THE OLD CHARGES OF BRITISH FREEMASONS.
58
Freemasons," as the
"
Coustitutions
"
under examination have been aptly termed by the
masonic author whose labours have been the longest sustained in this branch of archseological
research.^
The legends
and other
peculiar to the Compagnonage have been very lightly passed over by masonic
This is in a great measure to be accounted for, no doubt, by the absence
historians.
Authors of repute
any literature bearing on the subject until a comparatively recent date.
have merely alluded to this obscure subject in the most casual way, and virtually the customs
of
and legends of this association were quite unknown to the outer world, until the appearance of
"
a small work in 1841, by Agricol Perdiguier, entitled
Le Livre du Compagnonage."
"
Perdiguier, who was a Compagnon," writes of the organisation as a Freemason would of
Freemasonry,
i.e.,
without disclosing aught of an esoteric character; but the legends and customs
The analogies between distinctive portions of the English and French
legends occur too frequently, and are too strongly marked to be accidental. If, then, we may
assume and I apprehend we may do so safely that certain legends were afloat in early days
are carefully described.^
—
—
of the Compagnonage, anterior
to the
1390 — the following
"
date of
"
our earliest British " Constitution
—The
is the result: In the fourteenth
Halliwell," ciVcff,
century there is, on
the one hand, an organisation (the Compagnons) in full activity, though without manuscript
On the other hand, there is
constitutions, or legends, which has endured to this day.
evidence satisfactorily proving that the legendary history of the English masons
documentary
was not only enshrined in
tradition,
but was embalmed in their records.
Yet we have
little
or no evidence of the activity of English masons in their lodges at so early a period,^ beyond
what is inferentially supplied by the testimony of these Old Charges or Constitutions, which
form the subject of our present investigation.
On the whole, it may be reasonably concluded that the Compagnons of the Middle Ages
preserved legends of their own which were not derive d from the Freemasons (or masons) and
the latter, doubtless, assembled in lodges, although Acts of Parliament and other historical
;
records are provokingly silent
But
upon the
point.
Compagnonage were not derivative, can the same be said
which have been preserved by the masons ? The points of similarity are so varied and
if
the legends of the
of those
distinct,
the present legends of the two bodies, have been faithfully transmitted
from their ancestors of the Middle Ages, the inference is irresistible, either that the masons
that if
it
he conceded that
borrowed from the Compagnon,s, or that the traditions of both associations are inherited from a
common
original.*
At no previous period have equal
facilities
been afforded for a study of these " Old Charges
of British Freemasons," either as respects their particular character, or their relations to the
Compagnonage and other organisations, masonic or otherwise. Within living memory barely
ten copies were known to be in existence, but since 1860, and particularly during the last
'
Mr
^
The leading
'William James Huglian, of Truro.
features of the
pp. 179-181 (Philadelphia, 1874).
"
Compagnonage are given by Dr Mackey in his
Eneyclopajdia of Freeraasonrj',"
The subject is also discussed, tliough at less length, hy Messrs Woodford and Kenneth
E. H. Mackenzie, in the excellent Cyclopedias for which they are responsible.
s I have not lost
sight of the Fabric Rolls of York Minster, dating from the fourteenth century, and others, which
contain distinct references to the '• loge," and its essentially private character but as to the internal
management of
;
lodges by the early Freemasons
*
The
subject of the
we
literally find
Compagnonage
will
nothing until a
much
later period.
be fully considered in Chapter V.