Ceremonial Similarities
of the Templar Rule and the Entered Apprentice
Degree of Freemasonry

by Millard Lane Fretland, MPS

In 1129 the Roman Catholic Council 
of Troyes granted the Knights Templar 
their own rule, thereby providing the 
Order official church sanction. An 
order's "rule" was the set of regula-
tions governing the conduct of the order 
and its members. The rule established 
three primary levels of Templar mem-
bers consisting of knights, sergeants 
and squires. Not surprising in light of 
the extensive building performed by the 
Templars is the fact that the rule makes 
specific mention of "mason brothers" 
who were allowed to wear leather gloves 
when working "because of the great 
suffering they endure and so that they 
do not easily injure their hands. "
 
As a fund raising and public relations 
device, the Templars established a secu-
lar or civilian auxiliary group. This 
group was composed of individuals who 
were made members of a Templar 
"confraternity" by the order in return 
for financial contributions. Members 
were entitled to receipt of the sacra-
ments from Templar priests and to 
burial in Templar graveyards. Many 
male members of the confraternity were 
clothed in the Templar habit as they 
died or at the time of burial. Partner 
states that the confraternity linked the 
Templars to a large portion of noble and 
popular European and British society.
 
There are three striking similarities 
between the Templar ceremonies set out 
in the rule and the Entered Apprentice 
ceremony of speculative Masonry. The 
first is a bifurcated preparation 
sequence for the new Templar candi-
date, when he would be questioned 
twice about his desire and motives for 
joining the order by senior brethren in a 
special chamber near the chapter room. 
A report to the master and chapter sep-
arated the two interrogations.
 
After the new Templar took his vows 
and was cloaked in the mantle of the 
order, the Rule required that the chap-
lain say the Psalm Ecce quam bonum 
which is Psalm 133. The words of this 
Psalm (Oh, how good and pleasant it is 
when brethren live together in unity..) 
are familiar to many. Masons as part of 
the Entered Apprentice ceremony.
 
A third Masonic ritual similarity in 
the Templar Rule is found in the 
ceremonies regarding readmission to 
the order of Templar brethren that had 
been expelled for disciplinary reasons. 
After the Master made a determination 
that the expelled brother had met the 
criteria for readmission to the order, the 
ex-brother was required to undress "to 
his breeches" before entering the chap-
ter "with a rope around his neck. "
 
In addition to these ceremonial like-
nesses, there are at least a dozen other 
similarities between the Templar Rule 
and features of the "Gothic Constitu-
tions" of operative Masonry or of the 
earliest documents concerning specula-
tive masons. Roughly grouped, these 
points deal with the qualifications of 
candidates for admission to the Templar 
order and rules governing the daily con-
duct of Templar brethren. It is beyond 
the scope of this article to examine these 
additional similarities.
 
To try and determine whether the 
ceremonial features were uniquely Tem-
plar in comparison to other major 
crusading orders that may have served 
as Masonic models or sources, I 
thought it wise to examine the rules of 
those orders which were the Hospital-
lers and Teutonic Knights. The Hospi-
taller Rule was granted in 1145-1153 
and was based on the rule of Saint 
Augustine. It was first published in 
French in 1894 and not published in 
English until 1934 The Hospitaller 
Rule does not contain any of the three 
Templar ritual similarities.
 
I was unable to obtain a copy of the 
rule of the Teutonic Knights, or even to 
confirm those copies of the medieval 
Teutonic Rule still exist, but Upton-
Ward states that the order was provided 
with the Templar Rule and Macoy con-
cluded that the Teutonic Rule was simi-
lar to that of the Templars. If, therefore, 
there were portions of the Teutonic Rule 
similar to the Templar ceremonial fea-
tures they were probably derived from 
the Templars and would add little to my 
investigation. This is particularly true 
in light of the fact that the Teutonic 
Knights were almost exclusively Ger-
manic and seem to have had no pre-
sence in England, Scotland or France-
the countries seemingly contributing 
most to the development of speculative 
Masonic ceremony.
 
As a result of my review of rules of 
other major crusading orders of knight-
hood available to me, there does not 
seem to be any basis for the Masonic 
ritual similarities in any rule but that of 
the Templars.
 
Ascertaining when the surviving 
operative and speculative documents 
would show the first appearance of the 
Templar ritual similarities was a diffi-
cult process because the opinion of Ma-
sonic scholars is that the existing writ-
ings do not serve to date their contents 
in anything but the most approximate 
way. Consequently, even the best sur-
viving documentary evidence of a par-
ticular Masonic practice could miss the 
actual date of the first use of the practice 
by many years. Once the Templar ritual 
similarities were dated as accurately as 
possible from available sources, con-
temporaneous societal attitudes would 
have to be examined in order to see if 
an intentional link to the Templars 
would be likely.
 
The Gothic Constitutions are virtually 
silent regarding the ceremonies for ad-
mission to a lodge of operative masons. 
It is felt, however, that the operative 
guilds and lodges did have admission 
ceremonies probably dating back at 
least as far as 1598. Thus, the Gothic 
Constitutions are seen to suffer from 
the same lack of completeness common 
to the early speculative catechisms and 
exposures in that their contents may be 
accurate but lacking full details of the 
ceremonies performed at the time. 
Knoop and his associates state that the 
early catechisms do not accurately re-
flect the entirety of the reception 
ceremonies they recite because they 
omit features known to have existed 
such as a charge to the new initiate or a 
prayer.
 
Turning to the early speculative docu-
ments, a preparation sequence iS seem-
ingly alluded to at least as early as the 
Dumfries No. 4 Manuscript of 1710 in 
which the new Mason is asked "how 
were you brought in?" The answer to 
this question is "shamefully with a rope 
about my neck" which shows that at 
least some preparation of the candidate 
occurred outside the lodge room. Carr 
considers this reference the earliest re-
corded Masonic use of a rope in this 
now familiar manner as a "cable tow. "
 
Carr notes that during the period from 
1730 to 1760 there was nothing of im-
portance published in England regard-
ing the development of Masonic ritual. 
In this "thirty year gap" the primary 
sources of information on development 
of the ritual were published in France.
 
A bifurcated preparation sequence is 
first recorded in the 1738 French expo-
sure "The Mysterious Reception." In 
1745 French readers were presented 
with the exposure "The Broken Seal." 
This pamphlet purports to be part craft 
history and part ritual detail and the 
history of the speculative Craft is for the 
first recorded time traced to the 
Crusades.
 
The exposure "The Desolation of the 
Modern Builders" was published in 
1747. The Entered Apprentice ceremo-
nies described in this work utilize a sep-
arate room adjacent to the lodge room 
for preparation of the candidate and the 
catechism has the same reference to the 
Crusades as in "The Broken Seal." In 
this document, the candidate is ques-
tioned while in the separate room, then 
advances to the door of the lodge and 
knocks. The Master is informed of his 
desire to be made an Apprentice 
whereupon the Master requires that the 
candidate be reexamined at the door. 
This protocol is very much the same as 
modern practice and also virtually iden-
tical to the Templar preparation 
sequence if allowance is made for the 
differing interests of the orders resulting 
in somewhat different questioning.
 
If the French ritual documents availa-
ble for review relate the ceremonies of 
their time at all accurately then bifur-
cated questioning was an accepted fea-
ture of the French work in the mid 
eighteenth century and probably of the 
English work of the period as well as it 
is well known that the rituals of the two 
countries drew upon each other for in-
spiration. In fact, the first documented 
English use of a bifurcated examination 
of the candidate is seen in the 1762 ex-
posure "Jachin and Boaz."
The use of a prayer in the ceremonies 
of admission for the medieval operative 
lodges is probable since the lodges were 
inherently religious institutions. Simi-
larly, the earliest speculative documents 
show the use of prayers in Masonic 
ceremonies. Consideration of Psalm 
133 as possibly grounded in Templar 
practice is made problematic by the ob-
servation that it is not included in either 
the early English or French ritual docu-
ments discussed above. Neither is the 
Psalm found in the English "unified" 
ritual that emerged from the Lodge of 
Promulgation between 1809 and 1811 
and the Lodge of Reconciliation be-
tween 1813 and 1816.
 
Jones is of the opinion that the ritual 
finally adopted by the United Grand 
Lodge was accepted and used in the 
early 1700's and has been used in Eng-
lish lodges without material variation 
since 1816. Carr clouds the matter con-
siderably by stating that the "unified" 
English ceremonies after 1816 omitted 
much material and that American 
ceremonies retain much more of the 
oldest known English work than do the 
post 1816 English degrees.
 
In America, Psalm 133 was not con-
tained in the first major Masonic text 
written by Thomas Smith Webb in 
1797. This is not terribly surprising be-
cause Webb is known to have relied 
heavily on the Englishman William 
Preston's "Illustrations of Masonry," 
and Preston does not mention the 
Psalm in his lecture on the Entered Ap-
prentice Degree. Webb must have been 
interested in the Templar order because 
he helped organize an Encampment of 
Masonic Knights Templar at Albany, 
New York in 1797 and remained active 
in it until at least 1816 when he became 
the first Deputy General Grand Master 
of the United States.
 
It seems that between the editions of 
Webb's monitor of 1797 and 1812 Webb 
added Psalm 133 to the Entered Ap-
prentice work. Jensen states that the 
General Grand Lodge of 1835 adopted 
Webb's 1812 edition of the work for rec-
ommended use throughout the United 
States without any major changes. The 
1875 edition of Webb's monitor refer-
ences the GGL and includes Psalm 133 
in the Entered Apprentice degree. I 
have not seen a 1812 Webb monitor to 
confirm this point, however.
 
My research does not solidly docu-
ment use of Psalm 133 as in the Tem-
plar ritual until the American monitor 
"The True Masonic Chart" written by 
Jeremy Cross in 1820. Cross places the 
Psalm in the Entered Apprentice cere-
mony in the precise spot where it re-
mains today in American practice. Sim-
ilarly, in the Morgan expose of 1835 the 
Psalm is used in this manner.
 
Although I could only trace the first 
use of Psalm 133 to early nineteenth 
century America, a clue to possible ear-
lier use of the Psalm in England is 
found in the 1762 booklet "Jachin and 
Boaz. " The text of this exposure relates 
only one EA prayer ("Vouchsafe thine 
aid . . . ") but has a footnote indicating 
that a second prayer was used by the 
"Antient Masons" in the EA ritual 
which was omitted from the ritual of the 
"Moderns." Interestingly, the first ex-
posure of "Antient" ceremonies, 1760's 
"Three Distinct Knocks," has only one 
prayer in the EA work which is identical 
to the "Moderns" prayer set out in 
"Jachin and Boaz." Consequently, if a 
second prayer was used by the "An-
tients" it was omitted for some reason 
from "Three Distinct Knocks" if the 
footnote in "Jachin and Boaz" is accu-
rate. A similar statement referencing 
omission of a second prayer from the 
EA degree by the "Moderns" is found 
in the 1765 English exposure " Shib-
boleth. " Whether any second "An-
tient" prayer was Psalm 133 is un-
known.
 
My research showed that use of a bi-
furcated preparation sequence and rope 
"cable tow" are first documented as 
part of speculative Masonic ritual be-
tween 1710 in England (rope) and 1738 
in France (bifurcation) with Psalm 133 
appearing in the American work in 
1820. Because I was unable to solidly 
document a link between the early Eng-
lish or French work and Psalm 133, the 
Psalm's presence in the EA degree can-
not be reasonably linked to the Tem-
plars in the way that I have hypothe-
sized herein.
 
The period when the Templar similari-
ties are first documented in Masonic 
ritual was the height of the Romantic 
era which featured a revival of all things 
medieval and of knighthood in particu-
lar. The popular fascination with 
chivalry during this period is illustrated 
by the large medieval festival staged at 
Eglinton, England in 1839 which fea-
tured recreation of a jousting contest. 
Partner also notes that a phase of liter-
ary nostalgia about the Templars imme-
diately preceded the start of the Ro-
mantic age and cast the order in a very 
favorable light.
 
Consequently, it seems that a circum-
stantial argument can be made that the 
Templar ritual features became part of 
Masonic ceremony during the Roman-
tic period as part of the general fad for 
chivalry occurring at that time. Weigh-
ing heavily against this theory, however 
is the fact that the first commanderies of 
Masonic Knights Templar were also ap-
pearing at this time and persons such as 
the Chevalier Ramsay were making 
overt attempts at linking the speculative 
Craft to the Templars yet there seems to 
have been no claim that the Templar 
similarities of the EA degree work had a 
connection to that order.
The lack of any claim of a Templar 
lineage for the EA ritual features is ac-
tually the best evidence that such a link 
may exist. Carr states not only that the 
early operative craft had ceremonies of 
admission but that the Gothic Constitu-
tions suggest very strongly that there 
must have been a store of craft-lore, not 
necessarily contained in the rituals, 
which medieval operative masons pre-
served and used to entertain them-
selves. In addition Stevenson found that 
English stone masons were peculiar by 
the fifteenth century in their unusually 
elaborate history and their identifica-
tion with Solomon's Temple and ancient 
Egypt in the development of the trade. 
Bernard Jones agrees that the "English 
mason craft is almost alone in having a 
legendary history. "
 
If the Templar ceremonial features 
had been part of the oral ceremonial 
tradition of the late medieval operative 
masons then they could well have been 
carried over to the speculative ceremo-
nies, perhaps without any eighteenth 
century knowledge of their origin. This 
would explain the lack of any claim of 
Templar origin for the EA ritual fea-
tures despite the natural tendency of 
Romantic era operatives to make such a 
connection.
 
Early in this century, the American 
historian Claud Keltner put forth the 
argument that Templar tradition had 
entered speculative masonry via the 
operative craft. Keltner's theory seems 
very plausible. Certainly, the Templar 
Rule clearly identifies stone masons that 
were members of the order. The high 
degree of skill of the Templar craftsmen 
is also without dispute. Hancock refer-
ences two archeological studies by ar-
chitectural experts that conclude that 
Templar stone masonry was vastly ad-
vanced for its time and even sophisti-
cated by early twentieth century stand-
ards. Also, Stevenson points out that 
cathedrals, castles and abbeys were not 
only the dominant features of the medi-
eval landscape but also arguably the 
most awe-inspiring creations of 
mankind in the Middle Ages.
 
Common sense tells us that the Tem-
plar stone masons did not just disappear 
with the suppression of the order in 
1312. To continue their very sophisti-
cated work, the historian Edith Simon 
points out that these craftsmen as 
"civilians" would have been required 
to join the appropriate guilds. Guilds of 
operative masons are referred to in 
England at least as early as 1356 and 
Stevenson makes a convincing case that 
such organizations were probably in ex-
istence for generations before gaining 
official sanction. The former Templar 
stone masons would probably have 
been influential members of the early 
operative guilds due to their romantic 
history and considerable skill.
 
On balance, therefore, it seems that 
the most probable explanation for the 
presence of the Templar ritual features 
in the EA work is that they entered the 
operative ceremonies in the late medi-
eval period through the influence of 
former Templars and remained part of 
the oral tradition of the craft until they 
eventually surfaced in the documented 
operative work. Hopefully, further re-
search will shed more light on this fasci-
nating topic.

Reference List
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Macoy Masonic Publishing Co., New 
York, 1874
Richard Barber
The Knight &~ Chiualry, Scribner's
NewYork, 1970
 
The Book of Cummon Prayer (Episcopal) 
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1990
William Moseley Brown
Highlights of Templar History
 
Wm. Mitchell Publishing Co., Green-
field, Ind., 1944
Edward Burman
The Templars, Knights of God
 
Thorsons Publishing, Rochester VT, 
1986
G.A. Campbell
The Knights Templars, Their Rise and Fall
Duckworth Publishing, London, 1937
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Lewis Masonic, London, 1983
Harry Carr
The Early French Exposures, 1737-1751
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1987
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Kessinger Publishing Co., Kila Mont.
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Lewis Masonic, London, 1986
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The Baltimore Convention of 1~43
 
The Philalethes, v. XLVII, no. 5, Oct.
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Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic 
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