CLANDESTINE FREEMASON.
One made in or affiliated with a clandestine Lodge. With clandestine Lodges or Freemasons, regular Freemasons are forbidden to associate or converse on Masonic subjects.
CLANDESTINE LODGE.
A body of Freemasons or of those improperly claiming to be Freemasons, uniting in a Lodge without the consent of a Grand Lodge, or, although originally legally constituted, continuing to work after its Charter has been revoked, is styled a Clandestine Lodge. Neither Anderson nor Entick employ the word. It was first used in the Book of Constitutions in a note by Noorthouck, on page 239 of his edition (see the Constittutions of 1784).Regular Lodge would be the better term.
CLARE DE GILBERT.
Marquis of Pembroke. According to Masonic tradition, said to have been, with Ralph Lord Monthermer. and Walter Gifford, Archbishop of York, given charge of the Operative Masons in 1272
CLARE, MARTIN.
A London schoolmaster and a celebrated Freemason of England in the eighteenth
century. The date of Brother Clare's birth is not on record, but it is known that his death occurred May 19, 1751, Martin Clare served the Fraternity as Grand Steward in 1734, as Junior Warden in 1735, Deputy Grand Master in 1741, continuing his activity in the work of the Grand Lodge up to 1749. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on March 27, 1735. He was, in 1736, Master of the Lodge at the Shakespeare's Head, Saint James, which was constituted in 1721, then No. 4, and later became the Lodge of Friendship, No. 6.
The Minutes of the Lodge from January, 1738, to December, 1749, were recorded in his handwriting.
He was distinguished for zeal and intelligence in Freemasonry, and it has been pretty well established that he was the author of A Defence of Masonry, which was issued in 1730 in answer to Prichard's Masonry Dissected, and which was reproduced in the 1738 Edition of the Constititutions.
Brother Henry Sadler, in his Thomas Dunckerley, his Life, Labours and Letters, tells on page 114 that on January 25, 1742, ''The Master proposed the Revival of the Lectures in this place and this seeming universally agreeable to the Society, his Worship requested the D.G.M., to entertain the Lodge this Day Fortnight at nine o'clock and the Subject was left to his own choice. After him Brother Wagg promised to read this Day Month." On page 114, Brother Sadler says, "The scientific lectures had been omitted for several months past. The word Revival was originally written Revisal by Clare, but as the proceedings were transcribed by him, from rough minutes, probably taken by some one else, he doubtless mistook the word and afterwards altered the s into a v, although at first sight and taken without the context the word might now easily be mistaken for Revisal.
This trifling error may have given rise to the tradition that Clare revised the Craft Lectures by request of the Grand Lodge; I am not, however, aware of the existence of the least evidence or indication that he did anything of the kind."
Clare's oration before the Grand Lodge on December 11, 1735, was translated into several foreign languages. A reprint of it is in the Pocket Companion and History of Freemasons for 1754, also in Oliver's Masonic Institudes, reprints of the Lodge of Research at Leicester, etc. (see the Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume iv, pages 33--li). Het ranslated into English a work which had been published the preceding year, in Dublin, under the title of Relation Apologique et Historique de la Société des Franc-Maçons, or A Defence and Historical Account of the Society of Freemasons.
The Freemason of June 6, 1925, says: "The second name in the roster of Old King's Arms Lodge, No. 28, London, is that of Sir Cecil Wray's Senior Warden in 1730---Martin Clare ; one of the greatest worthies the Craft in England has known, who represented the Lodge on the Board of Grand Stewards in 1734, became Junior Grand Warden in the following year, and in 1741 was appointed Deputy Grand Master to the Earl of Morton. There seems little doubt that he was initiated in the Lodge, and, although he never sat in the Master's Chair, the Minute Books contain many references which testify to his love for it and to the great services he rendered to it. When Sir Cecil Wray was invited to become the Master he accepted on condition that Martin Clare would undertake the duties of Senior Warden. Many of the Lodge Minutes are in his handwriting, and those Minutes are certainly a model, both in penmanship and composition, of what such chronicles should be. He frequently lectured at the Old King's Arms Lodge. It was the custom for many years for his Oration to be read in the Lodge annually.
He was also the author of numerous lectures or discourses dealing with Freemasonry which he delivered at various Lodges, and the Minutes intimate his keenness in promoting discussions on matters of Masonic interest. The first act of his, on rejoining the Lodge in 1747, after a short absence, was to revive the custom of lectures and papers, which he had also inaugurated in the Lodge of Friendship.
Clare presided on, at least, four Communications of the Grand Lodge.''
CLARENCE, H. R. H. THE DUKE OF,
afterward King William IV, was initiated in Lodge 86, Plymouth, on March 9, 1796.
CLASSIFICATION OF FREEMASONS.
Oliver says, in his Dictionary of Symbolical Masonry, that ancient Masonic tradition informs us that the Speculative and Operative Freemasons who were assembled at the building of the Temple were arranged in nine classes, under their respective Grand Masters ; namely 30,000 Entered Apprentices, under their Grand Master Adoniram ; 80,000 Fellow-Crafts, under Hiram Abif ; 2,000 Mark Men under Stolkyn; 1,000 Master Masons under Mohabin; 600 Mark Masters, under Ghiblim; 24 Architects, under Joabert; 12 Grand Architects, under Adoniram ; 45 Excellent Masons, under Hiram Abif; 9 Super-Excellent Masons, under Tito Zadok; besides the Ish Sabbal or laborers. The tradition is, however, rather apocryphal, a matter of doubt.
CLAVEL, F. T. BEGUE.
An abbé. A French Masonic Writer, who published, in 1842, a Histoire pittoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie et des Sociétés Secrétes Anciennes et Modernes or Picturesque History of Freemasonry and of Ancient and Modern Secret Societies. This work contains a great amount of interesting and valuable information, notwithstanding many historical inaccuracies, especially in reference to the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, of which the author was an adversary. For the publication of the work without authority he was suspended by the Grand Orient for two months, and condemned to pay a fine, clavel appealed to the intelligence of the Fraternity against this sentence. In 1844, he commenced the publication of a Masonic Journal called the Grand Orient, the title of which he subsequently changed to the Orient. As he had not obtained the consent of the Grand Orient, he was agaiq brought before that body, and the sentence of perpetual exclusion from the Grand Orient pronounced against him.
Rebold says that it was the act of a faction, and obtained by unfair means. It was not sustained by the judgment of the Craft in France, with whom Clavel gained reputation and popularity. Notwithstanding the Masonic literary labors of Clavel, an account of the time of his birth, or of his death, appears to be obscure.
His desire seemed to be to establish as history, by publication, those views which he personally entertained and formed ; gathered from sources of doubtful character, he desired they should not be questioned in the future, semel pro semper, once for all.
CLAY.
CLAY, HENRY,
See Chalk, Charcoal, and Clay.
CLAY GROUND.
In the clay ground between Succoth and Zeredatha, Hiram Abif cast all the sacred vessels of the Temple, as well as the pillars of the porch. This spot was about thirty-five miles in a northeast direction from Jerusalem ; and it is supposed that Hiram selected it for his foundry, because the clay which abounded there was, by its great tenacity, peculiarly fitted for making molds. The Masonic tradition on this subject is sustained by the authority of Scripture (see First. Kings vii, 46, and Second Chronicles iv, 17). Morris, in his Freemasonry in the Holy Land, gives the following interesting facts in reference to this locality. "A singular fact came to light under the investigations of my assistant at Jerusalem. He discovered that the jewellers of that city, at the present day, use a particular species of brown, arenaceous clay in making moulds for casting small pieces in brass, etc. Inquiring whence this clay comes, they reply, 'From Seikoot, about two days' joumey north-east of Jerusalem.' Here, then, is a satisfactory reply to the question, Where was the'clay ground' of Hiram's foundries? It is the best matrix-clay existing within reach of Hiram Abif, and it is found only in 'the clay ground between Succoth and Zeredatha'; and considerable as was the distance, and extremely inconvenient as was the locality, so important did that master-workman deem it, to secure a sharp and perfect mould for his castings, that, as the Biblical record informs us, he established his furnaces there."
CLAY, HENRY.
American statesman and orator; born April 12, 1777 ; died June 29, 1852. At twenty two elected delegate to Kentucky Constitutional Convention; at twenty-six to legislature, at twentynine United States Senator, at thirty-four Speaker of House of Representatives, Secretary of State 1825--9.
"An active, zealous Mason, as the records of the Grand Lodge (Kentucky) abundantly prove" (Centennial History, Grand Secretary H. B. Grant, 1900, page 72). Elected Grand Master, August 29, 1820. He advocated a General Grand Lodge of the United States and at the Washington (D.C.) conierence, March 9, 1822, offered the resolutions unanimously adopted favoring his views.
CLEAN HANDS.
Clean hands are a symbol of purity. The Psalmist says "that he only shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or shall stand in his holy place, who hath clean hands and a pure heart." Hence, the washing of the hands is an outward sign of an intemal purification; and the Psalmist says in another place, "I will wash my hands in innocence. And I will encompass thine altar, Jehovah. " In the Ancient Mysteries the washing of the hands was always an introductory ceremony to the initiation; and, of course, it was used symbolically to indicate the necessity of purity from crime as a qualification of those who sought admission into the sacred rites ; and hence, on a temple in the Island of Crete, this inscription was placed: "Cleanse your feet, wash your hands, and then enter." Indeed, the washing of hands, as symbolic of purity, was among the ancients a peculiarly religious rite. No one dared to pray to the gods until he had cleansed his hands. Thus, Homer (in the Iliad vi, 266) makes Hector say:
I dread with unwashed hands to bring
My incensed wine to Jove an offering.
In a similar spirit of religion, Aeneas, when leaving burning Troy, refuses to enter the Temple of Ceres until his hands, polluted by recent strife, had been washed in the living stream (see the Aeneid11, 718).
Me bello e tanto digressum et coede recenti,
Attrectare nefas, donec me flumine vivo
Abiuero.
In me, now fresh from war and recent strife,
'Tis impious the sacred things to touch,
Till in the living stream mysef 1 bathe.
The same practice prevailed among the Jews, and a striking instance of the symbolism is exhibited in that well-known action of Pilate, who, when the Jews damored for Jesus that they might crucify him, appeared before the people, and, having taken water, washed his hands, saying at the same time, "I am innocent of the blood of this just man, see ye to it" (see Matthew xxvii, 24).
The white gloves worn by Freemasons as a part of their clothing, as well as the white gloves presented to the initiate in the Continental and Latin Rites, allude to this symbolizing of clean hands ; and what in some of the advanced Degrees has been called Masonic Baptism is nothing else but the symbolizing, by a ceremony, this doctrine of clean hands as the sign of a pure heart (see Baptism Jfasonic, and Lustration).
CLEAVE.
The word cleave is twice used in Freemasonry, and each time in an opposite sense. First, in the sense of adhering, where the sentence in which it is employed is in the Past Master's Degree, and is taken from the 137th Psalm : "Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth" ; second, in the Master's Degree, where, in the expression "The flesh cleaves from the bone," it has the intransitive meaning of to separate, and is equivalent to "the flesh parts, or separates, itself from the bone. " In this latter use the word is less common, and in the above expression is used only technically as a Masonic term.
CLECHE.
Pronounced kleesh-a, and in heraldry usually described as a cross charged with another of the same figure, but,whose color is that of the field, but the reader may understand it as being a cross designed to show merely a border or outline or having the ends of the four arms enlarged, one or the other.
CLEFTS OF THE ROCKS.
The whole of Palestine is mountainous, and these mountains abound in deep clefts or caves, which were anciently places of refuge to the inhabitants in time of war, and were often used as lurking places for robbers. It is, therefore, strictly in accordance with geographical truth that the statement, in relation to the concealment of certain persons in the clefts of the rocks, is made in the Third Degree (see the latter part of the article Caverns).
CLEMENT AUGUSTUS.
Born 1700; died 1766. Duke of Bavaria and Elector of Cologne, a Freemason until 1738 when, at the publication of Pope Clement XII'S Bull, he withdrew from the Masonic Order openly although said to have privately maintained affiliation with it and to have founded the Society of Mopses.
CLEMENT V.
Before his election, as Pope of Rome, known as Bertrand d'·Agoust, or Bertrand de Gôt, Archbishop of Bordeaux. As the price of the papal crown, said to have made an agreement with Philippe le Bel for the destruction of the Knights Templar. It is also recorded that either Jacques de Molay, or Guy, the Dauphin d'Auvergne, when at the stake, summoned Clement V before God in forty days. A few days after the execution, March 11, 1314, an illness began for the Pope, ending in his death on April 20, 1314.
CLEMENT XI I.
A Pope,vho assumed the pontificate on the 12th of August, 1730, and died on the 6th of February, 1740. On the 24th of April, 1738, he published his celebrated Bull of Excommunication, entitled In Eminenti A postolatus Specula, in which we find these words : "For which reason the temporal and spiritual communities are enjoined, in the name of holy obedience, neither to enter the society of Freemasons, to disseminate its principles, to defend it, nor to admit nor conceal it within their houses or palaces, or elsewhere, under pain of excommunication ipso facto, for all acting in contradiction to this, and from which the pope only can absolve the dying." Clement was a bitter persecutor of the Masonic Order, and hence he caused his Secretary of State, the Cardinal Firrao, to issue on the 14th of January, 1739, a still more stringent edict for the Papal States, in which death and confiscation of property, without hope of mercy, was the penalty or, as the original has it, "sotto Pena della morte, e confiscazione de beni da incorressi, irremissibilmente senz a speranzs di grazia.''
CLEMENT XIV.
Pope of Rome, previously having the name of J. V. A. Ganganelli, who suppressed the Jesuits by his order of June 14, 1773, although it was later on revived by a successor.
CLERKS OF STRICT OBSERVANCE.
Known also as the Spiritual Branch of the Templars, or Clerici Ordinis Templarii. This was a schism from the Order or Rite of Strict Observance; and was founded by Starck in 1767. The members of this Rite established it as a rival of the latter system. They claimed a pre-eminence not only over the Rite of Strict Observance, but also over all the Lodges of ordinary Freemc.wnry, and asserted that they alone possessed the true secrets of the Order, and knew the place where the treasures of the Templars were deposited (for a further history of this Rite, see Starck). The Rite consisted of seven Degrees, viz. :
1, 2, and 3. Symbolic Freemasonry.
4. Junior Scottish Freemason, or Jungschotte.
5. Scottish Master, or Knight of Saint Andrew.
6. Provincial Capitular of the Red Cross.
7. Magus, or Knight of Purity and Light.
Clavel ( Histoire Pittoresque, or Picturesque History, page186) gives different names to some of these Degrees. This last was subdivided into five sections, as follows:
I. Knight Novice of the third year.
II. Knight Novice of the fifth year.
III. Knight Novice of the seventh year.
IV. Levite, and V. Priest.
Ragon errs in calling this the Rite of Lax Observance unless he said it satirically.
CLERMONT, CHAPTER OF.
On the 24th of November, 1754, the Chevalier de Bonneville established in Paris a Chapter of the Advanced Degrees under this name, which was derived from what Doctor Mackey deemed the Jesuitical Chapter of Clermont. This society was composed of many distinguished persons of the court and city, who, disgusted with the dissensions of the Parisian Lodges, determined to separate from them. They adopted the Templar system, which had been created at Lyons, in 1743, and their Rite consisted at first of but six Degrees, namely,
1, 2, 3. Saint John's Freemasonry.
4. Knight of the Eagle.
5. Illustrious Knight or Templar.
6. Sublime Illustrious Knight.
But soon after that time the number nf these Degrees was greatly extended.
The Baron de Hund received the advanced Degrees in this Chapter, and derived from them the idea of the Rite of Strict Observance, which he subsequently established in Germany.
CLERMONT, COLLEGE OF. ·
college of Jesuits in Paris, where James II, after his flight from England, in 1688, resided until his removal to St. Germain.
During his residence there, he is said to have sought the establishment of a system of Freemasonry, the object of which should be the restoration of the House of Stuart to the throne of England. Relics of this attempted system are still to be found in many of the advanced Degrees, and the Chapter of Clermont, subsequently organized in Paris, appears to have had some reference to it.
CLERMONT, COUNT OF.
Louis of Bourbon, prince of the blood royal and Count of Clermont, was elected by sixteen of the Paris Lodges Perpetual Grand Master, for the purpose of correcting the numerous abuses which had crept into French Freemasonry. He did not, however, fulfil the expectations of the French Freemasons; for the next year he abandoned the supervision of the Lodges, and new disorders arose. He still, however, retained the Grand Mastership, and died in 1771, being succeeded by his nephew, the Duke of Chartres.
CLINTON, DE WITT.
A distinguished statesman, who was born at Little Britain, New York, March 2, 1769, and died on the 11th of February, 1828. He entered the Masonic Order in 1793, and the next year was elected Master of his Lodge. In 1806, he was elevated to the position of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York, and in 1814, to that of Grand Master of the Grand Encampment. In 1816, he was elected General Grand High Priest of the General Grand Chapter of the United States. In 1813, he became unwittingly complicated with the Spurious Consistory, established by Joseph Cerneau in the city of New York, but he took no active part in its proceedings, and soon withdrew from all connection with it. When the anti-Masonic excitement arose in this country in 1826, in consequence of the affair of William Morgan, whom the Freemasons were accused of having put to death, Brother Clinton was Governor of the State of New York, and took all the necessary measures for the arrest of the supposed criminals. But, although he offered a liberal reward for their detection, he was charged by thp Anti-Masons with official neglect and indifference, charges which were undoubtedly false and malicious. Spenser, the special attorney of the State, employed for the prosecution of the offenders, went w far as to resign his office, and to assign, as a mason for his resignation, the want of sympathy and support on the part of the Executive. But all of the accusations and insinuations are properly to be attributed to political excitement, Anti Masonry having been adopted soon after its origin by the politicians as an engine for their advancement to office. Brother Clinton was an honorable man and a true patriot, an ardent and devoted Freemason. (For details as to his farsighted and successful activity.in the foundation of the Public School System in New York City and State see Public Schools.)
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