A Masonic legend about the builders of Solomon’s Temple is that of Hiram of Tyre, master builder. According to the apocryphal book The Wisdom of Solomon, Hiram supervised the construction of the Temple and personally made two brass pillars, called Jachim and Boaz.10Hiram was supposedly murdered by other masons who wanted him to reveal the secrets of the Mason Word. As late as 1851, a manual for Freemasons states that both Solomon and Hiram, now a “King of Tyre,” were the originators of the society.11
These legends were all part of what is called “operative” masonry, that is, guilds of those who actually had the skill to work in stone. Many of these legends became part of the traditions and symbols of “speculative” masonry, or lodges made up of people from other walks of life.12
But how did it happen that a traditional trade guild became the base for an organization that has included many artists, composers, noblemen, heads of corporations, and heads of state?
SCOTLAND, WILLIAM SCHAW, AND THE LORDS OF ROSLIN
Late-sixteenth-century Scotland was ruled by James VI, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who would soon become James I of England. One of the posts in his government was that of master of works, held by a well-born man who oversaw the finances and administration of all building projects. In 1583 the post went to one William Schaw.13
Schaw was a Catholic in a newly Protestant country but he seems to have been able to keep his beliefs from threatening anyone at court. It was Schaw who, in 1598, first wrote down a set of statutes to be followed by “all master masons of the realm.”14 These statutes, mostly regarding admission of apprentices and the chain of authority within the lodges, were agreed to by the master masons. Some of the individual mason marks were recorded and the first mention is made of the Mason Word, the system by which one mason might recognize another.
The following year Schaw expanded the statutes to include the duties of the master masons in training apprentices not only in the craft but in the “art of memory and the science thereof.”15 This indicates not only a rote lesson to be learned but a system of remembering to master.
The reason for Schaw’s insistence on these uniform statutes is not clear. He seems to have felt strongly that the independent lodges needed organization. He also felt that they needed a patron, much as the Roman guilds had had.16 For this position, he selected William Sinclair, the lord of Roslin. Again, this is puzzling. William was descended from the earl who had built Rosslyn Chapel and there might have been a residual fondness for the man who had given the masons such an elaborate commission. But this William was a dissolute Catholic who couldn’t tell the local Protestant authorities if his latest bastard had been baptized but had had at least one christened a Catholic. He also staunchly resisted attempts by the local authorities to destroy the artwork in the chapel. While he had employed masons to build his home, he doesn’t seem a good advocate for the lodges at court. However, in 1601, a charter was drawn up making William Sinclair patron of the masons.
A copy of this charter is preserved at Rosslyn Chapel, which is where I read it. It is clear that the masons are not following an established tradition of patronage from Rosslyn but asking for a totally new arrangement. There is no implication in the document that it is anything other than a normal request for a nobleman to advocate for a group that doesn’t have much political power.
It doesn’t appear that this William Sinclair was of much use to the masons. However, his son, also named William, took the charge more seriously. He issued another charter, giving himself legal jurisdiction over the masons. By 1697, the lords of Roslin were allowed to be taught the Mason Word.17
There is still a leap that must be made from lodges of operative masons to ritualized meetings of Enlightenment intellectuals.
The creation of Freemasonry from guilds of masons seems to have come about through a number of social and political forces that happened to converge. In Scotland throughout the seventeenth century upper-class men had been asking to join the mason lodges and been accepted. Perhaps they were allowed in because they could afford a good initiation banquet or because some of the masons were pleased to be able to rub shoulders with the nobility.
It seems to have been a fad for a time, but most of these men soon dropped out. Historian David Stevenson suggests that they might have joined thinking that they were going to learn some esoteric, magical lore and were disappointed.18
There have always been those who were obsessed with the uncovering of ancient secrets. It is a thread that runs through all societies. But the period from about 1580 to 1750 seems to have had a larger number of seekers than usual. It was a time of intellectual inquiry both in the matter of religious truth and about the natural world. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation had left many people in doubt about the truth of any one religion. The increased belief in the malevolence of witchcraft had a flip side in those who wished to seek enlightenment from divine sources, not necessarily Christian. If one could obtain power from Satan then there must be other ways to reveal the mysteries of the universe without going so far as to sell one’s soul.
This was also the time that the Rosicrucian books were circulating and people like Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle were experimenting with both chemistry and alchemy and making little distinction between the two. Even the Royal Society in England began with a group of friends meeting for clandestine discussions on alchemical subjects.19
It was in this atmosphere that the first English lodges arose at the beginning of the eighteenth century. While using many of the symbols and the basic myth of the origin of the masons guild, the English soon added rituals based on their research into alchemy, Neoplatonism, and Hermetic teaching. By 1720 Freemasonry had spread to France and then to Germany and the rest of Europe. “Rather than saying that Freemasonry was born out of the Guild of Masons, it might be more helpful to say that learned men who wished to work together and exchange ideas adopted the symbolism and structures used by working masons.”20
ENTER THE TEMPLARS
The reader may have noticed that I haven’t yet made a connection between the Masons and the Templars. I’m tempted to say that it’s because there isn’t any but that wouldn’t be fair. Actually, the use of the Templars as an example for the Masons can only be traced back to 1750, when Baron Karl von Hund invented the “Templar Strict Observance.” In order to legitimize his creation, he claimed that it was “by way of uninterrupted transmission, the successor of the Knight Templars [sic], whose existence had been carried on secretly up to that date.”21
Von Hund derived his ideas from the Scottish connection, although it’s not known where he got his information. “It is claimed that before his execution, the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, assigned Hugo von Salm, a canon, the mission of smuggling important Templar documents into Scotland.”22 Now, Hugo von Salm seems to have been a knight who came to the defense of the Templars in Poland.23 There is no indication that he was ever in France and certainly not at the time of the dissolution because he was defending Templars in Poland then. There is even less evidence that he ever went to Scotland.
Now the Templars were regaining popularity in newly Protestant eighteenth-century Europe. Instead of being seen as greedy bastards who may or may not have been heretics but good riddance all the same, they were seen as the persecuted keepers of lost esoteric information. After all, if the pope hated them, they must be okay. The idea caught on.
My feeling is that the image of the Knights of the Temple fit in well with the mystical secret societies that developed during the (self-named) Enlightenment. The best part of it was that so many of the Templar records had been lost or destroyed that there wasn’t any problem with hard facts getting in the way of the myth. It was rather like the secret societies that based their philosophy on their interpretation of hieroglyphics. When the Rosetta stone was discovered in Egypt and the hieroglyphics finally deciphered, it was a terrible setback for them.
Today no reputable historian of the Freemasons believes that t
he group was founded by Templars or by Solomon’s master mason. Furthermore, most Masonic lodges encourage serious inquiry into Masonic history. “The results may upset some masons, but it would be unthinkable for a Mason to be suspended or dropped from membership for investigating Masonic degrees and believing that they had relatively modern origins.”24
The problem is that there a large number of non-Masons who don’t know this. And they are busy writing pseudohistory.
MASONIC SYMBOLS
The most universal symbol of the Freemasons is the compass and square, used by operative masons everywhere. Another, found in every lodge of Speculative Masons, is the pillars of the Temple. The names given to these two pillars are Boaz and Jachim, thought to have been the original Mason’s Word.25 In the American York Rite these pillars are thought to be hollow to hide archives and other documents.
Another symbol that seems to be common to all Speculative Masonic lodges is three pillars, signifying wisdom, strength, and beauty. The mason’s apron and gloves are also universal.
Many plants have symbolic meaning in Masonic lore, the acacia, rose, lily, and olive tree among them.26 The star and the pentangle are both used frequently. Indeed, it would be hard to find anything that couldn’t be read as a symbol by Masons. “The first degree initiation ritual, that of Entered Apprentice, states: ‘Here, all is symbol.’ ”27
On the other hand, the Templars had few symbols. The only one I am certain of is the image of two riders on one horse. Some of the Templars’ seals showed the dome of the Holy Sepulcher. Even the order’s banner was simply one white and one black square. They really weren’t symbol-minded. They just got on with their work.
MODERN MASONRY
Today Masons can be of almost any religion, including Catholic, despite the Catholic Church’s eighteenth-century ban on joining, or no religion at all. There are lodges that include both men and women and some that are single sex. The French, by the way, were the first to admit women into an auxiliary organization, called adoptive masonry, around 1740.28
Listing famous Masons would be a book in itself. It would include most American presidents; kings of England, Sweden, and other countries; and Winston Churchill, Tomás Garrigue Masaryk, Voltaire, Goethe, Kipling, Mark Twain, Davy Crockett, Duke Ellington, and Houdini, to name a few.29 Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute is full of Masonic references.
Like the Templars, the Freemasons have been accused of subversive activities, including trying to control elections and exerting pressure to ruin personal enemies. In some times and places this may have been true. In Oregon in 1922, the Scottish Rite Masons joined in with the Ku Klux Klan to sponsor a bill to abolish private schools and insist that all children attend public schools.30 The target of the bill was the Catholic school system, where many immigrant children from Catholic countries were being educated. The governor, Walter Pierce, had agreed to support the bill in return for the support of the Masons and the Klan, who had many members in common.31
The law passed, but was challenged and went to the Supreme Court, where it was ruled unconstitutional.
In this case Masons who were also Klansmen spoke for the entire group and did indeed influence an election. Today, most Masons would be horrified at the association with the KKK. They would point out that this was not typical Masonic behavior. They might even deny that such a thing ever happened.
It’s difficult to confirm or deny such allegations because of the nature of the organization. Groups with private initiation rites and a cultivated aura of secrecy seem to bring out the worst suspicions in outsiders. The Freemasons are entitled to have secret ritual and rites, but instead of maintaining that they come from ancient Templar knowledge, they might pay more attention to what the Templars’ secrecy about their initiation ceremonies led to.
1Arthur Edward Waite, A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (New York: Wings Books, 1996) p. 53.
2Steven A. Epstein, Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991) p. 11.
3Ibid., p. 17.
4 Ibid., p. 18.
5Ibid., p. 35.
6David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century 1590-1710. (Cambridge University Press, 1988) p. 43.
7Ibid., p. 9.
8Loc. cit.
9Ibid., pp. 19-21.
10Waite, p. 367.
11K. J. Stewart, Freemason’s Manual (Philadelphia: E. H. Butler, A.L. 5851 A.D. 1851) p. 15.
12Waite, p. 141.
13Stevenson, p. 26. Unless otherwise stated, the following is a summery of Stevenson’s work.
14Ibid., p. 34.
15Ibid., p. 45.
16Although it’s doubtful that Schaw was aware of the Roman custom.
17Ibid., p. 60.
18Ibid., pp. 77-85.
19Newton.
20Daniel Béresniak, Symbols of Freemasonry, tr. Ian Monk (Barnes & Noble, 2003) p. 16.
21Antoine Faivre, “The Notions of Concealment and Secrecy in Modern Esoteric Currents since the Renaissance (A Methodological Approach),” in Rending the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History of Religion, ed. Elliot R. Wolfson (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 1999) p. 162.
22Glenn Alexander Magee, Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001) p. 54.
23www.templariusze.org/artykuly.php?id=27 “Moguncji zrobił to osobiście preceptor z Grumbach, Hugo von Salm wraz z dwudziestoma uzbrojonymi rycerzami.” Okay, my Polish is rough. He might have been the preceptor of Grumbach, but I think it says that Moguncji was preceptor. For more see chapter 35, The Trials outside of France.
24Paul Rich and David Merchant, “Religion, Policy and Secrecy: The Latter-Day Saints and Masons,” in Policy Studies Journal Vol. 31, No. 4 (2003).
25Stevenson, p. 143.
26Robert Macoy, A Dictionary of Freemasonry (New York: Gramercy Books,) pp. 403, 579, 604-5; Waite, for Rose, pp. 369-71; Béresniak, pp. 75, 78-80.
27Béresniak, p. 8.
28Waite, p. 97.
29Béresniak, p. 114.
30Paula Abrahams, “The Little Red Schoolhouse: Pierce, State Monopoly of Education and the Politics of Intolerance,” in Constitutional Commentary Vol. 20, No. 1 (2003) p. 617.
31Abrahams, p. 624. She adds, “Many Masons actually ended up opposing the bill.”
Epilogue
One of the many things I learned about the Templars as I researched this book is that, far from being separate from the world they lived in, they were more than part of it. The Templars and Hospitallers were the bridge between western Europe and the City of God. Unlike many other monks, they spent their early lives in the midst of the constant warfare that existed among the lords of Europe. Whatever their reasons for joining the military orders they became examples to the rest of their class. They believed in the use of might for right’s sake. Even though they still fought and killed, it was not for personal gain but to protect the weak and preserve the earthly kingdom of God.
This was the ideal. If they didn’t always measure up to it, they still came close. Those who fought finally had a way to use their skills in battle and still achieve salvation.
Over the two hundred years of the Templars’ existence, Europe changed dramatically. In the early twelfth century, society was governed by families and family connections. The advisers and supporters of a ruler were his cousins and in-laws and brothers. His enemies were sometimes the same, but it was still all a matter of relations. A marriage, a birth, or a death could change the borders of a country. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, governments, especially in northern Europe, were becoming more centralized and bureaucratized. The king’s counselors were more likely to be non-noblemen who owed their positions to their usefulness rather than family ties.
The Templars and their fellow knights of the military orders were part of a frontier society. There were like the cavalry, coming to save the day, or the small band of rangers who protected American pioneer settlers from Indians and evil land baron
s. Eventually, the West was settled, the Indians were defeated; the land barons became state governors. The same sort of thing happened in Europe, only the frontier was lost and its defenders left without a purpose.
Even though in 1307 no one knew that the Holy Land was lost to the crusaders forever, there was still a feeling that the day of the Templars was ending. The small band of brave knights would be replaced by paid armies. Chivalry would become a social game rather than a way of life.
The Knights Templar were not mystics or magicians. They were not a secret society, nor did they have arcane wisdom dug up from hidden treasures. Those who say that they were are denying the real story of these men. They weren’t superhumans but pious, hardworking, flawed human beings who, in their own way, were trying to make the world better and save their own souls.
The thirteenth-century Arab chronicler Ibn Wasil may have written the tribute that the Knights Templar would have liked most. In the fighting against the French army of Louis IX, the Mamluks of al-Malik al-Salih were the bravest, fiercest warriors. “They fought furiously,” he writes. “It was they who flung themselves into the pursuit of the enemy: they were Islam’s Templars!”1
The Real History Behind the Templars Page 42
