Origins

The origins of freemasonry are shrouded in colourful myths passed down by generations of masons. Some masons traced their beginnings back to the building of Solomon's temple in biblical times. Others dated their order back to the Templar, the knightly crusading order of the twelfth century. But most historians now see eighteenth-century freemasonry as evolving out of English and Scottish stonemason guilds of the seventeenth century. Master stonemasons were highly skilled craftsmen whose trade demanded considerable technical knowledge in engineering and architecture. Taking pride in their craft, they had developed over the centuries a rich repository of legends and rituals highlighting their history as the builders of palaces and churches. In the seventeenth century their myths and ceremonies began to attract the attention of individuals outside the guild, including those with philosophical and scientific interests who saw masonry as a fount of ancient wisdom. By the early eighteenth century Masonic organizations had begun to lose their identity as occupational associations and had evolved into fraternal lodges devoted to charitable activity and the provision of fellowship and mutual aid to their members. As such, the rise of freemasonry was symptomatic of the more general proliferation of clubs, reading societies, salons, and other institutions of sociability that occurred throughout Europe in the age of Enlightenment. Those from the middling ranks of society, especially merchants, comprised a large segment of British freemasons, although members also included aristocrats and even royalty(at the end of the eighteenth century almost all male members of the royal family were members). By 1725 London lodges, which in 1717 had confederated themselves into the Grand Lodge of London, numbered thirty-seven, and by 1780 England as a whole boasted almost four hundred.