The History of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Chapter 10 - The London Companies and the Masons' Company

ABOUT the middle of the 14th century, perhaps a little earlier, and in the reign of Edward III., the various trades began to be reconstituted under the name of Livery Companies and to change their name from Guilds to Crafts and Mysteries. There was, however, very little real difference between their new and their old organization, and the Guild spirit of fraternity remained the same.

There has been a difference of opinion as to the meaning of the word "Mystery," which was applied to these companies in such phrases as "the Mystery of the Tailors," or "the Mystery of the Saddlers."

Herbert says that the preservation of their trade-secrets was a primary ordination of all the fraternities, and continued their leading law as long as they remained actual "working companies," whence arose the names of "Mysteries" and "Crafts," by which they were for so many ages designated. (1)

This derivation is a reasonable one, especially when we remember that the word "craft," which was always associated with the word "mystery" in its primitive usage, signified art, knowledge, or skill.

But this explanation has not been universally accepted, and the word "Mystery," in its application to a trade or handicraft, has more generally been derived from the old or Norman French, where mestiere was used to denote a craft, art, or employment. There is no certainty, however, that the word was not employed to denote the trade-secrets of a Guild or Company, as Herbert suggests. If mestiere denoted, in old French, a trade, mestre meant, in the same language, a mystery, and the former word may have been de-

(1) "History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies," vol. i., P. 45.

rived from the latter. But the modern Masons, in borrowing the word "Mystery" from the old companies, where they find their origin, undoubtedly use it in the sense of something hidden or concealed.

The origin of the livery and other companies out of the earlier Guilds is a matter of historical record.

Guilds, it has been already shown, existed in England from a very early period, but, as all tradesmen and artificers did not belong to Guilds, or, if they did, often acted irregularly in buying and selling a variety of wares or working in different handicrafts, a petition was presented to Parliament in the year 1355, in consequence of which it was enacted that all artificers and "people of mysteries" should choose forthwith each his own mystery, and, having chosen it, should thenceforth use no other.

It is here that we may assign the origin of the chartered companies, many of which exist to the present day, and among whom we shall find at a lake period the Masons' Company, which was the direct predecessor of the Masons' Lodges, both of the Operative before and the Speculative after the beginning of the 18th century.

In a document found in the records of the City of London, of the date of 1364, and which has been published by Mr. Herbert, (1) we find the names of the principal, if not the whole of the city companies, which were in existence in that year. This document is an account, in Latin, of the sums received by the city chamberlain from those companies as gifts to the King, to aid him in carrying on the war with France.

The list records the names of thirty-two companies. Though we find several Craft Guilds, such as the Tailors, the Glovers, the Armourers, and the Goldsmiths, there is no mention of a Guild or Company of Masons. Whether such a body did not then exist as a chartered company, or whether, if in existence, it was too poor to make a contribution, which seems to have been a voluntary act, are questions which the document gives us no means of deciding.

Five years afterward, in 1369, a law was enacted by the municipal authorities of London, which must have tended to encourage the organization of these Companies. By this law the right of election of all city dignitaries, and all officers, including members of

(1) "History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies," vol. i., p. 30.

Parliament, was transferred from the representatives of the wards, who had hitherto exercised this franchise, to the trading companies. A few members of each of these were selected by the Masters and Wardens, who were to repair to Guildhall for election purposes. This right has ever since remained, with some subsequent modifications in the twelve Livery Companies of London.

The effect of this law in increasing the number of Companies very speedily showed itself. In a list in Norman French of the "number of persons chosen by the several mysteries to be the Common Council" in the year 1370, it appears that the Companies had increased from thirty-two to forty-eight.

In this list we find the seventeenth to be the Company of Freemasons, and the thirty-fourth the Company of Masons. The former appears to have been a more select, or at least a smaller, Company than the latter, for while the Masons sent four members to the Common Council the Freemasons sent only two. Afterward the two Companies were merged into one, that of the Masons, to which I shall hereafter again revert.

The constitution and government of these Companies appear to have been framed very much after the model of the earlier Guilds.

They had the power of making their own by-laws or ordinances, and of enforcing their observance among their members. These ordinances were called "Points." The word is first used in the charters of Edward III., who wills that the said ordinances shall be kept and maintained en touz pointz, or "in all points." We find the same word in the Constituciones Geometric in the Halliwell MS., where the ordinances are divided into fifteen articles and fifteen points. It is also met with in all subsequent constitutions. As a technical term the word is preserved in the Speculative Masonry of to-day, whose obligations of duty are to be obeyed by initiates into the fraternity in all their "arts, parts, and points." these little incidents serve to show the uninterrupted succession of our modern Lodges from the early Guilds and the later Companies which were formed out of them. They are therefore worthy of notice in a history of the rise and progress of Freemasonry.

It has been seen that in the most of the Saxon Guilds the principal officer was called the Alderman. After the Guilds were chartered as Companies, the chief officers received the title of Masters and Wardens, titles still retained in the government of Masonic Lodges.

The ordinances required that there should be held four meetings in every year to treat of the common business of the Company. These were the quarterly meetings to which reference is made by Dr. Anderson when, in his History of the Revival of Masonry, in the year 1717, he says that "the quarterly communication of the officers of the Lodges" was revived.

The regulation of apprentices formed an important part of the system pursued by the Companies. No one was admitted to the freedom or livery of any Company unless he had first served an apprenticeship, which was generally for the period of seven years. And even then he could not be admitted into the fellowship except with the consent of the members. Masters were not permitted to take more than a certain number of apprentices, lest the trade or art should be overstocked with workmen and the journeymen or fellows find less opportunity for employment.

Care was taken that one member should not undersell another member, or work for a less amount of pay or interfere with his contracts for labour. It was the duty of the Company to protect the interests of all alike.

There were judicious regulations for the settlement of disputes between the members, so as to avoid the necessity of a resort to law. The spirit of the early Guild was in this exactly followed. "If any debate is between any of the fraternity," says an ordinance of one of these Companies, "for misgovernance of words or asking of debt or any other things, then anon the party plaintiff shall come to the Master and tell his grievance and the Master shall make an end thereof." (1)

To speak disrespectfully of the Company; to strike or insult a brother member; to violate the regulations for clothing or dress; to employ or work with men who were not free of the Company, and who were generally designated as "foreigners," or to commit any kind of fraud in carrying on the trade or handicraft, were all offenses for which the ordinances provided ample punishment.

The feeling of brotherly love exhibited in charity to an indigent or distressed member prevailed in all the Companies. When

(1) "Ordinances of the Company of Grocers," anno 1463.

a member became poor from misfortune or sickness, he was to be assisted out of the common fund.

All of these regulations will be found copied in the Old Constitutions of the Operative Masons a fact which conclusively proves that they were originally a Company following the general usage which had been adopted by the other Companies, whether Trade or Craft, such as the Grocers, the Mercers, the Goldsmiths, or the Tailors.

The subject of "Liveries" is one that will be interesting to the Speculative Freemason, from the rule with which he is familiar, that a Mason, on entering his Lodge, must be "properly clothed." The word "clothing" here indicates the dress which he should wear, especially and imperatively including his "lambskin apron."

We have the very important and very authentic evidence of the fact that secret societies existed in the 14th century, marked by all the peculiarities we have seen distinguishing the English Companies.

In the year 1326 the Council of Avignon fulminated what has been caged the "Statute of Excommunications," its title being "Concerning the Societies, Unions and Confederacies called Confraternities, which are to be utterly extirpated."

This statute is contained in Hardouin's immense collection of the arts of Councils. (1) The following is a part of the preamble, and it shows very clearly that the Church at that time recognized and condemned the existence of those Guilds, Companies, or Societies for mutual help, some of which were the precursors of the modern Ma. sonic Lodges, against which the Romish Church exhibits the same hostility.

The statute passed at Avignon commences as follows:

"Whereas, in certain parts of our provinces, noblemen for the most part, and sometimes other persons have established unions, societies and confederacies, which are interdicted by the canon as well as by the municipal laws, who congregate in some place once a year, under the name of a confraternity, and there establish assemblies and unions and enter into a compact confirmed by an oath that they will mutually aid each other against all persons whomsoever, their own lords excepted, and in every case, that each one will

(1) "Acta Conciliorum et Epistolae Decretales ae Constitutiones Summorum Pontificum," Paris, 1714, tome vii, p. 1,507

give to another, help, counsel and favour; and sometimes all wearing a similar dress with certain curious signs or marks, they elect one of their number as chief to whom they swear obedience in all things."

The decree then proceeds to denounce these confraternities, and to forbid all persons to have any connection with them under the penalty of excommunication. And here again is a pointed reference to the subject of livery:

"They shall not institute confraternities of this kind; one shall not give obedience nor afford assistance or favour to another; nor shall they wear clothing which exhibits the signs or marks of the condemned thing."

That the medieval Masons wore a particular dress when at work, which was the same in all countries, is evident from the plates in several illuminated manuscripts from the 10th to the 16th centuries, copies of which have been inserted by Mr. Wright in his essay on medieval architecture. (1) The dress of the Masons in all these plates, whether in England, in France, or in Italy, is similar. "In reviewing and comparing these various representations," says Mr. Wright, "of the same process at so widely distinct periods, we are struck much less with their diversity than with the close resemblance between both workmen and tools, which continues amid the continual, and sometimes rapid changes in the condition and manners of society. Whether this be in any measure to be attributed to the circumstance of the Masons forming a permanent society among themselves, which transmitted its doctrines and fashions unchanged from father to son, it is not very easy to determine." (2)

The question is not, however, of so difficult a solution as Mr. Wright supposes, when we see that every Guild or Company of tradesmen or artificers had its form of dress peculiar to itself, which was called its "livery." The Masons, as a Company, followed the usage and adopted their own livery or clothing. The modern Speculative Masons preserve the memory of the usage by declaring that none shall enter a Lodge or join in its labours unless he is "property clothed;" that is, wears the livery of the fraternity.

According to the authority of Stow, in his Survey of London, liveries are not mentioned as having been worn before the reign of

(1) "Essays on Archaeological Subjects," vol. ii., pp. 129-2 50. (2) Ibid., p. 136.

Edward I., or about the beginning of the 14th century. That is, they were then first licensed at that time or mentioned in the characters of the Companies, but he admits that they had assumed them before that time without such authority. And this is confirmed by the illuminated manuscripts to which allusion has been made above, which show that the Masons used a particular clothing as far back as the 10th century.

In the "Statute of Excommunications," passed in the beginning of the 14th century by the Council of Avignon, societies or confraternities are denounced which had been established for mutual aid, and which are described as "all wearing a similar dress with certain curious signs or marks."

About the middle of the 14th century there began a separation between the wealthier and the more indigent Companies, which ended after a long contention in the exclusion from the municipal government of all except what are now called "The Twelve Great Livery Companies," namely, the Companies of Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Merchant Tailors, Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, Vintners, and Clothworkers. These Companies, as distinguished by wealth, by political power and commercial importance from the minor Companies, which were often only voluntary associations of men of the same trade or craft, were called the "substantial companies," the "principal crafts," the "chief mysteries," and other similar titles which were intended to imply their superiority, though many of the so-called " minor companies," as the weavers and bakers, were really of greater antiquity, of more public utility and importance.

Among these "minor companies," the one of especial importance to the present inquiry is the "Masons' Company."

Of this Company, Stow gives the following account in his Survey of London:

"The Masons, otherwise termed free masons, were a society of ancient standing and good reckoning, by means of affable and kind meetings divers times and as a loving brotherhood should use to do, did frequent their mutual assemblies in the time of King Henry IV. in the 12th year of whose most gracious reign they were incorporated."

A fuller account of the Company is given by Chiswell in the, New View of London, printed in 1708, in the following words:

"Masons' Company was incorporated about the year 1410 having been called the Free Masons, a fraternity of great account, who have been honoured by several Kings, and very many of the Nobility and Gentry being of their Society. They are governed by a Master, 2 Wardens, 25 Assistants, and there are 65 on the Livery.

"Their armorial ensigns are, Azure, on a Chevron Argent, between 3 Castles Argent, a pair of Compasses, somewhat extended, of the first Crest, a Castle of the 2nd." (1)

The Hall of the Company, in which they held their meetings, was "situated in Masons Ally in Basinghall street as you pass to Coleman street." (2)

Maitland, who published his London and its Environs in 1761, gives a later date for the charter. He says that "this Company had their arms granted by Clarencieux, King-at-Arms in 1477, though the members were not incorporated by letters patent till they obtained them from King Charles II. in 1677." (3)

The conflict in dates between Stow, with whom Chiswell agrees, and Maitland, the former ascribing the charter of the Company to Henry IV., in 1410, and the latter to Charles II., in 1677, may be reconciled by supposing that the original charter of Henry was submitted to a review and confirmation, which was technically caged an "inspeximus," an act which we constantly meet with in old charters. In other words, the Masons first received a charter for their Company from Henry IV. in 1410, which charter was confirmed by Charles II. in 1677.

These Companies of traders and craftsmen were not confined to London, but were to be found in other cities. The Masons, however, do not appear to have always maintained a separate organization, but seem sometimes to have united with other craftsmen. Thus among the thirteen Companies which were incorporated in the city of Exeter, the thirteenth consisted of the Painters, Joiners, Carpenters, Masons, and Glaziers, who were jointly incorporated into a Company in 1602. It may be remarked that all of these crafts were connected in the employment of building. Each, however, had its separate arms, that of the Masons being described by Izacke in

(1) "New View of London," vol. ii., p. 611. (2) Ibid (3) "London and its Environs," vol. iv., p.304

his Antiquities of Exeter thus: "Sable, on a chevron between 3 towers argent, a pair of Compasses, dilated Sable." (1) This will be an appropriate place to examine this subject of the Masonic Arms as historically connecting the Operative Craft with the Speculative Grand Lodge.

According to Stow, the Arms of the "Craft and Fellowship of Masons" of London were granted to them by William Hawkeslowe, Clarencieux King-of-Arms in the twelfth year of Edward IV., that is, in 1473, and were subsequently confirmed by Thomas Benott, Clarencieux King-of-Arms in the twelfth year of Henry VIII., or in 1521. These arms, which are blazoned in the original grant, now in the British Museum, are as follows: "Sable, on a chevron, engrailed argent between 3 castles of the second, with doors and windows of the field, a pair of compasses extended of the first." Translating the technical language of heraldry, the arms may be plainly described as a silver or white scalloped chevron, between three white castles with black doors and windows on a black field, and on the chevron a pair of compasses of a black colour. Woodford says that these arms are supposed to have been adopted by the Grand Lodge of Speculative Masons in 1717. Kloss gives the same arms, except that the chevron is not scalloped (engrailed), but plain, as the seal of the Grand Lodge of England in 1743 and in 1767. The arms adopted by the Grand Lodge of England at the union in 1813, and still used, consist of a combination of the old Operative arms (the colours being, however, changed) with those of the Athol Grand Lodge, which are impaled. But as the latter arms were most probably an invention of Dermott, they are of no historical value.

From all this we see, so far as heraldry throws a light on history, that the English Speculative Masons have to the present day claimed to deduce their origin from the Operative Masons who were incorporated as a Company in the 15th century. They claimed to be their heirs, and according to the law of heraldry assumed their arms.

To assume the subject of the Masons' Companies, we have no records of the existence of those organizations under that name in more than a few places in England.

(1) "Remarkable Antiquities of the City of Exeter." By Richard Izacke, heretofore chamberlain thereof. Second edition, London, 1724, p. 68.

But the Masons seem often to combine with other Guilds for purposes of convenience. Several instances of this kind occur in old records, as in an appendix to the charter of the Guild of Carpenters of Norwich, begun in 1375, where it is stated that "Robert of Elfynghem, Masoun, and certeyn Masouns of Norwiche " had contributed two torches or lights for the altar of Christ's Church at Norwich. Now, as that church was the place where the Carpenters' Guild celebrated their mass, and as the fact of the contribution is noted in their charter, it is reasonable to suppose that the Masons, having no Guild or Company of their own in Norwich, had united in religious services with the carpenters.

The impossibility of obtaining any continuous narrative of the transactions of the Masons' Company, which was one of the forty companies of London mentioned by Stow, must render many of the deductions which may be drawn from certain portions of the Harleian MS. altogether conjectural. The probability or correctness of the conjecture will have to be determined by the reason and judgment of the reader.

The Masonic public has in its possession at this day, and easily accessible by any student, some twenty or thirty documents printed from manuscripts ranging in date from the end of the 14th to the beginning of the 18th century. These documents are usually denominated "Masonic Constitutions." A very few of them were known to Dr. Anderson, and he has given inaccurate quotations from them in both of his editions of the Book of Constitutions. But for the greater number, new until a recent period, to the world, we are indebted to the researches of Masonic archaeologists, by whose unpaid industry they have been unearthed, as we may say, from the shelves of the British Museum, from the archives of old Lodges, or from the libraries of private collectors.

But though we possess transcripts of these Constitutions correctly made from the original manuscripts, there is nothing on record to tell us by whom they were written, nor under what authority. Internal evidence alone assures that they are all, except the first two, copies of some original not yet found, and that they contain the legend or traditionary history of Freemasonry which was believed and the laws and regulations which were obeyed by the Operative Masons who lived from the 15th to the 18th century, if not some centuries before.

To make any conjecture as to the source whence they have emanated and for what purpose they were written, we must recapitulate what little we know of the history of the Masons' Company of London.

The Masons' Company was incorporated, according to Chiswell, in the year 1410, or thereabouts, by King Henry IV., which charter was renewed by Charles II. in 1677, I suppose by an "inseximus" or confirmation of the original charter, as was usual.

But we know from the list contained in the records of the city of London, and published by Herbert, which has already been referred to, that in the year 1379, in the reign of Edward III., there were in London a company of Freemasons and a company of Masons, the former of which sent two and the latter four members to the Common Council of the city. These two were wholly distinct from each other, but Stow tells us that at a subsequent period they united together and were merged into one Company.

What was the difference between these two Companies, is a question that will naturally be asked, and which can not very easily be answered.

My own conjecture, and it is merely a conjecture, though I think not an unplausible one, is that the Company of Freemasons was the representative in England of that body of Travelling Freemasons who had spread, under the auspices of the Church, over every country of Europe, and whose history will constitute hereafter an important portion of the present work; while the Company of Masons was the representative of the general body of the Craft in the kingdom, who had formed themselves into a Guild, Company, or Sodalily, just as the Mercers, the Grocers, the Tailors, the Painters, and other tradesmen and mechanics had done at the same period. The two companies were, however, afterward merged into one, which retained the title of "The Company of Masons."

Each of the Trade and Craft Guilds or Companies kept a book in which was contained its ordinances and a record of its transactions. The language of these books was at first the Norman-French; sometimes, says Herbert, intermixed with abbreviated Latin, or the old English of Chaucer's day. Afterward, during the reign of Henry V., and by his influence, the ordinances were translated into the vernacular language of the period, and the books of the Companies were thereafter kept in English.

We find just such changes in the dialect of the old Masonic Constitutions from the archaic and, to unused ears, almost unintelligible style of the Halliwell poem to the modern English of the later manuscripts.

If the Masonic Company had an historian like Herbert, who would have given a detailed history of its transactions from its origin, as he has done in respect to the twelve Livery Companies of London, we should, I think, have had no difficulty in defining the true character of the Old Constitutions. Many heroes have lived before Agamemnon, but they have died unwept because they had no divine poet to record their deeds. (1) So, too, we are left to dark conjecture in almost all that relates to the early history of the Masonic Craft in their primary Guild-life, for want of an authentic chronicler.

It may, however, be assumed, as a more than plausible conjecture, that there must have been for the Masons' Company a book of records and of their ordinances, just as there were for the other Trade and Craft Companies.

Indeed, Dr. Anderson says, in his second edition, that "the Freemasons had always a book in manuscript called the Book of Constitutions (of which they had several very ancient copies remaining), containing not only their Charges and Regulations, but also the history of architecture from the beginning of time."

Dr. Plot, also, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, tells us that the society of Freemasons "had a large parchment volume amongst them containing the history and rules of the craft of Masonry." And the contents of that volume, as he describes them, accord very accurately with what is contained in the Old Constitutions that are now extant.

We have, then, good reason to believe that the manuscript Constitutions, which consist of the Legend of the Craft and the statutes or Ordinances of the Guild, are all copies of an original contained in the archives of the Company, and which original Anderson says was called the Book of Constitutions.

It is not necessary that we should contend that the title given by Anderson is the right one, or that he had authority for the statement. It is sufficient to believe that there was a book in the archives

(1) Horace, Carm., lib. iv., 9.

of the Masons' Company, as there was a similar book in the archives of the other Companies, and that the manuscript Constitutions, as we now have them, were copied at various times and by different persons from that book.

But it must be evident, to anyone who will carefully collate these manuscripts, that there must have been two originals at least. The Legend of the Craft and the set of ordinances differ so materially in the Halliwell poem from those in the later manuscript as to indicate very clearly that the latter could not have been copied from the former, but must have been derived from some other original.

Now, in 1410 there were, according to the catalogue given by Herbert from the London records, two distinct Companies, that of the Freemasons and that of the Masons. It is very reasonable to conclude that each of these Companies had a Book of Constitutions of its own. If so, the Halliwell Constitutions may have found their original in the Company of Freemasons, and the later manuscripts, so unlike it in form and substance, may have had their original in the Company of Masons.

If, as Findal and some others have supposed, the Halliwell Constitution was of German or Continental origin, the invocation to the Four Crowned Martyrs leading to that supposition, then the fact that this manuscript of Halliwell was copied from the Book of Constitutions of the Company of Freemasons would give colour to the hypothesis which I have advanced, that the Company of Freemasons, as distinguished from that of the Masons in the year 1410, was an offshoot from the sodality of Travelling Freemasons, who, at an earlier period, sprang from the school of Como in Lombardy.

A new charter, or rather, as I suppose, a confirmation of the old one, was granted to the Masons' Company in 1677 by King Charles II. About this time we might look for some changes in the long-used Book of Constitutions of the old Masons' Company, which had been incorporated in 1410, and of which the earlier manuscripts, from the Landsdowne to the Sloane, are exemplars.

Now, just such changes are to be found in the Harleian MS., which has been conjecturally assigned to the approximate date of 1670. An examination of this manuscript will show that it materially differs in several important points from all those that preceded it. Besides the old ordinances, which are much like those in the preceding manuscripts, but couched in somewhat better language, there are in the Harleian MS. fifteen "new articles," as recognizing for the first time a distinction between the Company and the Lodges.

Article 30, which is the fifth of the new articles, is in the following words:

"That for the future the said Society, Company, and Fraternity of Free Masons shall be regulated and governed by one Master and Assembly and Wardens as the said Company shall think fit to choose at every yearly General Assembly."

There are several points in this article which are worthy of attention as throwing light on the condition of the fraternity at that time.

1st. The words for the future imply that there was a change then made in the government of the Society, which must have been different in former times.

2d. The use of the word Company shows that these regulations, or "new articles," were not for the government of Lodges only, but for the whole Company of Masons. The existence of the Masons' Company is here for the first time recognized in actual words.

3d. The word "Assembly" is entirely without meaning in its present location, or if there is any meaning it is an absurd one. It can not be supposed that the Company at a General Assembly would choose an Assembly to govern it. Doubtless this is a careless transcription of the original by a copyist, who has written "Assembly" instead of "Assistants." In the charters of the other Companies we frequently see the provision that besides the Master and Warden a certain number of "Assistants" shall be appointed out of the Guild, to aid the former officers by their counsel and advice. For instance, in a charter of the Drapers' Company, after providing for the election of a Master and four Wardens, it is added that there may and shall be constituted and appointed certain others of the Guild "who shall be named assistants of the Guild or fraternity aforesaid, and from that time they shall be assisting and aiding to the Master and Wardens in the causes, matters, business, and things whatsoever touching or concerning the said Masters and Wardens."

Now, as assistants formed no part of the government of a Lodge, but were common in the Livery Companies, it is evident

(1) See the Charter in Herbert's "Twelve Great Livery Companies," vol. i., p. 487.

that the article under consideration, and therefore that the Harleian MS., in which it is contained, were copied from the Book of the Masons' Company.

4th. This article decides the fact that there was at that day a "yearly assembly" of the Company. We are not, however, to infer that this "yearly assembly" of the Masons' Company constituted, as some of our earlier histories have supposed, a Grand Lodge. If so, as the Master of the Company must necessarily have presided over the General Assembly, he would have been its Grand Master, and as there were other Masons' Companies in other parts of England, there would have been several Grand Lodges as well as several Grand Masters, all of which is unsupported by any historical authority. Indeed, neither the words "Grand Master" nor "Grand Lodge" are to be met with in any of the Old Constitutions, from the Halliwell MS. onward to the latest. Both titles seem to have come into use at the time of what is called the Revival, in 1717, and not before.

There are some other articles in this Harleian MS. that are worthy of attention, as showing the condition and the usages of the Craft in the 17th century, and which will be again referred to when that subject is under consideration in a subsequent chapter.

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