C&SW.043.VIKING BOER-CULTS WATCH-Origins and History of The Freemasons [x2]

[VIKING BOER]

C&SW.043.VIKING BOER – CULTS WATCH – Origins and History of The Freemasons [x2]

Origins of The Freemasons

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ALLEN PUBLIC LIBRARY
Kevin K. Main takes us back to a time during the
Middle Ages where organized lodges for operative
masons served as trade guilds and were the first
Grand Lodge in London in 1717 is the official start
of current Freemasonry.
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History of Freemasonry

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The history of Freemasonry encompasses the origins, evolution, and defining events of the fraternal organization known as Freemasonry.
It covers three phases. Firstly, the emergence of organized lodges of operative masons during the Middle Ages, then the admission of lay members as “accepted” or “speculative” masons, and finally the evolution of purely speculative lodges, and the emergence of Grand Lodges to govern them. The watershed in this process is generally taken to be the formation of the first Grand Lodge in London in 1717. The two difficulties facing historians are the paucity of written material, even down to the 19th century, and the misinformation generated by masons and non-masons alike from the earliest years.

Freemasonry’s long history includes its early development from organized bodies of operative stonemasons to the modern system of speculative lodges organized around regional or national “Grand Lodges”.

Origin Myths and Theories
Early Masonic sources

The earliest masonic texts each contain some sort of a history of the craft of masonry. The oldest known work of this type, The Halliwell Manuscript, also known as Regius Poem, dates from between 1390 and 1425. This document has a brief history in its introduction, stating that the “craft of masonry” began with Euclid in Egypt, and came to England in the reign of King Athelstan. Shortly afterward, the Matthew Cooke Manuscript traces masonry to Jabal, son of Lamech, and tells how this knowledge came to Euclid, from him to the Children of Israel, and so on through an elaborate path to Athelstan. This myth formed the basis for subsequent manuscript constitutions, all tracing masonry back to biblical times, and fixing its institutional establishment in England during the reign of Athelstan.
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