THE OLD CHARGES

(A NEW LOOK AT THE OLDEST OF THEM)

BY BRO. J. R. CLARKE

The expression 'Old Charges' has a double significance.
It can be regarded as having reference to certain
'Articles' and 'Points' which state the duties and
responsibilities of masons of former times, and it may
be used to denote documents which preface a legendary
history of the Craft to a statement of the 'Articles'
and 'Points'. The first mention of such a document in
Grand Lodge Freemasonry was when the Grand Master was
George Payne in 1721, and it is to be found in the
diary of William Stukely:

June 24. 1721. The Masons had a dinner at Stationers
Hall, present Duke of Montagu ... The Grand Master
George Payne, produced an Old MS. of the Constitutions
which he got in the West of England, 500 years old.

Stukeley made a transcript of part of this and it has
enabled the document to be identified with the Cooke
MS., so called because it was first published by
Brother Matthew Cooke in 1861; it is now in the British
Museum. Payne had asked for the production of other
early documents to assist the preparation of a
statement of the usages of former times. A comparison
of the 1723 Book of Constitutions with the Cooke MS.
shows that Anderson made use of the manuscript when he
'digested' the material available to him. Since then
more than one hundred similar documents have been
brought to light. Of one of them, the Sloane MS. No.
3808, (1) it can be said that it was written in 1646 to
be available for the meeting at which Elias Ashmole was
made an 'Accepted Mason' in that year. This verifies
the surmise that a copy of the Old Charges, as well as
the Bible, was necessary for the ceremony of admission,
as a proof of the regularity of the meeting before a
Warrant served that purpose. The subsequent versions
are not identical; there are differences between them
which cannot be attributed to copyists' errors. These
differences have enabled students of them to classify
them into 'Families', the members of which have
resemblances to each other, and have assisted in dating
them. For example, the 'Spencer Family', written after
1726, make mention of the third degree, which was
introduced shortly before that date. It is not possible
in a paper such as this tG enter further into this
study but a small book, The Old Charges by Rev. H.
Poole, published in 1924, affords an introduction to
it.

A very important re-discovery of a copy of the Old
Charges was made in 1839 by J.M. Halliwell when he
found in the British Museum a manuscript which he
published under the title of The Early History of
Freemasonry in England; it is now known as the Regius
MS. because it was for a long time in the library of
King Charles II. This and the Cooke MS. stand apart
from the others because they are the only
pre-Reformation versions we have. A classical study of
them was made in 1938 by Knoop, Jones and Hamer of the
University of Sheffield under the title The Two
Earliest Masonic MSS., hereafter cited as 2EMM. Both
these manuscripts were written in the dialect spoken in
the West Midland area of England in the latter part of
the fourteenth century. This area covers
Gloucestershire and West Oxfordshire. The authors add:

The Cooke MS. contains more southern forms than the
Regius MS. and clearly in a region in contact with the
Midlands and West Midlands.

They consider that the Regius MS. was written in 1390
and the Cooke in 1410.

There are notable differences between these two early
versions of the Charges: the Regius is written in verse
and the Cooke in prose; the legendary history given in
the former is very brief; and it left no descendants,
whereas the Cooke is the first of a long line. On the
other hand the Regius incorporates two old documents:
John Mirk's Instructions for Parish Priests (Mirk being
an Augustinian Canon and the Prior of Lilleshall Abbey
in Shropshire), and an anonymous poem 'Tractus
Urbanitatis '. The differences between the Regius and
the Cooke were discussed at length in 2EMM, in notes
and on page 59, and there will be further discussion in
this paper. It must now be stated however that they
have a common ancestor, in existence in 1360 though
alas no longer, but the Cooke was also influenced by
another document written between 1350 and 1390. In
order that there may be some comparison of these Old
Charges with Anderson's Constitutions, without
reference having to be made to other publications,
summaries of these are given here.

THE LEGENDARY HISTORIES

There are many variations of both the long and the
short histories. For example, the Cooke opens with
thanks to God for all the good things he has vouch
safed to mankind. It then switches suddenly to say how
Geometry first began, it being understood that Masonry
and building have their roots in this science. The
usual medieval definitions of the seven liberal arts
are given but the writer maintains that Geometry is
fundamental, being 'the measure of the earth' and hence
the basis of all study of Masonry. He then names the
descendants of Adam and states that Cain built the
first city and that Jabal, the son of Lamech, was his
first master mason, though seven generations away.
Jabal's brother was Tubal (hence Tubal Cain), the first
worker in metals, and he was also the founder of music.
The brothers had foreknowledge that God would take
vengeance for sin either by fire or flood, and built
two pillars, one of marble which would not burn and one
of 'lacerus' (?burnt brick) which would not sink in
water. On these they inscribed all the knowledge they
had.

So we come to Noah and the flood, and his three sons
Shem, Ham and Japheth. After the flood one of the
pillars was found by Pythagoras and the other by Hermes
the philosopher; they passed on the knowledge written
thereon. Ham is stated to have been the father of
Nimrod, who became King of Babylon and built the Tower
of Babylon (confused with Babel). He 'cherished'
builders and taught them the craft of masonry. He also
sent masons to Assur to help him to build his capital,
Nineveh. He 'gave charges' to them also, and these have
some resemblance to the 'Articles' discussed later.

The next great personage in the story is Abraham, 'who
was a wise man and a great clerk'; he taught Geometry
to the Egyptians, among whom was Euclid. Euclid, in
turn, taught the Egyptians how to build walls to
control the Nile floods He also taught the sons of
great lords the science of Geometry; and he 'gave them
Charges'. In this way the children of Israel learnt the
craft of Masonry. In due time King David learnt the
craft and he gave masons charges, which were confirmed
by Solomon to his builders.

From Jerusalem the worthy science of Geometry spread to
France and other regions. In France there was a king,
Charles the Second (not Charlemagne as in other
versions), who was a mason before he became king. He
loved masons and also gave them charges; he also
ordained that they should have a yearly Assembly and be
ruled by Masters and Fellows.

Soon afterwards St Amphibalus came to England and
converted St Alban to Christianity. Alban also loved
masons and gave them charges. At a later date (c.
895-939) Athlestan was king of England and he did much
building. His youngest son 'loved well the science of
Geometry' and he became a mason himself. He, in turn,
gave charges to masons 'as it is now in England'.
Moreover he obtained a patent from the king that they
should 'make assembly when they saw reasonable time to
come together'.

At this point there seems to have been an addition to
the Cooke MS. In a shorter version of the history it
re-tells the story of Euclid but the geometer's name is
'Euglat' and he is no longer a pupil of Abraham, which
was one of the difficulties of the former story. As
before, the knowledge of the science spread from
country to country and congregations (assemblies) were
held. In some variations of the history the distinction
of bringing Masonry to the west is given to Charlemagne
who was, in fact, a great builder; one of his works was
the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle, the design and some
of the stones for which he took from the east. In
another story it is the curiously named Naymus Graecus
who brought Geometry to the west. He was said to have
worked in King Solomon's Temple. Much has been written
about him but he has not been satisfactorily
identified.

THE ARTICLES AND THE POINTS

After the history down to the reign of King Athelstan
has been set out, there are statements that at the
congregations those who wished to be made master masons
are to be examined as to their ability to serve their
employers by attending to the following 'Articles'.
When this has been done, those who wish to 'come to the
state of the aforesaid Art' are to attend a number of
'Points'. The Regius MS. gives fifteen Articles and
fifteen Points while the Cooke has only nine Articles
and eight Points, but it adds some unnumbered
paragraphs written in the style of the Points. For this
reason the arrangement of the Regius MS. is summarized
here.

The first Article requires that a master mason shall
deal fairly with his employers, for example in respect
of the wages claimed to have been paid to his men. The
second that he shall attend the congregation. The next
four concern him and his apprentices: a man shall not
be bound for less than seven yearsj he shall not be a
bondsman; he shall be whole of limb and lawful blood;
he shall not be claimed to have been paid more than he
deserves. Then the master is told that he must not
harbour a thief or a robber and that a less skilled man
may be replaced by a better, but no man shall
supplement another who has begun his work. He is to be
certain that he can carry out any work he undertakes.
The rest of the Articles in the Regius are not in the
Cooke and they supplement a master mason's
responsibilities. No man shall work at night except for
study and no man shall disparage the work of another.
The master shall not claim maintenance for more men
that he employs; he shall be responsible for
instructing his apprentices and shall not take an
apprentice unless he can be sure of giving him proper
instruction.

There is a notable difference between the two
manuscripts in the first Point. The Cooke says: 'He
shall love God and Holy Church and All Hallows (Saints)
and his master and his fellows'. The Regius omits the
saints and so do all the post-reformation manuscripts.
Anderson looses the requirement further: he shall be
'of that religion in which all men agree', thus opening
the Craft to all who believe in God the Creator of the
Universe. The next Points are: that the newcomer shall
deserve his hire; he shall keep secret his master's
teaching and whatever he sees or hears in lodge; he
shall not be untrue to the Craft nor do anything to the
prejudice of his master and fellows; he shall take his
pay from his master without dispute and shall not
question his master's orders. Then he is told that if a
mason quarrel with another the investigation of the
dispute shall be postponed to the next holiday, so as
not to interfere with the progress of the work. He
shall not lie with nor covet his master's wife nor his
daughter nor lie with his fellow's concubines: the
Cooke forbids masons to have concubines. The eighth
Point is that if a mason is appointed warden under his
master he shall be true to his task and mediate fairly
between the master and fellows. The Cooke gives no
further numbered Points. The ninth Point in the Regius
is that the Steward of the Hall is to serve the
Craftsmen willingly and keep accounts. The tenth is
that if a mason leads a bad life or is a bad workman he
shall be ordered to appear before the Assembly. The
next is that is a mason sees a man about to spoil a
stone he shall assist him. The last four are among the
unnumbered Points in the Cooke. The f1rst of them deals
with the Constitution of the Assemblies. Then there are
three about the oath which the apprentice is to be
called upon to swear: he shall be ordered to appear
before the Assembly. The next is that if a mason sees a
man about to spoil a stone he shall assist him. The
last four are among the unnumbered Points the Sheriff
shall imprison him. Finally it is stated that an
Assembly shall be held every vear or every third year,
the time and place being known beforehand, and every
mason shall attend.

In some versions of the Changes there is a more
explicit statement of the method of making the promise.
The newcomer is called upon to take 'the Boke' (i.e.
the Bible) in his hands and swear his oath upon it.

In the Regius MS. the Articles and Points are followed
by a moralizing, not given in Cooke, on the virtue of
the Quatuor Coronati. After this there is an
anachronistic transition to the building of the Tower
of Babel, which again is confused with Babylon, and a
statement that Nebuchadnezzar built it. Then there is a
definition of the seven liberal arts. The whole of this
part reads as though the writer felt that he had
omitted something that should have been included; it
has no relevance to what follows it.

THE NEW LOOK

In a posthumous paper (AQC 94, pp.l66-8), Douglas Hamer
returned to the problems set by the Regius MS. and
propounded four questions about them: by whom and where
was it written, why was it written in verse and why it
had no successors, as had the Cooke MS.? He gave
answers to the first two: it was written by an
Augustinian canon in Lantony Priory near Gloucester;
but he did not find answers to the other two questions.
I have two more questions to add to those of Hamer: why
should a learned man, such as a canon, make a copy of
masonic Articles and Points from an older manuscript;
and why should he tack on to it two Tracts by fellow
Augustinians, both written in verse? That decision to
incorporate the Instructions written by his Superior in
the Order (Mirk) originally in Latin and subsequently
translated into English verse, was made by the writer
of the Regius before he started his work is made clear
by the fact that it induced him to write his own
contribution in verse. The decision to 'borrow'
Urbanitatis may have come later. The answer to the
first of my two questions became apparent only when I
had received from my Roman Catholic relatives some
information about the Order of Augustinian Canons. They
were based on priories and abbeys but it was their
function to go into the parishes, to cooperate with the
clergy and, by precept and example, persuade the laity
to live a good life. They might, for example, do
'welfare work' such as the establishment of
dispensaries.

From 1377 to 1402 there was a band of masons working on
the buildings of Lantony Priory. The older manuscript
to which I have referred, the common ancestor with the
Cooke, held much good advice for masons in its Articles
and Points. At the same time, as they were to be on the
building for some time, a copy of the Old Charges would
be needed so that they could admit apprentices to the
craft and promote them to be fellows The canon would
learn this by moving among the masons, fulfilling his
function. He would have facilities for borrowing the
old manuscript from a source at present unknown,
possibly another monastic library. He would not be
interested in the legendary history, so he would omit
nearly all of it and start his copy with the Article
and Points. When he had finished his task as helpful
scribe, he resumed his mantle as a religious teacher
with the words (line 577) 'Now dear children', a form
of address entirely different from that used in the
Charges when writing about the masons' reponsibilities
to each other. He uses these words to introduce Mirk's
Instructions, (2) which he changed by writing them in
the second person instead of the third, so that they
applied not to parish priests but to masons; thus he
points out their duties to God. They start with an
admonition to go to church regularly and not to be late
'because of idle conversation on the way'; other
admonitions concern reverent behaviour in church, and
so on. The 'borrowing' is only of some hundred lines of
Mirk's total of about two thousand. The remainder of it
deals with the manner of confession and the tenets of
faith, including the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, and
ends with sermonettes on the seven deadly sins. There
are no specific allusions to Masonry but it is of
interest that he introduces a couplet not in Mirk:
'Amen Amen, so mote it be, Now sweet lady, pray for
me'. After this he again speaks for himself: 'I have
yet more to preach to you, so that you may teach it to
your fellows', an indication that he is still writing
to the masons.

The 'Tractus Urbanitatis' which follows this provides
intruction in social behaviour. 2EMM says 'there is
evidence to suggest that masons might benefit greatly
from such ir struction' but it has no masonic import.
It also closes with the couplet 'Amen Amen, so mote it
be, So say we all for charity'.

These three poems, all written by Augustinian canons,
and the information given about the function of the
canons, show clearly that some of the minor clergy in
the latter half of the fourteenth century were
concerned to free the church from the state described
in Moorman's History of the Church in England in the
Thirteenth Century when the learning and piety of both
clergy and laity were at a low ebb. This led me to try
to ascertain whether any of the higher clergy were also
writing reforming poems, in the hope that light. might
be thrown on the reason for Regius MS. being versified.
I found from The Dictionary of National Biography that
the Archbishop of York, Robert de Thoresby, issued in
Latin to his Convocation in 1357 a directive of which
the title translated into English was Instruction and
Lay Folks Catechism. The approval given to this by
Convocation would percolate through to the parishes and
priories. There are editions of this also, with English
translations, in E.E.T.S. collections. One of them, No.
118 in the Original Series, contains the following:

Thorseby was evidently anxious that his catechism
should be as widely disseminated as possible ... and he
told his clerk, John de Taystek, to cast a translation
of it into the form of English verse (unpoetical though
it may be), the more easily to be committed to memory.
As Prior of Lilleshall Abbey, John Mirk would have
known about Convocation's approval of Thorseby's
Instruction and Catechism and also of Taystek's
versification of it (which is fourteen hundred lines
long). Nevertheless I was surprised to find that a
number of years later Mirk should have written his
Instructions which covered precisely the same ground
and so closely resembled it, even to the sermonettes at
the end. There can be no doubt that the Lay Folks
Gtechism, Mirk's Instructions and Urbanitatis are
linked together by being written in Latin and
translated into English verse 'the more easily to be
committed to memory', and that the Regius MS. provides
a final link in the chain, being versified for the same
reason.

This gives the answer to Hamer's third question. It
also makes clear why the manuscript left no successor.
When the buildings at Lantony were finished in 1402,
this band of masons would leave the site. The
manuscript having been written by a member of the
priory, it would be placed in its library. It remained
there until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1559
when the last Prior, Robert Hart, took it away with
him. Its history since then is known. It is
interesting, though perhaps useless, to speculate
whether the masons who left Latony in 1402 moved
southwards to another Augustinian foundation, perhaps
to Cirencester or Oxford or Dorchester, and persuaded
another canon to write the Cooke MS.

After the section of this paper on Mirk's Instructions
had been written, a member of the staff of the
Sheffield University Library drew my attention to a
recent acquisition, a book by G. Kristensson, John
Mirk's Instructions for Parish Priests, published in
1974. This is based not only on the manuscript Cotton
Claudius A H (which was available to Peacock and to
Knoop, Jones and Hamer), but also on six other
manuscripts of Mirk's work. It includes inter alia a
length discussion of the dialect in which Mirk wrote,
and considers that there is evidence of northern
influence as well as that of the West Midlands. It
concludes that it is a versified translation of parts
of William de Pagula's Oculus Sacerdotus. There is a
reference to the 'borrowing' in the Regius MS. but
Thoresby's Catechism is not mentioned. It may be of
course that this also derives from Pagula's work; there
was much unacknowledged borrowing in those days. This
does not conflict with my option that Mirk knew about
the directive and that his versification resulted from
that of Taystek. Kristensson does not mention that any
other of Mirk's works was versified.

THE SOURCES OF THE REGIUS AND THE COOKE MANUSCRIPTS

There remains the problem 'how does it come about that
these two versions of the Old Charges were written in
very similar dialects at this particular time?' In the
west of England there is a magnificent chain of
cathedrals without parallel elsewhere: Exeter, Wells,
Gloucester, Worcestershire and Hereford, as well as
many abbeys and castles, on which building was carried
out almost continuously during the five centuries
before A.D. 1500. It is not strange that both the
manuscripts in question should say that Athelstan,
grandson of Alfred the Great gave charges to masons for
he was the King of Wessex before he became King of All
England, and he is reputed to have been the founder in
932 of the monastic house which was the fore-runner of
the cathedral at Exeter. In the middle of this chain
there developed a Gloucester School of Masons whose
outstanding figure was Walter of Hereford. In the
middle of the fourteenth century, after the Black
Death, Edward III decided to rebuild Windsor Castle. He
impressed masons from all parts of the country for this
work. In view of the development of the Gloucester
School, it is not surprising to find that John of
Sponlee was put in charge of the work in 1350, that
William of Wynford was 'made chief Architect at Windsor
joint with John of Sponlee in 1351' and took over from
him in 1357; Robert of Gloucester was named as 'Warden
of the Masons' there in 1357: all were from the West
Country (Henry de Yvele, J.R. Harvey, 1944).

Moreover the second Article in both Charges states that
every master mason shall attend the congregation unless
he has reasonable excuse for absence. My perusal of a
large number of versions of the Old Charges (albeit a
fraction of the whole) shows that our two earliest
versions are the only ones which allow 'reasonable
excuse'; the great majority require attendance within
if within fifty miles of the place of meeting, although
a minority lower the requirement to a walking distance
of ten miles or less. The greater distance is
unrealistic because it would entail an absence from
work for many days. I cannot remember that any
allowance was made for this in the building accounts
studied by Knoop and Jones in the Mediaeval Mason.

As a matter of fact, for a large part of the time after
1400 the question of the Assemblies would not arise. At
the beginning of the reign of Henry VI, in 1425, a ban
was placed on holding them on the ground that they
contravened the Statutes of Labourers. The masons
protested that they were as loyal and law-abiding as
other trades and objected to being singled out for
attack. Condor (The Hole Craft and Fellowship of
Masons, p.77) observes that 'we do not hear of this Act
being put into force' and he gives high legal opinion
that it was repealed in 1562. It may be a coincidence
but it was about this time that the earliest extant
post-reformation versions of the Old Charges appeared.
After this it was permissable to hold Assemblies but
there is only one statement that one was held. The
Roberts MS. of 1722 avers that an Assembly was held in 
1663 but there is no supporting evidence. There is
substance in Anderson's claim that the function of the
Assembly was taken over by Grand Lodge, though copies
of the Charges were made for some time after 1723.

However this may be it is evident that, while it would
be possible to hold a full Assembly of masons during
the building of Windsor Castle, this could not be done
thereafter. I suggest therefore that the common
ancestors of our two manuscripts, from which the
requirement of Assemblies would be taken, were written
at this period. They would remain in the hands of the
chief masons when this work was finished and would be
carried by them back to the West Country. This
speculation agrees with the date suggested for the two
sources in 2EMM, page 59.

I conclude with the lines written about six hundred
years ago: 

Amen, Amen. So mote it be,
So say we alle for charyte.

NOTES

1. Not to be confused with the Sloane MS. No. 3329,
which is a catechism reproduced in Conder's Records
ofthe Hole Craft and Fellowship of Mason S (1894),
p.227.

2. Both the Instructions and Urbanitatis are reprinted
in the collections of the Early English Tract Society.
Original Series. Vols. 31 and 32 respectively.