THE COMPANIONAGE.
Upon
some
these postulates I shall hazard
general acceptance, viz.
of the ancient Mysteries, which
:
conjectures,
—That the trade guilds
241
which may
or
may
not meet with
at their earliest stage preserved a modification
may also have been
previously celebrated by the Colleges. That
etc., were practised at the end of a work-
part of these ceremonies, such as the second baptism,
man's apprenticeship, and the tragic portion at the reception of a new master. That when the
State began to interfere with the republican liberty of the cities and trades (and possibly the
Church, with the independence of any survivals of paganism), these ceremonies continued to be
practised in secret, the masterpiece and the banquet only being allowed to become known to the
outside world.
That
after the first revelations anfl denunciation of the Mysteries
by the doctors
on the 21st September 1645, the judgment of the Official de Paris, 30th May 1648, of the Bailly
du Temi^h, 11th September 1651, and the excommunication by the Archbishop of Toulouse in
the same year, the masters abandoned for ever any participation in the Companionage ; thus
That the Companions, however, who,
following the example set by the shoemakers in 1651.
from their wandering life and lack of worldly goods, had much less to fear, persevered in their
ancient usages, with the exception of those whose revelations appear in the first of the three
documents above cited.
Perdiguier shows that some of these have only recently been
readmitted, and the shoemakers were universally despised, probably on account of this very
renunciation.
That, finding themselves deserted by the masters, the Companions divided their
—aspirant
— and
apportioned between them the two
ceremonies previously allotted to the Companions and the masters respectively.
It would be absurd to pretend that this theory is unassailable, and none that we could
form in our present state of knowledge would be so but it at least possesses the merit of
class into
two degrees
and companion
;
down
The age of the Companionage, therefore,
the meaning which we attach to the term.
If we allude to the period when
depends upon
alone took part in the ceremony, we cannot go further back than 1655 if to the time
Companions
agreeing with the few facts that have come
to us.
;
when
it first
became
twelfth centuries
but
;
if to
the time of the
we must date it from the overthrow of
One point of absorbing interest to
did
it
not, exist previously to the
we
of our inquiry,
He
Freemasonry.
we must
of service to the travelling journeyman,
says, in
upon the
usage of these ceremonies
eleventli or
by the craft guilds,
the Eomans, and the modifications which then took place.
us
is
of course the age of the Hiramic
Masonic revival of
met with
are
first
fix
letter of
1717
assertion
Perdiguier's
answer to a
a.d.
?
that
Beau Desir
Legend
:
did
it,
or
And here, on
it
is
the very threshold
derived directly from
le Gascon,^
—
"
As
to this history
enough, but of which the consequences are
The Bible the only book of
horrible for it tends to separate those who take it seriously.
any real authority concerning the constructors of Solomon's Temple says nothing about
of Hiram's, I regard
it
as a
mere
fable, ingenious
;
—
Hiram's murder
;
and
for
my
part, I
do not believe
of Li &W'G