the travelling freemasons of the middle ages.
the first of these points to which i refer is the establishment of a body of architects, widely disseminated throughout europe during the middle ages under the avowed name of travelling freemasons. this association of workmen, said to have been the descendants of the temple masons, may be traced by the massive monuments of their skill at as early a period as the ninth or tenth century; although, according to the authority of mr. hope, who has written elaborately on the subject, some historians have found the evidence of their existence in the seventh century, and have traced a peculiar masonic language in the reigns of charlemagne of france and alfred of england.
it is to these men, to their preeminent skill in architecture, and to their well-organized system as a class of workmen, that the world is indebted for those magnificent edifices which sprang up in such undeviating principles of architectural form during the middle ages.
"wherever they came," says mr. hope, "in the suite of missionaries, or were called by the natives, or arrived of their own accord, to seek employment, they appeared headed by a chief surveyor, who governed the whole troop, and named one man out of every ten, under the name of warden, to overlook the nine others, set themselves to building temporary huts35 for their habitation around the spot where the work was to be carried on, regularly organized their different departments, fell to work, sent for fresh supplies of their brethren as the object demanded, and, when all was finished, again raised their encampment, and went elsewhere to undertake other jobs." 36
this society continued to preserve the commingled features of operative and speculative masonry, as they had been practised at the temple of solomon. admission to the community was not restricted to professional artisans, but men of eminence, and particularly ecclesiastics, were numbered among its members. "these latter," says mr. hope, "were especially anxious, themselves, to direct the improvement and erection of their churches and monasteries, and to manage the expenses of their buildings, and became members of an establishment which had so high and sacred a destination, was so entirely exempt from all local, civil jurisdiction, acknowledged the pope alone as its direct chief, and only worked under his immediate authority; and thence we read of so many ecclesiastics of the highest rank—abbots, prelates, bishops—conferring additional weight and respectability on the order of freemasonry by becoming its members—themselves giving the designs and superintending the construction of their churches, and employing the manual labor of their own monks in the edification of them."
thus in england, in the tenth century, the masons are said to have received the special protection of king athelstan; in the eleventh century, edward the confessor declared himself their patron; and in the twelfth, henry i. gave them his protection.
into scotland the freemasons penetrated as early as the beginning of the twelfth century, and erected the abbey of kilwinning, which afterwards became the cradle of scottish masonry under the government of king robert bruce.
of the magnificent edifices which they erected, and of their exalted condition under both ecclesiastical and lay patronage in other countries, it is not necessary to give a minute detail. it is sufficient to say that in every part of europe evidences are to be found of the existence of freemasonry, practised by an organized body of workmen, and with whom men of learning were united; or, in other words, of a combined operative and speculative institution.
what the nature of this speculative science continued to be, we may learn from that very curious, if authentic, document, dated at cologne, in the year 1535, and hence designated as the "charter of cologne." in that instrument, which purports to have been issued by the heads of the order in nineteen different and important cities of europe, and is addressed to their brethren as a defence against the calumnies of their enemies, it is announced that the order took its origin at a time "when a few adepts, distinguished by their life, their moral doctrine, and their sacred interpretation of the arcanic truths, withdrew themselves from the multitude in order more effectually to preserve uncontaminated the moral precepts of that religion which is implanted in the mind of man."
we thus, then, have before us an aspect of freemasonry as it existed in the middle ages, when it presents itself to our view as both operative and speculative in its character. the operative element that had been infused into it by the dionysiac artificers of tyre, at the building of the solomonic temple, was not yet dissevered from the pure speculative element which had prevailed in it anterior to that period.
