Talk:History of Freemasonry

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There are interesting tidbits, but this article could really use some work. In particular there are more than a few statements like "the evidence supports such-and-such conclusion". We would have a much, much stronger article if we could present summaries of whatever "evidence" is being referred to and allow the readers to reach their own conclusions. Unfortunately, I don't know where to get the evidence since it isn't discussed or cited. Are there interested parties out there who can help?

Also, Freemasonry is international, but this article seems focused on the U.K.?

The sorts of things we might want to include:

• Origins (known/documented, "mythological" as presented in Masonic lore, "prehistoric" indications of the sort in the existing article, occultish, controversies thereabout)
• Early organization in the U.K.
• Initial spread and growth elsewhere in the world (e.g., via British colonization)
• Development and evolution of rituals
• Schisms and reconciliations
• Involvement (alleged?) of Masons and Masonic Lodges in political and revolutionary movements (French and American Revolutions, civil rights movement in the U.S.)
• I think Prince Hall Masonry and segregation in the U.S. deserves its own section or perhaps a reference to its own article
• Anti-Masonry (worldwide and in the U.S., conspiracy theories, occult accusations, friction with Roman Catholic and Mormon churches and various Protestant theologies)
• Government suppression of Masonry (Nazi claims/controversy, Soviet Union, China? others?)
• Recent (severe) decline of Masonry in the U.S. (and other Western countries?)
• Recent growth of Masonry in Central and South America

I'm also hoping categorizing this article under Freemasonry might get it some more attention.

I'll do what I can when I can, and see about recruiting some authors. Anyone else have suggestions or want to dig in? —Bsktcase 05:10, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi there Bsktcase. It is well past time that someone took an interest in this article. I wrote it when I was very new to Wikipedia and apart from minor tidying up it has remained substantially unchanged ever since. I wrote it in this form largely because I wanted to avoid controversy but I felt that the paragraph on "History of Freemasonry" in the main article on Freemasonry was woefully inadequate.

Much of what I wrote might be considered original research but it has been published in a reputable journal (Transactions of the United Masters Lodge, Auckland, NZ. Sept 1992) and as such is, hopefully, acceptable to Wikipedia.

The difficulty is that prior to 1717 almost nothing is known about Freemasonry but an awful lot of rubbish is written based mainly on wishful thinking. The original paper and this article present the only concrete facts I could find. Beyond suggesting that FM was around in England and Scotland from about AD1400 they don't support any other conclusions.

Post 1717 it is a very different story and there is material for a whole series of articles. For instance in Mexico in the 1820 various masonic Lodges actually went to war with each other to decide who would run the country.

But I was leaving all that for someone else to tackle, my area of interest was pre-1717.

I hope this background helps you

ping 07:42, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi Ping, thanks for your comments! Totally appropriate on wikipedia to give an article a good start and let others build upon it, and I'm very glad you did so. I think we agree on things. As you can see, I think there's a massive volume of material to be discussed here, more than deserving of its own page. The summary on Freemasonry is fine but that's all it is, a summary. Agree with you that there's a clear 1717 split: plenty of documentary evidence after, not much before. If we recruit a broader base of contributors, hopefully we can get coverage of both sides.

Agree with you about the "wishful thinking" versions of history. However, the point here shouldn't be to pick one "best" version of history and only present that one; what wikipedia is about is summarizing all the versions, with the strengths and weaknesses of each. Even though I think most Masons today agree that Freemasonry did not literally originate with the builders of Solomon's temple, we can't very well have a complete history if we don't discuss the legend... especially because the legend has been used by anti-Masons to condemn Freemasonry as arrogant and sacreligious, and those arguments don't make sense if we don't know what they're condemning. Likewise the Knights Templar theories which are used by pro-Masons to paint a romantic, chivalrous picture, but also by anti-Masons to support wild occultish conspiracy theories. And so on. We'll never be able to establish any one version of Masonic prehistory as "definitive", but we can definitely describe all the different versions and present evidence for or against, which would be a cool article all by itself.

We two definitely can't do it all by ourselves. Hoping Brethren and other interested parties will show up to bail us out! —Bsktcase 17:06, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not up to the task of attempting a rewrite, but I added an External Link which may be of some use:

• Craft, Trade or Mystery by Dr Bob James (Revised 2002). Provides extensive discussion on the Operative and Speculative origins of Freemasonry, including extensive citations.

Particularly of note is Chapter 2: Fraternalism before 1717: Or When is Freemasonry NOT Speculative?. Useful for its extensive sources and citations alone. --Takver 14:43, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

An excellent Article. You do well at conveying the fact that there is little documented history prior to the formation of the Grand Lodge of England, and that much of the History of Freemasonry before then has to be speculation. However, given the current interest in the Craft and its beginnings (as evidenced by such books as "Born In Blood", "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and even "The DaVinci Code") I think we need to at least mention the idea that the Masons are descended from the Templars (and other such theories.) As long as these are presented AS unproven theories they should be included.

I would also agree that the Article needs to discuss the growth and exportation of the Craft after the formation of that first Grand Lodge. Also, Beefing up this article would help cut the length of the main Freemasonry Article. Blueboar 20:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I'm new to the Wiki postings, but as a early modern European history student at the University of Chicago, I thought that I could post some thoughts that might help you in the attempt to revise the Freemasonry page, specifically the "History of" section. If you all know about the works that I mention below, my apologies for being redundant. :) Margaret C. Jacob (UCLA) has published a significant body of work about the history of freemasonry: "Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe.' Oxford University Press, 1991. "The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans." London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981. "The Origins of Freemasonry: Facts and Fictions." Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. (This last one is a more popular work.) I would also recommend David Stevenson's "The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590-1710." Cambridge University Press, 1988. I hope this helps. Calliopelives 22:44, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Frere Masoun 2 Merge Proposal 3 Restructuring this article 4 Merged Material from the main Freemasonry Article 5 Paris Commune section 6 Better in Anti-Masonry? 7 Unity of Freemasonry? 8 Misleading title

[edit] Frere Masoun

Could the above French phrase (meaning brother or fellow mason) be the origin of the term Freemason? Thoughts? Fergananim 24.8.05.

Interesting point that I had never considered. Any idea when Frere Masoun was first used? I have never been entirely happy with the 'Freestone Mason' explanation but have never seen a better one.ping 09:22, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Proposal

This article is puny. There are better structured history sections in Anti-Freemasonry and Freemasonry. Can discussion of the whole merger be conducted here? JASpencer 22:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I have been planning a complete rewrite for a while now... But I keep getting sidetracked to other articles dealing with Freemasonry. I hope to upload a draft in a month or so (still doing research and finding proper citations). Topics I plan to expand: Origins: to include brief discussion of other origin possibilities. Sections to be added: Post 1717 England, America, France, and many other nations and parts of the world... IE most of the history of Freemasonry. If you merge this back to Freemasonry, I will simply have to recreate it when I have finished my draft. Blueboar 00:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the history section from Anti-Freemasonry and Freemasonry should be mered into this article. Ardenn 00:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I would disagree with merging a lot of the historical material from the Anti-masonry page here. I do agree that you can not discuss the history of Freemasonry properly without mentioning the negative side of things (for example, you can not discuss Freemasonry in 1700s France or 1800s Italy without mentioning anti-clericism), and some of the historical material at the Anti-Masonry page could be incorporated here. However, I would not support simply deleting the historical material from Anti-Masonry. That material is a large part of what makes Anti-Masonry a distict phenominon, a "movement" if you will. It is vital to that article and seperates it from the various "(Name of Group) and Freemasonry" sub-articles that various people have been starting recently. It is part of what links them all together and makes the Anti-Masonry Article interesting. In many ways the Anti-Masonry article should really be called "History of Anti-Masonry"Blueboar 02:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restructuring this article

I'm going to try my hand at restructuring this article to be more cronological in nature and comprehensive, this way people can add more to each section and really expand on this poorly structured article. Chtirrell 20:34, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Chtirrell, well done. Much of what you added was similar to edits I was planning to make but have not gotten around to doing. I would add few other sections... something like: Freemasonry in the former British Empire (covering the exportation of the craft to India, Africa and Australia) and Freemasonry in the Near East (covering Turkey, Israel, and the Arab World). Also, in discussing the spread of Freemasonry through Europe in the 1700s and 1800s, we need to discuss the fact that many of the Grand Orients (in France and Italy especially) became very political in nature (this is important as it lies at the roots of some of the Anti-Masonic claims... which will have to be addressed to keep the article NPOV). Blueboar 13:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Blueboar, thanks for the kind words. I was going to add the extended (i.e. outside UK, Europe and US) sections today, just wanted to get the main parts down. It's good to see we're on the same page :) As for the political sections, I was going to add a section on Freemasonry and the French Revolution, a short summary of P2 and a link redirect. I also want to integrate some of the sections of the Anti-masonry article to flesh out the history of anti-masonry on Freemasonry. I just hope that in the end this article doesn't get too long. We may have to summerize somethings here and talk about curtain subjects more thoroughly in specific articles. Chtirrell 16:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that volume is a big risk, since the topic is huge. I created a placeholder for Schisms on my user page so that I could work on that, for just that reason. as with the main FM page others can cascade out from this. But it is useful to have the framework to deal with.ALR 16:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

In the origins section, we should probably have a bit more discussion about the theory that we derived directly from the knights templar. I know that this claim is currently the province of crackpot pseudo-historians and best selling fiction authors, and we do want to be careful not to endorse their nutty ideas... but the concept does date back all the way to the 1750s and Chevalier Ramsey. It does deserve a bit more discussion. Blueboar

I would like to participate in the restructing as well, especially since I've got some experience in separating fact from legend by editing the articles on the Knights Templar. For example, I would suggest making a clear separation in the article between facts about Freemasonry, and "Freemasonry legends". Under the "Knights Templar" section, instead of, "It has been theorized", I would move that to the "Legends" section, and change the wording to something like, "Some have suggested, without proof, that..." Also, did anyone catch the recent History Channel documentary on the Freemasons? There's a lot of good info there. I have it recorded and can provide some factoids from it if anyone is interested. --Elonka 17:29, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merged Material from the main Freemasonry Article

I have merged the material from the main Freemasonry Article in an attempt to more fully develop the History of Freemasonry article and to allow the Freemasonry editors to shorten the history section on the main page. Because of this, I believe the merge tag can be removed and will do this. If there are any problems bring them up and we can readd the merge tag. Chtirrell 04:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I have continued to add and merge here. Imacomp 12:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I have continued to add and merge here. Imacomp 21:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paris Commune section

I have no real problem with this new section, but it does need citations. Blueboar 12:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe it also lacks relivence for the general history of Freemasonry. Prehaps shortening it and adding a wikilink to a larger article about it. Chtirrell 18:05, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

It was suggested that rather start a fresh page on Revolutionary Freemasonry it would be better to mention these interesting topics on this very History of Freemasonry page. If you regard this as long, what is going to happen when he touch on other such topics as the role of freemasonrys in the 1848, revolution in France, the Battle of Antrim, etc etc. etc. perhaps we should discuss the way forward on this.Harrypotter 17:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

As the one who suggested that you post this material here... that was suggested as an alternative to posting it on the Freemasonry Article, where it really didn't fit. I actually think that it would work best as its own article, linked to in this one.

[edit] Better in Anti-Masonry?

Is this not better in Anti-Masonry? Imacomp 20:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Foundation of Freemasonry on the European Continent

Original bans

The first official action against Freemasonry was in 1735 in Holland.

In 1736, the Roman Catholic Church began to investigate a Masonic Lodge in Florence, Italy which had been founded for (Protestant) English residents but had been admitting Italian members. The Lodge in question was condemned by the Chief Inquisitor in Rome on 25 June 1737, and on 9 May 1739, Tommaso Crudeli, a free-thinker and physician in Florence, was questioned under torture about his beliefs and Masonic affiliation. He was released in April 1741 and died in January 1745^[1]

In 1738, partly due to the Florentine case, the Catholic church first denounced Freemasonry in the Papal Constitution In Eminenti. The Protestant states of Sweden and Geneva banned Freemasonry in 1738, followed by Zurich in 1740 and Berne in 1745.

Freemasonry and the Inquisition

Another early case involved John Coustos, a Swiss native living in England. Coustos travelled to Portugal on business where he founded a lodge. He was arrested by the Inquisition and was tortured and questioned before being sentenced to the galleys. Three of the members of his lodge were executed. He was released in 1744 as a result of the intercession of George II of England. After his release and return to England, John Coustos wrote a book detailing his experiences in the hands of the Inquisition^[1].

In 1815, Francisco J. Mier y Campillo, one of the Inquisitors-General of Spain, launched a new purge on Freemasonry and denounced the lodges as "societies which lead to sedition, to independence, and to all errors and crimes." The subsequent purge involved many Spaniards being imprisoned on the charge of being "suspected of Freemasonry".

See also Catholicism and Freemasonry

I think this article should contain some mention of Anti-Masonry through history... for example, you can not really talk about the developement of Masonry in the US without mentioning the Morgan Affair and the Anti-Masonic backlash that followed it. But, to my way of thinking, the focus should be on how any particular Anti-Masonic movement or attack affected the fraternity. Thus, the question of whether to mention the Catholic bans, or Coustos's arrest, depends on how much they affected Freemasonry. Given that criteria, I would say they can go... neither really had an impact on the fraternity in the long run. Blueboar 02:50, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unity of Freemasonry?

As I did in the main Freemasonry article, I have deleted statements about the Unity of Freemasonry (in relation to the GOdF / UGLE schism) and citations to the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia used to back these statements. I have discussed these in more depth at the main article (see that talk page), but as far as this article goes: not only were the statements wrong, the citations didn't back them. First, one of the references was used to show how there was supposedly a unity in Masonry during World War One... The CE cited to an article in an American Masonic journal dated 1906... well before the war. The Schism was in full swing at the time, and thus the referenced journal could not be said to reflect the state of relations at the time. The other simply did not support the statement. Yes, there was a relaxation in the Schism during the war... but this was a unique situation. Prior to it, and again after it, the schism was in full force. Blueboar 19:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misleading title

If this is a history of Freemasonry, it should include only verifiable facts, not possiblities, vague theories and speculation. Otherwise perhaps Origins of Freemasonry would be a better title for a separate page on Freemasonry pre-1717. Either way, there is an awful lot of unsourced stuff and historically dodgy stuff here. For example, the formation Of the Masons' Livery Company in London in 1356 is mentioned. But there is no evidence given for any link between it and Freemasonry. So why is it here? There are many other examples...--Stonemad GB 23:40, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The title is not misleading, the article is just incomplete. Several editors have expressed the desire to expand this beyond 1717 (tracing the developement of Freemasonry to other parts of the world for example)... but all of them are bogged down in other articles at the moment. You are correct in saying that there is a lot unsourced things... I can assure you that finding reliable sources is on the to do list. Feel free to help out. Blueboar 23:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)