Born in Blood by John J. Robinson

Author:John J. Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: M. Evans & Company
Published: 2009-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

IN SEARCH OF THE MEDIEVAL GUILDS

The one aspect of Freemasonry that is not supposed to be a mystery turns out to be the biggest mystery of all, and that is how Freemasonry came to be, and why. The origin and purpose of Freemasonry is not supposed to be a mystery because Masons, anti-Masons, and the general press almost universally agree that Freemasonry originated in the medieval guilds of stonemasons in Britain. The research behind this book led to the conclusion that this theory, no matter how widely accepted, is wrong. To disagree with authorities, both Masonic and non-Masonic, who have expounded the belief in guild origins generated a great measure of self-doubt, which in turn provided the incentive for many months of research involving thousands of miles of travel. At the end of the search the conviction that the guild theory was erroneous was stronger than ever, and the doubt was gone.

It must be admitted that modern Masonic writers do allow more room for new speculations and new research than their non-Masonic counterparts. Freemasons F. L. Pick and G. N. Knight, in their authoritative handbook The Pocket History of Freemasonry, state: “Up to the present time, no even plausible theory of the ‘origin’ of the Freemasons has been put forward. The reason for this is probably that the Craft, as we know it, originated among the operative masons of Britain.” The late Stephen Knight, the most outspoken critic of Freemasonry in recent years, expressed no doubt as to Masonic origins in his book The Brotherhood, in which the title he gave to Part One is “Worker’s Guild to Secret Society.” He stated that the history of Freemasonry “is the story of how a Roman Catholic trade guild for a few thousand building workers in Britain came to be taken over by the aristocracy, the gentry, and members of mainly nonproductive professions, and how it was turned into a non-Christian secret society.” That characterization didn’t deter us, for several reasons. First, all trade guilds in medieval Europe might well be styled “Roman Catholic,” because Roman Catholic was the only thing to be (unless one cared to risk loss of property, physical torture, and a premature end in the midst of a pile of burning faggots). Second, craft guilds were strictly local in nature and there was never a medieval craft guild that operated over the length and breadth of Britain. Third, the fact that Freemasonry does not require that a member be a Christian, but only that he believe in God and the immortality of the soul, suggests that such a group could not have originated in a craft guild, particularly one whose principal customer would have had to be the major customer for stone structures, the church.

On the other hand, one must take pause at the matter-of-fact declaration of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “Freemasonry evolved from the guilds of stonemasons and cathedral builders of the middle ages.”

It would be necessary to examine the guild connection carefully, but early research indicated

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