Jacob’s Ladder is possibly among the most enigmatic and obscure of all the symbols found in Freemasonry. Its name can be traced back to a metaphorical allusion in the Bible, but more on this later.
Both the First Degree Tracing Board and the Second Degree working tools (long version) include the Jacob’s Ladder. This symbol can also be found on the Mark Tracing Board, as well as in Holy Royal Arch Chapter.
Thomas Dunckerley , founder of Mark Masonry, is credited with introducing the Masonic emblem of the ladder into the Masonic ritual in 1776. I recommend that you read the interesting life of this well-known Freemason, but doubtful character, by visiting this page at Tetraktys.
The ancients thought there could be no evolution without previous involution and indeed the Scripts say: “no man hath ascended up to heaven but he who came down from heaven” (John 3.13).
Man is a composite of natural elements that have been assimilated into him; the mineral kingdom is in his bones, the vegetable kingdom in his tissues and the animal world is in his brute impulses and appetite. He’s basically a microcosm; a synthesis of all that is present in the planes of existence beneath him.
Samuel Johnson, regarded as one of the greatest English figures of 18th-century life and letters, once said of the celebrated poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer , defined by some as the father of English literature, that he “took much from the Italians”. He was of course referring to Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”, a set of twenty four stories very much inspired by the “Decameron”, an original work by the Italian writer and poet Giovanni Boccaccio.
Petruccio Ubaldini was an Italian exile who arrived in England from Florence in 1545 and was known for his account in Italian, of the English victory over the Spanish Armada. The Tudor Queen , Elizabeth I, liked Petruccio so much as to give him a pension.
The English writer Daniel Defoe–creator of the novel Robinson Crusoe and of A Journal of the Plague Year in London in 1665 – championed not just the Italians but all newcomers to England. In 1709 he wrote:
opening the nation’s doors to foreigners, has been the most direct and immediate reason of our wealth and… has brought us from a nation of slaves and mere soldiers to a rich, opulent, free and mighty people
But sadly the mood against the foreigners was hardening and the conservative Parliamentary members of the day– history constantly repeats itself! – soon began denouncing the presence of the aliens as a threat and a drain on the resources of the Nation.
Italian literature was barely known in England before the first half of the 18th century, when Giuseppe Baretti, a friend of Dr Johnson, began championing the Italian literary cause during his exile here. The first Italian-into-English dictionary was the creature of his labour.
Dr Johnson and Giuseppe Baretti
Other Italians – and they can be counted in the hundreds – who achieved success and fame in England were:
Giovanni Battista Cipriani ; founder member of the Royal Academy and a Freemason.
Antonio Canal from Venice (better known as Canaletto) , who devoted a decade in Soho in 1746 to painting the Grand Canal from memory.
Giacomo Casanova, a famous philosopher, philanderer and Freemason who came to London in 1763 with the intention of establishing a Lottery and repeat the success he had had in France with it .
In Georgian England, Italian actors, dancers and singers performed in theatres as part of the Opera Buffa and Italian jesters were always present at local Fairs. The most celebrated comic entertainer of the time was Giuseppe Grimaldi.
In conclusion, aside from representatives of the performing arts, Italy also exported to England bankers, theatre impresarios, music virtuoso [1] and from the medical field , the Chevalier Ruspini, a surgeon-dentist who won the confidence of a King and the love and respect of the population of this island for his skill, medical care and sincere benevolence.
BARTOLOMEO RUSPINI
Bartolomeo Ruspini was born in 1728/1730 at Romacoto (Bergamo), a village about 40 miles north-east of Milan, Italy. His father Andrea came from the village of Grumello (Bergamo) and was a minor member of a patrician family that originated from the ancient Italian region of Como. He was ‘the eldest of the eight children of Giovanni Andrea Ruspini (1707–1769) and his wife, Bartolomea (1708–1788.)
Bartolomeo claimed to have qualified as a surgeon in Bergamo in 1758, and to have trained under Pierre Fauchard (January 2, 1679–March 21, 1761) who was a French physician, credited as being the “father of modern dentistry” and the Court dentist of Louis XV of France who suffered with dental abscesses. Ruspini self-styled himself as a specialist “surgeon-dentist” and commenced practicing in England around 1750, initially in Bath and Bristol and later in London.
The limited and expensive medical relief that doctors provided before Nations set up free healthcare systems for their people, cleared the way for opportunistic shady individuals to take over the “poor man” territory. Fear and pain made people turn to quackery and its fake remedies.
The poem celebrates the equality which reigns among Freemasons without distinction of profession, rank, race or creed and the first two stanzas clearly reflect the diversity of this particular Lodge, underscored by the refrain which contrasts the behaviour displayed in public with that shown inside the Lodge.
There was Rundle, Station Master, And Beazeley of the Rail, And Hackman, Commissariat, And Donking of the Jail; And Blake, Conductor-Sergeant, Our Master twice was he, With him that kept the Europe-shop, Old Framjee Eduljee.
Outside – ” Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam! Inside – ‘Brother,” and it doesn’t do no harm. We met upon the Level and we parted on the Square, And I was junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!
We had Bola Nath, Accountant, And Saul the Aden Jew, And Din Mohammed, draughtsman Of the Survey Office too; There was Babu Chuckerbutty, And Amir Singh the Sikh, And Castro from the fitting-sheds, The Roman Catholic!
We hadn’t good regalia, And our Lodge was old and bare, But we knew the Ancient Landmarks, And we kept them to a hair; And looking on it backwards It often strikes me thus, There ain’t such things as infidels, Except, perhaps, it’s us.
For monthly, after Labour, We would all sit down and smoke (We dared give no banquets, Lest a Brother’s caste were broke), And man on man got talking Religion and the rest, And every man comparing Of the God he knew the best.
So man on man got talking, And not a Brother stirred Till morning waked the parrots And that damned brain-fever-bird. We would say it was highly curious, Ans we would all ride home to bed, With Mohammed, God, and Shiva Changing pickets in our head.
Full oft on Guv’ment service This roving foot hath pressed, And bore fraternal greetings To the Lodges east and west, According as commanded. From Kohat to Singapore, But I wish that I might see them In my Mother-Lodge once more!
I wish that I might see them, My Brethren black and brown, With the trichies smelling pleasant And the hog-darn passing down; And the old khansamah snoring On the bottle-khana floor, Like a Master in good standing With my Mother-Lodge once more.
Outside – Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!’ Inside- Brother,” and it doesn’t do no harm. We met upon the Level and we parted on the Square, And I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there!
Background Rudyard Kipling was the author of the children's novels The Jungle Book (1894) and Just So Stories (1902). His most successful novel was Kim (1901). He was initiated into the Lodge of Hope and Perseverance No 782 (founded in 1858 under the English Constitution) at the Masonic Hall, the Jadughar (as described in Kim) in Anarkali, Lahore on 5 April 1886, at the age of twenty. As this was the Lodge into which he was initiated it became his Mother Lodge. A Freemason will always have a particular attachment to the Lodge which saw him enter into Freemasonry, even though he may cease to be a member of that particular Lodge.
The poem was written some eight years later, when he was living in Vermont. Charles Carrington in his The Complete Barrack-room Ballads (p.166), reports that it was written in a single day, on October 29th 1894, while Conan Doyle was staying with the Kiplings. First published in the The Pall Mall Gazette and the Pall Mall Budget on May 9th 1895. In the Sussex Edition the poem is dated 1894.
SOURCE: The Kipling Society
The following exchange is from Kipling’s story The Man who would be King which was put on film in 1975 and interpreted by Michael Caine and Sean Connery. A Masonic introduction convinces Rudyard Kipling to assist Peachy, after first being reluctant to do so. Michael Caine and Chritopher Plummer in the classic movie ‘The Man Who Would Be King’.
In her autobiographical work Herzens-Geschichten, Elisa von der Recke lavishes praise on the formative influence of her stepmother, Agnes Elisabeth von Medem, who took charge of her upbringing and education in her eleventh year. According to von der Recke, it was at this time that her stepmother was shocked to discover that she could barely read or write, as a result of living with her grandmother. [1] Consequently, Agnes ensured that Elisa lived with her father and stepmother. Thenceforth, an extremely close bond developed between Agnes and Elisa, with the latter describing how ‘my stepmother was the dearest to me on earth’ and how her words ‘were like gospel to me”[2]. This intimate emotional relationship was reinforced by Agnes’s astute tutelage of her stepdaughter. As Elisa records, her stepmother had a famed talent for composing poetry in Courland, and was keen to impart her knowledge of literature and plays to her protégé. Indeed, Agnes asked Elisa to learn verse by heart and the pair would read novels and plays together. [3] At the time of her initiation as a Scottish Mistress Mason in May 1779, Agnes von Medem was in her early sixties. Once again the writings of Elisa von der Recke furnish us with valuable information about her stepmother’s involvement in Cagliostro’s adoptive lodge at this time.
Thus, we learn from von der Recke that Cagliostro allowed Agnes to attend his lectures and to participate in magical experiments in the adoptive lodge prior to her initiation into the order. Indeed, in her memoirs von der Recke writes that she asked Cagliostro why he had made an exception to the rule in allowing her stepmother to attend lodge meetings. In reply Cagliostro is said to have argued that every member must be treated according to their character.[4] In other words, it would seem that Cagliostro recognized the intellectual prowess of Agnes von Medem and wanted to encourage her participation.
Elisabeth von der Recke
Consequently, after Agnes had attended numerous lectures and magical experiments during lodge meetings, von der Recke notes that ‘after three weeks we travelled again to Alt-Auz [the Medem country estate at Wilzen] because Cagliostro himself, prior to his journey to St. Petersburg, wanted to initiate my stepmother (now deceased) and other members who had a capacity for magic into the Lodge of Adoption’.[5] His apparent aim was to ‘gradually initiate them into the sacred mysteries’, which was seemingly not such a slow process, as von der Recke describes how the new members were “given the third degree” at this meeting.[6] The initiation ceremony was then followed by a lecture on the dangers and beneficial influences of magic and a séance involving Elisa’s nephew in the guise of a spirit conduit.
Did Agnes Elisabeth von Medem’s intellectual curiosity, combined with her venerable age, lead to her being initiated into the higher degree of Scottish Mistress Mason?
Unfortunately, von der Recke’s memoir does not enlighten us on this matter. However, what is apparent from von der Recke’s autobiography and memoir, regarding her stepmother, is that Agnes von Medem possessed a dynamic thirst for knowledge, which she shared with her stepdaughter and that did not go unnoticed by Cagliostro. This intellectual prowess may well account for the honour bestowed upon Agnes Elisabeth by Cagliostro in initiating her as a Scottish Mistress Mason.
Freedom is the first value of the Masonic trinomial “Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood” – “Liberté, égalité, fraternité– and is the product of a number of rules. When the rules fail – for example, by the need to gain ever more freedom for both individuals and the masses – we slide towards Anarchy. And the Athenian philosopher Plato in his “Republic” states that from Anarchy the slide to Tyranny , or at the very least the partial loss of our liberty , is short and inevitable !
The philosopher Plato
The logic however suggests that the sequence in the trinomial [1] , should read differently, because Freedom is the final consequence of the other two and needs supporting columns on which to rest. Without such columns, Freedom will implore as history has often demonstrated.
For Montesquieu [2] “Freedom” was “the right to do everything that is permitted by the Law” ; for Constant de Rebecque [3] , or simply Benjamin Constant, “Freedom is the right to do everything that man has the right to do and which Society cannot prevent“. With the spread of Covid19 in the western world/economies, Freedom has gained a new interpretation too restrictive, despotic to contemplate.
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.
Knight Templar
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!
Map of the Roman Empire
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.
The Pantheon in Rome
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.
Roman Legion
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!
Roman worker
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.
The Italian Intreccio and Comacines’s knot
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 1st) [15] had chosen to lead a mission to convert King Aethelbert [16] of Kent in 595. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury !
Roman builders
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 (…)”.
Magistri Comacines
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 13th 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].
carver of gargoyle
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
[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.
[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, PapplewickDied: 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.
[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 Benedictinemonk 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,)
Il est midi, c’est l’heure oùles ouvriers,Délaissant leurs métaux,empoignant leurs outils,Vêtus de leurs gants blancset de leur tablier,Entament leurs travaux en loged’apprenti.Dans un endroit couvert, duhaut de leurs trios ans,Chacun sur sa colonne, et faceà l’orient, Fait le signe de l’ordre et se fait reconnaître,Par le deux surveillants du vénérable maître.Ils ne savent encor ni lire ni ecrire,Seulement épeler mais cestailleurs de pierreOnt en commun un but, auquelChacun aspire:Trouver la vérité et chercher la lumière.
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)
The West Gate is a term many Masons may be unfamiliar with. I know here in Texas I had never heard of it until I began actively researching and collaborating with other Masons from various jurisdictions online. In the physical sense, the West Gate is the door through which candidates and brethren enter to receive their degrees. In a more conceptual sense, the West Gate is much broader in definition and encompasses the entire process of receiving petitions, investigations, and voting on accepting and advancing new members.
The latter definition is, at least in my mind, most applicable to the phrase “Guarding the West Gate” [1] and is what this post will be focusing on.
QUALITY v QUANTITY
When the printing press came into everyday use, books, which were once uncommon and valuable, became common and affordable for most people. The Industrial Revolution had very much the same effect in that it made items which once took time and craftsmanship to produce cheap and easily accessible.
This being said, this post is not written to complain about progress. Rather, in both examples given above, society moved from quality items which were once created by craftsmen towards faster production in favour of quantity. You see, you cannot have quality and quantity at the same time. Quality makes an object or an experience something marvelous and quantity makes an object or an experience something mundane. This marvelous vs. mundane argument could apply towards several facets of Freemasonry and probably deserves its own post in the future, but for now let’s apply it towards the West Gate.
FOUR QUARTERS OR ONE HUNDRED PENNIES ?
The application of quality versus quantity applies to Freemasonry very well, in my opinion. Remember that something which is marvelous and/or has high quality must, by its very nature, be scarce. This principle also means that as a product becomes more and more common the quantity will increase but it will become more and more mundane at the same time.
Unfortunately, this is what is happening in our fraternity. In many lodges the standards for who they are willing to accept have dropped severely and in some lodges the standards are non-existent outside of the bare minimum which has been set for their jurisdictions (in some jurisdictions even these minimum standards can be waived).
There’s a saying “If you don’t stand for something then you’ll fall for anything”. This could also be adapted to say “If alodge has no standards they will accept anybody”, which is sadly often the case. The requirements a jurisdiction set for men to petition should not be looked at as though it is a pass or fail situation but instead should be regarded as minimum criteria to be considered for admission.
If you ever get the chance to talk with a real old-timer Freemason, ask him what it was like to join the Fraternity back in the day. Several decades ago it was much more difficult to become a Freemason. My own grandfather has told me thatwhen he first joined in the 1950s the lodge he petitioned had an unspoken policy that every petitioner was turned down the first time they applied, the idea being that if someone truly wanted to be a member they would re-apply later. Other older brethren have told me they had to ask three times before they could even receive a petition. Certain professions, activities, and reputations could bar you without question. Yes, I know, these methods all seem extreme and possibly even cruel to us today, however they created scarcity which, in turn, made membership more desirable and generally increased the quality of the members as well.
This is a sharp contrast to the petitioning process for many lodges today. In fact, even though many lodges are allowing every man without a criminal record to join, most U.S. jurisdictions are losing members faster than they can be replaced. That being said, when membership was hard to obtain, men were always petitioning during a time that many of us today regard as the Golden Years of Freemasonry.
So the question is this: would you rather have four quarters in your pocket or a hundred pennies? Is a small and intimate lodge with a handful of quality brethren better than a large lodge with only a few active brothers and a hundred members on the roster who never show up and never dedicated themselves to the fraternity?
FINAL REMARKS
I am not an elitist and I don’t want to be regarded as such. I am, however, in favour of making it actually mean something to be a Freemason again. When membership was scarcest people knew that you were a quality person to be affiliated with the fraternity; now this isn’t always the case. In fact, if we’re being honest with ourselves we can probably think of at least one Freemason who has no business being in the Fraternity.
The purpose of this post is to encourage reflection towards the petition process your own lodge is practicing. What are your standards? How thorough is your investigation process? How many times is the petitioner expected to come, meet and eat with the brethren before he is given a petition? What are your degree fees?
We have a huge responsibility as stewards of our fraternity. Every unworthy man who slips through a wide-open West Gate into the Craft has the potential to eventually vote, assume an office, and even get involved at the Grand Lodge level. One such man is toxic enough; what if we allow hundreds to slip through?
Are you truly only accepting men who are Masonic material or is any and every man with a petition and degree fee in hand being accepted?
The future of the fraternity is in our hands, brethren !
[1] In fact, the phrase “Guarding the West Gate” has been drafted from the Bible. In Christian literature, the Eastern gate of the Old City, or the “Golden Gate,” is the place at which the parents of Mary met after the Annunciation. As such, the site of the gate became a symbol of the virgin birth of Jesus. Similarly, West Gate is considered to be the Main Entrance of the God. To Guard Well the West Gate, in other words, means protection and safeguarding the Temples which are considered to be the holy residences of God.
Dr. Albert Gallatin Mackey [1] was an American medical doctor and is best known for his books and articles about Freemasonry. In particularly in 1858 he set forth his Twenty-five Ancient Landmarks to establish a universally-recognized method by which Freemasons across the globe, could operate. Mackey’s Landmarks have been studied and debated, yet remain the standard by which Freemasons meet and work.
LANDMARK ONE
The modes of recognition are, of all the Landmarks, the most legitimate and unquestioned. They admit of no variation; and if ever they have suffered alteration or addition, the evil of such a violation of the ancient law has always made itself subsequently manifest. An admission of this is to be found in the proceedings of the Masonic Congress at Paris, where a proposition was presented to render these modes of recognition once more universal – a proposition which never would have been necessary, if the integrity of this important Landmark had been rigorously preserved.
LANDMARK TWO
The division of Symbolic Masonry into three Degrees is a Landmark that has been better preserved than almost any other, although even here the mischievous spirit of innovation hag left its traces, and by the disruption of its concluding portion from the Third Degree, a want of uniformity has been created in respect to the final teaching of the Master’s order, and the Royal Arch of England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, and the “high degrees” of France and Germany, are all made to differ in the mode in which they lead the neophyte to the great consummation of all symbolic masonry. In 1813, the Grand Lodge of England vindicated the ancient Landmark, by solemnly enacting that ancient craft Masonry consisted of the three degrees: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason, including the Holy Royal Arch; but the disruption has never been healed, and the Landmark, although acknowledged in its integrity by all, still continues to be violated.
LANDMARK THREE
The Legend of the Third Degree is an important Landmark, the integrity of which has been well preserved. There is no rite of Masonry, practiced in any country or language, in which the essential elements of this legend are not taught. The lectures may vary, and indeed are constantly changing, but the legend has ever remained substantially the same; and it is necessary that it should be so, for the legend of the Temple Builder constitutes the very essence and identity of Masonry; any rite which should exclude it, or materially alter it, would at once, by that exclusion or alteration, cease to be a Masonic rite.
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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 
