Årets ICHFkongress for frimurerhistorikere samlet over 150 delegater fra hele verden som i tre dager gjennom over 70 sesjoner fikk belyst frimureriets historie fra mange vinkler. Det var tre norske deltakere (Leif Endre Grutle, Lars Holstad og Helge Bjørn Horrisland), hvorav sistnevnte holdt et foredrag om norsk frimureraktivitet i London under 2. verdenskrig. Her følger et sammendrag av samtlige foredrag. Sammendragene er på engelsk. De som har interesse av flere detaljer kan kontakte Horrisland på hans email adresse Denne e-postadressen er beskyttet mot programmer som samler e-postadresser. Du må aktivere JavaScript for å kunne se adressen .
Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire.
Masonic academic research has today reached a turning point. Carried out during decades by academics belonging to the Masonic order or philosophically close to it, research now is in quest for legitimacy responding to academic and scholarly authorities. Research centres, chairs, seminars, applications for high level international projects have multiplied, often with the support of masonic Grand Lodges. In parallel, these bodies created, welcomed or financed their own research institutes or centres of conferences. They understand the importance of their heritage: archive materials, images and artefacts and brought a powerful support for the organization of often remarkable public exhibitions. However, the assessment remains mitigated. Masonic studies remain isolated and still suffer from a deficit of recognition. It is together we have to think about the question of the bonds still linking Masonic research with the patronage of Grand Lodges and all kinds of Masonic institutions. The second challenge is not easier to raise: how, once ritual invocations with Georg Simmel or Jurgen Habermas finished, to integrate Masonic studies into research of public space, social networks and networking, history of the ideas, study of the individual trajectories, the birth of a political culture for Latin Masonry without making lodges and their members a simple pretext, but by considering them for themselves? The positive, chronological history of Freemasonry has its interest. It has even constituted a necessary stage. But from now on Masonic research must not only integrate the academic and professional rules of a researcher in humanities and social sciences, but put at its agenda the opening of innovative fields likely to attract junior scholars. It is at the price of this effort that the academic world will cease regarding it as a "not identified erudite object".
The historiography of early Freemasonry: methodological flaws.
Matthew Scanlon, UK
Freemasonry is arguably the largest association of its type in world history, and yet, somewhat ironically, its precise origins remain obscure. Almost inevitably this has given rise to a good deal of speculation, myth and legend, which, as the Oxford historianJohn Morris Roberts has noted, is not altogether surprisinggiven that the subject has been traditionally abandoned `to masonic antiquarians or to cranks' (EHR, 84,331, April 1969, p. 324). Nevertheless, over the last sixty years or more, a handful of professional historians have braved this historical quagmire and their forays into this neglected topic have resulted in at least three noteworthy studies: The Genesis of Freemasonry: An Account of the Rise and Development of Freemasonry in its Operative, Accepted, and Early Speculative Phases (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1947), by Douglas Knoop, Gwilym Peredur Jones and Douglas Hamer; The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981), by Margaret Jacob; and The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590-1710 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), by David Stevenson. However, while these essays have undoubtedly contributed to both the subject and the debate surrounding it, they do not in themselves fully explain when, how or why, modern Freemasonry emerged in early-modern Britain. Indeed, they all largely ignore one of the most important lines of enquiry concerning an enigmatic stonemason practice of seventeenth-century England known as the 'acception'.
Therefore, this illustrated paper will examine this little-known stonemason tradition and present some recently unearthed material and new perspectives that show an incontrovertible link between the craft traditions of early-modern Britain and the modern association that emerged in the early eighteenth century.
Pragmatic Constructions of History among Freemasons.
J Scott Kenney, Canada
The historical role of freemasonry has become increasingly controversial, thrust into popular awareness through books like the Da Vinci Code, films like National Treasure, and a host of television documentaries. In academia, these have been paralleled by a proliferation of research, the opening of institutes such as at the University of Sheffield, and the recent International Conference on the History of Freemasonry. Yet, the former tend to be caricatures playing to pervasive stereotypes for public consumption. The latter tend to focus on historical and philological matters (Pietre¬Stones, 2005; Wade, 2002). Indeed, to the extent that a sociological focus exists, it emphasizes the historical, social and cultural impact of such fraternal orders on society (Skocpol, 2003; Scanlan, 2002; Wade, 2002; Putnam, 2000; Bieto, 2000; Uribe-Uran, 2000; Hetherington, 1997; Jacob, 1991; Clawson, 1989; Carnes, 1989; Jacob, 1981). Relatively little sociological attention has been paid to how freemasons symbolically employ history, indeed meaningfully reconstruct it.
In this paper I begin to empirically reverse this focus. Drawing upon studies of collective memory, recently reemerging as a key area in symbolic interactionist research (Fine and Beim, 2007), coupled with Mead's philosophy of the present (Maines et.al, 1983; Mead, 1932), I consider how freemasons selectively emphasize the past, traditions, and actual and alleged historical events to pragmatically define the situation, indeed reconstruct reality in relation to the context at hand. While considering "privileged" resources written by Masonic historians and analysts, along with ritual material, much of the paper is informed by an empirical analysis of 125 interviews with freemasons in two Canadian provinces concerning the significance of history in freemasonry and their Masonic experiences. Building on an earlier study (Kenney, 2005), my findings shed light on both the process of constructing collective memory and the diversity of interpretive outcomes that interactionally emerge among members.
Charles Robert Cockerell, Freemasonry and the Origins of Gothic Architecture.
Frank Albo, UK
In his lectures delivered at the Royal Academy from 1841- 56 , the brilliant English architect, archaeologist and foremost authority of the Classical language of architecture, Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863), championed the idea that the geometric principles of Gothic design had been inherited from Vitruvius and preserved in the secret enclaves of medieval Freemasons. Cockerell was adamant that Freemasonry `can never be too much studied and held up to our respect' and that it was traceable to the prodigious Greeks and Romans at Numa, the Comacine masters of Lombardy and ultimately Christopher Wren, the first Grand Master of the Freemasons in England, who encoded secret Masonic principles into the design and arrangement of his many churches. But was Vitruvius really `well known and read by the Freemasons during the Dark ages'? This paper explores Cockerell's seemingly radical belief that Freemasons possessed advanced knowledge of architecture and that the plan and elevation of the finest ecclesiastical buildings were linked by geometries that stemmed from a purportedly Masonic symbol called the vesica piscis, a pointed elliptical figure produced by the intersection of two equal circles passing through each other at their midpoints. This paper situates Cockerell's thought within the climate of mid nineteenth-century architectural theory, a time which not only marked the advent of the so-called 'Battle of the Styles' and the meteoric rise of the architectural profession, but one in which Freemasonry was central to one of the most hotly debated and contentious topics of the age - the origins of Gothic architecture.
Masons' marks and signatures on Monuments.
Jennifer S Alexander, UK
Focus on the monument to William Schaw, Royal Master Mason, in Dunfermline abbey and other works by the tomb-maker Scougall, whose mark has been identified on Schaw's tomb. I would examine the tomb from an archaeological perspective as well as from an art-historical one to determine the background to the design of the tomb, and relate it to other works both by Scougall and by other tomb makers of the period. My main concern will be to examine the masons' marks on the tomb, which are displayed very prominently, and to demonstrate their relationship to marks on other sites, both in their form and in the manner of their use. Comparisons will be drawn with other marked tombs, of which there are not very many at this date, and with monuments on which the signature of the tomb-maker appears.
Tokens of Friendship, Brotherhood and Self: American Mark Medals from the 1780s-1820s.
Hillary Anderson Stelling, USA
In 1798 Seth Beckley received the mark degree at the Independent Royal Arch Mark Lodge of New York City. Soon after he commissioned a silversmith to craft a small decorative badge bearing his mark, a three-masted ship flying the American flag. This mark well-represented Beckley, a mariner by profession.
From the 1780s through the 1820s, like Beckley, many American men took the Mark Mason degree. Upon receiving it, a Mason thoughtfully selected a distinct mark to be registered in the lodge's record. Some Masons hired silversmiths or artists to translate their marks onto silver, copper, gold or ivory badges. In selecting this personal emblem, members had license to choose any design as long as it was unique within their lodge. These marks expressed, through the use of image, symbol and allegory, an aspect of the Mark Mason's self-identity.
These attractive and intriguing personal tokens were more than craft medals proclaiming affiliation to a particular lodge; they served a deeper function. A mark medal could represent a promise to undertake a favor or perform an act of friendship. It betokened the personal responsibility a Mark Mason shared in fostering the brotherly love lodge members valued. Many mark medals from the United States' early years survive. They provide fascinating clues to how these men regarded themselves within their lodge, geographic and professional communities.
Although artistically interesting and often well-crafted, mark metals have escaped the attention of scholars studying American silver. Most Masonic historians have looked at mark medals only in an antiquarian light. Drawing from mark medals and mark books, the proposed paper will examine these objects with a view to understanding how they functioned as symbols of self within the social contexts of the mark lodge and the larger communities in which their owners participated.
L'étonnante aventure des et leur apport dans l'etude de la franc-maçonnerie fransaise de la première moitié du 20e siècle (in French).
Francois Rognon, France
La restitution en 2001, par le gouvernement russe, d'archives d'obédiences maçonniques françaises a permis de retrouver des documents occultés pendant pres de 50 ans. Cet enrichissement cubit et considerable du corpus historique maçonnique, a provoque une recrudescence d'intérêt, obligeant meme parfois a revoir les propositions des chercheurs.
L'histoire de ces archives, conservées a Moscou a ete étudiée par Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, professeur a Harvard : Returned from Russia, Nazi archival plunder in Western Europe and recent restitution issues (Art Institute of law, 2007). Elles sont composées de fonds provenant d'organisations diverses considérées comme ennemies du nazisme, parmi lesquelles, evidemment, figuraient les institutions maçonniques.
Dès les premiers jours de l'occupation de Paris (juin 1940), l'armée allemande investit les locaux de la Grande Loge de France et du Grand Orient de France. Une partie des archives (le choix s'explique) est emmenée à Berlin dépouillée puis stockée dans un château isolé en Silésie. C'est là qu'en 1945 elles sont découvertes par l'armée rouge et transférées à Moscou.
Outre l'intérêt intrinsèque de l'élaboration évènementielle de ce fonds, certaines composantes de son contenu méritent une attention particulière :
• la franc-maçonnerie féminine française y retrouve l'histoire de sa naissance et de son essor : structurée définitivement en 1956, la Grande Loge Féminine de France s'est construite à partir des loges « d'adoption » modernes qui se sont constituées entre 1904 et 1940, époque dont les éléments documentaires, jamais collationnés, s'offrent aujourd'hui à l'historien.
• Des manuscrits inédits d'historiographes maçonniques très importants du début du 19e siècle sont en cours d'étude et de publication, notamment un livre d'or de Claude Antoine Thory, l'un des premiers historiens maçonniques français, qui traduisit, en 1813, le livre de Lawrie sur l'histoire de la franc-maçonnerie et de la Grande Loge d'Ecosse, et dont la riche bibliothèque fut vendue par sa veuve au Dr. Morisson qui, lui, en fit don à la Grande Loge d'Ecosse.
When the Profane Besieged the Temple: The Ideological Origins of American Antimasonry, 1798-1829.
Damien Amblard, USA
Recent academic literature on American Antimasonry in the 1820s emphasizes the Antimasonic movement as a social, political and to a lesser extent cultural movement. Yet, there has been little written on the discourse of Antimasonry outside of these arenas. My research focuses on the ideology of Antimasonry and attempts to demonstrate that the key to the success of Antimasonic pamphleteers in the 1820s was that secret societies - starting with the most prominent of all, Freemasonry - were no longer accepted within the American political landscape. I will argue that Antimasons created a wholly new ideology by reversing the perception that the public had of the Masonic mentalité.
Early pamphlets on Freemasonry such as Jachin and Boaz illustrate that secrecy lay at the heart of this community of men and it is certainly this secrecy that crystallized antagonism against the Craft. Secrecy allowed this fraternity to guarantee perfect loyalty among its members and towards the organization itself. Yet, in the 1820s, the conception of Freemasonry in the American public sphere radically changed. The Antimasonic Declaration of Independence represents an unprecedented text. The notion that this secret society, which counted some of the most influential men of the country among its members, was elaborating a plot against the American Republic became more salient. The Antimasonic crisis represented a turning point in the American political life and in the construction of American republican values.
This paper has been realized in the course of doctoral study on Freemasonry and in cooperation with the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library of the Grand Lodge (F&AM) of the State of New York. Thomas M. Savini, Director, has been of great help at every stage of this project.
Prince Hall, African Lodge # 459 and the American Masonic Landscape of the 1770-80s.
Mark Tabbert, USA
The fundamental purpose of Masonic Grand Lodges is to determine regularity and legitimacy of other Masonic bodies. No greater challenge has confronted Grand Lodges in these duties than the initiation of fifteen free African Americans in Boston in 1775 and the subsequent chartering by the Premiere Grand Lodge of England of African Lodge No. 459 in 1784. For over 225 years Grand Lodges have rejected or supported Prince Hall and his brothers. But these reactions were often predicated on established and accepted Masonic jurisprudence applied in hindsight to the colonial age. Little has been written on the rules, customs and realities of Freemasonry during the formative years of Prince Hall Freemasonry.
This paper will explain review the state of Grand Lodge authority in Great Britain and more especially North America between 1775 and 1790. It will also look at the ways and means local groups of Freemasons acquired lodge charters, received recognition and participated in Grand Lodges. In particular the paper will examine how various American lodges and Provincial Grand Lodges organized themselves into sovereign yet often competing governing bodies.
At the time Prince Hall's initiation by a traveling regimental lodge there exist over 100 lodges scattered in the 13 American colonies, the Caribbean, Canada and as far west as Fort Detroit. In Boston two Grand Lodges (St. John's and Massachusetts) vied for preeminence even as they chartered lodges in other colonies. By 1790 the colonies were independent and had ratified a federal constitution and elected a president. During this same period differing American Masonic lodges organized into independent Grand Lodges, remained loyal to a British Grand Lodges all the while assuming greater or lesser geographical authority. Placing African Lodge No. 459 into this context will provide an understanding of Prince Hall's and his brothers' actions and expectations for the Craft.
Other Brothers: the African-American Experience of the Mid-19th Century Revolutionary Secret Societies.
Mark Lause, USA
Prince Hall Masonry and local variants in a range of fraternal orders not only linked African-Americans to the larger experience of freemasonry. It shared much with the related flowering of revolutionary secret societies across the western world by the mid-nineteenth century. In both cases, nationalist ambitions and social grievances fueled self-organization.
In personnel and practices, African-American freemasonry contributed very directly to the clandestine work of the so-called "Underground Railroad." Using secret passwords, signs and handshakes to identify each other, the network of antislavery activists moved fugitives and refugees across the United States and Canada. The process compares, in many ways, to the movement of proscribed republican figures during the more repressive periods in Europe.
As well, there is the Masonic faith-more pronounced in some variants than others-that the order had African origins. This not only proved a generally attractive claim for men of African descent, but black abolitionists regularly cited such claims, as did Martin R. Delaney in his Origin and Objects of Ancient Freemasonry. They frequently extended this argument about freemasonry to the broader question about the origins of civilization with which it had been associated.
The paper will also argue that there were ties between the European organizations and African American societies. Material now accessible because of digitalization document American branches of various of these associations among the French, Italian, and German veterans of the 1848-49 uprisings. As Universal Democratic Republicans and other forerunners of the International Workingmen's Association, these émigré groups combined with American organizations, including those closely involved with the antislavery movement. Particularly in terms of the preparation, execution, and aftermath of John Brown's 1859 abolitionist raid on Harpers Ferry, and discuss their connections with black organizations.
FRANC-MAÇONNERIE ET SOCIETE CIVILE DANS L'EUROPE MERIDIONALE (IN FRENCH)
CHAIR: ROGER DACHEZ T.B.C.
La loge maçonnique, creuset d'une sociabilité bourgeoise émancipée du modèle de la société de cour, est au coeur du processus de production de L'Espace public exposé par Jurgen Habermas. Un large consensus s'est dessiné autour de cette thèse, aujourd'hui reprise dans toutes les synthèses ou manuels universitaires. Mais il faut bien reconnaître que la connaissance de la Franc-maçonnerie qu'a Habermas au début des années 1960 est sommaire et datée. L'essentiel des travaux de recherches en histoire sociale et culturelle de la Franc-maçonnerie est alors à venir, y compris dans le cadre germanique. L'étude des discours et des représentations ne pallie pas la faiblesse du travail direct sur les sources. Or peut-on penser la sociabilité, l'espace public, sans en suivre les acteurs, mis en scène dans leurs relations sociales ? sans découvrir les postures qu'ils adoptent ? Stimulant, le modèle habermasien de la sociabilité d'Ancien Régime n'en demeure pas moins un modèle théorique qu'il faut interroger à la lumière des pratiques sociales. Or, la mise en évidence à travers l'espace européen du XVIIIe siècle d'une "Maçonnerie de société" conquérante, assumant parfaitement sa participation au royaume européen des moeurs -tout en professant sa foi dans l'édification de la République universelle des francs-maçons- et à l'offre de divertissement mondain dans lequel elle ne se dissout pas grâce à l'irréductible différence que confère le lien de l'initiation partagée, prompte à innover et à répondre aux attentes des élites tout au long du siècle, témoigne de la prégnance d'un modèle aristocratique bien au-delà du cercle étroit des loges huppées. L'existence de loges de cour (Hoflogen) en Allemagne et en Scandinavie mérite également l'attention. La loge n'a rien d'une forme de sociabilité « bourgeoise » au sens où elle participerait de création d'une sphère publique bourgeoise émancipée. En outre, la Maçonnerie aristocratique se déploie également dans l'espace domestique, ce qui permet également de nuancer les thèses d'Habermas sur « la famille bourgeoise et l'institutionnalisation d'un domaine privé corrélatif du public ». La Franc-maçonnerie est certes à l'origine de Musées ou de sociétés de concerts par souscription, mais elle enrichit son offre sociable et son commerce de société par la pratique amateur du théâtre et de la musique. Comme l'ordre s'est insinué et épanoui dans les interstices de la société d'Ancien Régime, la Maçonnerie de société dialogue entre la cour et la ville, le temple et l'univers profane, joue des frontières incertaines entre espace privé et espace public, des échos que le second reçoit du premier, déforme, amplifie, étouffe aussi, pour se ménager un espace autonome mais susceptible d'être scruté par le public. Dans ce jeu de société concurrentiel, les acteurs ont en effet compris très tôt les enjeux et l'ambiguïté de la «publicité ». Il faut manifester qu'« en être » est signe d'élection et de distinction, mettre en scène la bienfaisance et les vertus maçonniques, sans dévoiler les secrets de l'initiation, susciter l'intérêt du profane mais le tenir à bonne distance, celle qui sied au spectateur. C'est donc à une relecture de Jurgen Habermas qu'invite cette communication en proposant de considérer la loge maçonnique européenne du siècle des Lumières entre pratiques sociales et espace public.
Pratiques sociales et engagements politiques dans la Franc-Maçonnerie espagnole (XIXe-70(e siècles)
Luis Martin, France
Les espaces politiques dans l'Espagne libérale ont été confrontés à des changements de régime (monarchie absolutiste puis parlementaire, république), conflits militaires (guerres carlistes) et idéologiques (anarchisme, cléricalisme), qui ont façonné les pratiques politiques et sociales. La Franc-Maçonnerie espagnole, à l'intérieur de ce contexte, développera des activités sociales abandonnées partiellement par l'État (éducation), des actions humanitaires (dispensaires pour les ouvriers) et projets culturels (création de bibliothèques) ; des pratiques sociales, parfois, partagées avec d'autres sociabilités, sociétés (cercles de la libre-pensée) ou groupes politiques. Ce fut sa contribution la plus marquante à l'émergence d'une société civile. Bien entendu, ces pratiques sociales ont un caractère politique, car elles dénoncent les manquements de l'État et elles rentrent en concurrence avec d'autres institutions traditionelles (cfr.l'Eglise catholique). Notre travail cherche à mettre en évidence un fait social, in progress. Les francs-maçons espagnols en ayant des pratiques sociales novatrices, inventent de nouvelles formes de relations inter-personelles, créent des cadres et manifestent un évident désir de contruire une citoyenneté. La traduction de ces pratiques sur les espaces politiques est la parution des nouvelles formes d'engagements politiques. Une double dynamique qui nous semble intéressante étudier.
Les frères dans l'espace public: sociabilité et participation politique dans la franc-maçonnerie italienne (XIXe-)0Xe siècles)
Fulvio Conti, France
Depuis le celèbre étude di J. Habermas sur les origines de l'opinon publique dans l'Europe du XVIIe siècle, l'idée que la Frac-Maçonnerie avait contribué à la naissance et le devéloppement de la société civile a été largement partagée. Il est moins connu, en revanche, qu'elle avait continué dans ce rôle aussi pendant la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle, lorsque en Europe et aux Etats-Unis se produit un grand essor de clubs et cercles bourgeois ainsi que d'associations populaires. Ces sociétés vont se situer dans l'espace public entre l'individu et l'État, faisant émerger une sociéte civile plus forte qui emmenera vers la participation politique des secteurs de plus en plus importants de la population. L'étude d'un cas, comme l'italien, montre que la Franc-Maçonnerie fut toujours un extraordinaire levier de la vie associative, car les loges sont à l'origine de la création d'un grand nombre d'associations le plus diverses. Sur le domaine culturel et éducatif, par exemple, la Franc-Maçonnerie s'est battue contre le fléau de l'analphabétisme, en mettant sur pied des écoles populaires (en soirée ou dominicales), bibliotèques ambulantes; sur le terrain économique, elle a devéloppé la création de sociétés de secours mutuel, des coopératives de production et de consommation et, surtout, en suscitant la fondation des banques populaires; sur le domaine des coutumes et des droits civiles, en militant pour l'abolition de la peine de mort et le maintien des valeurs laïcs, comme, par exemple, la formation de sociétés pour la sécularisation des cimetières et les association à faveur de la crémation. Egalement, les loges italiennes ont pris à coeur la question de l'émancipation de la femme, en dynamisant la mise en place d'asiles pour les enfants, des sociétés d'allaitement et en s'impliquant dans le combat pour le divorce et contre la prostitution. Plus encore: la Maçonnerie prit une place décisive dans la diffusion des associations pour la paix et l'arbitrage international, des sociétés de l'Assistance Publique et de la Société Dante Alighieri pour defense de la langue et de la culture italienne. En définitive, la Franc-Maçonnerie, à travers des comités et différentes initiatives (monuments, célébrations et fêtes) a contribué d'une façon notable au processus de construction de la nation italienne, lequel fut promu par les élites italiennes après l'unification.
Pour la Maçonnerie italienne tous ces aspects ont été une partie essentielle d'un projet amibitieux en faveur de la sécularisation et de la modernisation de la société italienne, pour atteindre cette objectif, elle a eu une participation de plus en plus importante dans le vie politique.
MEXICAN MASONIC SCHOLARSHIP IN THE 21ST CENTURY
CHAIR: PAUL RICH
Masonic Nation: The Impact of Freemasonry in the Discourses of Mexican Nationalism.
Guillermo de los Reyes, USA
This paper considers the underappreciated role that Freemasonry played in the formation of Mexican political and cultural discourses pivotal in the Independence movements and in the foundation of the nation. It argues that Masonic liberal ideas contributed to the nation building discourses developed during the first half of the nineteenth century. Special attention is given to the works of José Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi and Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, authors who were involved in the development of the new Mexican Republic. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines historiography, literary analysis, cultural studies, and postcolonial theories, my work analyzes legal and Inquisitorial documents, novels, political essays, pamphlets, and plays written by authors of the time who were influenced by, were part of, or criticized the Masonic institutions. In addition, this paper is based on the analysis of primary sources found at Masonic Archives in Mexico City, the United States, and Europe, as well as, other non-Masonic archives and libraries in Mexico, the United States, and Spain.
Two Perspectives on the Efforts of Secularization in Symbolic Freemasonry in Mexico during the Igth and 20th Centuries.
Carlos F. Martinez Moreno, Mexico
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, several Masonic groups in Mexico sought to reform, and sometimes were able to achieve that goal, some elements of their tradition on the grounds that these contained a dogmatic theological meaning inconsistent with the freethinking that distinguished Freemasonry. Amongst these reforms was the attempt to eliminate the use of the Bible as the Book of Law. This paper seeks to study some significant experiences of these processes of secularization, to show that it provoked questions and mutual misunderstandings between two traditions. One which promotes a Masonic religious spirit because it considers it as a cornerstone of ontological Freemasonry and therefore substantial and unwavering. Another, that seeks to reform their principles based on the aspirations of freethinking. In addition this paper analyzes why the promoters of this reforms where described as irregular Freemasonry, or unknown and considered as pseudo Freemasonry and therefore, outside the Masonic tradition.
Albert Pike's Mexican Connections.
Daniel Guitérrez-Sandoval, USA
Albert Pike's first visit to Mexico was as a swashbuckling American Army commander during the Mexican-American War, where he played a controversial role in the Battle of Buena Vista. But his subsequent visits to Mexico were a reflection of his interest in the development of Mexican Freemasonry, and his correspondence about Mexico in the archives of the House of the Temple in Washington, largely unexplored, is a revealing commentary not only on the complex evolution of the Craft "south of the border" but on Pike himself. The promotion of the Scottish Rite in Mexico has had a profound influence on the political and social life of the country. Pike's unappreciated role needs much further examination than it has received.
FREEMASONRY IN THE UNITED STATES II
CHAIR: CAROLYN BAIN
The US and us, 1840-1890: the influence of American Freemasonry on British Freemasonry.
James W. Daniel, UK
Imperial history is back in vogue, but, as Kramer and Plotz put it in 'Pairing Empires: Britain and the United States, 1857-1947' (Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2:1, 2001), 'the apparatus with which scholars approach imperialism tends to leave each empire freestanding. Too often, the dyad of metropole and colony overpowers analysis of how empires were entangled with each other...' The same criticism can be made of research into the American and British masonic empires: little if any attention has been paid to their entanglement. This paper will examine the extent to which American masonic practice and institutions influenced British freemasonry at a time when the British empire was approaching its climax and the potential of the US as a global power was increasingly evident.
American influence can be seen in the creation of the first independent Grand Lodges within the British empire (in Canada and Australia) and in the export to the UK of masonic systems and institutions (the 'Scottish' Rite in the 1840s, 'Cryptic Masonry' and the Order of the Secret Monitor later in the period. British and American freemasonry competed for influence in (masonically) 'open' or unoccupied territories such as Japan. The American masonic press was quoted in British metropolitan and colonial masonic newspapers of the time. English freemasonry in territories close to the USA (Jamaica and Canada) had occasionally to adapt itself to the proximity of its neighbour. But was the chief British negotiator of the 1871 Treaty of Washington right to claim that his attendance (as Grand Master of the UGLE) at a masonic function in Washington in 1871 was 'but a first step...to a closer and more intimate union between American and English Masons'?
Ritual and Contextual Significance in Albert Pike's Masonic Baptism of 1871.
Todd Wm Kissam, USA
The year 2009 is important for those interested in the history and study of Albert Pike. It is the year of both the bicentennial of his birth, December 29, 1809 and the sesquicentennial of his election as the Sovereign Grand Commander of Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction in January of 1859.
Among Albert Pike's Masonic works and rituals I intend to demonstrate that the Masonic Baptism stands out with particular uniqueness both in regard to it being singular among fraternal groups in the United States for its attention to orphaned children and familial virtues as well as demonstrating a high degree of consciousness and compassion for the post Civil War societal needs.
My scope of research includes the history of the ritual itself - why it was developed, who published it, noting parallels within Pike's own themes of societal and fraternal character and instruction, and its similarities and differences to a French Masonic baptismal ritual dating from 1844. Further consideration includes the level of acceptance and performance among lodges and other Masonic bodies investigating specifically where, for whom, and which groups practiced this ritual of Masonic Baptism.
Albert Pike is a monumental and complex figure in 19th century American Masonry. This research surrounding his Masonic Baptism ritual adds to the fascinating portrait of Pike by accenting a piece of work that emanates from his heart and demonstrates his profound humanity.
Klad in White Hoods and Aprons: The K.K.K. and the Infiltration of California Freemasonry.
Adam Kendall, USA
There is a profound misunderstanding in the relationship between Freemasonry and the "second" Ku Klux Klan (KKK) of the 1910s and 1920s. In the long dark specter of American racism, both Masons and Non-Masons alike believe many prominent Masons were also members of the KKK. Nothing could be father from the truth.
America is a nation of joiners. Through its four century history countless volunteer associations affected and have been affected by Freemasonry through a natural cross pollination of members. This is especially true during the last great wave of American fraternalism in the first 30 years of the twentieth century. Consequently confusion has arisen over determining where certain fraternities' true purposes begin, end, and overlap.
Illustrated by primary documents and correspondence found in the archives of the Grand Lodge of F. & A.M. of California, this paper will give a first person overview of the problems that arose when the KKK attempted to infiltrate California Freemasonry in the 1920s. Pandering to the societal fears of whites while mimicking the benevolent fraternal societies, the Klan gained sympathy amongst enough California Freemasons to cause their Grand Lodge to take action.
The paper will address the incongruous choice of ideology between the Klan and Freemasonry that also plagued other U.S. Masonic jurisdictions, and will demonstrate the success California Masons had in ousting the Klan from Freemasonry in California. This success came from the Klan's own insistence that it was a "fraternal society" while it did little to eschew its subversive activities, or its hateful and notorious past. Therefore, the Klan's subterfuge stood in contrast to every Mason's promise to submit to the rule of the law of his country and all California Freemasons were thenceforth forbidden by their Grand Lodge to belong to such an organization.
THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF FREEMASONRY II
CHAIR: JAMES W DANIEL
Mind the gaps! (in archive records).
Diane Clements, UK
Largely untouched by war, political suppression and natural disasters, the archives of the United Grand Lodge of England are a key resource for the study of freemasonry. This paper will examine what records were made and what has been retained and suggest reasons why. Do apparent gaps in the archive record tell us as much about the organisation and its sense of identity and place in society as that which remains?
Living with Symbols? Masonic Material Culture.
Mark J R Dennis, UK
Masonic and fraternal orders concern themselves with morality, sociability and the financial support for their members but much of what is generated by them and survives is material culture including regalia, jewels, commemorative items and household wares. These are a major and underutilised visual resource documenting symbolism and iconography which in some cases can prove the existence of societies otherwise undocumented and indicate the gender, relative wealth and ages of members. The body of lodge jewels created over three centuries are a valuable resource for tracking the self image and preoccupations of members across time and these overlap with the related field of fine art medals providing a bridge to the wider art world. The paper considers the range of material available, its use in the creation and reinforcement of class, national and gender identities and a brief review of symbolism pointing out some pitfalls in identification. The paper will focus on Masonic bodies but reference will be made to parallel organisations including other fraternal organisations and friendly societies.
Poetry in motion: the role of verse contributions to masonic periodicals during the long Eighteenth Century.
Susan A Snell, UK
Writing in 1829 Thomas Carlyle complained that `Every little sect among us, Unitarians, Utilitarians, Anabaptists, Phrenologists, must have its periodical, its monthly or quarterly magazine'. The first English Masonic periodical appeared in June 1793. In Ireland, John Jones published the Sentimental and Masonic Magazine between July 1792 and December 1795 and Charles Downes printed the Literary and Masonic Magazine in 1802. Similar titles appeared across continental Europe and America.
These magazines are starting to be recognised as an important resource for studying social and Masonic history. This paper aims to reveal the role specialist journals, aimed at a Masonic audience, played in promoting contemporary popular culture, in particular poetry and literature.
Although the content of these journals was aimed primarily at a Masonic audience, editors also included essays, book reviews, parliamentary reports and poems more commonly associated with other titles such as the Monthly Review or the Town and Country Magazine. This overview of the poetry contributions found in Masonic periodicals during this period analyses type of composition, theme and style and provides information about work submitted for publication by Masonic and other poets, men and women, editorial censorship and the use of pen names.
GLOBAL FREEMASONRY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
CHAIR: JEFFREY TYSEENS
Norwegian Masonic activity in London during WWII.
Helge Bjorn Horrisland, Norway
Paper will describe how Norwegian Freemasons in exile, after the German dissolution of masonic activity in occupied Norway in September 194.0, and with quiet understanding from UGLE, founded and operated their own masonic lodge according to Swedish Rite rituals in London during WWII, and how this influenced the re-birth of Masonic work in Norway after the war.
This is the only occasion we know of, when rituals of Swedish Rite has been performed officially in England.
The paper will also describe the key role of UGLE's General Secretary in giving valuable support to the founding of this lodge and how the non-mason and Norwegian King Haakon VII participated in these efforts.
Paper is based on new material found in English and Norwegian masonic and public archives and have never been published before.
Japanese Indigenisation of Masonic Ritual.
Pauline Chakmakjian, UK
Largely through travelling military lodges, freemasonry spread throughout the world, even as remote as Japan. Freemasonry - as we know it today- is a sociable, moral improvement fraternity often described as a "peculiar system of morality." This system is essentially based on Judeo-Christian concepts and principles after speculative freemasons effectively borrowed certain traditions from the mediaeval operative stonemasons. While freemasonry has existed in Japan for nearly 150 years, it has not really flourished in terms of persuading Japanese men to join since only approximately 500 of the c. 2.000 freemasons in Japan are actually Japanese. This is despite the fact that within their own culture the Japanese are quite fond of fraternal bonding and the nature of Japanese spirituality has parallels within the masonic esoteric framework.
A number of factors contribute to this problem of recruitment of Japanese freemasons. This paper will focus on
one of these factors - the issue of convincing prospective Japanese members to join based on the inability/difficulty in translating ceremonial catechistic ritual constructed out of a Judeo-Christian-themed system of morality. One previous attempt to indigenise masonic craft ritual will be analysed, and an introduction to the speaker's own proposal for indigenisation will be presented. Jesuits who first arrived in Japan a few centuries ago were successful in converting a substantial amount of Japanese to Christianity partly through this technique of indigenisation, i.e. using concepts in Japanese spirituality to communicate equivalent Christian concepts. It is believed that this same technique could be utilised to both explain the Craft to the Japanese public generally and to recruit good Japanese men into freemasonry specifically.
Between universal values and national ties: Freemasons face the challenge of `Europe', c. 1850-1930.
Joachim Berger, Germany
This paper examines how European Freemasons came to terms with the idea of a closer union of the European peoples and its presumable effects on masonic obediences in Europe. By focussing on key discussions in the national Grand Lodges of France, Italy, Germany, and England, the paper traces the intersections of a pan-European discourse within the fraternity-a discourse embedded into changing socio-cultural and political frameworks from the mid-nineteenth century until the derogation of masonic internationalism in the 1930s.
From the middle of the nineteenth century, 'European' and 'anti-European' initiatives were subject to growing tensions between universal values laid down in the Ancient Constitutions of 1723 and the mason's duty for allegiance to his country. Internationalist and pacifist movements gained support among European freemasons, materializing in international congresses and spreading through publications like the journal Les Etats-Unis d'Europe. However, attempts to put into practice the masonic ideal of cosmopolitism (as embodied in the model of a universal brotherhood) were thwarted by national(istic) sentiments on the part of the Grand Lodges, and by their fear of being accused of international conspiracy. Masonic internationalism also suffered from disputes on 'regularity', interweaving religious obligations and political commitments. This masonic factionalism was incarnated in the great schism triggered off by the decision of the Grand Orients of Belgium and France to leave it up to the individual lodges to adhere to the symbol of the 'Great Architect of the Universe'.
The paper will discuss whether the idea of 'Europe' as a cultural and political entity played a significant role in masonic discourse on intercultural encounters and transnational rapprochement. Where exactly did 'Europe' rank between the local lodge, national obedience, and the ideal of a 'universal brotherhood'? How Christian (Abendland), how secular was this 'Europe of Freemasons' (P.-I. Beaurepaire)? Did freemasons regard their 'European fraternity' as morally and culturally distinct (or superior) within the worldwide 'chain of brotherhood'? Which part did (Western) European Freemasons ascribe to themselves in the quest for a closer union between the European states? The paper thus aims at a deeper understanding of masonic internationalism and will contribute to a social history of 'European' thought.
Dr Joachim BERGER runs the 'staff unit' in the Institute of European History in Mainz (Germany) (http://www.ieg¬mainz.de). In line with the Institute's research agenda, he is particularly interested in cultural transfers and related concepts of writing 'European' history. He has published on 18th and 19th century cultural history, especially on court culture, freemasonry, and hero-worship. In 2002 he co-edited the exhibition catalogue Geheime Gesellschaft. Weimar and die deutsche Freimaurerei, a collaboration of masonic experts and scholarly researchers (http://www.geheime-gesellschaft.de).
FREEMASONRY IN THE UNITED STATES III
CHAIR: NATALIE BAYER
Incense to the intellect: Philosophical and Religious Dimensions of the Albert Pike Library as seen in his Major Works.
Peter Fuchs, USA
Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A., Albert Pike's great contributions to the Rituals of the Scottish Rite are better known than their basis in the intellectual background he developed in his library. His collection of books is honored at the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. Participants will receive a catalogue of the Philosophy and Religion sections of his library which will show by its breadth its significance in Nineteenth Century intellectual life, and its centrality for his Masonic writings. The focus will be chiefly on Pike's works actively used by the Southern Jurisdiction: Magnum Opus, the urtext for later Ritual developments as seen in the Scottish Rite Monitor (DeHoyos); and Morals and Dogma which has had an historical importance to the pedagogy of Scottish Rite Masons in this jurisdiction.
Many Masonic authors view Pike as having created an elaborate, esoteric system for Freemasonry; therefore we can use the more common Masonic conceptions as a baseline, and implicate philosophical knowledge gleaned from his library as an explanation for the worldview that allowed him to create this more complicated system. The presence of works of Kant and Leibniz supports the contention that while Pike shared the Enlightenment view common amongst Freemasons for freethinking, both Magnum Opus and Morals and Dogma show heavy debt to Kantian thought in religious matters, while the Masonic Baptism displays a striking belief in the ontological autonomy of the infant which would jibe with Leibniz' Monadology, against mechanistic theories or Newtonianism in metaphysics. Epistemologically Pike assumes a Transcendental viewpoint, elucidated by Kant, and common to many thinkers of the time who were not skeptics of religious experience. Pike's own brand of skepticism which sees that, 'philosophy has taught us nothing as to the nature of our sensations...but words," is indebted to ancient Roman skeptics, well represented his collection, who were not as tinged with anathematized atheism as the French philosophes, This helps explain how Pike used his spectacular knowledge of ancient mystery religions, in developing a sui generis view of the nature of symbol, religiously potent yet non-despotic. As well as limning the unique contribution he felt Masonry makes to the distinction between the esoteric and exoteric.
A brief history of the evolution of the library will make clear the extent to which Pike, with his varied commitments, was able to form a desideratum for acquisition based on his intellectual priorities. Certainly, the many examples of political philosophy support the contention that he was a "classical liberal" against many misunderstandings of the man.
The Masonic "Careers" of Boston Artist John Ritto Penniman and His Apprentices.
Aimee E. Newell, USA
In 1817, 16-year-old apprentice painter Nathan Negus (1801-1825) decorated at least one Masonic apron (see image at right) and document box while he worked in Boston under the supervision of artist and Freemason John Ritto Penniman (1782-1841). Although not a Freemason at the time, Negus understood the symbolic vocabulary well enough to paint Masonic symbols on both items. A few years later, after completing his apprenticeship, Negus and his brother traveled south, becoming Freemasons and taking on at least one Masonic commission - painting the Masonic Hall in Milledgeville, Georgia.
While previous studies trace the lives and careers of Negus and Penniman (and his other apprentices ), their Masonic connections have been reduced to a few sentences noting their Masonic membership and merely commenting that they occasionally painted Masonic subjects for Masonic customers. In contrast, this paper focuses directly on the Masonic connections and experiences of Penniman and his apprentices in order to place the professional lives of these artists in a new context. In the absence of a formal academy system, early 1800s American apprenticeships offered both training and a way to develop a network of clients and colleagues. What effect did exposure to Freemasonry in their early lives and careers have on these artists? For example, Penniman's apprentices formed their own fraternity of sorts, the "Pennimanic Society," to support each other and to supplement their training by attending lectures and exhibits in the city.
Penniman's apprentices of the early 1800s form a cohort - a group of men similar in age and experience - allowing a unique opportunity to study the mixture of their professional training, brotherly fellowship and artistic expression, along with the role that Freemasonry played in all three. A relative wealth of evidence exists to explore their experiences - objects painted by Penniman, Negus and other apprentices, Negus's letters and memorandum book, lodge records, and biographies of the artists. Exploring the role of Freemasonry in their art, careers and personal lives offers a new context to understand the fraternity in America, as well as the artists themselves.
The Strange Case of the Missing Masons: A Generation of Lost Freemasonic History on the Western New York Frontier.
Kathleen Smith Kutolowski, USA
Freemasonry flourished in post-revolutionary America, spreading rapidly and widely from the eastern seaboard. Perhaps nowhere did Masonry's multiple appeals resonate more than in New York State where some 20,000 Masons were organized into 450 lodges by 1825.
Land-hungry New Englanders flooded into central and western New York, previously the domain of the Iroquois confederation, when the region opened to white development after 1790. They took Freemasonry with them, establishing lodges in remote settlements as well as market villages. Most towns housed lodges, and Masons played central roles in civic life, building and boosting communities. The fraternity's values and purposes resonated well with republican culture, while its benefits appealed to upwardly mobile men. The growing fraternity enjoyed wide respect, so much so that both political parties sought Masons to run for office.
No one could have anticipated Masonry's sudden freefall, yet it happened after William Morgan's alleged murder by Masons in 1826. When justice appeared thwarted by Masonic political influence and intransigence, Anti-Masonry rose meteorically to oust Masons from political life and cripple the fraternity for a generation.
Although never regaining its former public centrality, Freemasonry survived and revived. The fraternity, however, had lost still more: an entire generation of its rich history on New York's post-Revolutionary frontier. This paper explores the historical amnesia that erased Freemasonry from pioneer and later histories of western New York where today many communities-and even some lodges--know nothing of the fraternity's central role in their own past.
PLENARY LECTURE 2
Henrik Bogdan
The study of popular culture has in recent years been acknowledged as an important source for understanding contemporary expressions of and attitudes towards religion in Western culture. This paper sets out to discuss how Freemasonry is being portrayed in various forms of popular culture such as cinema, comics and TV-series, and further, to analyse what these expressions reveal about attitudes towards Freemasonry. Furthermore, it will be discussed how the construct of Freemasonry in popular culture differs from that of other alternative forms of spirituality, and what these differences might tell us regarding Western culture.
PLENARY LECTURE 3
Riding the Goat: Secrecy, Masculinity, and Fraternal High Jinks in the United States, 1845-1930.
William D Moore
The idea that candidates undergoing initiation into American fraternal groups, including but not limited to Freemasonry, were forced to ride goats was ubiquitous in the decades surrounding the beginning of the twentieth century. In this period, Americans presented the lodge goat in literary, visual, and three manifestations. This interdisciplinary presentation will chart the development and use of this fraternal image in North America between 1845 and 1930. It argues that the goat, originally wielded by the enemies of fraternalism to represent the dangers associated with secret behavior, came to be embraced and celebrated by fraternalists and that the animal meaning shifted as concepts of American masculinity were transformed.
THE RISE OF AFRO-AMERICAN FREEMASONRY
CHAIR: JIMMY KOPPEN
Brotherhood Denied: Black Freemasonry and The Limits of Reconstruction.
Stephen A. Kantrowitz, USA
The post-Civil War Reconstruction of the United States witnessed great political struggles, family reconstitution, economic reorganization, and the building of churches and schools. But many black Northern activists earnestly believed that no institution had more to contribute to the success of emancipation than did the brotherhood of Freemasonry, whose principles of "brotherly love, relief, and truth" offered an ethical compass whose needle pointed without reference to the sectarianism of denominational life or the outright hypocrisy of the slaveholder's democracy.
Throughout Reconstruction, black Masons pursued several courses simultaneously. They sought to leverage white Masons' commitments to their craft into a broader acceptance of them as men and brothers. At the same time, black Masons hoped that the "mystic tie" might also work changes within and among men. The order's secret rites and lore established bonds of shared knowledge and experience, while the Lodge itself--the small group of men at the heart of Masonic practice and governance--fostered mutual affection and obligation that could override the "jealousies and bickerings" fostered by oppression. In order to overcome the worst of these struggles within Freemasonry itself, and to foster unity among the leading black men of the country, black Freemasons worked to bring the order together under a governing body-the "National Grand Lodge."
These projects met with powerfully mixed results during the 1860s and 1870s. Freemasonry did extend its reach into the former slave states, as well as into the small but growing black communities of the west. At the same time, many black Masonic leaders came to feel that the rapid expansion of the order under the auspices of a powerful National Grand Master debased Masonic principles; what had formerly been local struggles rapidly became a national schism. And though some white Freemasons moved tentatively to accept black brethren, most rejected their overtures. Reconstruction, whether of the brotherhood or through its agency, turned out to be harder work than it had seemed.
`A Late Thing I Guess' - The Early Years of Philadelphia's African Masonic Lodge.
Julie Winch, USA
"There was to day a procession of white, and another of black Free-Masons...tis the first I have heard of negro masons - a late thing I guess." What diarist Elizabeth Drinker witnessed on St. John's Day, 1797, was, in one sense, "a late thing." Perhaps for the first time the members of Philadelphia's African Lodge were publicly observing a solemn feast day. What Drinker did not know was that the Lodge had actually been in existence for some years.
The formative years of the Philadelphia Lodge reveal much not only about the growth of black Freemasonry but about the complexity of the African American community in the city that was home to one of the largest concentrations of free people of color in America in the 1790s. The records of the Lodge indicate how widely traveled some members were. A number had had contact with British Lodges. Those same records testify to the relative affluence of the African Masons, their determination to organize, and their sheer numbers. Scores of freeborn or recently freed men were associating together for what they saw as significant to themselves and their community in spiritual and "political" terms. It was from the ranks of the African Lodge that the men were drawn who petitioned the authorities for legislation to improve the lot of people of color, who helped create the community's churches and schools, and who gave the lie to those who argued that black people could not be self-supporting or law-abiding. Using the minute-book of the Philadelphia African Lodge, my paper explores the early years of Prince Hall Masonry in the City of Brotherly Love to show the centrality of the Lodge and its members to the development of the wider African American community.
Between Empire and the Lodge: Mobility and the Origins of Black Freemasonry.
Chernoh Sesay, USA
To understand the origins of black Freemasonry we must first describe its relationship to changes in late-eighteenth¬century black mobility. Caught between the fracture of empire and the rise of a new nation, all Americans faced crises of identity, citizenship, and community; however, for New World blacks, race made the address of these issues uniquely difficult. Anticipating the limits of gradual emancipation, in January of 1773, a man of color named Felix petitioned the Massachusetts colonial legislature and wrote, "We have no Property! We have no wives! No children! We have no City! No Country!" Felix, like other blacks, slave and free, foresaw the problem of a liberation that did not secure property nor insure citizenship. In response, black Bostonians expressed freedom as a function of local and imperial politics. My essay will explore how this transatlantic strategy of agency expressed itself in the creation of the first recorded black Masonic lodge, African Lodge No. 459, of Boston.
ITALIAN FREEMASONRY AND FASCISM, PRUSSIAN FREEMASONRY AND NATIONAL SOCIALISM: A CRITICAL COMPARISON
CHAIR: MARTIN PAPENHEIM
The "Grofie Loge von Preuiien" in the Weimar Republic and in the early "Drittes Reich": A "non-political" society in a changing political space of policy.
Dirk Niemeyer, Germany
The basic question of this presentation is how the "Grolle Loge von Preullen" reacted to the dramatic political changes of 1918/19 and 1933 and in which way a society, which emphazised its "non-political" character, was paradoxically deeply involved in the political culture of these periods.
Officially the basic rule of the German lodges was an abstention from daily policy and politics. As this did not mean that the German grandlodges - so-called "humanitre"and the three "altpreulische" grandlodges - did not have fundamental political positions and options. The "Grolle Loge von Preugen" was the smallest of the "altpreullische" grandloges which fervently supported the Hohenzollern monarchy, but also the imperialist policy of the late Deutsches Reich. Its members were men from the middle class, for the most part lower academic professions and merchants.
These prussian grandloges were "Christian" in the sense of a conservative protestantism.Only the "Grolle Loge von Preullen" had admitted jews since 1872. Together with the "Grolle Loge von Sachsen" the nationalliberal part of German freemasonry.
After 1918/19 the "Grolle Loge von Preullen" lost its liberal character. From 1924 onwards jews were not admitted any longer.As the other two prussian grandloges it left the German "Groilogenbund" because of its international relations. The "Grolle Loge von Preullen" became a grandlodge of the part of German freemasonry, which more and more became revisionist, nationalist and "völkisch".
This tendency was not only do to the leading men of the grandlodge, mainly August Horneffer, bur alos a strong
movement in the private lodges which tried to change the character of the grandloge by the exclusion of Jews by nationalist and "völkische" publications and by the organiziation of the so-called "Ringe". Even before 1933 there had been several discussions of a total revision of the rituals by eliminating all old-testament references.
Thus after 1933 the "Grolle Loge von Preullen" and its lodges tried to find their positions in the new political system after having preceded the ideological claims of the nationalsocialism. The reorganisation of the grandlodge into a "völkisch-christlicher Reichsorden" with a nordic-germanic ritual was the logical result of a long development. Nevertheless this did not prevent the dissolution of the grandlodge in 1935.
The "Grolle Loge von Preullen" was an organization of the part of the German middle class which was anti-catholic, anti-socialist, conservative and nationalist and opened itself to "völkische" and revisionist tendencies. Becoming a victime of nationalsocialist terror it had never been resistant to the raise of the antidemocratic rule in Germany despite individual exceptions.
Italian Freemasonry and Fascism: from friendship to defence (1921-1923).
Giuseppe Vatri, Italy
Before a final period (1924-1925) of violence and assassinations, the relationship between the Italian Freemasonry and the Fascism was a political one; mainly because the first Italian Grand Lodge (Grande Oriente d'Italia, born end-i86i) used to self-interpret its active role in political life as a bearer of basic principles (lay state, freedom, sovereignty of the people, the Risorgimento national tradition) capable to influence the national policy through its members.
After the First World War, the new parties with mass-appeal (Catholic and Socialist) were gaining followers; they were resolutely against Freemasonry, perceived as the pillar of the ruling political groups or as the pillar of the anti-catholic sentiments; while the area of the masonic politics, the middle-class liberal center-left, was rapidly losing importance. This caused the action of Freemasonry to be confuse and hesitating, open to accept the Fascism as a new middle-class force of "stability" between the reactionary and the revolutionary forces (at the end, the first Fascism was republican and anticlerical) .
In 1908, the Italian Freemasonry had suffered the split of a new Grand Lodge, the Grande Loggia d'Italia. After the War, which saw the Grande Oriente openly supporting the "intervention", both the Grand Lodges were involved in some backing of the tardy adventure of Fiume (1920); an atmosphere of «patriotic mysticism» (Fulcito Conte) were over the lodges, and a number of Freemasons were member of the newborn Fascism (at the end, the first Fascism was patriotic) .
From 1919, the second Grand Lodge was explosively growing, up to the same numbers or more than the Grande Oriente (22-23.000). This caused the Grande Oriente to act toward the emerging Fascism with a lot of caution, not to create an internal right-wing opposition, and not to accredit the image of a moderate, conservative Freemasonry, to the rival Grand Lodge. On the contrary, this may be the base of the open adhesion to the fascist themes by the Grande Loggia. At first, Benito Mussolini promoted an attitude of caution toward a positive Italian Freemasonry. That attitude changed when he went to the fundamental alliance with the Nationalist Party, resolutely anti-masonic, and to gain the direct backing of the Church. Precisely a Grande Oriente press release, defending the lay state, was the casus which decided the Fascist Party to pronounce the incompatibility of Freemasonry and Fascism (February 1923) and to force the Grande Oriente to become defensive and the Grande Loggia to increase the declarations of fidelity. From the beginning of 1924, the Fascism left the relationship to the road violence of the Squadre d'Azione (Fascist Action Squads); later, an ad hoc law regulating the associations forced the Italian Freemasonry to dissolve (1925).
From friendship to defense, the triennial (1921-1923) relationship between the Italian Freemasonry and the Fascism was therefore fully political and quite different from the consolidated image of the assaults and batteries. The paper will develop the subject, centering the attention on the official documents of both Grand Lodges.
German Freemasonry after World War II: Masonic "Policy of Remembrance.
Hans-Hermann Hohmann, Germany
After the collapse of Nazi rule at the end of the Second World War, German freemasonry faced three great challenges:
• The bringing together of former masons and the refounding of Lodges;
• The development of a new and efficient order of Grand Lodges;
• The critical engagement with the nationalist orientation and adaptation to the Nazi system of extensive sections of German freemasonry before 1933/1935.
The paper intends to deal with the two first points only briefly in order to show the overall masonic context in which German freemasonry had to develop after World War II.
It will concentrate primarily on the third task: to tackle the relationship with the Nazi system and the nationalistic Masonic past.
With regard to the `confrontation with National Socialism', with the exception of genuine incidences of resistance, German society as a whole both before and after 1933 increasingly identified with the Nazi system. That this was also true for significant sections of German freemasonry meant that their post-war leaders had to find ways of speaking and behaving with regard to this past. Above all, this is a part of 'the policy of remembrance' ("Erinnerungspolitik"), which is nowadays very important in political contexts. In other words, it concerned how the Masonic past before and at the beginning of the Nazi era should be treated, and which official Grand Lodge ways of speaking lent themselves to this.
The analytical findings are problematic here: admittedly, the errors and undesirable developments in German freemasonry were not generally denied. German freemasonry, however, could not commit to genuine courage and complete truth in its managing of its nationalist past. Various apologies stood in the foreground and the strategies most often employed - (I) reinterpretation of persecution as opposition; (2) reference to exemplary and exceptional personalities such as Gustav Stresemann, Wilhelm Leuschner, Carl von Ossietzky and Kurt Tucholsky; (3) promotion of significant freemasons from 18th and 19th century history such as Lessing, Herder and Goethe as a guarantee that the political and cultural integrity of the brotherhood was undoubtedly intact and (4) representation of pacifist and tolerant tendencies in the history of German freemasonry, especially to reject or undermine claims of anti-Semitism -will be dealt with in detail in the paper.
Freemasonry and Fascism.
Fabio Venzi, Italy
Historians have been formulating hypotheses and proposing theories regarding the ban and subsequent persecution of Freemasonry under Fascist regime. They were mainly "political" arguments, concerning opposite power strategies of Fascism on one hand and Masonic Orders on the other. They did not feature the outcome of transforming Fascism from a 'movement' to a 'regime', from a 'revolution' to a 'secular religion'. They disregard the essential esoteric component of Italian Masonry and still dwell on its mere 'political' aspects; its lobbyist characteristics.
The Paper takes a 'metapolitical' view aiming to reconstruct the spiritual context and the authentic dynamics of mentalities on which Fascism and Masonry were grounded. This new and alternative approach emphasises that Fascism and Masonry committed themselves to the model of Homo Novus according to their respective principles and values.
Just after WWI, Fascism and Freemasonry presented themselves to a disillusioned and confused society with a loss of national identity and 'civil' religions as an alternative to traditional religions which were unable to understand new social trends. Fascism and Masonry gave an answer to this new spirituality. Initially, they shared the same aim but they later ended up colliding and not just in dialectic.
The clash did not involve the different proposed political solutions but also antithetic ideas of life and man and the Masonic Homo Novus was of course the antagonist of the Fascist one. This roused Fascist hostility toward Freemasonry; considered not just a lobby against Mussolini's totalitarianism but a rival activator of consciousness because of its traditional values.
After initially living together with Masonry, Fascism showed a clear understanding of potential danger that Masonry represented for the Fascist project of Homo Novus.
Mussolini said to Parliament on the law prohibiting secret societies: "There is no doubt that those most jealous (sic) public institutions, that administer justice, that educate new generations, and represent the Armed Forces, have suffered the ups and downs of Masonic influence. This is unacceptable. This must come to an end".
Fascism as a regime considered ban toward Masonry as something inevitable.
RUSSIAN FREEMASONRYAND EUROPEAN NETWORKS IN THE 18TH CENTURY
CHAIR: FRANK ALBO
Masonic Networks and Intellectual Communications in 18th-century Russia.
Tatiana Artemyeva, Russia
It is possible to mark out several intellectual networks in Russia in the Enlightenment. One of them was the system of academic institutions that included both "visible" and "invisible colleges". It was connected with Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Moscow University. The second was represented by theologians from church schools, first of all in Kiev and Moscow and so called "learned monks". The third was being developed in the circles of the enlightened noble elite. Each of these networks had its own media-system, problems to discuss and even language. For many reasons all of them were quite separate from each other. Because of weakness of the academic institutions and due to the strong spiritual censorship many metaphysical problems, for example, the problem of the immortality of the soul, God's existence, theodicy, etc., were studied and discussed more often in the secret Masonic documents or metaphorical literary forms than in special university editions. For nobles Masonic lodges sometimes were the only places where they could discuss these problems and be united with representatives of another circles, for example, with academics. Masonic magazines, first of all
"The Morning Light" ("Utrennii svet"), "The Dusk" ("Vechernyaya zarya"), "A Hard-Working Man at Rest" ("Pokoyashiisya trudolyubets"), edited by eminent Moscow mason Nikolai Novikov, published various articles on philosophical problems. His activity as a publisher provided the generation of Russian intellectuals with special production, including favorite Masonic authors, and created a special interest to moral and spiritual problems.
Jacobite Networks and Freemasonry in Russia 1689-1732.
Robert Collis, UK
In the years between 1689 and 1732 a great number of Scottish Jacobites entered Russian service, with many occupying prominent positions within government and military circles. This paper will seek to assess the influence of the most eminent of these figures, including the likes of Patrick Gordon, Robert Erskine, Henry Farquharson, Henry Stirling and James Keith, in terms of their place within the pan-European network of Jacobites and within the Russian state itself. Moreover, it will be argued that it is possible to detect links between Jacobites in Russia and the initial development of masonic-style fraternal organisations in the country.
Consequently, it ensues that if one can discern connections between Jacobites in Russia and the development of masonic-style fraternalism in the Romanov Empire, certain questions need to be addressed. It is important, for example, to ask what purpose it would serve for Jacobites to champion masonic-style ideals and organisations in Russia? Was the advocation of masonic-style fraternities in Russia confined to internal Jacobite circles, or was an attempt made to incorporate Russians close to the levers of imperial power? Furthermore, how effective were Jacobites in using masonic-style modes of conduct and thinking to bolster support for their cause?
This paper will not seek to categorically answer the above-questions. However, it is hoped that it will reveal the complex (and extensive) use ofJacobite networks, with distinct masonic-style characteristics, in Russia at the close of the seventeenth century and early decades of the eighteenth century. In doing so, one can not only gain a greater understanding of the Jacobite diaspora after 1689 and its connections to freemasonry, but can also observe its penetration into and impact on Russian society.
"We are the teachers now": Resistance to Foreign Leadership in Russian Freemasonry in the End of the Eighteenth Century.
Natalie Bayer, USA
In the beginning of the eighteenth century the spread of the Craft in Russia depended almost exclusively on foreigners, and only a few Russians informed about latest Western intellectual and cultural developments participated in the lodges. Belonging to a "more advanced" Western civilization gave foreigners in Russia what Edward Said has called "a positional superiority" enabling them to have an upper hand in their relationships with even the most educated Russians. "No country received so much and such swift benefit from the Order as R[ussia]," one high-ranking eighteenth-century Prussian Masonic official pointed out in his diary. By the end of the century, as Freemasonry's influence deepened in the country, the number of Russians in lodges both in Russia and abroad increased significantly. With this change came tensions between Russian and foreign Masonic leadership and, eventually, opposition to foreign leadership of Russian lodges. If at one time Russian brothers were students of other Masonry-savvy nations, by the 1780s they began asserting that they were "the teachers now."
In my paper I trace this shift in the rhetoric of Russian Freemasons from emphasizing their own developmental inadequacy to the growing sentiment of Russian distinctiveness and self-sufficiency. For many Freemasons in Russia, making sense of their position in the lodges became a stepping stone to rethinking Russia's own place in Europe. As I argue, by the end of the eighteenth century Freemasons' ideas and activities brought about a change in consciousness that implied a strengthened emphasis on national identity and patriotism with broader rethinking of self-identity and national interests.
PERFORMING FREEMASONRY
CHAIR: HENRIK BOGDAN
Performing Freemasonry: The practical-symbolic Constitution of a Civic Habitus in 18th-Century England.
Kristiane Hasselmann, Germany
Analysing masonic practices as ritual forms of generating a new social habitus allows one to shed a more subtle light on the significance of the historical phenomenon of freemasonry within the history of culture and society than is possible through more general references to its proximity to ideas of the enlightenment.
The presentation focuses exemplarily on 18th-century craft ritual analysing it as a cultural performance and a medium of reflection on, and modification of, self and society. Drawing on concepts of cultural and social studies as performativity and habitus it reconstructs masonic practice as a moral corrective within commercial society highlighting the specific function of embodiment as trigger and mode for transformation. As constituent of an extensive reformation of manners announcing itself in the 17th century it aims at a mental and ethic perfection of its members and a continuous modification of their behavioural schemes; or to be more precise, at the development of a performative habitus strong enough to carry beyond the training situation, showing practical efficacy in everyday life.
This paper explores certain as yet overlooked sources which suggest that freemasonry can be viewed as a particular manifestation of cultural performance. It highlights the specific mechanisms by which bourgeois habitus is constructed performatively and symbolically, and how these can be described - following the works of Eleonore Kalisch - as components of a particular freemasonic "habitus ethic".
The value-situation as specific sign-situation. Masonic ethic in its historical context.
Prof. Michael Franz & Eleonore Kalisch, Germany
The historical antagonism between an ethic of conscience and a habitus ethic forms part the context in which the masonic "ethic of practice" (Klaus Hammacher) evolved. It characterizes a community of values positioned in an ambivalent relation to modern market-orientated society. The attempt to implement the "power of morality" (Locke) into ritual pratice was an autonomous practical contribution to the semiotics of valuation, that John Locke made philosophy's subject. The ritual actor-spectator-relationship, in which community life regulated itself, was to create a new kind of spectatorial situation.
Semiotics of the Un-outspoken: Masonic Ritual and the Borders of Historical Hermeneutics.
Andreas Onnerfors, UK
This paper is a contribution to the discussion on the comprehensibility of masonic rituals as sources for historical research. Within literary theory, the term "hermeneutics" was coined in order to define the process of understanding literary texts within and beyond the textual level. What tools do we need in order to really understand fiction? Is it possible at all? Does the text speak for itself or is a comprehension of the text determined by outer factors such as the author, reading competence, distribution, taste? When historians encounter the world of masonic rituals as sources for research into freemasonry, they meet a profound challenge. Is a masonic ritual written to be read as a text (and hence a classical historical source) or is its meaning (sense in the semiotic definition) constructed through performance? Different levels of masonic rituals can be analysed with certain methods: with a philological approach the use of certain words or symbols in varying versions can be traced and used to construct family trees of their internal relationship, a ritual theorist can extract motifs and stages of initiation and compare them to other rituals and intended influence upon the candidate. But as masonic ritual is written mainly for the initiation of individuals, carried out by a group of already initiated and witnessed by other already initiated and their participation, it can be discussed whether these outsets represent a proper understanding of the ritual. This paper will argue for that performance holds the ultimate key for the understanding of ritual texts and that significant (in the sense "sign-transporting") elements of their meaning are communicated through the un-outspoken and hence (textually) invisible dimensions of performance. For the historian the interesting question now is how to understand ritual as a source for our understanding of the past? This paper will therefore furthermore argue for re-performance/re-enactment as one of the methods that might be considered by historians.
FREEMASONRY AND THE WEST INDIES
CHAIR: ROBERT PÉTER
From Robert Burns dream of Jamaica to Masonic facts in the British West Indies: Barbados, Trinidad and Grenada.
Cécile Révauger, France
In spite of recent studies on freemasonry and the British Empire, the West Indies themselves have attracted relatively little attention. Yet freemasonry has thrived, both in the British and French West Indies since the middle of the eighteenth century. The focus in this workshop will be the British West Indies but presentations on the French West Indies, Martinique and Guadeloupe, will be welcome as well. So far we can present three papers, one by Dr Emile Charles on freemasonry and Trinidad, one by Dr Aviston Downes on freemasonry and Barbados and my own which will cover freemasonry in Barbados, Trinidad and Grenada and offer a comparative view. We shall all question the role of freemasonry first in the building and consolidating of the British Empire but we shall try to highlight its influence in the forging of national identities. The workshop will encompass more than two centuries, from the middle of the eighteenth century to recent times. We shall focus on the social and cultural role of lodges, on their action in the city, the way benevolence was enforced on the different islands and the solidarity which developed thanks to freemasonry in the Caribbean archipelago.
Britishness and Brotherhood: Freemasonry and White Colonial Identity in Barbados, 1740-1890.
Aviston D. Downes, Barbados
Although Freemasonry took root in the Caribbean since the 1730s, there has been very little scholarship on the Craft in this region. Recently, there has been a modest effort to redress this omission. Inevitably, these studies focus on anti-Black racism within Freemasonry and the difficulties experienced by non-Whites in securing access to the Craft. This paper, however, seeks to broaden the interrogation of identity politics in Barbados away from the simplistic Black-White binary. Significantly, Barbados attracted a much higher percentage of settler Whites than any other colony in the British West Indies. These included both free and indentured English, Scots, Irish and Jews. Some scholars have contended that by the eighteenth century Barbados had a population (both Blacks and Whites) who were effectively creolised . For instance, Karl Watson asserts: 'As far as the generality of the white population was concerned, earlier distinctions derived from points of origin in Europe: whether, for example, one was English, Welsh, Scots or Irish had been nullified through the process of creolisation.' Jessica Harland-Jacobs in her recently-published Builders of Empire: Freemasonry and British Imperialism, 1717-1927 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007) argues that Freemasonry in Britain and her colonies fostered 'Britishness.' My paper proposes to examine how Freemasonry in Barbados served as a colonial arena within which the contestation over 'Britishness' as well as Barbadian identity took place.
Societal impacts on the development of the craft in Trinidad & Tobago.
Emilie Charles, Trinidad
In 1762, after three hundred years of Spanish rule Trinidad was considered underpopulated and this encouraged a Frenchman living in Grenada to apply for and obtain a Cédula de Poblaciôn from the Spanish King Charles III in1783. This Cédula granted free lands to Roman Catholic foreign settlers and their slaves in Trinidad willing to swear allegiance to the Spanish king. As a result, Scots, Irish, German, Italian and English families arrived. The Protestants among them profited from a generous interpretation of the law by the then Spanish Governor
The French Revolution (1789) resulted in the emigration of Martiniquan planters and their slaves to Trinidad. It was as a consequence of that migration that the first Charter of a Lodge came to Trinidad in 1795 just two years before General Sir Ralph Abercromby and his squadron sailed through the Bocas and anchored off the coast of Chaguaramas. The Spanish Governor Chacon decided to capitulate without fighting. Trinidad immediately became a British crown colony, with a French-speaking population and Spanish laws. The conquest and formal ceding of Trinidad in 1802 led to an influx of settlers from England or the British colonies of the Eastern Caribbean.
It is against this very challenging background that Freemasonry in Trinidad and (some seventy five years later in Tobago), was developed. It began as a consequence of a societal force - migration from Martinique and for its entire life like so many other institutions have had to withstand subsequent societal impacts. The migration from Martinique was also responsible for the formation of the second Lodge this time under the Irish Constitution - Lodge Union - which is now defunct. All this in a decidedly multi cultural, multi religious society always socially stratified with the social boundaries continuously being redefined.
The First Lodge - Lodges Les Frere Unis ( now United Brothers #251) changed its Grand Lodge twice before settling to work under the Grand Lodge of Scotland is the oldest working Lodge in the country while the Royal Philanthropic Lodge #405 EC is the oldest working Lodge under the English Constitution.
The Craft in Trinidad and Tobago having recently entered its third century and could be reasonably proud of its achievements having grown from the one Lodge working under the Grand Orient of France to the twenty Lodges now operating. - Thirteen Scottish and seven English, none under the Irish Constitution having survived. This paper records that development until the present day. It pays attention not only to the Lodges and the researchers who recorded the events but also looks at the effect of some of the well define societal impacts and the possibilities for the future.'
ROBERT BURNS AND FREEMASONRY I
CHAIR: TREVOR STEWART
Commodification of Identity: Robert Burns Celebrity Spokesperson for Freemasonry and the Egalitarian Stage.
Carolyn Bain, USA
Among the tartans, toasts, and haggis, the memory of Scottish poet Robert Burns (25 January 1759 - 21 July 1796) blazes brightly on January 25 each year. His namesake celebrations encourage more than revelry; they challenge participants to engage in a world of fantasy associated with celebrity identity. During the days of Burns's Festival, his persona emerges as more than an historic poet; Burns ghost acts as a contemporary celebrity spokesperson, for a his life and values. Today's scholars study Burns's artistic and social modalities, asking why Burns attracts audiences both familiar and exotic. Scholars report Burns's material performances pleasingly communicate his breadth of passion for the concept more than the reality of humanity.
Whether a single night or a week of festivities, tourism scholars describe heritage festivals in terms of performance through two simultaneous identities: business enterprise and theatrical event. The currency binding both enterprise and event is the power of celebrity to align the value of exchange with the value of currency. In the case of the Robert Burns's Nights and the Burns's Festival, his celebrity identity sustains the heritage enterprise through the power of his celebrity capital. The identity of the young "Rabbie Burns" presents an opportunity for consideration of celebrity not only in terms of commodity production, but also in terms of theatrical transformation.
My research questions what the local community of Masons contributed to Burns's early celebrity and what role the Masons played in his early decline in popularity. How does his relationship with Freemasons express an identity enticing to early audiences and to which the most contemporary audiences continue to respond?
This study turns to theorists from Theatre and Performance Studies to explore the identity of Robert Burns as early celebrity spokesperson of the Freemasons and performative voice of selective egalitarianism.
Robert Burns and American Freemasonry TREAD BY MARKTABBERTI
Robert G. Watkins Jr., USA
The proposed monograph examines the Masonic ambiance surrounding the name and legacy of Robert Burns, Caledonia's Bard, a title initially proclaimed in a Masonic lodge. The simple and powerful themes of Burns' poetry resonated harmoniously with Masonic philosophy of the age which was emerging at that time and which Burns was a part of. Upon writing Ode to George Washington on his Birthday, Burns established a "Mystic Masonic tie" with the American President and with American Masonry.
By the early 19th century Burns' popularity had spread widely as informal social groups began to adopt the anniversaries of his birth and death as celebratory occasions to memorialize the Bard's memory. In America, the formation of Burns Clubs and St. Andrews Societies, etc., among the Scottish immigre community, supported by the Fraternity of Freemasons, accelerated this trend. This paper also identifies a Masonic connection between Burns and President Lincoln and discusses the role of Brother Willis Bruce, U.S. Consul in Glasgow, in this context.
During the nineteenth century forty-five monuments were raised to the memory of Robert Burns. The unveiling festivities for these monuments invariably presented occasions for decorous Masonic cornerstone laying ceremonies the significance of which will be discussed.
An examination of the writing and poetry of prominent American Brothers who were devotees of Robert Burns will be presented including two pieces by Rob Morris, who in 1881 was, by acclamation, proclaimed Poet Laureat of Freemasonry and a poem written by Bengamin B. French, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, composed especially for the T00th anniversary of the Birthday of Robert Burns.
Robert Burns, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and the Mystery of the Master's Apron.
Paul Rich, USA
Few Masonic artifacts have as much of a history or present to us as many interesting and romantic problems as the apron that Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe allegedly presented to Robert Burns. Whether and where and why Burns then passed the apron along, and if the apron now displayed in the Burns museum in Scotland is indeed the apron in question, as well as the providence other supposed Burns aprons throughout the world, provides an opportunity to discuss Masonic artifacts and aprons in general -- the Lafayette apron displayed by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania being another good case. Is authenticity the only concern? Does it matter?
Sharpe's life is a useful gloss on this discussion of material culture, because he was a celebrated antiquarian, ever accumulating curiosities, and attracted the attention of Sir Walter Scott (who compared him to Walpole), and had the reputation of being a jack of all trades rather than master of any. His friendship with Burns deserves more attention than it has received, and his composing efforts should be taken more seriously than they have. If circumstances permit and the conference organizers are indulgent, the playing of his Scot's Air will be offered,. The friendship of Burns and Sharpe and the apron that connects them remains one of the more interesting stories of late 18th century Scotland.
This paper will draw on the Burns collection of William Smith, which is one of the best in the world and was deposited in the House of the Temple of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in Washington by Andrew Carnegie, who was trustee of the Smith estate and placed it with the Council on the provision that it be housed in a special room and open to scholars.
FREEMASONRY IMAGINED: NATIONAL, INTERNATIONAL, ANTINATIONAL
CHAIR: MATTHEW SCANLAN
"Bacillus Gallicus": Nationality and Anti-Masonic Discourse in the Early American Republic.
Jeffrey Tyssens, Belgium
Anti-Masonic texts travelled astonishingly fast in the last years of the 18th century. Robison's famous book was taken up by conservative American preachers very soon after its first appearance. Prominent Calvinist clerics like Jedidiah Morse and Timothy Dwight reproduced Robison's type of discourse against Freemasonry as early as 1798. Strikingly though, their aggressive language against Masonic lodges as conspiring instruments of the "Illuminati" was not directed against the American ones, but solely against foreign lodges, mainly these with explicitly French attachments. In the late 18th Century American context of sharp contradictions between Federalist conservatives and Jeffersonian republican-democrats, this Anti-Masonic discourse had precise political goals, i.e. discrediting the American sympathisers of the French Revolution as being manipulated by French Freemasons c.q. "Illuminati". As such, these widely resounding Calvinist sermons related themselves to a broader discourse one could read in parts of the Early Republic's press, where foreign intrusion (French or other) and political subversion (e.g. during the 1794 "Whiskey Rebellion") were represented as the flip sides of the same coin. This early upsurge of conspiracy theory, whether as a particular example of the "paranoid style" in American politics (i.e. the Hofstadter perspective) or merely as one expression among several of the broader conspiracy frenzy of the last decennia of the 18th Century, exemplified a typical feature of Anti-Masonic discourse of the Anglo-American type, i.e. the inherently foreign, un-national, or even anti-national nature of the "dangerous" forms of Freemasonry, the homebred lodges being benign and patriotic, at least for the time being. The sermon campaign helped to legitimate the 1798 "Alien and Sedition Acts", but was short lived nevertheless. Jeffersonian publishers satirically swept the Calvinist sermons aside in the early 19th Century. However, the basic "Anti-Patriotic" charge was later to return as a mainstream argument of Anti-Masonic discourse.
The Birth of the Belgian Nation State: Masonic "National" Discourses.
Anaïs Maes, Belgium
Despite the Belgian Revolution of 1830, not all groups of Belgian society adhered to the project of a Belgian nation state, for a variety of socio-economic, political and cultural reasons. Freemasonry is in many ways the reflection of the society in which it exists and thus 1830 was a critical moment for masonry. The masonic landscape in Belgium was being shaken up on a large scale, lodges disappeared, others were born, obediences were created and masonic protest and dissent rose. There were three main different and contrasting masonic national discourses: a Belgian patriotic one; a pro-Dutch Orangistic one; and one centred around a few lodges in the area of Liège which did not want to join the Belgian Grand Orient, not out of anti-nationalism but because of political differences. The different masonic national discourses will be analysed through sources from those lodges who represented these three main strands. The pro-Belgian discourse will be analysed through lodges in Brussels (Les Amis Philanthropes), Leuven (La Constance) and Mechelen (La Régénération) as well as through different military lodges (and their civil successors), who clearly represented Belgian nationalist freemasonry. The orangist movement can best be investigated through Le Septentrion in Ghent. The important political dissenters in Liège (La Parfaite Intelligence et l'Etoile Réunies) and Verviers (Les Philadelphes), who created a new obedience (La Fédération Maçonnique Beige) complete the picture. The link with the historical context and profane world is a necessary one in this regard and will be made through the analysis of sources such as newspaper articles written by freemasons belonging to the above-mentioned lodges and articles concerning freemasonry, the lodges or their members. The origins as well as the evolution of these different "nationalist" movements (other elements started to gain importance from the `40's on, such as the end of the dispute with the Netherlands, the rising of anticlericalism and the growth of the liberal party) will be examined until 1848, when Belgium, successfully avoiding the 1848 frenzy, proved to be a stable nation state.
The Conspiracy of Freemasons, Jews and Communists. An Analysis of German and French Nationalist Discourse (1918-1940).
Jimmy Koppen, Belgium
In the aftermath of the First World War several books and leaflets were published, both in defeated Germany/Austria as in victorious France, in which Freemasonry was called the dark force that caused war and revolution in order to gain supreme power. Publications like Worldfreemasonry, worldrevolution and worldrepublic by the Austrian politician Friedrich Wichtl or Destruction of Freemasonry through the revelation of their secrets by general Ludendorff became best sellers and were a source of inspiration for emergent Nazism. These notorious anti-Masonic authors regarded Freemasonry as the antithesis of the German national identity. The brotherhood itself was at least infiltrated or perhaps even invented by the "International Judaism", as claimed in the Russian Protocolls of the Elders of Sion. On the other side of the Rhine, the same frightening conspiracy theory was put forward by the extreme right catholic priest Ernest Jouin, founder of the Revue international des Sociétés secretes. From 1912 on, Jouin proclaimed in this magazine that the anti-patriotic attitude of Freemasonry would sooner or later lead to the downfall of France in revolution and decadence. Jouin considered the outcome of the war as a Pyrrhic victory and freemasons and Jews in French politics were to blame for the tremendous death toll. The magazine and its spokesman had a huge influence on ultra-nationalistic and anti-Masonic writers in France and abroad. The visions of both French and German/Austrian anti-Masons paved the way for the anti-Semitic world view of the Nazis, and were the transition of the traditional, catholic-inspired anti-Masonry to a new level. This paper will discuss resemblances and differences in the nationalist and anti-Masonic discourse during the Interwar period. How did the protagonists analyse Freemasonry and the Nation? How could they involve communism in their conspiracy theories? And how were they influenced by their sociological or (semi)religious background?
Irish Freemasonry: From Radicalism to Loyalism.
Petri Mirala, Belgium
From the 1770s through the rebellion year of 1798 and in some cases into the 19th century, a considerable number of Irish freemasons exerted themselves on behalf of the radical causes of the day: first Presbyterian rights and independence of the Irish parliament, then parliamentary reform and restoration of political rights to Catholics. Some masons even supported a French-style revolution as advocated by the society of the United Irishmen. However, little by little Irish masonry abandoned radicalism and became just one local variant of British loyalism, a Protestant-inspired pro-monarchist movement. Alongside official freemasonry, an independent loyalist brotherhood with masonic roots developed, known as the Orange Order. In the early 19th-century climate of strengthening ultramontanism, the emerging Catholic Irish nationalism cut any masonic links that it had. Symbolically, masonry was abandoned by the leader of Irish nationalism, Daniel "The Liberator" O'Connell, who had not only been a master of a lodge but even acted as a barrister for the Grand Lodge of Ireland in its lawsuit against the dissident Grand Lodge of Ulster. By the 181Os, O'Connell's former mentor and grand master, Lord Donoughmore, now had to defend masonry against attacks by Catholic bishops. This paper looks into what is known about the parallel processes of Catholic abandonment and loyalist takeover of Irish freemasonry, commencing with the conservative mobilisation of many lodges to oppose demands for reform in the winter of 1792-3 and with the emergence of Orangeism in 1795. It charts the events by which a unique and original branch of the brotherhood in the 18th century was subsumed into the British loyalist culture of the 19th century.
PRESERVATION OF MASONIC SOURCE MATERIAL
CHAIR: ADAM KENDALL
Digitising Masonic periodicals.
Diane Clements, USA
From the end of the eighteenth century up to the present day, various periodicals began to be published primarily by and for a Masonic audience. Important resources not only for understanding the development of freemasonry, they also provide information about members and lodge meeting places. Few libraries have complete runs of such periodicals and only limited indexes are available. Digitising the major Masonic English language periodicals will make them more widely available and searchable. In this session, Diane Clements will provide details about the initial pilot project involving The Freemason's Monthly Magazine, January 1855 - December 1856, and The Freemason's Magazine and Masonic Mirror, January 1857 - December 1858. The Project is a joint initiative between the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, Kings College London's Centre for Computing in the Humanities and the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons.
For more information about the project, please see http://mpol.cch.kcl.ac.uk/index.html
Digitising US Grand lodge proceedings.
Mark Tabbert, USA
As an educational and charitable organization, the George Washington Masonic Memorial (GWMM) is pleased to offer its digital archive project as a service to all regular and recognized grand lodges, grand jurisdictions and governing bodies. The long-term goal is to digitize all Masonic proceedings and other publications in a unified format within as few databases as needed.
Beyond its library catalog, OCLC's database system, CONTENTdm, is used by over 500 historical societies, museums and libraries to inventory artifacts, art, images, and even audio and video. Yet CONTENTdm is designed for digitizing printed material. It processes thousands of PDF files, applies an optical character recognition (OCR) process and unifies them into one massive database. Through CONTENTdm, a researcher may simultaneously search across all words, all pages and all books. For example, a genealogist could type in a family name once and find it in every Masonic proceeding across every year and every grand lodge.
The project's real power is to bring the facts and figures, statistics, reports and activities of every U.S. grand lodge out of dusty old books and into every online computer in the world. Through this project, every report, page, word and image in every proceeding since 1733 could be searched online by keyword. No longer would grand lodges need to keep thousands of hard-bound proceedings from every sister jurisdiction and every Masonic body.
The use of OCLC and its CONTENTdm software also provides a great advantage - access to its universal database. Although its primary use is to search the printed word, it is a natural platform to catalog Masonic historical artifacts. Every grand lodge that digitizes its proceedings will automatically have the ability to catalog their Masonic museum collections. Therefore, by digitizing Masonic proceedings, a national database of Masonic historical artifacts, photographs and even audio and video recordings will be created.
Lastly, the GWMM CONTENTdm software license is unlimited. This means it is open to every recognized Masonic organization in the U.S. and abroad. It is possible, right now, to have Grand Chapters, Grand Councils, and Grand Commanderies digitizing their proceedings. Simultaneously, the Scottish Rite, Eastern Star and other Masonic museums and libraries could also catalog their artifacts and books. Through grand lodge commitment and the wonders of the computer and Internet, Masonic history will be available to all those who seek it.
The historical records survey of the UGLE.
Susan A Snell, UK
In 2008 the Pro Grand Master and the Board of General Purposes of UGLE launched a survey of Lodges and Chapters, known as the Historical Records Survey, to ascertain what records they hold and the accommodation and conditions in which they are kept. Co-ordinated by the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, results from the completed returns will help towards producing a tercentenary history to mark the 300th anniversary of the formation of the first Grand Lodge in 2017. It is also aimed at encouraging individual members to undertake historical research, reinvigorating research lodges and associations, forging connections between freemasons and history societies in local communities and improving the public's understanding of freemasonry. The Survey also promotes good record keeping and the long-term preservation of irreplaceable Lodge and Chapter records. This session will provide an update on the Survey with details of progress to date.
ROBERT BURNS AND FREEMASONRY II
CHAIR: ROBERT COLLIS
Chapbooks of the Burnsiana Collection at the House of the Temple Library.
Heather Calloway, USA
It's almost as if they didn't exist. Libraries didn't even catalogue them. Now, these little treasures are preserved alongside rare books and in special collections. "Chapbooks," once the reading matter of the working class and "common people" are now, ironically, kept locked away in vaults.
This paper explores chapbooks from the most complete collection of literary works of Robert Burns and Burnsiana in America, that of the Library of the Supreme Council of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite, SJ, USA. Chapbooks were i8th century's primary medium used to transmit Robert Burns' populist literature (and smatterings on Freemasonry) to an emerging readership in Scotland, England, and the United States.
Within the Burnsiana collection at the House of the Temple Library is a unique grouping of some 240 of these literary volumes. Some resemble pamphlets, while others are small books containing the contemporary folklore, myths and legends. Called chapbooks because they were sold by peddlers known as chapmen, these volumes were typically inexpensive and designed for the poorer literate classes. Sold for a penny, or less, they were often printed on a single sheet of low-quality paper, folded to make eight, sixteen, or twenty-four pages.
Authors of chapbooks were rarely listed. Subjects included sermons, poetry, songs, biographies, romance, and the ever-popular ribald and lewd stories. Similar to the newspapers of the 1800s, and periodicals of the 1900s, chapbooks were read and discarded as affordable, popular literature of the time. As books became cheaper to print, they would pass from expensive versions to a chapbook edition. Because of their fragile paper, and ability to be reused for other functions (i.e. toilet paper), chapbooks rarely survived.
The Burness (Burnes) Family of Montrose, Cousins to Robert Burns.
Iain D. MacIntosh, UK
I will cover the Burness (Burnes) family roots from the Great Grandfather of Robert Burns who was James Burness born c1656, in the Glenbervie area of Kincardineshire, down through his sons, James, Robert and William(who was father to Robert Burnes the Poet) the daughter, Elspet, Burns's aunt and also the uncles & cousins of the poet's family and their involvement in Freemasonry in Montrose, mostly in Lodge St Peter No 120.
Robert Burns's aunt, Elspet married John Caird a member of Lodge Montrose Kilwinning, he became a founder member of Lodge St Peter and the founding Junior Warden.
I will cover the progress of that line and the main Burness/Burnes line within the Lodge, also the life and times of Lodge St. Peter and its conections and activities with Monrose from its founding in 1769 to the mid 1800's some of its members and other events in Montrose, gleaned from the minute books.
I will cover the involvement of one of the poet's cousins, another James Burnes who was Provost of Montrose and became the first Provincial Grand Secretary of Forfarshire under the Provincial Grand Master the Ist Lord Panmure in 1815.
James Burnes documented some interesting events during his time as P. G. Secretary, in Dundee, Fife & Angus, which I will cover. I will also cover the relationship and patronage that the poet had with Lord Panmure.
I will cover the next generation of the Burnes Family that of Doctor James Burnes who went to India as a surgeon, became a `Chevalier' and was involved in the Freemason Lodges in India, he also became Provincial Grand Master of Bombay. I will cover his military involvement, also other members of the Burnes family of that period in Montrose.
Dr James Burnes was also involved in setting up of the ritual for the Masonic Knights Templar (but Bob Cooper has documented that part in his published books, so I will leave that to him).
Paper i8c. Polymnia and the Craft: an exploration of newly-discovered examples of a popular literary genre and the seventeenth-century Scottish Craft.
Trevor Stewart, UK
In line with the general theme and venue adopted for this conference in the year of Bro. Robert Burns' bi-centenary, this paper focuses on some recently discovered examples of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Scottish poetry praising the masons' Craft in Scotland. The poems, which are of various lengths, styles and of differing complexities, were written by non-masons who were variously motivated. Printed as broad-sheets for public sale, the poems represent a distinct literary genre the existence of which opens up interesting questions such as, for example, how the masons' Craft was perceived by the reading public in those days of ever expanding literacy, what kinds of informal functions the lodges had in Scottish society generally and what light is thrown by the poems on the ceremonality and the religious, ethical and legendary content of the Craft in the pre-Grand Lodge era.
FREEMASONRY AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT
CHAIR: PIERRE-YVES BEUREPAlRE
Early French Masonic Exposures (1737-1751): a reappraisal and some methodological reflections.
Roger Dachez, France
After the masonic exposures published in England from 1723-1730, and English or Irish manuscripts in the same period which confirm or clarify printed texts, the early French masonic exposures are a major source of information on ritual practices in a time when the members of French lodges were quite often of British origin.
The study of these documents requires some methodological precautions, for some of their authors are masons and some others non masons. Several are original exposures but some others are approximate translations of English texts. Finally, these popular exposés raise several questions:
• about their credibility : we have to compare them with French manuscripts but also with information contained in the correspondence of masons; it appears that some "exposures" are likely true hoaxes, designed to mislay the public by revealing fanciful secrets in order to try protecting the authentic secrets contained in preceding exposures - in vain.
• about their intention : did they simply meet the curiosity of the public for a new matter, or did they reveal the hostility of some political or religious circles towards freemasonry ?
• about their links with English or Scottish masonic practices in the same period : a systematic comparison with masonic documents printed in English, ten to twenty years earlier, shows specific contributions of early french masonry as well as relative uniformity of masonic rituals and symbols, before 1750, on the two banks of the Channel.
Religion and Enlightenment in Thomas Dunckerleys Neglected Writings.
Robert Péter, Hungary
Scholarship on the Enlightenment and/or freemasonry has failed to investigate how Thomas Dunckerley (1724-1795), probably the best-known English freemason of the second half of the eighteenth century, popularised enlightenment ideas in his works. Being the natural son of the George II, he was a gunner in the English navy who corresponded with, among other notables, Prince Edward, father of Queen Victoria. He was one of the most enthusiastic advocates of freemasonry in England in the latter half of the eighteenth century. This is illustrated by the fact that, on the one hand, he was the grand superintendent of the Royal Arch degree in as many as eighteen provinces, on the other hand, he was selected Grand Master to revive the Order of the Knights Templar in 1791.
In the 1750s Dunckerley delivered more than a dozen of essays before a society that "met for mutual improvement in morality & useful knowledge" in the library of a southern England town. These hand-written lectures will be analysed in this paper for the first time. Dunckerley, though far from being an intellectual pillar of Enlightenment thought, addresses the following problem in one of them: "Is Reason a sufficient guide to Eternal Happiness, unassisted by Revelation?" By examining these essays as well as his sermons, songs, and personal correspondence, this paper is an attempt to reconstruct the development of his religious views and contextualize them in the theological debates of the (popular) Enlightenment. Furthermore, it seeks to answer the question, raised by the Enlightenment intellectuals for philosophy in general, whether the ideally universal nature of freemasonry as a system of morality was assisted or hindered by its Christian associations abounding in those higher degrees that Dunckerley propagated so eagerly.
FREEMASONRY IN THE WORLD
CHAIR: ANAÏS MAES
La franc-maçonnerie en Syrie et au Liban indépendants (1940-1958) (in French).
Thierry Millet, France
En 1946, les dernières troupes françaises du corps expéditionnaire du Levant rentrent définitivement en France. Depuis 1920, la puissance coloniale exerce un mandat sur la Syrie et le Liban octroyé par la Société des Nations. Au début des années quarante, la maçonnerie en Syrie et au Liban rencontre deux obstacles qui modifient l'ordre établi avant 1940 : l'interdiction de la Maçonnerie décrétée par l'État français pour la France et ses possessions ; les destructions et le chaos de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Une fois la situation redevenue clémente, les francs-maçons reprennent le chemin des Temples et le cours de leurs travaux. Très vite, si les obédiences étrangères se reconstituent, de nombreuses loges se regroupent en obédiences locales. Les quatre puissances maçonniques occidentales, la Grande Loge de New York, la Grande Loge d'Ecosse et les deux obédiences françaises se reconstituent avec plus ou moins de difficultés. Des trois structures maçonniques locales présentes avant-guerre, seul le Grand Orient du Liban se ressuscite. Les frères des deux autres obédiences, le Grand Orient de Syrie et la Grande Loge de Syrie, fondent de nouvelles structures : le Grand Orient arabe et syrien est créé en septembre 1948 et regroupe certaines loges qui dépendaient dans les années trente de la Grande Loge Nationale d'Égypte, de la Grand Loge d'Ecosse et du Grand Orient de France. La Grande Loge Nationale Syro-libanaise rassemble des loges nouvellement créées. Cette dernière se transforme en 1954 en Grande Loge de Syrie, du Liban et des Pays arabes et opère suivant le Rite Ecossais Ancien et Accepté sous la tutelle de la Grande Loge nationale d'Égypte. Ce qui nous intéressera, au-delà des rapports de forces quantitatifs et qualitatifs, c'est la composition même de ces obédiences qui posent la question des regroupements culturels, politiques voir personnels des frères dans les structures maçonniques.
Cultural Contexts of Masonic Mysteries: the case of Finland.
Annti Talvitie, Finland
The objective of this research is to review the impact made by local culture and history on understanding the symbols, allegories and myths of Freemasonry.
First Lodge for Finland was consecrated in Stockholm in 1756 when Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden. Some fifty years later Finland was created a Grand-Duchy under the Russian Czar and subsequently Freemasonry was banned by the 'anti-secret-societies-act'.
During the Grand-Duchy Finland developed into a culturally self-aware nation-state. The identity of the Finnish people was constructed around the mythical history of the nation. One of the cornerstones of this progression was the national epic Kalevala which Elias Lönnrot compiled around 1820-49 from vernacular oral tradition collected in the remote part of the country, Karelia. Karelianism was especially prominent during the golden era of Finnish art c. 1870 - 1910.
Freemasonry was re-imported almost simultaneous from USA (1922) and Sweden (1923), after Finland gained independence (1917).
When rituals imported from New York were first translated into Finnish, influence of Kalevala could not be avoided. The vocabulary of the first version was crowded with echoes and references to the Finnish mythology. The idea of Heavenly canopy of celestial sky with the Flaming Star' over the Freemasonic Lodge was seen as the cold nocturnal Nordic sky lit by Aurora Borealis and North Star over Finnish Masons.
Even though the introduced ritual version deliberate discarded mythology-based references it still reflected the national interpretation in many ways. While the F.&A.M. Grand Lodge of Finland gradually receded Kalevala related myths other organizations and semi-Masonic bodies clung to it more closely. Pekka Ervasti, theosophist and member of Le Droit Humain, established a peculiar society Ruusu-Risti (Rose-Croix) combining Theosophy, Kalevala, Freemasonry and the Sermon on the Mount. This was never accepted by the Grand Lodge of Finland.
This approach brings new light in the history of Scandinavian Freemasonry.
PLENARY LECTURE 4: Witty...lusty and tender': On editing Robert Burns's `Merry Muses of Caledonia'.
Valentine Bold, UK
Valentina Bold's new edition of `The Merry Muses of Caledonia' owes a huge debt to the pioneering 1959 edition by James Barke, Sydney Goodsir Smith and John DeLancey Ferguson. She will consider the making of their edition, along with some of the issues she faced as the latest editor of Burns's bawdy songs. She will suggest that, within the range of materials, there are `witty, lusty and tender' pieces, and consider the relevance of the songs for a 21st century audience.
There are many problems, as well as rewards, involved in approaching such controversial material. The ultimate value of the texts is that they are performance texts: meant to be sung and heard rather than read off the page. Her new edition, therefore, for Luath Press, includes airs for the songs definitely by Burns, along with appropriately racy new illustrations, by Bob Dewar. Bold will be joined by singer Kathy Hobkirk, who will perform her new settings of the songs especially for conference.
MASONIC ASSOCIATION WITHIN EARLY INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND (ANALYSING MASONIC MEMBERSHIP I)
CHAIR: DAVID HARRISON T.B.C.
Membership of the 'King's Head' Lodge, Salford, 1727.
John Astbury, UK
Seven years after the creation of the Grand Lodge in London in 1717 applications for recognition began to be received from lodges within provincial towns: Bath, Bristol, Norwich, Chichester, Chester, Carmarthen, Gosport, Congleton and, in December 1727, Salford "near Manchester". By 1730 others had followed: Leigh, Warwick, Oxford, Scarborough, Northampton, Canterbury, Lincoln. What motivations may have lain behind this spread? Can anything be deduced at this distance of time without personal testimony?
The names of all 24 members of the `King's Head' lodge at Salford were supplied to London. Past attempts to trace these individuals using local records have been fruitless, leading researchers to conclude that they must have been drawn from `operative' masons of low social status.
Archive material is now far more accessible. This study shows that most of these early Freemasons meeting at Salford can be positively identified. For the most part they did not live locally but came together specially, meeting at the best hostelry in the town. What linked them was not practical masonry, or love of the esoteric, but common involvement in aspects of the textile trade.
It may not be a coincidence therefore that the first Provincial Grand Master of Lancashire, a few years later, was a mercer from Bolton who often travelled into Salford on business.
The `King's Head' lodge was erased in 1754 as it had failed to make returns to London. By that time other lodges had come into being in both Salford and Manchester. The subsequent study of these will further illustrate the associative links of Freemasonry in the economic and social development of the region.
Paper 21b. Membership of the 'Anchor and Hope' Lodge, Bolton, 1732-1813. David Hawkins, UK
This lodge, which has recently celebrated its 275th anniversary, started in `a private room', and not a tavern or a coffee house. It was uniquely shown as such in the early engraved lists when originally numbered 105 on the roll of the Grand Lodge in London. Only later did it fall into line with common practice by meeting in public premises.
Edward Entwisle, a leading mercer whose shop was in the centre of the town, obtained a warrant from London to constitute the Lodge in 1732. It is suspected that he may previously have constituted the lodge at `The New King's Arms' at Leigh, five miles distant, for he certainly officiated in 1733 at the formation of the lodge at `The Red Lion' in Bury four miles away before his official appointment as Provincial Grand Master for the whole of Lancashire in 1734. A lodge in Liverpool, and a new one in Salford, followed.
While the earliest records have disappeared, 'Anchor and Hope' preserves a full list of members since 1765. These show it to have attracted men of status in the community, businessmen and professionals. The spread includes many branches of textile production and increasing numbers of `chapmen'. Cotton is mentioned from 1783 onwards and foreign merchants appear in 1799. Brethren in the medical profession are almost as well represented as those in the inn-keeping trade! The result is a cross-section of developing town life on the outskirts of the Manchester-Salford industrial entrepot. That trading hub and its Masonic associations are the subject of the next panel paper.
The composition of Masonic membership in Manchester and Salford during the period of early industrialisation before 1813.
John Acaster, UK
The 19th century industrial revolution, of world significance, was largely fired by innovations for textile production and trade in SE Lancashire during the latter half of the 18th century. The Manchester region became the hub of extraordinary expansion based uponvolume and cheapness. The improvement of cotton manufacture and processingbecame a distinctive andhighlyprofitable feature . ThisattractedlabourfromIrelandand Scotland , aswellasmerchants from acrossEurope. Taken together, the population of Manchester and Salford grew tenfold during the period, being some 100, 000 by 1813 ; Bolton, 12 miles away, 25,000.
No overall sociological study of Masonic groupings within this very dynamic context has previously been attempted. The panel will compare and contrast the membership and probable motivations within:
• The 1727 lodge at the `King's Head' in Salford, the earliest in Lancashire;
• The lodge at the 'Anchor and Hope' in Bolton, founded in 1732, the oldest provincial lodge (now numbered 32) still active in its town of origin;
• All the lodges known to have existed within Manchester and Salford before the Union of the Premier with the Antient Grand Lodge in 1813.
FREEMASONRY, BUILDING THE EMPIRE?
CHAIR: JAMES W DANIEL
Working Class Scottish Freemasonry outside Scotland. R. Hughes Montgomery, New Zealand
At this conference in 2007 Prof David Stevenson gave a paper on the relationship of working men to freemasons' lodges in Scotland with particular reference to miners.
Following the industrial troubles of 1860, many Scottish miners emigrated and the effect of this on Scottish freemasonry in the "British Empire" in general and New Zealand in particular is examined. These migrants left Scotland to escape from the "ruling class' of land- lords and pit owners, and when the opportunity offered, they also removed their freemasonry from the same ruling class. The effects of this are apparent in New Zealand freemasonry to this day.
The `Builders of the Empire' thesis and the Australian experience.
Bob James, Australia
Freemasonry's recent willingness to open itself up to scrutiny, in ways it has previously avoided, has resulted in a `new wave' of scholars seeking to bring Masonic achievements to broader attention.
Almost all 'new wavers' are from northern hemisphere, many from the American continent. One such is Harland-Jacobs whose ambitious 2007 thesis in 'global history'. Builders of Empire, describes Masonic expansion in tandem with British Imperialism, 1717-1920. Her interpretation while detailed is ultimately mounted on a single assertion, that Freemasonry has stood alone as the cultural institution of the Empire, and as its only manifestation of fraternalism.
Freemasonry has to yield to examination by external observers on the same grounds as must all other historical phenomenon - race, gender, and so on. And it is in breaking through to these issues on a global scale, and making it possible for other scholars to follow, that Harland-Jacob's thesis is important.
However, her reliance on `old wave' assertions about Freemasonry's uniqueness means her interpretation is deeply flawed. It is the claim to be unique that has given Freemasonry much of its mystique, and protected it from outside observers, but it is precisely that claim that the new wave tests of credibility undermine.
My paper examines her thesis and the issues it raises for any examinations of Freemasonry in conflicted political situations, specifically in the context of Ireland and the Australian fraternal experience, 1788-1850.
The influence of an Irish Military Lodge, the 1st Volunteer Lodge No. 620, on Irish Society and Freemasonry.
Patrick J Flynn, Ireland
It has been well established that Irish military lodges have played an important role in the spread of Irish Freemasonry throughout the world. We know that Freemasonry was first brought to Japan by an Irish military lodge (Terasawa, 2007). Also, Emerald Isle Lodge, No. 19, brought a lodge to Pakistan almost one hundred years ago and when that country went "dark" kept the lodge working outside Pakistan and it is still working today over one hundred years after its formation.
Meanwhile, in Ireland some military lodges and their members were playing their part in shaping Irish Freemasonry itself as well as the society in which they lived. This paper focuses on one such lodge, The First Volunteer Lodge of Ireland, No. 620, which celebrates its 225th year of continuous working in 2008. Having examined the establishment of military lodges in general, and this lodge in particular, it will focus, on a number of members of the lodge including, Rt.Hon. Henry Grattan and John Rigby (WM 1787, 1799) among others. These gentlemen were amongst officers of the Royal Dublin Volunteers and Independent Dublin Volunteers from whose officers the lodge was formed. In fact Henry Grattan was Colonel of the latter. The paper will go on to assess the impact made by these freemasons on the very foundations of both the society of their time as well as on Irish Freemasonry.
Evidence will be presented to demonstrate that not only were these gentlemen aware of their duty to those around them, they were also not afraid to stand up to what they considered needed to be changed either within or without freemasonry. The role of this lodge in bringing the so called higher degrees to Ireland will also be examined.
Finally, the paper will look to the more recent history of Lodge 620 to assess what role if any this lodge has played in the development of Irish Freemasonry.
ASPECTS OF BRITISH FREEMASONRY
CHAIR: JOHN ACASTER
Education and Charity are essential features of Freemasonry.
David Harrison, UK
Education and charity are essential features of Freemasonry. Ever since the foundation of the `Premier' or `Modern' Grand Lodge in London in 1717, these features became entwined with the ethos of the Craft. Morality, brotherly love, relief and truth, became vital components to the practice of Masonry, and various lectures were given within lodges to remind the Mason of his duty to his fellow brethren and the community. Dr. Jean Theophilus Desaguliers, an exponent of Newtonian philosophy, and a leading Freemason of the time, argued for the importance of the central control of a Masonic charity as early as 1730, and constantly promoted the teaching of natural philosophy. Freemasonry led the way when in 1788; a charity was formed to look after the daughters of deceased Freemasons, which would supply a home and an education. In 1798, a similar fund was set up for the sons of Freemasons.
The ethos of education within Freemasonry is best exemplified at local level, the local lodges such as the Lodge of Lights in Warrington and the Lodge of Friendship in Oldham can be seen supporting local educational institutions and learned societies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Warrington Academy, which was a progressive centre of learning for young male dissenters founded in 1757, had a number of tutors that were Freemasons, while other tutors who were not Freemasons, clearly mixed in Masonic circles. The Academy finally closed in 1786. However, the spirit of education was kept alive by certain members of the local Lodge of Lights when, during the later part of the nineteenth century, the middle-classes who had began to re-enter Freemasonry in the town after 1850, after distancing themselves in the wake of the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799, praised the memory of the Academy and founded a diverse number of learned societies.
A similar occurrence can be seen in Oldham, with members of the Lodge of Friendship supporting the Oldham Lyceum. This lodge also reflects the transition of the Warrington based Lodge of Lights, with an influx of working men becoming members during the first half of the nineteenth century while the local gentlemen distanced themselves. Education, along with charity, was still important during this period, and in the Lodge of Friendship, there were members such as James Butterworth who became a local writer, publishing books on Masonic symbolism, poetry and local history. This paper will also look at other lodges in other Industrial towns of the North-West, and will present a view of how local Freemasonry supported and promoted local education and charity, assisting in the development of Industrial towns in the North-West of England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Scotlands Masons - membership and occupations of Freemasons 1800-2000.
John Belton & Bob Cooper, UK
Scottish Civil Registration records have always contained more information that those of England and likewise Scottish Masonic Records go back to 1736 (and occasionally earlier), they become more comprehensive from 1800 and contain information on occupation and occasionally age from that time. The driving imperative was compliance with the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799 which had the practical financial benefit of enabling Grand Lodge to better manage the annual collection of test fees (dues). A two century accumulation of data collected on that basis forms a rare and invaluable continuous record for a variety of socio-historical studies of the changing style and membership of a group of significant size within civic society. Available English masonic records are only easily available from 1918 and then only as numerical totals.
At the Grand Lodge level the Scottish figures will be compared and contrasted with those of England, Australia, Canada and the United States.
It is often stated by Scottish academics that Scottish lodges were/are working class while those in England are middle class. This proposition will be tested using detailed (anonymous) data abstracted from the membership records of individual lodges. The lodges selected are located in Dumfries, a typical county market town; and in Dundee a city of the industrial revolution and port city heavily engaged in textiles and engineering. The occupations of the members of these lodges will be analysed in a time series which will enable the results to be compared with work available on English lodges in the industrial North West for approximately the same period.
FREEMASONRY AT SEA
CHAIR: BOB JAMES
Freemasonry at Sea. The Story of Shipboard Lodges.
Michael J. Hearn & Brain Coak, UK
Freemasonry at Sea, The story of Shipboard Lodges, is the result of a ten year study of available material that has been collated from different sources used to consolidate available information on this subject; to record a number of important historical events that might be lost and ignored by present day and future historians. Using this type of transport has its own distinct problems. But taking part in Masonic meetings in confined spaces onboard ship, tests both the zeal and ability to overcome these problems, is a tribute to human achievement particularly within the Royal Naval Men-of-War of the 18th Century.
The paper details: the first meeting of a lodge onboard a Royal Navy warship, being built in a local shipyard; the exertions of one brother who was responsible for the first ever warranted shipboard lodge that met on a Royal Navy Man-of-War; together with the other lodges that he instigated that also met onboard other Men-of-War. What happened to these lodges will be outlined and how these lodges have developed today.
The innovative idea of a Sea going Lodge of Instruction, for use as a recreational facility for men serving onboard Royal Naval Ships based at the North China Station at Weihaiwei, and why this was to eventually cease, will be detailed. Lastly, outlined are events, such as a Masonic funeral and the many banquets that take place onboard Passenger Liners; including current lodges that exercise their travelling warrants by meeting on a motor yacht, to a lodge of a known European Constitution that meets on
a cross-channel ferry!
The Sailors and the Freemasonry ": the interest of a new object of research for masonic historiography.
Eric Saunier, France
This proposition of communication has for objective to present the interest and the lessons of a research engaged from the report of the success and the originality of the masonic sociability among the "sailors" of the ports of Ponant. It will be developed in three time successive.
I. The first one will consist in presenting the interests, historiographically and methodologically, of an approach based on the elaboration then the exploitation of a file of 3000 freemasons. In a context marked by the increasing interest of the historians of the Freemasonry for the historic sociology, while the studies privileged the work on the masonic elites, this research presents the interest to concern a constituent of the "middle class", the "middle class" which was the main pool of recruitment of the French Lodges. Methodologically, the file, by its conception (index cards prioritizing the collection of the family and professional information and the links "interchanging Lodges" which entail the movements of the sailors) also allows to show the efficiency of the "prosopographie" applied to the history of the freemasonry.
The second part of the communication aims, from the presentation of the obtained profits, at showing the way the reappropriation of the masonic sociability by the sailors answers not only usual motivations (as "the mutual aid" and the "reception") aggravated by their difficult way of life but also in the possibility given to the masonic institutions to use these last ones to make the privileged regulators of the tensions which get the colonial Lodges.
The third part will be dedicated to a reflection on the attitude of the group of the sailors implied by the trade with the Antilles. The study of the traders and the captains of ship who were the actors of this business indeed allows to underline that if the attraction for the freemasonry bases on the mutual interest linking the masonic institutions and the sailors (part2), the passage of these last ones in the colonial Lodges deeply transformed their thought. By means of their journeys and missions of regulation the load of which they had, their ideas knew a transformation which increased the turbulences which attained the Order in spite of the project of instrumentalisation this population of which was the object.
PLENARY LECTURE 5:
'TINSEL AND GLITTER AND HIGH-SOUNDING TITLE': THINKING ABOUT FREEMASONRY IN THE AGE OF ROBERT BURNS
Andrew Prescott, Lampeter , UK HALL
While the popular reputation of Robert Burns has continued to grow, academic interest in him has waned considerably over the past fifty years. This is partly a problem of categorization; Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Keats were profoundly influenced by Burns but scholarly critics have been unwilling to see Burns as a representative of Romanticism. Burns has diminished into a mere national symbol. The same difficulties of categorization appear when considering Burns as a freemason. He has been repeatedly used as an emblem of Scottish Freemasonry but his relationship to the wider development of Freemasonry has not been considered. This lecture will attempt to locate Burns in the context of the wider development of Freemasonry in the second half of the eighteenth century. Burns emerges from such an analysis as a pivotal figure. In his commitment to a sociable village-based freemasonry with strong benefit-based traditions, he harks back to the oldest forms of sociability. Yet in other respects Burns anticipates later developments in Freemasonry, particularly in articulating new ideas of new national and social identity. Burns did not live to confront the dilemmas faced by his fellow Scottish mason John Robison (from whom the epigram in the title to this lecture is taken) who was disturbed by the appearance of more elaborate forms of Masonic organization and felt the need to denounce Freemasonry. Nevertheless, Burns encapsulates many of the tensions and difficulties confronted by Freemasonry as it changed from being a vehicle of the Enlightenment to an expression of more Romantic sensibilities.
