Category: Masonic History

A lo largo de los años la palabra “masón” se ha ido retorciendo a través del tiempo, desde formar organizaciones secretas que son dueñas del mundo hacer tener en control el poder tanto político como económico. Una de las preguntas más desafiantes que me ha tocado desafiar es ¿realmente todas estas especulaciones son verdaderas?,¿los masones son en verdad lo que dicen ser? A lo largo de las investigaciones que hice, lo único que encontré fueron más preguntas de las que esperaba encontrar.

Vamos a empezar con lo esencial ¿Qué es la masonería?

La masonería es una sociedad secreta que junta a varios individuos con un sentimiento de fraternidad. El objetivo principal que tienen es la búsqueda de la “absoluta verdad”, creen que con el encuentro de la verdad el hombre evolucionara en todos los aspectos. Ellos tienen un templo al cual le llaman logias y también le llaman así al grupo de masones que se reúnen. Hacen un tipo de “cultos” que son llamados tenidas, ahí se encuentran todos los miembros una vez al mes, pueden hacer el ritual apropiado para iniciar a los nuevos miembros, ascender de rango a un miembro y/o debaten sobre los temas simbólicos y sociales. Todas estas reuniones son bastantes decoradas ya que los masones son bastantes cuidadosos en el tema de la decoración, en sus encuentros se puede observar como tienen todo muy bien mantenido, hasta se enfocan en el ámbito de la música ya que contratan a orquestas profesionales para sus encuentros de aniversario (la tenida que describo se llama “Gran Tenida Blanca por el 192 Aniversario Patrio” toda recomendación que dé, al final del texto pondré los links para acceder a ellas). Ustedes se preguntarán ¿Por qué son tan detallistas los masones?

Los masones no son los únicos en fijarse en los detalles de sus encuentros, todas las religiones y métodos de creencia son detallistas ya que si encuentras un lugar todo sucio nadie va querer entrar ahí, no llamaría demasiada la atención y obviamente se requiere más miembros porque cada creencia quiere abarcar la mayor gente posible, sin embargo, queda otro punto más ya que los masones no buscan a cualquier persona, buscan a individuos con ciertas influencias o sino no tendría el poder que tienen ahora, y ¿Qué tiene ver el último punto con ser detallistas? Evidentemente todo esto es una táctica, porque eso demuestra el poder que tienen los miembros unidos. Es increíble como los menores detalles influyen en todo esto.

Ahora vamos a la parte más etimológica de lo que nos convoca hoy día. Logia proviene del italiano loggia que eso significa en español galería y a la vez proviene del francisco ripuario laubja, que significa “cobertizo enramado”. Bueno ustedes se preguntarán ¿qué sentido tiene todo esto? toda esta etimología fue para explicar que el significado galería hace mención a las juntas, porque en el siglo XIII los albañiles empezaron a hacer juntas secretas contra los frailes, las juntas las hacían en lugares que no estaban los frailes como los cobertizos. La palabra masón es la que me llamo más la atención, ya que en albañil en inglés es masón ¿y que relevancia tiene eso? La creencia masónica se dividió en dos corrientes la regular (que es la tradición anglosajona) y la liberal (tradición francesa) eso demuestra que desde esos años (hablamos del siglo XIII) ya había conflicto entre ingleses y franceses. Lo que más admiro de todo esto es la gran cantidad de participantes que tiene independiente de que corriente tome, como una sencilla reunión de albañiles vaya tomando tal fuerza que llegue hasta otro país.

Continue reading Influencia de la Masonería en Chile

Taverns, inns and coffee houses played a meaningful role in the expansion of Freemasonry (…)

The full article is now available for reading at the following link :

https://pglm.org.uk/inns-and-innkeepers/

The 1680s had been a difficult decade for London’s livery companies. The Crown’s attack on the ‘Whig’ faction and James II’s assault on the ‘Tories’ had caused them to surrender their charters and be purged of thousands of their members. Elizabeth I and James I had both extracted large sums from the companies. During the civil wars of 1640s and  1650s, it is impossible to know the exact amount they contributed to both the Crown and Parliament, mostly  in loans that were never repaid. Against this backdrop of political attack, court action and financial stress, it is unsurprising that many members of the Masons’ Company were reluctant either to assume or to discharge the responsibilities of office. The Great Fire of 1666 destroyed 44 company halls and devastated their property portfolios, wiping out much of their rental income. The Masons’ Company was  a going concern and by 1690 it went on its knees.

To pay for its royal charter, the Masons’s Company borrowed £800 from Anthony and Anne Light in return for 22 annual payments of £80. However, it was unable to meet its obligations and defaulted on the payments, increasing its debts.   By the end of the 17th century, the Masons’s Company was so short of money that, in 1681, it agreed to have only a breakfast on Lord Mayor’s Day.

With the Rebuilding of London Act of 1667, the Parliament had unwisely removed for the building worker in London any economic or legal compulsion to join a Company or Guild, thus allowing any skilled labourer to work on the city’s reconstruction on the same terms as a freeman.

The Masons’ Company’s finances improved in the 1690s due to the return to political stability under William III and Mary II and through hard work, ingenuity and generosity, the Company’s finances were put back on a firmer footing.

In 1694, the Company applied for an Act to the London’s Common Council which required all those who worked as masons in London to join the Masons’ Company.

The Masons’ Company’s Act of 1696-1705 was an initial success, with 28 men admitted to the ranks between 1696 and 1705.

However, by 1706, the initiatives had run out of steam. To enlarge its membership, the Masons’ Company instituted two incentives: lowering its redemption fine from 36s to 3s 4d and offering a commission of 2s 6d for each admission. It seems that a lucrative market opened up at the Guildhall in redemption admissions because, following news that several other Companies  were paying  more for every member their ministers and officers brought , the Masons’ enhanced their gratuities to 6s.

This was an effective policy.  In the 30-year period from 1676 to 1705 the Company had admitted 357 freemen but from 1706 to 1735 the number increased  to 428.

More members meant more of their sons joining and receiving the freedom, which lead to more people paying quarterage and more people holding office.

DAVID GROS OF THE MASONS’ COMPANY

David Gros or Le Gross, the Company’s clerk, was given one of the houses adjoining Masons’ Hall by the Court in January 1717 for his ‘good and faithful Services’ and efforts to introduce new members by redemption (i.e. by fee payment).

Le Gross was born in 1682 and was connected to the Gros or Le Gross of Cornwall. He was elected as clerk of the Masons’ Company in June 1708 and in 1717 he was serving as secretary to the governor and directors of the Bank of England. He probably ceased to work at the Guildhall, but he continued as clerk of the Masons’ Co, until February 1721. Le Gross was an important figure in early eighteenth-century London politics, finance and administration.

He was a prominent Whig and although not himself a Huguenot, he had connections with the French merchants and exchange brokers who established themselves in London’s stock exchanges and insurance markets. In 1708, Le Gross became Company clerk and introduced 21 admissions to the freedom of the Masons’ Company, five of which were exchange brokers. When the Masons’ Company court rewarded Le Gross for his efforts, they took particular note of the benefit and advantage the Corporation received from the many substantial Traders and others whom were recruited through his efforts. The Company’s intake of redemptioners in the early eighteenth century was cosmopolitan, with twelve of the 19 exchange brokers, admitted by redemption, not English. At least nine of those were Frenchmen wand identifiably Huguenot.

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But the Company’s intake of international redemptioners was not limited to exchange brokers. Huguenots joined the Masons’ Company for the social and fraternal aspects of Company life, as it was a tradition in London, and to take the livery and thereby acquire the right to vote.

Two particularly noteworthy admissions by redemption were of women with French names, such as Mary Latour and Mary Paramor. Women had traditionally only participated in company life as wives or widows, but young women began to enter into corporate apprenticeships in greater numbers in the second half of the 17th century. As they completed those apprenticeships, they became eligible to join the Companies.  In the first four decades of the 18^th century, nine women – mostly business owners – took up the freedom of the Company by redemption. For example Anne Baker, who joined the Co. in March 1715, was a victualler in Finch Lane, while Anne Sparhawke and Katherine Wight, who were admitted to the freedom together in March 1735, were milliners and business partners.

Certainly, this study has shown that Huguenots diffused quite extensively into the wider livery as, indeed, they did into London society generally. It seems also that the new entrants were easily absorbed into the Masons’ Company’s ranks. There is no evidence for religious division in the contemporary Masons’ Company, and not once was the confession, or indeed the nationality, of those joining the Company marked next to the name of an entrant. A much liberal way than today!  As far as members of the Masons’ Company were concerned, at least according to the official records, the Huguenots -and indeed Germans and Dutchmen -who joined the Company, were no different to any other freeman of London.

Children of Huguenot descent were admitted to the Company by patrimony, and Huguenots bound their children as apprentices. Between 1706 and 1735, two dozen of the 428 men and women who joined the Masons’ Company were identifiably as Huguenot, making them five per cent of the population of London.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, City’s companies completed their transformation into ‘corporations concerned primarily with the administration of their valuable freehold and trust estates and with sponsoring convivial, charitable and educational activities. In its early eighteenth-century history, no more than a dozen of the 32 men and women admitted to the freedom in 1712 identified as masons. In 1724, the Company admitted two attorneys at the Lord Mayor’s court and a clerk in the town clerk’s office, and in 1734, just 29 of the 70 men on the Company’s livery worked or had worked in the craft of masonry.

Throughout the 17^th c. London Great Twelve companies had admitted more members unconnected with their traditional trades. As London’s workforce diversified and became increasingly specialised, the Masons’ Company’s membership began to disconnect from its traditional craft. This was a revolutionary development in the Company’s history and one with which Huguenots were clearly associated because none of those who joined the Masons’ Company were actually masons.

The Masons’ Company’s decision to lower its redemption fine and pay gratuities for referrals had long-lasting effects, helping to secure its future.

The Company experienced a remarkable turnaround in financial health by the end of the 17th century and certainly reached the nadir of its fortunes.  In 1681, for example, it was so short of money that had agreed to have only a breakfast on Lord Mayor’s Day. In 1727, it was able to purchase £200 worth of interest-bearing stock and a property in Bishopsgate and in 1739, it spent well over £60 on food, drink, tobacco and music for the London Mayor’s Day. In 1680s and 90s the Co seems to have struggled to pay its pensions, yet  in 1774, it was able to pay five men an annual pension of £2 each and seven widows one of £ 1 each. Membership of the Company was now much more attractive, worthwhile and fun.

Membership of the Company was, at the end of this remarkable period, much more attractive, worthwhile and fun and the change from operative into a speculative Freemasonry had thus just begun.

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_{Extract from Ian Stone’s paper “Huguenots, Whigs and the Remodelling of the Masons’ Company, 1680-1740 – The Huguenbot Society Journal vol.35, 2022}

Scholars of the Craft divide the history of Freemasonry into two distinct periods. They mark 1717 as the year when the first period, known as Operative, ended and the second period, called Speculative, began. This is the classic division of the History of Freemasonry, although other classifications have been formulated, many of them bordering on fantasy and absurdity.

The historians themselves can be  divided in two groups: those who lost their reason in the search for dubious or extravagant origins of  Freemasonry, and those who complained about how hard  it is to establish the theory that is closest to the truth. The Masonic historian and Anglican minister  John Sebastian Marlow Ward [1] , was of the opinion that Freemasonry originated  from the Knights Templar, one of the three major Christian military-religious orders established in Holy Land during the Crusades.  Andrew Michael Ramsey [2] was actually the first person to have advanced  such argument.   Ramsay was a catholic Scotsman who lived a good part of his  life in France , where after James III had made him a baronet in 1735,  became  more commonly known as Chevalier Ramsay.  In England he had been initiated in Freemasonry on March 10, 1730  at the Horn Lodge, that met in Westminster. In 1737 he was in France and occupying  the office of Grand Orator of the Order when Cardinal Fleury [3] prevented him from giving a lecture[4], later published, in which he declared that Freemasonry saw the light  in the Holy Land during the time of the Crusades and had been founded by The Knights of the Temple or Templars[5]. There is little to prove this theory but at least it presents a more plausible argument than that of some other authors who claim that Freemasonry had the same origin as and dated back to the time the world was created  (George Oliver[6]); that “God and the Archangel Saint Michael were the first grand masters of the first Lodge of the Freemasons established by the sons of Sete, after the fratricide of Cain” (Enoch); that “Patriarch Adam, faithful to the instructions received from the Most High, formed the first lodge with his children” (Marc Bédarride[7]); or that Freemasonry comes from God himself and begins in the time of chaos.

These are Ramsay’s words  with  reference to the noble and Christian character of the Freemasons :

“(…) We must not take the word Freemason in a literal (…) and material sense, as if our founders had been simple workers in stone or merely curious geniuses who wanted to perfect the Arts. They were not only skilful architects (…) but also religious and warrior Princes who designed, edified and protected the living Temples of the Most High.  And (…) whilst they handled the trowel and mortar with one hand, in the other they held the sword and the buckler.  We must therefore consider our order as (…) an order founded in the antiquity, renewed in the Holy Land by our ancestors in order to recall the memory of the most sublime truths amidst the pleasures of the society.”  

In  “Les Plus Secrets Mysteres des Hauts Grades (iii., 194), M. Berage  added more ground to the Templar theory by writing: “The Order of Masonry was instituted by Godfrey de Bouillon[8], in Palestine in 1330 after the defeat of the Christian armies, and was communicated only to a few of the French Masons sometimes afterwards, as a reward for the services which they had rendered to the English and Scottish Knights”.

At the  end of the tragic third Crusade, the knights and their supporting civilians sailed from the Holy Land and headed west.  Amongst those men you would have found monarchs who were returning to their Kingdoms, Princes who would later ascend to a throne, Lords whose wealth had risen tenfold during their term in Palestine, and some  knights of a lesser noble lineage who would only have received life  lasting privileges as a reward for their services.   The whole Christendom held the Templars in high regard and  considered them to be the guardians of mystical doctrines and secrets  discovered in Jerusalem , the holiest city on earth; the same secrets on which the Freemasons claim they found their Order.

Ramsay also believed that Freemasonry had reached England from Scotland as he wrote : “John, Lord Stewart or Grand Master of the House of the King of Scotland, brought our science from the Holy Land in 1286 and established a lodge at Kilwinn in Scotland in which he received as freemaçons the Earls of Gloucester and Ulster. Since that time, the old Kingdom and intimate ally of France was the depository of our secrets, the Center of the order and the conservator of our laws. From Scotland, our society spread in England, under the great Prince Edward, son of Henry III”. 

But Ramsay  was a Scotsman seeking  to obtain the support of the King of France and  of the Pope for the restoration to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland of the catholic House of Stuarts. It is not therefore unreasonable  to say  that Ramsay probably came up with such a singular story, that wrapped Freemasonry in a blanket of religious greatness, principally to please and indulge both the Church State of Rome and catholic France. The plan  did not come together but what Ramsey succeeded into,  was to plant seed that gave birth to the Masonic Higher Degrees Orders , to which the aristocrats of all Europe flocked in vast numbers.  Indeed, the Baron Karl Gotthelf von Hund [9] used Ramsay’s romantic account as the principle upon which he founded the Rite of Strict Observance [10].  

In the paper “Ramsay and his Discours revisited” , Brother Alain Bernheim[11] summed up the life of the exiled Scottish Freemason in these words : “What he did and chose not to do, what he thought and chose not to write, can be summarized in a few words : he was a true Jacobite, poor and, most of all, dependent on the good will of various groups of persons–French aristocrats, Stuart exiles, Freemasons of different origins – whose opinions were different. And he needed them all”. 

Disappointing as it may seem to the devotees of fanciful and patriotic theories of the birth of the operative Freemasonry on the British isles , the provenance of the phenomenon is actually rather different from that recounted by the Scottish Chevalier. The Masonic historian Bernard E. Jones [12]  in his Freemasons’ Guide and Compendium, wrote: “the old-fashioned Masonic books , so often tell a story that is more romantic than factual and repeat fallacies that should long ago have died a natural death”.

The operative Freemasons that appeared across the Channel in the Middle Ages were only native rough stone-masons who benefited of  the superior knowledge imported by greatly skilled laborers from the Mediterranean basin; a geographical region which had  for millennia been the source and the guardian of all Arts. The true genesis of operative Freemasonry is found in  an era that predates the Holy Wars and  witnessed Rome , with its mighty Empire and superior civilization, rule the western world!

The Romans were extraordinary builders who had learned the art of constructions from regions of their dominion like Greece , Egypt and the Middle East, whose populations had even older knowledge and traditions than theirs. The Romans improved  and perpetuated those skills through the specialised Collegia that they instituted throughout their Empire. The higher Roman education curriculum included the teaching of the Artes Liberales (Liberal Arts) like languages (Latin and Greek), written composition, rhetoric, philosophy, Law,  Maths. But there were also Collegia that specialised in practical subjects like ship-making, bakery , wine-dealing,  medicine, and even brothel keeping! Some of those teaching institutions were also active and particularly influential in politics.  There was probably also a very  large presence of  Collegia throughout the Empire, because in Roman Law it sufficed to have had an ensemble of three teachers to receive the appellation of Collegium.

Each Collegium had its own constitution and regulations on both religious and secular matters. It was also organised like a modern Masonic lodge with a Master and two guardians to preside over a membership of three grades : apprentice, companion, and teacher.

In addition to excelling in the Liberal Arts,  the Romans were also great soldiers. Their Army  did not just consist of  disciplined and brave soldiers who fought fearlessly in  single combat. The Roman legionaries  benefited also from an efficiently run and  organised military war machinery that consisted of auxiliaries. These were  highly skilfull civilians  who travelled with the troops and provided  them with relief and support. They were engineers specialised in building bridges, fellows who set up and run the military encampments, cooks, priests, craftsmen who forged and repaired arms,  hostlers who looked after the horses, physicians and members of many other professions.  Those men congregated in groups which were the precursors of the Guilds and were the forerunners of the Middle Ages Freemasons with their Associations.  

THE MAGISTRI COMACINES

Speculative Freemasonry , the kind that we take part in nowadays, is only a few centuries old.  In contrast,  the operative Freemasonry belongs to a much earlier Era and sprung out neither from native Scottish or English semi-barbarians stone-masons nor from infiltrated Knights and former Crusaders, but from a group of skilled Master Builders from the Italian peninsular. They were the men who maintained  “the light of the arts alive” through the Dark and Middle Ages. 

The hoards of Barbarians who in the IV century descended from northern Europe and occupied the western provinces of the Roman Empire, sought to wipe out every form of that remarkable civilization before , in time, eventually adopting it themselves. The Eastern part of the Roman Empire –  identified in history as the Byzantine Empire, with Byzantium [Constantinople] as capital – was one of those territories left  untouched by the destructive waves of Barbarian together with a few other confined provinces both on the Italian Peninsular and in the rest of Europe.

The isle of Comacina on Lake Como is one of those territories that kept its independence and became the new and secure home of  scholars of the Roman Arts and Sciences. Presence of substantial stone quarries near Como, in what was the Lombard Kingdom of Northern Italy,  was also a contributory factor for settling in that area. The Comacines craftsmen were a tight and powerful society of builders and were also known as Masons Magistri  where the word Magistri comes from Magister which was a higher Roman College. They could design and build almost everything , having a broad grasp of  many Arts including sculpture,painting, mosaic work. The Comacines preserved civilization until the Barbarians themselves became ready and accepted communal life and peace.  According to Albert McKay : “The Longobards who had come from northern Germany , settled in northern Italy in c. 568/569 and employed the Comacines for their construction work in what is now identified  as Lombard Architecture, famous all over Europe”.  The earliest known written reference to the Comacines was in the Edictum Rothari  issued by the ruling Lon(go)bard King Rothari  in the year 643, centuries  before the first Crusade!

One of the symbols of the Comacines Masons was the “Comacines Knot” or “Solomon’s knot” or “Sigillum Salomonis” in Latin.     It represents time ,  the “immortality and eternity” of the Comacines’s great work, but also  the ancient hidden forces that regulate our Universe. The symbols of the endless, interwoven cord (Italian Intreccio) and the “lion’s paw” are further and more recent Comacines’s trademarks; almost every Cathedral and religious edifice they built had their logo affixed, by way of a signature, on the stonework. We can find their traces in Europe as far north as Sweden and as far south as Sicily.   

An interest in the Comacines was shown for the first time in the early 20th century by Lucy Baxter , described as the first woman to have written  about that topic in the world of Freemasonry. She adopted the pen-name of Leader Scott and wrote a book entitled “The Cathedral Builders”  wherein  she mentioned and described the “Magistri Comacines” as the ancestors of the Freemasons. Little more was subsequently mentioned on the subject by Masonic authors and historians, perhaps in an effort  to preserve  the legend of  Freemasonry having been  established under the protection of catholic sympathetic monarchs on the British isles by Scottish knights who had returned from the Crusades and some others who had  escaped persecution in France. 

Thomas Hope [13] in his “Historical treatise on architecture” declared: “The [Comacines] builders and sculptors formed a single great fraternity whose aim was to find work outside of Italy. In fact, distance and obstacles were nothing to them.”  They travelled  East under the Lombard Dukes and went to England with  the Italian Benedectine monk (Saint) Augustine [14]  who Pope Gregory the Great(Gregory 1^st) [15] had chosen to lead  a mission to convert King Aethelbert [16] of Kent in 595.  Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury !

The Comacines also travelled to France under Charlemagne [17]  –  King of the Franks and subsequently the Holy Emperor of Rome –  and to Germany, first under (Saint) Boniface [18] and later under (Saint) Albert the Great [19]. Indeed, the Comacines can be encountered everywhere throughout the centuries. They mostly worked for the Church State of Rome in all those places where Christian missionaries had preceded them and prepared the ground. “In those times of constant war and struggle, of military service and feudal slavery, [the Church] was the only asylum for those who wished to cultivate the arts of peace”, wrote Hope. Only in this contest one can accept Ramsay’s statement  of Freemasonry being strictly Christian.  For the historian Albert Mackey [20] , Freemasons are indebted to the Catholic Church and to those masons [the Comacines].  “We, Speculative Freemasons” he wrote “should give full credit to the Roman Church for employing and fostering our Operative Brethren through many centuries and making possible the speculative Freemasonry of today (…)”.

When in the year 1000DC  the world did not end, as people expected ,the high dignitaries of the Church and  various Lords expressed their relief and joy by commissioning works dedicated to God. They spent their money in erecting cathedrals, abbeys, convents and churches between 1066 and 1189. J. S. M. Ward wrote: ‘The Comacines travelled from place to place to find work. When a church or castle was finished, they had to go elsewhere”. Have you never realised , when visiting ancient magnificent castles and cathedrals, that there is an extraordinary similarity in their details and general architectural style even though they may be in different parts of the country or even abroad? 

Thomas Hope expanded this concept by writing: “A corps of operative Freemasons would appear in a city or place near the castle of a great lord who wished to build a church or expand his castle. They were under the rule of a Master chosen from among them, who nominated one man in ten as Warden to oversee the other nine. First they erected temporary huts for their own use, and then a central Lodge. If they needed help with the hard work, they called in the local Guild masons, but they do not seem to have admitted them to the assembly in the Lodge with which they opened the work each day. They met in secret, only the Freemasons were present, and with a Tyler to guard the door against the cowans and spies.”

In History of Italian Architecture , the Marquess Amico Ricci [21] noted that the Comacines  were free to travel about at will. When the missionaries came to England from Rome to spread Christianity, they brought with them many of those men and monks experienced in the art of building whose services would be indispensable to raise or modify the edifices required by the disciples for their devotion. The Italian Chronicles record that Pope Gregory I  sent the missionary monk Saint Augustine to Britain in the company of several Masons capable of building churches, oratories and monasteries on the island. Two centuries later a Pontiff with a similar name to the former, Gregory III  [22] , dispatched Saint Boniface to Germany with  “credentials, instructions and a large following of monks versed in the arts of building and of lay brethren who were also architects, to assist them”.   One of the first issues of the Encyclopedia Britannica, says E. Jones, mentions that “the Masters from Como [the Comacines] were fraught with Papal Bulls granting to them the right of building directly and solely for the Church of Rome. They gained the power to fix the price of their labour and to regulate their own internal government, exclusively in their own general chapters, prohibiting all native artists not admitted into their Society from entering into any sort of competition with it. Wherever they came, they appeared headed by a chief surveyor who governed the entire troop, and out of every ten men they designated  one, named Warden, to overlook the nine others. The architects of all the sacred edifices of the Latin Church  (… ) derived their science from the same central  school; obeyed in their designs,  the dictates of the same hierarchy, and  rendered every minute improvement the property of the entire body. It is claimed that from this company of travelling masons is derived “the fraternity of adopted masons, accepted masons or freemasons.” 

As work on the splendid castles and cathedrals extended over many years, a close association of the Comacines with  the local masons became unavoidable and the two groups eventually blended. But ,although the Comacines were in some way  what the Guild Masons subsequently became, their Order predates the latter by some significant time. It  is also responsible for passing on to the native islanders  the methods and doctrines of the ancient Art of construction and the custom of gathering into Guilds. The Comacines were possibly the truly first operative Freemasons in Europe, and therefore of  the British Isles too. 

The Masonic historian , Reverend Joseph Fort Newton [23] ,  in the 1914 issue of The Builders wrote: “With the conquest of Britain by the Romans, the Collegia, without which no Roman society was complete,  made their advent into the island (…) Under the direction of the mother College at Rome, the Britons are said to have attained to high degree of excellence as builders, so that when the city of Gaul and the fortresses along the Rhine were destroyed, [the Roman Emperor] Constantius Chlorus , in AD 298, sent  for architects from Britain  to repair or rebuild them”.

After the Romans gave up their attempt to submit the British isles and withdrew, nothing is heard of the Comacines Master Builders until 598 AD when Bishop Wilfred of York [24] sent for some Masons to return and build in stone “after the Roman manner”. In The Builders,  Newton describes the Comacines in these words  “They may not actually have been called Freemasons as early as Leader Scott [akas Lucy Baxter] insists they were, but they were in fact free[men], travelling far and near wherever there was work, following Church missionaries to England (…)”.

CONCLUSIONS

Of all the building works carried out in every corner of the European Continent between   800AD and 1000AD , the best part was produced by the Comacines Master Builders akas  Magistri Comacines akas  Builders of the Order of the Cathedral.

R.F. Gould [25], in the original edition of his Concise  History of Freemasonry, speaks his mind clearly : “At the present day the idea of there having been, in the early part of the 13^th century, Colleges of Masons in every country of Europe which received the blessing of the Holy See, under an injunction of dedicating their skill to the erection of ecclesiastical buildings, may be dismissed as chimerical”.  Only the Comacines received that seal !

We Freemasons should  cease to give our Fraternity an impossible antiquity and accept that neither Scotland or England were its birthplace. The story that the Templars fled to Scotland after their Order was destroyed in France in 1307 by King Philippe le Bel [26] and that having kept all their  beliefs and traditions alive,   resurfaced centuries later as Freemasons, is dismissed as fiction by many Masonic scholars. “All this is speculative…because there is absolutely no historical evidence of the existence of a secret society specifically based on the (fugitive) Templars”, writes John J. Robinson [27].

The Comacines Order had lodges, Grand Masters, secrets (they kept a secret book called L’Arcano Magistero) , wore aprons, dispensed charity, possessed means of identification and employed symbolism like the square , compasses, mosaic pavement , Solomon’s knot and so forth and , like in the speculative Freemasonry,  its members were divided in degrees.    

The Comacines Magistri Order was considerable older, more skilled, more artistic and pious than that of the Templars and of the Guild Masons and ultimately prove the theory – as it remains such , albeit a more plausible one than that in many Masonic books – that  Freemasonry came from  ancient Rome [28].

By Sirbelius

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[1] John Sebastian Marlow Ward, born in Belize 22.12.1985, died in Limassol, Cypru, 2.7.1949

[2] Andrew Ramsay was born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1686, and died in Saint-Germain, France, in 1743

[3] André-Hercule de Fleury, (born June 22, 1653, Lodève, Fr.—died Jan. 29, 1743, Paris), French cardinal and chief minister who controlled the government of King Louis XV from 1726 to 1743.

[4] which was published in 1738

[5]  The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ derived the name for which they have become famous in history, by   having  established their Order’s  headquarters next to the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.  

[6] George Oliver, D.D. was an English cleric, schoolmaster, topographer, and writer on freemasonry. Born: 5 November 1782, Papplewick Died: 3 March 1867, Lincoln

[7] Marc Bédarride ( was a jewish Napoleonic military officer, French writer and a Freemason. He founded the Masonic “Egyptian Rite of Misraim” in 1813.

[8] Godfrey of Bouillon was a French nobleman and one of the pre-eminent leaders of the First Crusade. He was the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100. Born: 18 September 1060, Baisy-Thy, Genappe, Belgium ; Died: 18 July 1100, Kingdom of Jerusalem ; Place of burial: Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

[9] Karl Gotthelf, Baron von Hund und Altengrotkau (11 September 1722, Unwürde – 8 November 1776, Meiningen) was a German Freemason who in 1751, he founded the Rite of Strict Observance.

[10] The Rite of Strict Observance was particularly devoted to the reform of Masonry, with special reference to the elimination of the occult sciences  which at the time were widely practiced in many Masonic lodges

[11] “Ramsay and his Discours revisited” by Bro. Alain Bernheim ( born 1931  Paris, France )

[12] Bernard E. Jones , P.A.G.D.C., Freemason  member of Pen and Brush Lodge N. 2909, UGLE,  and of  the Research Lodge Quatuor Coromatorum

[13] Thomas Hope (30 August 1769 – 2 February 1831) was a Dutch and British merchant banker, author, philosopher and art collector

[14] Augustine of Canterbury (born in Italy in early  6th century – died probably 26 May 604) was a Benedictine monk   who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the “Apostle to the English” and a founder of the English Church

[15] Pope Gregory I, commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregorian Mission, to convert the then-pagan Anglo-Saxons in England to Christianity.

[16] Aethelberht I, (died Feb. 24, 616 or 618), king of Kent (560–616) who issued the first extant code of Anglo-Saxon laws. Reflecting some continental influence, the code established the legal position of the clergy and instituted many secular regulations.

[17] Charlemagne.  Born in France on 2 April 742 – Died in Aachen, France on 28 January 814 circa

[18] Saint Boniface, Latin Bonifatius, original name Wynfrid or Wynfrith, (born c. 675, Wessex, England—died June 5, 754, Dokkum, Frisia [now in the Netherlands]; feast day June 5), English missionary and reformer, often called the apostle of Germany for his role in the Christianization of that country.

[19] St. Albertus Magnus, English Saint Albert the Great, German Sankt Albert der Grosse, byname Albert of Cologne or Albert of Lauingen, (born c. 1200, Lauingen an der Donau, Swabia [Germany]—died November 15, 1280, Cologne; canonized December 16, 1931; feast day November 15), Dominican bishop and philosopher best known as a teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas. By papal decree in 1941, he was declared the patron saint of all who cultivate the natural sciences.

[20] Albert Gallatin Mackey (March 12, 1807 – June 20, 1881) was an American medical doctor and author. He is best known for his books and articles about freemasonry, particularly the Masonic Landmarks.

[21] Amico Ricci Petrocchini, Petruccini or Petruchini, was born in Macerata, Italy and died  in Modena in 1862. He was an Italian art historian and marquess. He is most notable for his 1834 Memorie storiche delle arti

[22] Pope Gregory III was elected Supreme Pontiff in 731 CE. Born, Syria ?—died November 741 and was pope from 731 to 741. As a Syrian, he is one of few non-European popes, and the last one until the Argentine Pope Francis was elected in 2013.

[23] Rev. Joseph Fort Newton. Born 27 July 1780, Decatur, Texas – Died 24 January 1950 in Merion, Pennsylvania. He was an American Baptist minister and author of a number of Masonic books

[24] Wilfrid (c. 633 – 709 or 710) was an English bishop and saint. he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Gaul, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon

[25] Robert Freke Gould – Ilfracombe 10 November 1836 – London 26 March 1915

[26] Philip IV (April–June 1268 – 29 November 1314), called Philip the Fair, was King of France from 1285 to 1314. By virtue of his marriage with Joan I of Navarre, he was also King of Navarre as Philip I from 1284 to 1305, as well as Count of Champagne.

[27] John J. Robinson (c. 1918 – 1996) was an American author, best known as the author of Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry.

[28] Historic city and capital of Italy located in the central portion of the Italian peninsula, on the Tiber River . Its history spans 28 centuries and for more than a millennium it was also the capital of the Roman Empire. Rome  defined the whole western world. The Roman Empire in 117 AD extended for  approximately 6.5 million square kilometres (2.5 million square miles) of land surface.

SOURCES

“Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its kindred sciences” by Albert C. Mackey 

“Ramsay and his Discours revisited” by Bro. Alain Bernheim

“Freemasons’ Guide and Compendium”  by Bernard E. Jones 

“The Builders” [1914] – Joseph Fort Newton

“The Pilgrimage Route to Rome” by George Nebolsine  (www.jstor.org)

Wilkipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica

“The Comacine Masters’ global Masonic Knot” by Moe-  Gnosticwarrior.com/comacine-masters.html 

“History of Freemasonry” by |Robert Freke Gould

“The confused origins of Freemasonry”, by David V Barrett, The Square  Dec 2014

The blog “Masonic Heathens.NL”

“Governo do Rito Escoces  Antigo e Aceito ” byAilton Elisiário de Sousa (Revista O Buscador”, Brazil, Year 1, Number 2, pages 01-10,)

We know almost all there is to know of the Italian Masonic historiography. We have done some progress concerning the study of Freemasonry presence and history in countries of the Mediterranean basin, but in Latin America the research is still in its inception. The purpose of this paper is to present a basic historical look at the relation between the Grand Orient of Italy (GOI), the most important Masonic Obedience in the Country, and the Italian lodges in Brazil.   

The city of São Paulo has always had a large presence of Lodges run by foreigners, and in such a reality it felt natural for Italian-speaking settlers to gather and form their own first Lodge in early 1884. Shortly after that event , however, a disruptive and problematic issue came to light: the eagerness of  those Freemasons to submit to the Grand Orient of Italy in Rome. Such intense yearning in the vast community of Italian immigrants , whether already Freemasons or aspiring men, imposed a dilemma upon the leadership of the GOI. A constant-rising  of Lodges in South America controlled by the Grand Orient of Italy  would have enhanced its reputation and influence in the world, but only at the cost of creating international tensions. In such a highly delicate context, the Grand Orient of Italy temporarily withdrew its design.

The Italian Freemasons’s unrelenting resolve to have their own Grand Lodge paid off in 1888 when the Grand Orient of Rio de Janeiro sent to São Paulo a commission to consecrate the Loja Italia. The ceremony was of extreme significance for the colony of Italians, and  it turned out to be remarkably well attended by  other local Lodges too. When in 1892, the Loja Roma of São Paulo organized a procession in reminiscence of the death of the philosopher Giordano Bruno, the delegates of other Lodges of the City, and the profane community, took part in big numbers. The presence at that ceremony of Cesare Roncaglia, a ‘brother’ from the Grand Orient of Italy in Rome, reveals how close was the relationship of the Italians residing in Brasil with their homeland and how important was for them to reassert such closeness to their Country of birth or descent. It was not coincidental that the Lodge’s banner had been made in Naples !

In the early months of 1894, seven Lodges in the district of São Paulo separated and formed the Grand Orient de São Paulo. Faced with the schism, the Italian Masonic leadership came off the fence and established a Grand Lodge under the Obedience of the GOI , Rome. It was  named  Giuseppe Petroni (in honour of the late Italian Grand Master) to emphasise Continue reading FREEMASONRY IN THE ITALIAN COMMUNITY OF BRAZIL (1872-1925)

From its very beginning Masonry has had in its ranks true agents of socio-political change and Freemasons who have distinguished themselves in the Liberal Arts and Science around the world. All those excellent men  embraced the sacred ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and took part in the civil struggles of all five Continents.  The list includes:  Cromwell, Locke and Hobbes in England; Grotius and Spinosa in Holland; Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Montesquieu and Robespierre in France. George Washington in the United States, Hidalgo in Mexico, Bolívar, San Martín and Francisco de Miranda in South America.

Prominent in the history of Mexico are four major phases , all of them characterized by traces of nationalism. They are:

• the quest for a national identity
• the laying aside of Mexico’s racial differences
• the acknowledgment of its own  heritage
• the defense of Mexican integrity and identity  from foreign political, cultural and economic aggression.

Each of these phases had its own interpreter, whose name alone suffices to describe each Era in the history of Mexico in which he operated. They are:

• Miguel Hidalgo [1], a Freemason and the father of Mexico’s Independence
• Benito Juárez [2], a Freemason and former President who gave Mexico constitutional  reforms
• Francisco Madero [3], a Freemason who led the Mexican Revolution.
• Lázaro Cárdenas [4], a Freemason who led Mexico to economic autonomy after the revolution

Freemasonry has shown the world that the men it shapes in the silence of its Lodges, know how to achieve and defend  the civil rights and liberty of people. At the same time, Masonry has  also proven to be an Institution that, when needed,  can act with great prudence. One of the obligations to which a Freemason swears is that of  respecting the legality of an established Government. Masonry however does not make cowards, but neither does it form inconsiderate people.

“Thinking without acting is sterile, but acting without thinking is reckless.”

Filled with courage and a sincere desire for enlightenment , the brothers Mateos and Cayetano Rinaldi, amongst other Freemasons, in a meeting that took place on the 14th of August 1825, put forward the plan to establish a new Masonic Rite. They did so inspired by the conviction that Masonry should preserve its purity and the Order should be one throughout the globe and should share a common background of moral, political, domestic and civil values.

On August 22, 1825, in eastern Mexico, the Brothers Guillermo Gardet, José María Mateos, Guillermo Lamont, Luis Luelmo y Goyanes, Cayetano Rinaldi, Carlos Rinaldi, Juan María Mateos, Francisco Ocampo and Mariano Rodríguez met as part of a Commission instituted  to discuss and decide on the Masonic regulations  for Mexico.

They agreed that:

1. The Mexican National Rite was to be set up in Law;  that the founding members were to be regular masons of accepted rites; that the Mexican National Rite should be autonomous of any other in the world , as is the Mexican nation independent of the other powers.

2. A Supreme Great Orient [5] and Great Mexican National Lodge should govern the Mexican National Rite , and should any meeting that worked this Rite not be legally authorized, it would be regarded unlawful.

3. The symbolic degrees would be the same in number, as it is in all the established Rites and universal Freemasonry, that is to say: Apprentice, Fellow or Companion and Master, plus six upper degrees that would cast  the Rite’s General Regulation. 

4. In any city of Mexico, even if not a Province Capital, where there are five regularly constituted Lodges, a Grand Lodge could be installed. However, there cannot be more than one Grand Lodge in each Province.

5. Mexican Freemasonry would have no purpose other than arousing in everybody the purest sentiments and the practice of all virtues, and therefore work towards teaching man how to respect and love that which virtue and wisdom consecrate to humanity as timeless principles. Mexican Freemasonry would also establish the symbolic mysteries i.e. the ties that unite the members of the Grand Family which come by meeting always under the auspices of harmony and true brotherhood.

But after its formation, the Mexican National Rite clashed with the prejudices of the society of the day that branded it irregular. Its raison d’etre was challenged by having nine degrees. Did those who objected forget that vanity was the guide to the creation of the high degrees of Scottish Freemasonry and that only the Masonic Authorities’s tolerance allowed its recognition ? To overcome arguments and objections like these, the Mexican National Rite was established in Law.

Those five Articles mentioned earlier make up the solemn declaration of the Mexican National Rite. They represent the ancient Landmarks, the essential principles of Freemasonry as regulated by the English James Anderson’s [6] Constitutions issued at the request of the lodges that formed  the Grand Lodge of England. They also sum up the essence, mark the direction and define the philosophical ideological distinction of what we call Scottish Freemasonry.

After its foundation, the Mexican National Rite went on to set out its own Constitutions which proclaimed the sovereignty of the Mexican Rite and defined its nine degrees:

• Apprentice  (Aprendiz)
• Fellowcraft  (Compañero)
• Master  (Maestro)
• Approved Master  (Maestro Aprobado)
• Knight of the Secret  (Caballero Secreto)
• Knight of the Mexican Eagle   (Caballero del Águila Mexicana)
• Perfect Artificier  (Perfecto Artífice)
• Grand Judge  (Gran Juez)
• Grand Inspector General of the Order  (Gran Inspector General de la Orden)

On 26th March 1826, the first National Mexican Grand Lodge, named “La Luz”, was installed.

At the General Congress held in 1833, the Mexican National Rite brought in a set of reforms, which included the acceptance of women in Freemasonry based on the principle that it was imperative to form the character of all Mexican citizens regardless of their sex. Other reasons for setting up the reforms were:

• The struggle to abolish military and clerical privileges
• The secularization of society through the separation of the Church from the State.

Thanks to the enlightened President Benito Juárez,  a modern political Constitution was passed in 1857, which brought to an end the power  of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico. That reform, however,  caused an uprising and started a civil war known as the “War of the Reforms” which ended in  a triumph for the liberal forces over the conservatives. In 1861, the implementation of the reformed laws secured a divorce between the Church and the State, which in consequence reclaimed all the former’s possessions, allowed freedom of worship and introduced civil marriage.

All along , the conservative forces were pursuing an attempt to bring into the country a ruler  that would reinstate  their cherished traditional political model. The opportunity presented itself when France, Spain and Great Britain in an attempt to recover the national debt that the near bankrupt Mexico had accrued during the internal civil war, sent punitive expeditions in the winter of 1861. The Spanish and English left the following year but France had other plans as it intended to expand its influence in  Central America. In the pursue of such objective  and after some long negotiations, on 10th June 1864 France installed the ambitious Hapsburg ArchDuke Maximillian [7] as head of State with the title of Emperor of Mexico .  After that event the Mexican National Rite formally lowered its columns.

In 1916 the Mexican National Rite  fought an ideological war against  Venustiano Carranza [8], the then president of the Mexican Republic. The members of Parliament who were also Freemasons  and were led by Francisco J. Mújica [9] , defeated the Carrancistas conservative proposed articles 3, 27, 123, 130, etc. of the Constitution and redrafted them in the workshops of the Mexican National Rite. We can thus proudly state that the Mexico Constitution of 1917 was an expression of the Masonic ideals !

It is evident from history that Freemasonry influenced the intellectual, political and civil life of many countries on earth.  Personally, I see Freemasonry as the pathway to fulfillment and the means for creating a society where men of good costumes concentrate all their efforts on community service, man’s welfare and regard for customs and traditions.

Translated and adapted by Aldo Reno from : Masoneria y el Benemerito Rito Nacional Mexicano, by Víctor Hugo Téllez Ramírez

If you wish to know more about the History of Freemasonry in Mexico , then I suggest you click here and will be redirected to the very interesting paper written by Brother Peter Ingram of the United Masters Lodge No. 167.

Bibliography:

• Historia de las Sociedades Secretas de Ramiro A. Calle
• Rodolfo Gallardo Rosales Gran Luminar y Gran Maestro de la Orden ritonacionalmexicano.org

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[1] Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or Miguel Hidalgo – Born 8 May 1753,Corralejo de Hidalgo, Mexico, Died 30 July 1811,Chihuahua, Mexico. Was a Spanish Catholic priest, a leader of the Mexican War of Independence, and recognized as the Father of the Nation.

[2] Benito Pablo Juárez García 21 March 1806, San Pablo Guelatao, Mexico, Died 18 July 1872, National Palace, Mexico City, Mexico. Was a Mexican lawyer and politician, who served as the 26th president  from 1858 until his death in 1872. He was the first president of Mexico who was of indigenous origin.

[3] Francisco Ignacio Madero González, Born   30 October 1873, Parras de la Fuente, Mexico, Died  22 February 1913,Mexico City, Mexico. Was a Mexican revolutionary, writer and statesman who served as the 33rd president of Mexico from 1911 until shortly before his assassination in 1913.

[4] Lázaro Cárdenas del Río – Born  21 May 1895, Michoacan, Mexico.  Died 19 October 1970, Mexico City, Mexico. Was a general in the Constitutionalist Army during the Mexican Revolution and a statesman who served as President of Mexico between 1934 and 1940. He is best known for nationalization of the oil industry in 1938 .

[5] The three Craft Degrees are controlled by a Grand Orient which is similar to a Grand Lodge except that it is ruled by a self-perpetuating Council, the ordinary Mason having no say in the government of the Craft. (ref. Early Mexican Freemasonry: A confused chapter in our history, by Bro. Peter Ingram, “The Skirret”)

[6] Dr James Anderson – Born 1679,Aberdeen – Died : 28 May 1739, London.  Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster. He was commissioned in September 1721 by the Grand Lodge to write a history of the Free-Masons, and it was published in 1723 as The Constitutions of the Free-Masons.

[7]  Maximillian I Emperor of Mexico   (Fernando Maximiliano José María de Habsburgo-Lorena ,Born  6 July 1832 Vienna  – Died 19 June 1867 Santiago de Queretaro, Mexico) and a younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria,

[8] José Venustiano Carranza De La Garza – Born 29 December 1859, Cuatrocienegas Municipality, Mexico , Died  21 May 1920, Tlaxcalantongo. He was one of the main leaders of the Mexican Revolution, whose victorious northern revolutionary Constitutionalist Army defeated the counter-revolutionary regime of Victoriano Huerta and then defeated fellow revolutionaries after Huerta’s ouster

[9] Francisco José Múgica Velázquez – Born 3 September 1884, Tingüindín, Mexico –  Died  12 April 1954, Mexico City, Mexico. He was a military revolutionary, Major General and Mexican politician. He participated in the Constituent Congress of 1917 that produced the Constitution of Mexico.

WHO SLIPPED WHAT IN THE MASONIC 3RD DEGREE

The purpose of this paper is to expand some thoughts on the ceremony of Raising and its history in Freemasonry. The story of the Third Degree presents several problems. If we consider the basic premise that just before the completion of King Solomon’s Temple in the 2896 Anno Lucis or 975 BCE [1] (these dates vary in different editions) , there was a conspiracy of 15 Fellowcraft to obtain the secrets of the Third Degree.

• What could the Third Degree then have included?
• What were those secrets?

It could not have been a Raising since Hiram Abiff was still alive. The only Third Degree we know came as a result of his death. Presumably Fellowcraft would only have been appointed if they were honourable men, whether they were actual masons or free and speculative ones. How would one find so many (admittedly 12 recanted and only three conspirators remained) who were prepared to resort to violence and even commit murder of someone for whom they would surely have had respect, simply to obtain some secrets? These they were going to learn anyway in due course, so that the story creates a lack of credibility.

Having killed their master, the candidate of the degree is made to represent him and is symbolically raised from death by various artifices (i.e. the five points of fellowship etc). He is then told the remainder of the story known generally as the “Traditional History”. In this, King Solomon sends 15 trusty Fellowcraft (9 in early French rituals) to search for Hiram Abiff, assuming he may have been killed in an attempt to extort from him the secrets of the Third Degree. This is surely putting subsequent knowledge retrospectively in the minds of the protagonists involved.

Three lodges of five Fellowcraft were sent to search. The second group finds Hiram Abiff indecently buried, reports this to King Solomon who orders him to be exhumed and reburied as near the Holy of Holiest as Israelite law would allow. (This has no parallel in the Bible or the Talmud[2]). Meanwhile, the signs of the Third Degree become the anguished gestures of the second group of Fellowcraft and are ordained to remain until the original signs (whatever they were meant to be) are restored!

The three Fellowcraft conspirators responsible for the crime are found by the third group of Fellowcraft, in a cave near Joppa [the ancient city of Jaffa, now the oldest part of Tel Aviv].

Continue reading DISSECTING THE LEGEND OF HIRAM ABIFF

Click here to read  Part 1 of the History of the Grand Lodge of Antioquia

The Supreme Neogranadino Council of the 33º   Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, based in Cartagena, was founded on 19 June 1833 and replaced the dissolved  Grand Colombia [1]. This new Masonic Body held rights and privileges over  the Masonic territories of Nueva Granada and founded the Logia Simbolica [2] and the Camara Escocista  soon after its constitution. When on 1 January 1920 ended the predominance of the  Supreme Neogranadino Council, the Ser. Grand Lodge of Colombia based in Cartagena agreed to adopt its  lodges and the number sequence.

In the Treaty of Friendship and Recognition [3] the decree N. 6 established    that the Ser. Grand Lodge of Colombia based in Cartagena  had  territorial jurisdiction over the Dept. of Antioquia together with several other territories as listed in the decree N.7 [4]. Yet when  the GL of the Rep. of Colombia was established in Bogotá on 1 January 1922, it only recognised the decree  N.7 [5] .

So how did the Dept. of Antioquia end up under the jurisdiction of the GL of the Rep. of Colombia  based in Bogotá, at one point ? It is the aim of this paper  to provide the answer to that question.

******

The decree No.6  of the GL of Antioquia’s Installation Manifest – see Part 1 – quoted the intention of  the Ser. National Grand Lodge of Colombia, based in Cartagena,  of terminating  the  Treaty of Friendship and Recognition [6] of 11 August 1921. The decree also stated  that on that same day the Rep. of Colombia became a free and open territory, geographically as well as politically, integrated with the departments of Antioquia, Bolivar, Caldas & Valle  and the  National territories  of Choco’ , San Adres and Province. This declaration placed the Triangle and  the Symbolic Lodges under the jurisdiction and obedience of The Grand National Lodge of Bogotá.

The decree  N.7 endorsed, retrospectively , the Patent given to Logia Fiat Lux  N.14 and the Logia Victoria N.15  – both  established in the Valley of Medellin – and it authorised  them to unite with the  Lodge Claridad N.12 to form the Grand Lodge of the Dept.of Antioquia. Thereafter these Lodges changed their numbers  to  Lodge Claridad N.1, Lodge Fiat Lux N.2 and Logia Victoria N.3.  This deecree  is of  a paramount importance because it was responsible for  the growth of Freemasonry in Colombia  and for establishing Grand Lodges in the capitals of Departments where they did not exist until then .  The creation and independence of the GL of the Dept. of Antioquia is reiterated in  the “Resolution N.1” of  the 1934 declaration , signed by the Grand Master  A. Carlos Fetonti , which we show hereunder.

THE GRAND LODGE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTIOQUIA WITH HEADQUARTERS IN MEDELLIN,IN THE EXERCISE OF ITS CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS AND CONSIDERING 

1st. - that the successful, fantastic and courageous Masonic process of coming into existence that occurred in the last months of 1934, by the respectable  Lodges Claridad 1, Fiat Lux 2 and Victoria 3 of this Orient, with the enthusiastic help of the Regular Bodies  of Bogotá, with the decisive support of the Gran Logia de La República de Colombia based in Bogotá, with the approval of several Regular Workshops and with the cordial acquiescence of distinguished and meritorious Masonic personalities - not only of the Symbolic Chambers, but also of the high Philosophical Corporations - that brought the independence and sovereign Masonic jurisdiction and voice in the territory of this part of the Republic, today geographically called the Department of Antioquia; 

2nd. - that this movement unfolded in the midst of the most unrestricted and recognized legality and the most deeply-rooted support for the old boundaries of the Institution;

3rd. - that the first victorious battle in favor of that beautiful revolutionary perspective, nobly born and fermented in the capital of the Republic and whose purpose is the creation of a Grand Lodge in each Department, the Colombian Confederation of those Sovereign Bodies , so that together and for the exclusive and sole good of our country, they return to the old days of Masonic splendor and carry out the  redemption - not only ideological, but also economic - of this Country still mired in political intransigence and in the despondency of miserable religious groups

RESOLVES:

1st. – to present a kind  and cordial embrace to the Regular Lodges of the Country.

2nd. – to hereby announce the creation of this Sovereign Body, and

3rd. - to put oneself at the service of any human liberation  movement in general and always of  every brother in particular,

Or ∴ from Medellín, February 16, 1935. e ∴ v ∴

The Grand Master A. CARLOS FETONTI
The Grand Orator RUBEN URIBE
The Grand Secr ∴ G ∴ SS ∴ and TT ∴
JUAN VALLEJO P.  [7]

THE CATHOLIC CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE ANTIOQUIA FREEMASONRY

In its years of operation, the Grand Lodge of the Department of Antioquia faced great hostility which eventually caused its disappearance. The forces that opposed its existence were the strong Catholic dogmatism of the time  and  the ill-disposed Deputy Grand Master Fernando Estrada[8] who ended up working for the opposing  Grand Orient Bogotano when the latter decided to intervene in Antioquia in 1941. The GL of Antioquia did of course repudiate him. Yet it must be recognised that under Estrada, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was strenghtened  in Medellin. On 22 May 1943 Estrada was elevated to the 33º  degree and the following year he became the Grand Orator of the Supreme Council of the 33º  Degree and held that office untill 1947.

The bucolic sermons of Miguel Ángel Builes against the Antioquia Freemasonry in the 1930s and 1940s were part of a policy of the Antioquia Church –   no doubt supported in that by the Bogotana Church and by other conservative groups – against the prominence of Freemasonry in liberal governments, as well as in its rise in Medellin and other municipalities of Antioquia.

Defamatory campaigns were orchestrated  in Bogotá by Laureano Gómez – of the newspaper El Siglo in Bogotá –  and in the Medellin press by the conservative paper  El Obrero Católico, which the Church used in Antioquia as  the “Organ of Catholic Action”.  Between 1937 and 1939 El Obrero Católico published the sermons of Builes as well as all kind of anti Masonic articles and gave them  sensational headlines like:

• The Great Crimes of Freemasonry, published on January 9, 1937.
• The Freemasons: incarnation and instruments of Satan, published in two parts on June 5 and November 13, 1937. This headline was repeated in other articles  published in the same newspaper in the following year.
• Las lodges assassins, written by Fray Mora Diaz and published on March 19, 1938.

And after the triumph of Franco’s armies in Spain at the beginning of 1939,  El Obrero Católico  published the dangerous headline “Franco has given a tremendous defeat to Judaism, Freemasonry and Communism” which, without realizing it, was giving support to Franco’s regime,  one of the cruellest dictatorships in history. There clearly were anti-Semitic sentiments and intolerance in the way the Colombian Catholic Church operated at that time !

The historian M. Arango  wrote  :

It should be noted that in the 1930s and 1940s, the campaigns against Colombian Freemasonry carried out by the Catholic clergy and by Laureano Gómez were aimed at demonstrating that Freemasonry’s influence had infiltrated the Liberal Party and shared  an international conspiracy against Colombia, promoted by an alliance between Freemasons, Communists and Jews.[9]

Despite having agreed on 17 August 1936 that the Department of Antioquia was under  the jurisdiction of the Serenísima Gran Logia Nacional de Colombia based in Cartagena, the Gran Logia de Colombia based in Bogotá unilaterally intervened in the matters of  the Antioquian Freemasons and submitted to the Great Commission of Jurisprudence and Legislation, a petition for establishing  and recognizing two of its new lodges. The Commission approved and issued  Patents to the Iris del Aburrá and to the Santa Helena and also authorized the installation of the Rosacruz Chapter General José María Córdoba .

Both the Lodge Santa Helena and the Chapter General José María Córdoba, were installed on 8 September 1941, but according to Arango the Rosacruz Chapter was operating well before that date. The proof rests on “the date of the certificates sent to its members[10]“. Indeed Arango reports that  in the Masonic Temple of Medellín there is one such certificate, awarded to Brother Mauricio Daza Ovalle ,which is dated 2 September 1941.  If  there was a Rosacruz Chapter in Medellin, Arango claims, then it is right to assume that there would also have been a Lodge of Perfection of the Scottish Rite.

The other crime that the Bogotá’s Grand Lodge was guilty of when it chose to meddle  in the GL of Antioquia’s affairs, was the refusal to recognize  the existence of the latter and of the three lodges that constituted it. Such decision was taken on the basis of a report prepared in early September 1941 by a Commission of Investigation  appointed by the Bogotá’s Grand Lodge , which also questioned the respectability of the Brethren  of the Lodge Claridad.

The Commission’s document reads : “We were informed by the representative of the Supreme Council of the 33º Degree in the Department of Antioquia, Dr. Fernando Estrada, an honorable person of refined morals, that the activities of the Lodge Claridad culminated in the creation of the Fiat Lux and Victoria lodges, which were however constituted by the same members of the Claridad [who got together]  just so that  the Grand Lodge of the Department of Antioquia could be proclaimed”.

As for the Lodge Claridad and the activity of its Brethren, the Commission pointed out that it had arrived at the “sad conclusion that they are individuals who cannot be accepted in our institution, and that their Masonic activities are far from being Masonic ”.

The report  – says Arango – was read out to the Grand Lodge of Colombia based in Bogotá on September 12, 1941. It is very difficult to evaluate today the veracity of those claims but let it be clear : only the Serenísima Gran Logia Nacional de Colombia based in Cartagena had jurisdiction over the GL of the Dept. of Antioquia.  It was  never  the business of the Bogotá’ s Grand Lodge to interfere into Antioquia’s  businesses. And how could the Commission have established the doubtful  respectability of  the Lodge Claridad’s Brethren  with  an investigation that lasted less than three days and was based on verbal information from a handful of individuals ?

On November 5, 1941 the Grand Lodge of the Department of Antioquia, as might be expected, issued a statement rejecting the claims of the Bogotana´s Commission . It was signed by  the Grand Master Martín Acevedo and the Grand Chancellor Eugenio Pastor. The GL also issued the decree N.245 to remind all that the Grand Lodge of the Department of Antioquia was constituted on 16 December 1934  “as an independent sovereign body” with the Lodges Claridad No. 1, Fiat Lux No. 2 and Victoria No. 3 under its jurisdiction . The Grand Lodge of the Department of Antioquia also accused  the Bogotá’s Grand Lodge that it had no right  to violate the GL’s of Antioquia’s legitimacy by installing in that  Department ” its own  Lodge Iris del Aburrá and Lodge Santa Helena “ . In so doing it was perpetrating an illegal act of encroachment[11].

The GL of the Dept. of Antioquia followed its protests by declaring  irregular the Iris del Aburrá and Santa Helena Lodges and by  announcing  the constitution of one new Lodge of  its own , the  José Janer Grau No. 4.

CONCLUSIONS

The major points that emerge from this study are:

• the  causes of the division  in the Bogotá’s Grand Lodge – which subsequently brought  the GM Tulio Rubiano to found the Gran Lodge of the Dept.of Antioquia – were of political nature;
• to strengthen the position of the GL of the Republic of Colombia , Tulio Rubiano  created other Grand Lodges in jurisdictions that belonged to other Orients, thus exposing his own GL to disapproval
• the GL of the Dept of Antioquia had effectively only the Claridad Lodge under its jurisdiction – which would automatically constitute the loss of Grand Lodge status ! –  but it was never the business  of the Bogotana Grand Lodge to intervene.Sometime later and through the intercession  of the other Colombian Orients, the two Bogotá Grand Lodges resolved their differences. They joined in one new Grand Lodge and recognized that the jurisdiction of Antioquia belonged to the Serenísima Gran Logia Nacional de Colombia based in Cartagena.

Given that society was highly conservative and Catholic at the time the Antiochian Grand Lodge was founded, it became quite difficult for Freemasonry to develop in the region.  The Catholic Church’s persecution of the Masons  through the sermons of Miguel Ángel Builes,  created conditions  which eventually led the Grand Lodge of the Department of Antioquia to dissolve in the early 1940s.

The historian Arango explains that the lack of research into Freemasonry in Antioquia is the reason we have a wrong opinion of it. Historians such as Américo Carnicelli (in the photo) and Julio Hoenigsberg Racedo [12], made very little mention of Antioquia Freemasonry in their works.

The North American historian Thomas Williford, in his book Laureano Gómez and the Masons 1936 – 1942,  states that “in Medellín, the lodges were not very successful and in 1939 they were already in deep sleep“. He also claims that “Freemasonry was never very successful because of the power of Catholicism and conservatism in  the capital of Antioquia “[13].

These assertions are only in part true because  in that year both the Grand Lodge of the Dept. of Antioquia and the Lodge Claridad N.1 were operational and there were plans to raise the columns of the Lodges Fiat Lux and Victoria.  The sermons of Miguel Ángel Builes and the strong and sensational headlines that the newspaper El Obrero Católico  published – such as The Masons, incarnation and instruments of Satan – gave the Freemasons a bad image in the Antioquian society of  the 1930s and 1940s. Such a distrust towards Freemasonry is  no better demonstrated than by the refusal of the Catholic Church to give our famous Brother Carlos Gardel a  Christian funeral [14].

The reality was that the Antioquia Mason could never fit in the Antioquian society of the time for which Freemasonry and other intellectual and artistic activities only generated distrust and suspicions in those who practiced them.  But it is  undeniable that Freemasonry in Antioquia ,through the labor of professionals and liberal political leaders , had an important presence during the first half of the 20th century.  Freemasonry was “a [real] force of cohesion  and power”[15].

No part of this article may be reproduced without permission from the author. The Editor of Tetraktys takes no responsibility for the correctness of the facts and dates reported in this article which remain that of the author.

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[1] On 21 November 1831

[2] The Symbolic Lodge or Blue Lodge , often called simply Lodge, comprises of three degrees: 1º Apprentice,  2º Companion and 3º Master Mason

[3] Signed on 11 August 1921 between the GL of Cartagena Barraquilla and the Supr. Council Neogranadino of the 33^rd  Degree of the Antique & Accepted Scottish Rite

[4] Cundimarca, Cauca,Huila, Narino and the intendencias of the Meta and Comisarias de Vaupes, Putumayo and Caqueta’. 

[5]  as the documents that its Grand Master Tullio Rubiano signed in 1933 prove

[6] Treaty of Friendship[1], Peace, Jurisdiction and Limits which attested that the GL of the Rep. of Colombia had jurisdiction over………

[7] Manifesto, saludo, instalacion e historia de la “Gran Logia del Departemento de Antioquia”, con Sede en Medellin (Col.),16 de Diciembre  1934

[8] Former Venerable Master of the  Resp. Lodge Sol de la Montana which operated under the jurisdiction of the Ser. Gran Logia Nacional de Colombia, based in Cartagena.

[9] Mario Arango Jaramillo, Masoneria y Partido Liberal, otra cara en la historia de Colombia (Medellin, editorial Corselva, 2006), p.416

[10] Mario Arango Jaramillo, Masoneria y Partido Liberal, otra cara en la historia de Colombia (Medellin, editorial Corselva, 2006), p.422

[11] Mario Arango Jaramillo, Masoneria y Partido Liberal, otra cara en la historia de Colombia (Medellin, editorial Corselva, 2006), p.423

[12]  Por: Mario Morales Charris, 33º , Ex Gran Maestro de la Muy Resp\ Gr\ Log\ del Norte de Colombia

[13] Mario Arango Jaramillo, Masoneria y Partido Liberal, otra cara en la historia de Colombia (Medellin, editorial Corselva, 2006), p.431

[14] Jorge Sturla, La Muerte de Gardel, Cronica, junio de 1971 

[15] Mario Arango Jaramillo, Masoneria y Partido Liberal, otra cara en la historia de Colombia (Medellin, editorial Corselva, 2006), p.431