"Free"
in Freemasonry
by H. L. Haywood
WHY IS IT THAT OUR
Fraternity bears the name "Freemasonry" instead of "Masonry"? Why
the "free" in it? Far back in the Middle Ages a freemason was the
name of a builder who could design buildings as well as
construct them. He was what we should now call an
architect. Again - and to continue asking questions - why do
about one-half of the 49 Grand Lodges in the United States
style themselves as Ancient, Free & Accepted Masons,
whereas the others, with only one or two exceptions, style
themselves as Free & Accepted Masons, omitting
"Ancient"? Why do the members of our Fraternity call
themselves Freemasons instead of Masons? It once again brings to
the front the question as to what the "free" means. In his
history of our Craft J. G. Findel states that he had found the
name "Freemason" used as far back as 1212. G. W. Steinbrenner,
who also wrote a book on the origins of our Fraternity, gave 1350
as the earliest date on which he had found the name. In his
famous essay on "free" in Freemasonry R. F. Gould, the Craft's
premier historian, gave 1376 as the earliest use of the name
known to himself; it was in a record belonging to the Mason
Company of London. One of the very earliest uses of the name in
British law occurred in a statute dated in 1459. At the
time of writing, the earliest known use of the word "Freemasonry"
in a printed book is in a small work by William Boude, in the
British Museum, published in 1526. It appeared in another printed
book, a quaint volume entitled A Most Precious and Spiritual
Pearl, published in 1550; and yet again in a small child's book,
Dives Pragmaticus, published in 1563. The name occurs more
frequently in seventeenth century printed books. It must have
been everywhere the recognized name for the Fraternity by
the time the Mother Grand Lodge was organized in 1717, because
it was used as a matter of course on the title page of the first
edition of the Book of Constitutions published by that Grand
Lodge in 1723, in the form of "Free-Masons." During many
centuries throughout the Middle Ages builders of all kinds were
called masons, but a special class of them was called freemasons.
The question is, why that distinction? It is an exceptionally
difficult question to answer - possibly it is the most difficult
single question in all the fields of Masonic history,
scholarship, and research. That q uestion is complicated by
the fact that among a number of other crafts the members of
certain gilds, or associations, also called themselves "free."
(Unless I have been misinformed, there is in Germany, or was
until the last War, a large society which called itself "The
Free Carpenters.") In the great treatise which he contributed
to Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Vol. X, page 10, George
William Speth gave a representative list of them. Among them
were such as the following; Free Carmen, Free Fishermen,
Free Dredgers, Free Watermen, Free Vintners, Free
Butchers, Free Scriveners, Free Printers, Free Sawyers,
Free Carpenters, Free Sewers (tailors). Did these gilds
and craftsmen call themselves "free" for the same reason that
the freemasons did? Speth did not believe so. (A branch of
the German secret society called Freesmiths was set up
in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1865.) Difficult as the
question is, however, the scholars of the Craft, and more
especially the historians, have never ceased in their endeavors
to solve it. I shall set down a representative list (though not
an exhaustive one) of the theories to which their findings have
led them. In doing so I shall make the paragraphs on each one as
brief and as simple as possible, and not overload them with
references to books. 1. The "liberal arts" theory. During
the Renaissance, men in the fine arts often were called "free."
The word was used in the same sense as "liberal" in such phrases
as "the liberal arts," "a liberal education." In the organized
handicrafts men worked together in an organization, and according
to fixed rules, but a man in the fine arts was a creator, who
made use of himself to accomplish his tasks, therefore he had
to be left free to follow his own ideas, inspiration, and skills.
In a paper contributed to Ars Quatuor Coronntorurn, Vol.
II, page 141, F. F. Schnitzger argued that freemasons
were called "free" because architecture was a fine art. 2.
The "freestone" theory. Freestone was a name given to a stone
which was durable enough to stand in walls designed to last for
centuries, and at the same time had so little grain in it that it
could be carved and hewn without danger of chipping or splitting.
A freestone mason therefore presumably was one employed on such
monumental structures as cathedrals, churches, borough halls,
and priories, and for that reason had a higher grade than
the local masons who constructed cottages, barns, walls,
and dikes. Since a statute of laborers of 1350 used the
phrase "master mason of free stone" that usage must have
been very old. 3. The "free of restraints" theory. During
the Middle Ages the men and women who lived in a given community
were hedged in by many restraints - this was especially true
of traveling on the highways (if their trails and paths may
be dignified by that name) because under the very best
of circumstances highway travel was always dangerous, and like
Chaucer's pilgrims, everybody tried to go in a "company" if it
was necessary for him to go at all. The larger number of those
restrictions would be intolerable to us who go and come as we
please across the whole of continental America. There were
especially rigid restrictions to control the movement of workmen
who might go about seeking work - even the Popes imposed many
restrictions upon them. According to the theory here being
described freemasons were called "free" because they were
exempted from those restrictions. The New English Dictionary
(also called The Oxford Dictionary) inclines to that theory; so
did Leader Scott in her Cathedral Builders. 4. The "Free
of the Craft" theory. In a version of the Old Charges owned by
the Masons of Melrose, Scotland, dated 1581, the word "freemason"
is used in a sense which appears to have the meaning of "free of
his craft." An apprentice was not free of his craft (according to
the nomenclature then in use) because he earned no
wages, could accept no work of his own, could have no
apprentices, and had no voice or vote; nor was a rough mason,
waller, tiler, plasterer, or cowan free of it because the laws
did not permit him to engage in work monopolized by the
mason craft. According to the theory being noted in the
present paragraph a freemason called himself by that name
because he was free of his craft. 5. The "freedom of the
city" theory. By this theory is meant that a man from outside a
town or city was granted freedom to work or to trade in it, and
could therefore come and go through its gates without restraint.
This "freedom" or "liberty" of a city was an exceptional
privilege. The theory holds that Freemasons were architects who
could design and construct monumental buildings, impossible for
local masons to attempt, that they therefore had to be brought in
from a distance, and that it was necessary to give them
the "freedom of the city" else they could do no work; and for
that reason they were called freemasons. 6. The "Speth"
theory. No other theory has ever occasioned so much discussion as
this because at the time he published it in the tenth volume of
Ars Quatuor Coronatorum the members of that first of lodges of
research were the giants of modern Masonic scholarship, and Speth
was the secretary of the lodge itself. That his paper was a
masterpiece was freely granted even by those who could not accept
his theory. Speth argued (I reduce his theory to very few
words, and therefore run the risk of robbing it of half its
weight) that in the Middle Ages there had been two kinds of gilds
of builders. On the one side there were the local, or
stationary, gilds, composed of workmen who could construct
simple buildings, the members of which were by law compelled
to remain within their local boundaries and were not free
to work elsewhere. On the other side were the builders
of churches and cathedrals who were free to work anywhere, and
who, once they began a structure, could set up their own lodges.
They were free from the restrictions of local gilds, and for that
reason were called freemasons. Speth summed up his own theory in
a few words: "The fact remains that we, of today, are the sons of
the freemasons and not of the gild masons." 7. The "Gould"
theory. The last theory to be mentioned - last, only because the
limitations of space forbid a further multiplication - I have
christened the Gould theory because the Craft's "premier
historian" set it forth as his own. In reality it is no theory at
all, because it asserts that in our present state of knowledge no
theory is possible. At the end of his famous treatise on the
subject (published in his Essays) Gould answers the question,
"Why 'Free' in Freemasonry?" by a quotation: "If you wish for the
solution, be patient, and wait." If this were translated into a
more American way of speech, it would mean that a Mason must say:
"We are called Freemasons, but up to now we have not been able
to discover why we are." After much traveling about in the
literature of which the above seven paragraphs give but the
slenderest of indications, I find that in my own mind there
remain three observations which, though they can settle nothing,
may not be unworthy to be added to the discussion. 1. As
far as the origins of the word "freemason" are concerned there
are indications in the records in sufficient number to suggest a
theory unlike any described in the paragraphs above. It could be
named the "coincidence theory." At some given time, in some given
place, in a part of Scotland, say, or in one of the counties of
England, craftsmen were called freemasons for one reason;
at another time, perhaps a century afterwards, and possibly
in France, they were called freemasons for reasons of a
wholly different kind. That these different reasons resulted in
the same word was a philological coincidence. The
word "mystery" is one example of such a coincidence, because
it had three different origins; the word "rank" is
another, because it had two. 2. The theory to which I
myself am most inclined, though without final conviction, could
be described as "the convergence theory." According to this
theory early craftsmen were called "free" because they were men
in the fine arts; because each one was free of the town or the
city in which he worked; because as architects of
monumental structures they stood apart from local, gild Masons;
because they could move from city to city, or from country to
country; because they worked in freestone; and by the end of
the seventeenth century all these various meanings
converged. This would mean that of the principal theories no one
would contradict all the others, but that in some measure, and
in some real sense, all of them would be true at one
stroke. 3. As already stated, the literature on the question
as to why "free" in Freemasonry is an extensive one, and is old;
it is therefore all the more curious that nowhere in it does
any author raise the question as to why the Fraternity calls
itself Freemasonry nowadays. No law compels it to do so. It
is interesting to discuss the origins of the name, centuries
ago; it is even more interesting to ask why we now cherish
the name, and why all of us feel it to be appropriate. There
are many possible answers to that question (it is taken
for granted that some of them are historical), but upon
the testimony of many books published in the past 25
years, along with hundreds of magazine articles and
Masonic speeches I should believe that Masons, as Masons, like
to call themselves Freemasons because in every true sense they
know themselves to be free men. They have, as Masons, a very
large spiritual independence. Our Fraternity is not indentured to
or tied down to any one country, any one government, any one
race, one religion, one church, or one period of time, or one
political party, or one social class. The fine old phrase, "free
of the craft," which members of the gilds like to use, we modern
Freemasons could adopt, albeit with a wider connotation; we are
"free of" the whole of mankind, and the whole of the
world. back to top |
