Paul Naudon - The Secret History of Freemasonry, Its Origins and Connection to the Knights

Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Part 1: The Origins of Freemasonry from
Ancient Times to the Middle Ages
1 The Ancient Corporations:
Colleges of Builders in Rome 4
2 The Collegia and the Barbarian Invasions 18
3 Ecclesiastical and Monastic Associations 34
4 Secular Brotherhoods:
The Germanic and Anglo-Saxon Guilds 51
5 The Crusades and the Templars 62
6 The Templars, the Francs Metiers, and Freemasonry 81
7 The Templars and the Parisian Builders 102
Part 2. From the Art of Building
to the Art of Thinking
8 Mason Corporations in France 146
9 Builders Corporations in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland 168
10 The Corporative Masonry of Great Britain 180
11 Universal Freemasonry 205
12 Speculative Freemasonry 221
13 The Grand Lodges and Modern Freemasonry 247
Conclusion 270
Notes 278
Index 293
Preface
I state with all modesty, and without presuming to underestimate
the value of preceding works on the subject, that to date there has been
no truly scientific history of the origins of Freemasonry and that such a
study is totally justified.
A number of valuable works on the history of Freemasonry have in
fact been published since the appearance of the grand lodges at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. Indeed, they have flourished in
such number since the end of the Second World War that we can now
hail the birth of a new discipline, which we might call masonology.
Nevertheless, operative freemasonry, which preceded this modern
Freemasonry* and which is its source, has not been the beneficiary of
such extensive examination. Those who have dealt with the origins of
* [The term operative freemasonry as used throughout this book refers to freemasonry
in its original form, as represented by brotherhoods of builders. It is opposed in this
study by the term speculative Freemasonry, having to do with those organizations that
emerged in the seventeenth century divorced from the worker and the meaning of his tra-
dition and made up of "accepted" Masons. Throughout this book and especially in part 2,
the author strives to make a strong distinction between speculative Freemasonry and the
operative freemasonry that is its origin and between more or less "accepted" Masons
and those craftsmen—masons—who actually practiced the building crafts. To make
these distinctions clearer, an upper case F and M are used to distinguish speculative and
modern Freemasonry and Freemasons/Masons and a lower case f and m are used to refer
to operative or original freemasonry/masonry and freemasons/masons. —Editor]
viii PREFACE
the order—for how can anyone claim to discuss this subject without
touching upon this question?—have largely contributed insights only to
the various fragmentary aspects their individual studies may have
addressed. Far too often these studies have consisted of only an iso-
lated, contemporary, and literal reading of documents with which most
students of this subject are already familiar. Symbolism, which is the
capital rule of Freemasonry, has often been either systematically over-
looked or cursorily addressed on the broader historical plane. Some
scholars have even believed Freemasonry's symbolism and history to be
two separate domains, while others, conversely, have confused symbol-
ism and history, boiling down both to a single reduction and seeking to
deduce the meaning of one from the other. The veil formed by these
symbols—words, figures, and signs— has concealed the structures and
realities from them.
We must hasten to pay a well-deserved homage to this research,
however, specifically to the remarkable works published since 1886 by
the London Study Lodge Quatuor Coronati no. 2076, which has
brought to light a significant number of old, specifically British docu-
ments. Myriad brilliant authors have applied themselves to the presen-
tation and analysis of these texts, including R. F. Gould, D. Knoop, G.
P. Jones, D. Hamer, Lionel Vibert, F. L. Pick, G. N. Knight. Harry Carr,
and John Hamil. Their works are quite valuable for their probity, the
precision of their notes, and their observations relevant to the factual
study of the beginnings of Freemasonry in Great Britain.
This intellectual harvest has encouraged me to intensify the search for
a way to better situate the masonic institution and its origins in their gen-
eral historical and structural context, especially given that the facts
related to the institution are inseparable from the social context, mind-
sets, and motivations surrounding it. Further, while modern Freemasonry
has grown directly from an exclusively British framework, its origins and
development extend far beyond Great Britain and that nation's history in
both time and space, a fact that deserves some exploration.
My investigations on this subject have been quite extensive. I have
made a point of attending to findings made in earlier works, incorpo-
rating those opinions whose premises were supported with proof.
Research based on historical sources in all their complexity has been my
Pr...