tout le Diocese de Paris, vol. 3 (Paris: Éditions Cocheries, 1887), 376.
f In 1674, when, in an effort to suppress them, Louis XIV gathered together at Châtelet the city’s different legal authorities that were allowed to administer justice, Paris still counted sixteen feudal ecclesiastical justices: the archbishop of Paris in Fort l’Eveque; the officiality at the archbishopric; the chapter of Notre Dame, the chapter of the Temple; the abbeys of Sainte Genevieve, Saint Germain des Presm, Saint Victor, Saint Magloire, and Saint Antoine des Champs; the priories of Saint-Martin des Champs, Saint Denis de la Charte, Saint Eloi, and Saint Lazare; and the chapters of Saint Marcel, Saint Benoit, and Saint Merri.
g H. de Curzon, Le maison du Temple de Paris (Paris: Éditions Renouard, 1886), 51–52. In 1595 the famous jurisconsult Antoine Loysel was given this office as Temple bailiff.
h Seine Prefecture, Commission d’Extension de Paris Aperçu historique, 1913, 12, 16,17. A 1548 edict banned all new construction in the faubourgs [suburban areas], where “an infinite number of folk” were looking to settle “in order to enjoy the franchises and exemptions that were accorded to the inhabitants of these faubourgs.”
i It seems an error to place the Parloir aux Bourgeois of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries on the left bank near the former Saint Jacques Gate. Cf. Rochegude, Promenades dans toutes les rues de Paris, rue Soufflot, no. 2 (Paris: Denoël, 1958); J. Hillairet, Evocation du vieux Paris (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1952), 128, 189, and 501.
j This was by no means a gift freely given to the Hospitallers. On several occasions, payment of considerable sums was demanded of the Order by Philip the Fair and his successors.
k Lebeuf, Histoire de la Ville et de tout le diocese de Paris, vol. 2, 465 ff. The Hospitaller Order, governed by a grand master, was divided into eight provinces, or tongues, each with a high prior at their head who was assisted by a chapter of commanders.
l The most valuable source for documents is glaring by its absence. It is known that, much to the chagrin of Philip the Fair, the general archives of the Templars, as well as those concerning individual houses—just as the considerable treasure of the Order—mysteriously disappeared before the arrest of Jacques de Molay. Were they destroyed? Housed in a safe place? Their disappearance is one of the great enigmas of history. Henri de Curzon surmises that the disappearance was to someone’s personal advantage. The most likely hypothesis is to view the Templars themselves as the architects of this disappearance some time prior to the fall of the Order. See also Gérard de Sède, Les Templiers sont parmi nous, ou l’Enigme de Gisors (Paris: J’ai Lu, 1962), a work that judiciously and methodically examines a number of important clues that were corroborated by the 1970 discovery in Gisors of a bronze vessel containing 11,359 coins, most of which were minted during the twelfth century. They are currently housed in the Cabinet des Médailles in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
m With regard to Notre Dame, it should be noted that two of its most famous architects, Jean de Chelles and Pierre de Chelles, were natives of Chelles, where the Templars had one of their centers. During the thirteenth century, Chelles was considered a franche commune, a franchise similar to that of the Templars that went back to Louis VI. After the dissolution of the Order, this franchise was lost in 1320 by an act of the Parliament in Paris, at which time it fell under the subordination of the women’s abbey that also existed in Chelles. (Cf. Georges Poisson, Evocation du Grand Paris. La Banlieue Nord-Est (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1961), 398.
n For more on the epitaph records of Paris, see the Bibliothèque Historique de la ville de Paris, ms CP 5484, an interesting copy of almost all the city’s important epitaphs. There are also several manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Bibliothèque d’Arsenal. See also E. Raunié, Epitaphier du Vieux Paris, 1890–1918, 4 volumes, and A. Lesort andH. Verlet, Epitaphier du Vieux Paris, 1890–1918, vol. 5. Earlier we have Cocheris’s additions to Abbe Lebeuf’s Histoire de la Ville et du Diocèse de Paris (Paris: Éditions Cocheris, 1883). All of these works, however, remain incomplete. It should be noted that these epitaph records make no mention of individuals buried before the sixteenth century.
o This is indicated from the status of the Templar domain according to the harvest record of 1247: “It is in a splendid site before the Trinity.” Also: “In the year 1217, there was mention of the church of the Trinity, in front of which church there were houses of the Episcopal censive district belonging to the Templars” (Lebeuf, vol. 1, 115). It should be specified that the rue Grenéta was also partially in the censive district of the Benedictine abbey Saint Magloire.
p Abbe Lebeuf’s citation of this date as 1545 is an error.
q R. de Lespinasse and Bonnardot, Le Livre des Métiers d’Etienne Boileau (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1879), 600. A small chapel dedicated to Saint Louis and Saint Barbe that existed on this site was demolished by the Religious League in 1591. With the exception of the belltower, which dates to the seventeenth century, the current church was constructed from 1823 to 1830.
r Dr. Vimont, Histoire de l’eglise et de la paroisse Saint Leu Saint Gilles, 4 volumes (Paris: 1932). The original church, built in 1235, was rebuilt in 1320 and was renovated and transformed in 1611, 1727, and finally in 1858 with the excavation and construction of the Boulevard de Sebastopol.
s [Hôtel de Ville refers to City Hall. —Trans.]
t J. Hillairet is mistaken in his assumption that the first Templar establishment was slightly more to the north, at the site of the Napoleon Barracks (J. Hillairet, Evocation du vieux Paris, 134), an opinion he borrowed from Rochegude and Dumolin, 71 and 150. For more on this topic, see also C. Piton, La Cité (1911), 105–76.
u Probst-Biraben (Les Mysteres des Templiers, 165–67) sees in “these Noble Lords of the Temple” a survival of the Templars in the form of a third order, whereas they were simply the Knights Hospitallers.
v The Gavots, or “compagnons of liberty,” were accused of supporting the Reformation in the seventeenth century, while the “children of Master Jacques” supported the Catholic Church. —Trans.]
w From an historical point of view, another more recent comparison could be made. In 1667, the grand prior of Malta and the Temple was Jacques de Souvré. He saw to it that the former walls of the Enclos were demolished and that large mansions (Hôtels des Bains, de Guise, de Boufflers, and so on) were transformed into houses that were rented to private individuals. He also entrusted to Mansart the task of rebuilding his palace (cf. J. Hillairet, Evocation du vieux Paris, 352). Could this Grand Prior Jacques de Souvré have been the journeymen’s “Master Jacque?” It should be added that the Hôtel de Clisson, built on the grand worksite of the Temple (the current rue des Archives) was acquired by the Soubise family in 1697. The Hôtel de Soubise or Rohan Soubise (today the National Archives) was built from 1705 to 1709 on the site of the former gardens at the same time that the Hôtel de Rohan was built alongside on the rue Vielle du Temple. Gould (A Concise History of Freemasonry), does not hesitate to connect the origin of the “children of Father Soubise” to the illustrious Rohan-Soubise family. Whether true or not, it is certain that these magnificent dwellings were built by masons who lived in the censive district of the Temple.
x According to Macrobe, the wolf represents the initiate, he who has received the light, because of the kinship the ancients felt existed between the wolf and the sun. “In fact,” they said, “the flocks flee and disappear when the wolf approaches just like the constellations, flocks of stars, disappear before the light of the sun.” (Clavel, Histoire pittoresque de la Franc Maçonneire, 361.)
y For more on the stalls of Saint Gervais, see the reports of L. Lambeau and Abbe Gauthier (with photographs): Proces-verbaux de la Commission du Vieux Paris (1901), 104–5 and 159–60.
z [Gaultier refers to “one who enjoys his drink” or, less delicately, “boozer.” —Trans.]
aa J. B. Le Masson, Calendriers des Confréries de Paris, 47. This church was not in the Templars’ censive district but in that of the Couture Sainte Catherine, an Augustine priory.
bb A mansion called the Franc Rosier (the Maillets) was located on this street in the sixteenth century and was under the jurisdiction of the grand prior of Malta’s censive district. Refer to Berty, Tisserand, and Platon, Topographie historique du vieux Paris (region centrale de l’Universite) (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1897), 305.
cc [This refers to the construction built over the ancient Roman baths. —Trans.]
dd There is a reference in 1263 to the name vicus lathomorum. The street was shared by the censive districts of the Temple and Saint Germain.
Chapter 8—Mason Corporations in France
a These statutes were reformed in 1284.
b [These are thin, wafflelike pastries that have been rolled on a cylinder. —Trans.]
c [A huchier is a carpenter specializing in furniture and interior design. —Trans.]
d [These are the manufacturers of rosaries, buttons, jewelry, and so forth. —Trans.]
e The term lodge was contemporaneous with Etienne Boileau’s Livre des Métiers. Masons also used it: “A document in the archives of Notre Dame de Paris records an incident that took place in the works lodge on the eve of the Feast of Assumption in 1283.” [J. Gimpel, The Cathedral Builders (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 77.] Concerning the existence of a lodge in Paris under Louis IX, see Marcel Ollé, Le Symbolisme, July/September 1960.
f “It is said that these banquets have become the sole reason these brotherhoods exist. It is certain that among the majority of those that remain, if one were to end the feasts held by these artisans and their companions, one would remove at the same time all their devotion and worth.” (La Poix de Fréminville, Dictionaire de la Police Générale, 245.)
g [It is preferable to retain the French expression here, for the association has some features that sharply distinguish it from the term guild, which is how this word is often translated. —Trans.]
Chapter 9—Builders Corporations in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland
a C. Van Cauvenberghs, La Corporation des Quatre Couronnés d’Anvers (Anvers, 1889). Deserving special mention is the handsome sixteenth-century triptych that once graced either the corporative hall of the Craft of the Four Crowned Martyrs in Brussels or the altar of Saint Catherine Church in the Chapel of the Crowned Martyrs. Today it is housed in the Municipal Museum and is reproduced in P. du Colombier’s book, Les Chantiers des Cathedrales, plates XXIV and XXV.
b Jacobus de Voraique, The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints, ed. by F. S. Ellis (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable / University Press, 1900). The 1942 French translation of this book reproduces an engraving that depicts the saints holding a mallet, rule, square, and prybar.
c Findel claims seniority for the brotherhood that was created to build the cathedral of Magdebourg, whose construction began in 1211 (Histoire de la Franc Maçonnerie, vol. 1, 57). For interesting information on the Bauhütte, see Franz Bziha’s notes published in Le Symbolisme, no. 375 and 376, June–September, 1966.
d This is enough of an anachronism to cast doubt on the charter, unless it was inserted later. It should be added that antiquarian scholars intended to examine the original document produced by Frederic of Nassau. Unfortunately, whatever conclusions they may have reached were never made public and no one knows what became of the document.
Chapter 10—The Corporative Masonry of Great Britain
a Hiram (May-July 1908). It has been noted that this text contains the original Latin ille vel illi (he, singular and plural), words that were incorrectly translated as Hee or Shee. See A. Mellor, Les Grands Problèmes de la Franc-Maçonnerie d’aujourd’hui (Paris: Belfond, 1971), 108. But is this translation an error or rather an evolutionary translation accepted by custom at that time, with the original Latin reflecting to an earlier time?
b The legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs also entered England at a very early time. It is said that a church of the Four Martyrs was built in Canterbury in 597 (Gould, A Concise History of Freemasonry, 238).
c In a history of Staffordshire published in 1686, Dr. Plott included a history of the freemasons. The legendary story he recounts is clearly based on a version of the ancient charters that closely corresponds to William Watson’s document, which is written in the style of English that was commonly used at the end of the fifteenth century.
d According to the Cooke Manuscript, Pythagoras found the second pillar after the Flood.
e It should be noted that this name simply replaces a Greek name that a former copier was unable to decipher. For that reason we do not know which historical figure this might be.
f We have already discussed the grounds on which this legendary role attributed to Charles Martel is resting and how firm it might be.
g The Cooke Manuscript also mentions a Saint Amphibal, who converted Saint Alban.
h Robert Kirk, an Aberfoill minister, writes in 1691: “I have found five curiosities in Scotland, not much observed to be [known] elsewhere . . . 2. The Mason’s Word, which though some make a Mystery of it, I will not conceal a little of what I know; it is like a Rabbinical tradition in [the] way of comment on Iachin and Boaz, the two pillars erected in Solomon’s Temple, with the addition of some secret sign delivered from hand to hand, by which they [the Masons] know and become familiar with one another.” Quoted by Gould, A Concise History of Freemasonry.
i It has even been claimed that King Henry IV was initiated into the masonic brotherhood in 1442. His example would have been followed by all the lords of his court. (Rebold, Histoire générale de la Franc-Maçonnerie, 673.)
j While discussing the Templars, we learned the legend of the creation of this rite as well as that of the foundation of the Order of the Thistle of Saint Andrew. Whatever the validity of this legend, it does appear that a Kilwinning Rite definitely did exist, at least after 1685.
Chapter 11—Universal Freemasonry
a See also Abbe Lecanu, L’Histoire de Satan (1861), which detects numerous Manichean, Gnostic, and Cathar influences in Romanesque symbolism. This hypothesis was picked up by a majority of Mason authors, whose secular tendencies it flattered. See especiallyF. L. Lachat, La Franc-Maçonnerie opérative (Lyon: Derain-Rachet, 1934), 162.
b Recall that the Second Council of Nicea (787) decided that the composition of religious images should not be left to the artists’ initiative but should originate in the principles established by the Church and religious tradition. “The Art alone belongs to the painter, its placing and arrangement belong to the Fathers.”
c It should be noted that these depictions are generally placed outside the church, and on the portal facing west, which is to say, outside and in opposition to the light.
d According to Etienne Boileau’s Livre des Métiers, masons, mortar makers, and plasterers could have “as many assisitants and valets of their trade as it pleased them, provided they revealed to none of them any information about their craft.” Article 13 of the statutes of the Ratisbonne stonecutters from 1458 listed similar prescriptions.
e C. Enlart, 68. “In the Middle Ages artistic or industrial property was understood and protected differently from how we envision it. It was not the monopoly of a single model for the benefit of its inventor but the monopoly of a kind of labor for the benefit of a corporation.”
f It was an expression of Christianity.
Chapter 12—Speculative Freemasonry
a To get a sense of the political role played by corporations in France, it is enough to recall their interventions during the times of Etienne Marcel [the leader of a failed revolt against royal authority in Paris during the fourteenth century], the Caboche [members of the butcher and skinner guilds who briefly seized power in fifteenth-century Paris and undertook radical reforms before being ousted; their name comes from the word for skinner], and the League [the Holy League in France, which fought for Catholic interests during the wars of religion that wracked France in the sixteenth century].
b W. Strabo in Kings III, 7, 13 for Hiram and Kings III, 5, 28 for Adoniram (Kings I in modern editions of the Bible, in which the former Kings I and Kings II have become the Book of Samuel). This reference comes from the Latin Bible of Froben (Basel, 1498; Bibliothèque National, Res. A 807.) See also Emile Mâle, L’Art religieux du IIIième siècle en France, vol. 1, 23 ff.
c Words are missing from this part of the manuscript.
d This explanation conforms to the etymology of these two names. Jachin means “he will establish” and Boaz means “in strength.”
e Although L. Vibert claims the contrary, the German Hütten included accepted members. We need only refer to the stonecutter statutes for proof of this. Further proof can be found in the well-known sign of the interlaced square and compass with the letter G at its center, which served as the logo of Strasbourg publisher Jean Grieninger in 1525, a time when the corporation was still enjoying the height of its prosperity in that city (Clavel, Histoire pittoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie, 86; B. E. Jones, Freemason’s Guide and Compendium, 299).
f [Saint Clair was eventually Anglicized to Sinclair. —Trans.]
g Nonoperative members, generally gentlemen of higher birth, who were accepted in the seventeenth-century Scottish Lodges were customarily referred to as Geomatics, while professional masons were known as Domatics. (See Gould, A Concise History of Freemasonry.)
h The Agla, an association of book craftsmen, is another example of a sixteenth-century esoteric society whose influence on the creation of modern Freemasonry is less obvious but no less significant. The collective “glyph” of this vast organization was the number 4, which figured in the personal mark of every master of this brotherhood, frequently drawn atop a secondary figure representing an internal group to which the signatory belonged. For example, a hexagram, “Solomon’s Seal,” the planetary sign of Saturn, or the monogram of Mary designated a group concerned with alchemy and hermetic studies, whereas the heart, such as the one found on playing cards, indicated a branch in which mysticism, particularly that of the Kabbalah, was studied and practiced. See Amberlain, Le Martinisme (Paris: Niclas, 1946), 48 and 55.
Chapter 13—The Grand Lodges and Modern Freemasonry
a Ibid., 491. See also Loucelles, Notices historiques sur la R. L.: La Bonne Foi à L’Orient de Saint Germaine en Laye, (1874). F. Chevalier, Les Dycs sons l’Acacia cites a 1737 letter of Bortin du Rocheret that, when speaking of Freemasons, states: “Ancient society of England . . . introduced into France following King James II in 1689.”
b G. Bord, La Franc-Maçonneries en France, des origins à, 489–90. Most of this author’s assertions are open to doubt although his scientific integrity is never in question. What is most disappointing about his work is the absence of references. L. Berteloot, who I knew well and who utilized Bord’s line of argument in his own study, told me on several occasions that he knew the identity of the references justifying Bord’s thesis, but because they were private sources, they could not be revealed.
c [Clodion refers to the Merovingian king whose brother, Fredemundus, was claimed as an ancestor by the Stuarts. —Trans.]
d He was the great-grandson of the legitimate line of the Marquis de Montespan and the beautiful Françoise Athenaise de Rochechouart.
e In 1771, there were not even ten lodges in France who drew their authority from the Grand Lodge of London (Bord, La Franc-Maçonneries en France, des origins à, 490).