Authentic Craft History In Britain.

about fifty years before the alleged assembling of Masons at York , " there were comparatively few persons who were able to understand the Church Service in the English tongue , or translate a Latin epistle into their own language . " It was highly improbable that any of those who are said to have framed those ancient charges and regulations for the government of the Craft in the tenth century were at this epoch able to comprehend Greek , when England was sunk into a lamentable state of barbarism and intellectual darkness . So far as relates to the French language , in which a portion of these famous records are claimed to have been drawn up , it will suffice to say that in the year 926 no French idiom existed as a

written language . Unity of traditions between the mediaBval English and French Craftsmen points to France as the earliest and nearest source whence Masonic knowledge was procured . The time fixed for the date of the York assembly , in the year 926 , is purely and entirely conjectural . No portion of the manuscript contains the slightest allusion to that or any other period , but merely states that Masonry was introduced in the time of Athelstan , who , according to more recently written legends , held a grand convocation' at York , and that he made proclamation at that time for all records pertaining to the Craft to be produced before him . Upon what authority this assemblage of Masons has been referred to a definite year is unknown , but it is to be presumed , from the fact that Edwin , an English prince , lived about the year 926 . As to the style , orthography , or lettering of the manuscript , nothing attests the assumption that it was written in the year 1390 . "

The tradition of the great assembl y at York may fairly be considered one of the oldest traditions of the English Craft , ancl may as fairl y be traced back to the Masonic poem , whose age we will consider later . In all probabilit y Anderson saw a copy of the MS . called Matthew Cooke ' s , but considered the articles written in the time of Richard II . Masonic historians were then somewhat uncritical , but did not wish intentionally to deceive . Anderson

probably also knew about the Masonic poem . In that poem are words which profess to represent a portion of a speech of Athelstan of the ancient " C yte " York . The tradition , is probably true , and we have in this reall y and trul y the meeting of a grand operative assembly . But the writer forgets that we have also a Masonic tradition mentioning an assembl y under Alban or Albanus six hundred years before the time of Athelstan . The date 926 , so much objected to by the writer , is clearly governed in some way by the reign of

Athelstan . Nine hundred and twenty-six is a later date , however , ancl as to the statement that in 926 no French idiom existed in a written language , this is altogether erroneous . Norman French was then in full vogue .

" The same reasoning which ascribes it to the close of the 14 th century will admit of assigning an origin to a much later , perhaps to the middle of the 15 th century . However this may be , the manuscript which is lettered and numbered in the library of the British Museum as Eoyal 17 , Al , has been copied from an older and more ancient parchment , or transcribed from fragmentary traditions . Certain portions of the manuscript bear internal evidence of having an evident reference to a remote antiquity . "

The date of the Masonic poem is a moot point . Much internal evidence points to an earlier rather than a later date , and so it was adjudged by Casley , no mean authority , ancl others could be mentioned , Mr . Bond thinks its transcription is about 1425 , not later , and that date he also assigns Cooke ' s MS . We confess we see no reason to depart from Casley ' s view of 1390 .

" The manuscripts assert that at the mythical Masonic convocation at York there were records written in Greek ( the Lansdowne MSS ., No . 98 , say there were some in Hebrew ) , showing to what extent these early English Masons acknowledged themselves indebted to the Grecian or Byzantine artificers The old chronicles of the Craft further relate that Masonry was introduced into France by Naymus , the Grecian , who instructed Charles Martel in the Science . The first known Master Masons on British soil were foreigners , and Frenchmen—John Moreau and William , a native of Sens—the former of whom , early in the 12 th century , was

Master of Scottish Masons ; the latter , iu 1176 , rebuilt the Cathedral of Canterbury . It is well known that William the Conqueror deluged the whole of England with foreign artificers , whom he brought with him , and the almost utter extinction of the Anglo-Saxon social element , either by proscription or gradually merging into the Norman , rendered it necessary that public edifices should be erected by competent workmen imported from abroad . France , at this time , possessed such artisans , because , according to the admission of the quaint chronicles alluded to , long prior to this epoch , Naymus , a Grecian , had carried the science of Masonry into Franco , and taught it to Charles Martel , conceding upon the force of tradition , that