Speculative Masonry and the birth of the “high degrees”
This article is adapted from Arturo de Hoyos, “A Brief History of Freemasonry and the Origins of the Scottish Rite,” Scottish Rite Ritual Monitor and Guide (2010), 77–111.
On June 24, 1717, four London lodges assembled at the Goose and Gridiron Ale House and institutionalized non-operative Freemasonry when they established the Grand Lodge of England and elected its first Grand Master. The original record, if there was one, cannot be found, but was reconstructed and published by Rev.James Anderson in his New Book of Constitutions (1738):
Accordingly on St John Baptist’s Day, in the 3rd year of King George I. A.D. 1717, the ASSEMBLY and Feast of the Free and accepted Masons was held at the foresaid Goose and Gridiron Alehouse.
Before Dinner, the oldest Master Mason (now the Master of a Lodge) in the Chair, proposed a List of proper Candidates; and the Brethren by a majority of Hands elected Mr. Anthony Sayer, Gentleman, Grand Master of Masons. . . .
It should be recalled that when the premiere grand lodge was formed, there were still only two degrees: Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft. In the Edinburgh Register House Ms (1696) the “points of fellowship” were a reference to the Fellow Craft, who received two words taken from 1 Kings 7:21 and 2 Chronicles 3:17. Yet other early documents include hints of a separate higher honor bestowed even before the creation of the grand lodge. It included a unique word that was given to the Masters (senior Fellow Crafts) and was associated with the ritual embrace.The Sloane Ms 3329 also describes the “Master’s grip” given with the embrace:
Their Masters gripe is grasping their right hands in each other placing their four finger’s nails hard upon the Carpus or end of others wrists and the thumb nailes thrust hard directly between the second Joynt of the thumb and the third Joynt of the first ffinger but some say the masters grip is the same I last described only each of their middle ffingers must reach an inch or three barly corns Length higher to touch upon a vein yet comes from the heart.
A remarkable transformation occurred a few years later when a separation of the ritual esotery of the senior Fellow Craft’s honor was used to help create the first “high degree”—the Master Mason’s Degree.
By November, 1725, there was in existence a new degree, a degree intermediate between the Acceptance and the Master’s Part, and it was known as the Fellow-Craft.” Thus, we also read of the earliest known conferral of this new high degree, just eight years after the formation of the premiere grand lodge when, on May 12, 1725, Bro. Charles Cotton received the Master Mason’s Degree.
The identity of the authors of the new ritual is not known, nor precisely how the transformation occurred. However, we may compare the creation of the Master Mason’s Degree with that of the “virtual” Past Master’s Degree (now part of American York Rite Masonry), which developed from the private installation of a Master of a Craft Lodge. Also called the “Installed Master” Degree (or ceremonial), it is still performed in many jurisdictions.
As a part of the ceremony the (Past) Master is “regularly seated” (installed) in a particular manner and given certain “secrets of the chair.”
Obviously, since relatively few Masons have the honor of presiding over a lodge, these secrets are withheld from many. However, the honor became a prerequisite to receiving the Royal Arch Degree. To accommodate this requirement, the installation ceremony and its secrets were transformed into a “virtual” Past Master’s Degree. Similarly, the secrets associated with the honor of being a “Master Mason” (senior Fellow Craft) may have been converted and transformed into the Master Mason’s Degree.