THE BUILDER MAY 1926

The Form of the Lodge

By BROS. A. L. KRESS AND R. J. MEEKREN

WHAT then was this "lodge," the form of which was so carefully
concealed from the profane, and whose "discovery" marked such an
important stage in the initiation or "making" of the newly entered
Mason?

We have already been informed that it was a "long square," but this
somehow does not seem adequate to account for the mystery. In the
English "Tracing Boards" mentioned in the first part of this
article (page 119) the emblems and concrete symbols of each degree
are represented within an oblong marked with a definite border. In
the old "Master's Carpet" designs the earliest prototype of which
is to be found in the Masonic Chart or Hieroglyphic Monitor of
Jeremy Cross (reproduced on page 120) we have an oblong pavement
depicted in perspective, with the emblems of all degrees disposed
on or about it. In the earlier English charts the first and second
degrees are combined, and this arrangement carries us back to the
time when the "lodge" was still being drawn on the floor in chalk
and charcoal, and afterwards washed out by means of the "mop and
pail," about which early detractors of the Craft used to be so
facetious. This all at first sight very puzzling. We are so
accustomed to regard the tiled chamber in which we meet as being
itself the lodge that it appears strange to learn that originally
it only contained and concealed it from the outside world. If,
however, we take the tradition of the outdoor assembly as witness
to an actual custom, and suppose that when (at first occasionally
and only later habitually) Masons began to meet between four walls
and under a roof they continued to do in the chamber just as nearly
as possible what they had previously done on a hilltop under the
open sky, a clue is given that may lead to a solution. We are told
today that the lodge represents the world, and its description has
been elaborated with this symbolism in view, but that this was a
primary conception is hardly to be believed; actually it would have
appeared to have been merely the enclosure within which a new Mason
was entered and made.

The qualification "merely" is used to express our modern point of
view from which it is not easy to see any great significance in the
marking out of a certain particular piece of ground. When Masons
today think of an outdoor lodge meeting, such as occasionally
occur, they consider only the possibility of guarding against
intrusion and the presence of necessary jewels and furniture. It is
true that the idea of a sacred place is not wholly absent from
modern thought. We can understand the sanctity of a church or a
temple; we loosely describe certain places as holy ground as being
in a sense sanctified by associations, the home of childhood may be
regarded with such a feeling, or the battlefield on which the
liberties of a people are won; but the primitive conception of
sanctity we have lost entirely. Moses was told to put off his shoes
because he stood on holy ground, made so by the presence of God. In
other cases, however, men put on shoes in order not to touch it
directly (with very much the same feeling as we would put on rubber
gloves when handling an electric wire), such shoes being afterwards
destroyed or left behind, as they, too, had become charged with
sanctity. In a sense we regard a cemetery as consecrated ground
even if it has not been actually consecrated by religious rites,
but we no longer think that to be buried outside such an enclosure
will lessen an individual's chance of attaining Heaven as people in
the Middle Ages undoubtedly did.

When we consider it the building of a temple with walls and roof is
but to carry this underlying motif of delimitation and separation
a stage further by interposing an actual physical barrier instead
of a moral or imaginary one. And to some extent all buildings once
had something of this sacred aspect, for in primitive life every
dwelling had its household sanctities. The threshold, the hearth,
the ridge pole, the posts and lintel of the doorway, as well as the
ancestral spirits, and the gods of the store room. To go a long way
afield the houses of the Ainu in Japan are placed East and West,
the hearth-is oblong in the center, the place of honor is the East.
The entrance is in the West, while there is a window opposite,
outside is the Nusa, a sacred fence of willow rods, shaved at the
upper end into a bunch of curling shreds. Between this and the
window is sacred ground on which no one should trespass. All this
is only a curious coincidence of course but it illustrates how men
continually reproduce the same kind of ideas by a sort of
psychological necessity, with variations due to circumstances.

THE MAGIC CIRCLE

In books on magic we find great emphasis laid on certain diagrams
which are to be drawn on the ground with incantations and
mysterious ceremonies. In a few cases they are said to be drawn on
paper or silk, thus apparently following the same course of
development as the Masonic charts. It saves time and trouble to
have your diagram in a permanent and portable form. The most common
figure used in magic is the circle, but the pentagon is also
employed, which figure, like the circle, is formed with a single
line, only interlaced with itself. Such diagrams were drawn "with
the finger in the dust" or "with consecrated chalk," but perhaps
the most efficacious method is with the point of a sword or a
knife, the latter being essentially the same thing as a sword, a
cutting and piercing implement or weapon made of iron or steel.
In Scotland the procedure of ridding a haunted house of its uneasy
spiritual occupant required the use of a candle, compass, a Bible
and, if possible, a crucifix. With the compass a circle was drawn
within which the exorcist was to remain. The crucifix was laid on
the Bible, or if none was available a cross was to be drawn inside
the circle. We may guess that the Bible is a post Reformation
addition to this ritual, and that the cross drawn in the diagram is
more primitive than the crucifix. Be this as it may, the circle
fortified by the cross and Bible evidently formed a protecting
barrier against the spiritual forces.


In some accounts the evoked demon is confined within the circle,
and with this agrees the Devonshire superstition that if a circle
be drawn around a snake with an ash stick (the ash is a tree with
magic qualities) it cannot or will not pass out of it. Of course a
barrier will work either way, to keep the dangerous power in or to
keep it out. But by far the more general use was the latter.

This protective use of the figure is, however, probably secondary
and derived from a symbolic use. The Hallowe'en bonfires lit on
Scottish hills were formerly enclosed within a circular trench,
which was said to represent the sun. In a 1771 account of the
Bealtine fires of May Day, it is said that "they cut a square
trench with a turf in the middle." It is not clear, however, if the
fire was lighted within this, but in a later description of the
custom it is said "they cut a table in the green sod, of a round
figure, by casting a trench in the ground of such a circumference
as to hold the whole company." Again the position of the fire is
not mentioned but it seems probable it was within the circle.
Another account of a similar observance says the trench was dug in
the form of a circle large enough to enclose all those present.

THE BROOM AND MOP

In the sword dances and mummer's plays, which even yet survive in
some places in Great Britain, the preliminary to the performance
appears to have normally been a preparation of the place by one of
the actors. This preparation is said in some variants to have been
the marking out of a circle with a sword, and in others the
sweeping of the space required with a broom, and, in some instances
at least, we are told that this swept area was circular. The broom
may perhaps here have only been a substitute for a sword, but a
wider survey of analogous customs reveals the fact that the broom
was a piece of magical apparatus in its own right. In oriental
magic, in crystal gazing and the use of the ink pool, the vision
always begins by the appearance of two men with brooms who sweep
the place and make it ready. Some castes in India actually worship
and make offerings to a broom. This homely domestic implement
apparently had properties useful in purification. In the Vedic
ritual of sacrifice the first thing was to make the ground where it
was to be offered pure, or in the primitive sense, holy. All evil
spirits and influences had to be removed, and it is perhaps
possible in the light of the above mentioned belief, that sweeping
the ground first took place, after which a rectangular portion was
marked out and purified by four fires. Inside these a circle was
drawn and within that again the sacrificial pit or trench was dug. 
As is well known the broom played a very prominent part in medieval
witchcraft. Essentially a bundle of twigs tied to a stick, it could
be regarded very much in the same light as the boughs, green sprigs
and garlands and wreaths of the whole group of spring and autumn
festivals. Stood upright it could be classed with the May poles and
Christmas trees and pillar and tree sanctities. The broom w as
supposed to sweep out ghosts and spirits and other invisible but
dangerous influences just as it swept out dust and dirt. Traces of
this are to be seen in European funeral customs. Among others
designed to purify the house from the miasma of death, the room had
to be swept as soon as the corpse was carried out. The reason for
this apparent digression is that it may be possible that the mop
and pail about which eighteen century detractors of Freemasonry
used to make so merry had originally been a besom or broom used to
prepare the ground for the lodge as in the beginning of the
mummer's play.

Returning to the magical circle there is a curious half-drawn
picture in an account of a gathering of witches in Northumberland
in 1673. One of them declared in her confession that

"she and the rest had drawne their compasse nigh to a bridg end,
and the devil placed a stone in the middle of the compasse, they
sett themselves downe and repeated the Lord's prayer backward ."

It is evident from this that the "compasse" spoken of here was a
ring or circle marked out in the center of which the sacred stone
was placed, presumably as an object of worship.

THE ENTRANCES

In the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini there is a very
interesting account of some magical operations in which he took
part. The place was within the Coliseum at Rome, the narrative is
too long to quote in full, but one point may be noticed here. The
priest, who was the magician,

. . . according to the custom of necromancers began to draw circles
on the ground with the most impressive ceremonies imaginable . . .
as soon as he was in readiness he made an opening in the circle and
took us by the hand . . .

apparently to lead them into it, as from what follows it is evident
all present were within it. The "circles" spoken of in the plural
were probably concentric, as shown in Fig. 1 and the illustration
of Kelly invoking a spirit. In other cases the circle is said to
have been left incomplete until all those assisting had entered,
when it was closed.

As a curious parallel to this, and to the lodge diagram also, is
the use of a symbolic circle by a smith's gild in Germany (Fig. 6).
Gould quotes the formula thus in his history:

The mark is made by the Elder of the Magdeburg Smiths in opening
their meetings. Having knocked three times on the table with a
hammer he commands "By your favour, fellowcrafts be still." The
proper official then brings in the chest which is opened with
proper dialogue. The Elder then places his finger and thumb on the
open ends of the outside circle in saying "By your favour I thus
draw the fellow circle--be it as round or large as it may I span
it, I write herein all the fellows that are at work here." Knocks
with the hammer "With your favour I have might and right and close
the fellow circle." He then completes the circle with chalk . . .
at the end of the ceremony he closed the meeting and rubbed the
chalk ring out with his hand.

This leaving an entrance to the enclosure also recalls the ancient
Etruscan ritual for marking out the site of a fortress or city by
means of a plough drawn by consecrated oxen, or a white bull and a
cow. Where the gates were to be built the plough was lifted and a
gap left in the furrow. The American Indians of the plains, in
celebrating the Sun Dance, apparently marked out the ground with a
large circle having an opening towards the east. It does not,
however, appear in the accounts available whether the circle could
only be entered through this opening or not, but from analogy this
might be expected.

The description of the ground prepared for the Vedic sacrifice,
rectangular with a circle within it is curiously reflected in the
Hindoo talisman (Fig. 2). In a curious plate that serves as a
frontispiece to Batty Langley's "Practical Geometry" (published
1726), which is certainly Masonic in character though the work
itself has nothing in it about Freemasonry, there appears a drawing
or "tracing" board suspended to a pillar upon which is the plan of
an oblong building with an entrance on the north side (the points
of the compass being marked) and two pillars before it marked I and
B. In a variant of the same design taken from an engraved silver
jewel of unknown date, though undoubtedly considerably later, the
plan of the building is square with an entrance on each side. It is
possible that in these designs we have an echo of the original
"form" of the lodge on the hilltop. Three versions of the old
Catechisms mention an "Eastern passage" of which the Examination
may be quoted for an example:

Q. How do Masons take place in work?
A. The Master Southeast, the Wardens Northeast and the Fellows the
Eastern passage.

From this we may infer that the lodge had at least two entrances,
as this one is designated as the eastern one in distinction, and if
we may judge from later indications the other entrance was at the
west end. But it is possible, in some places at least, that
originally it had openings to the four points of the compass.

ORIENTATION AND THE CARDINAL POINTS

The four quarters of the heavens and the cardinal points seem
everywhere to have been regarded as significant. Churchward gives
square diagrams made of sticks from Africa, America and Korea that
seem almost identical, though unfortunately he cites no
authorities. Within the square are four shorter sticks arranged as
a cross. The one pointing east is peeled, the one to the west has
all the bark on while those marking north and south are partly
peeled. We have already seen the cross in the magic circle which
lies east and west and north and south. The Roman Augur when
seeking an omen marked out the templum with the lituus or crooked
staff that was his badge of office. Originally (though the
descriptions are somewhat obscure) he first marked out an oblong
space with sides and ends parallel to the two first lines, and then
sat down facing south, so as to have the east on his left hand, to
watch the flight of birds by which he drew his conclusions as to
the future. The templum in this primitive form being a sacred area,
which later was enclosed, and the building thus erected took the
same name and became a temple in the usual sense of the term.

Roman military camps were laid out on the same lines and one may
guess that originally similar ceremonies took place when they were
laid out. They had entrances on each side, with two thoroughfares
crossing from side to side. The altars were erected in the
northeast quarter. The so-called terramare or prehistoric
settlements of north Italy were laid out on the same plan, and it
has not unnaturally been suggested that the Etruscans inherited it
from them--Rome having been an Etruscan city at one stage in its
history. However this may have been the Romans were too practical
and too good engineers to allow even an ancient and sacred
religious tradition bind them too closely, and they adapted (as all
builders have done) their camps and cities to the lay of the
ground. Nevertheless the typical camp and military post was an
oblong square.

Rome itself had a mysterious sacred area called the Lapis niger,
the "black stone." It seems to have been a square pavement, or
oblong rather, of black and white stones. An archaic stele or
pillar stone was found here with a defaced inscription.
Traditionally it was the place where Romulus, the mythical founder
of Rome, was buried, and the mundus was also here. Mundus as a
substantive is usually translated by "world" or "universe" but it
also meant "provisions," food in bulk. As an adjective it meant
"clean," not a far step from "purified" or "holy." The Mundus, how
ever, was apparently an underground vault or chamber in which very
sacred things were kept; just what they were no one knows. It was
a secret of the Collegium of priests and died with them. There are
allusions, however, to an underground altar. This chamber was
opened at certain festivals connected with agriculture, spring and
harvest, and some scholars have thought that it was originally an
underground granary or store house in which the seed corn of the
community was preserved. Into this we need not go but it all seems
a very curious parallel to certain features in the present day
Masonic systems, especially to the Royal Arch in its various forms.

THE SQUARE FORM

In general, a circular or round enclosure is the easiest and most
natural to make. Practically all primitive dwellings are circular
in plan. Fort in his Antiquities quotes Grimm as saying that the
earliest form of Teutonic court was circular, the natural form a
crowd will take in gathering round a street fakir, a "soap-box"
orator or a dog fight. "Subsequently this shape gradually changed
to an oval and finally to an oblong square." [ein langlichs viereck
is Grimm's own expression.] Fort gives no reason for this
development, but it is fairly evident how it came about. In a court
of justice there are two foci, the judges, and the plaintiff and
defendant. These necessarily face each other and thus make one axis
of the ring longer than the other. This would be the natural form,
but when it came to be marked out, as was customary, by peeled
hazel sticks and white cords it is again obvious that a boundary
with straight sides would become almost inevitable, and the oval
would become a rectangle. Incidentally it may be noted that the
change from the circular to the square plan for dwellings and other
buildings probably came through a parallel necessity. When huts are
built of reeds, or wickerwork and the like it is easier and more
natural to use the material perpendicularly, and the curved outline
is as easy to build and gives the greater area for the perimeter of
the walls. But as soon as more solid construction is attempted with
logs or hewn planks it is obvious (once it is pointed out) that it
can be used more conveniently horizontally, but this change in
construction necessitates straight sides to the building. As in
most places stone erections followed wood, these, too, were built
on a square plan; but in a few cases, such as South Africa, both in
the modern Kaffir kraals and the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe, stone
building seems to have directly followed primitive hut
construction, and the plan is invariably curved and usually oval.
Another form of primitive erection is the circle of upright stones,
of which Stonehenge in England is perhaps the most familiar
example, but such circles are hardly buildings, but merely an
exceedingly conspicuous and enduring mode of marking out a space.
Some such enclosures are made with small round stones placed close
together like an ornamental border to a flower bed, others are of
intermediate size from two to four feet high. Dudley Wright in his
Diuidism quotes a Welsh writer, Meyryg of Glamorgan, with regard to
such an enclosure:

"A Gorsedd of the Bards of the Isle of Britain must be held in a
conspicuous place, in full view of hearing of country and
aristocracy and in the face of the sun and in the eye of light; it
being lawful to hold such meetings under cover, at night, or under
any circumstances otherwise than while the sun shall be visible in
the sky.... It is an institutional usage to form a conventional
circle of stones on the summit of some conspicuous ground, so as to
enclose any requisite area of greensward; the stones being so
placed as to allow sufficient space for a man to stand between two
of them, except that the two stones of the circle which most
directly confront the eastern sun should be sufficiently apart to
allow at least ample space for three men between them; thus
affording an easy ingress to the circle."

Here again we must note the entrance towards the East undoubtedly
to observe the rising sun. As the traditional courts of the
Teutonic peoples opened at sunrise it is probable that the
enclosure was oriented for the same reason; and here it may be
noted that many of the mystical diagrams given in books on magic
have references to the cardinal points of the compass. In a
medieval fairy tale a certain spring was known by the hero to have
magical properties because it "flowed east and west."

Another kind of enclosure of a ceremonial kind (under one aspect at
least, and it may possibly have a debased descendant in the modern
boxing ring) was employed by Scandinavian peoples for legal duels,
the holmgang. This was sometimes enclosed by cords and stakes, but
more often by a ditch filled with water. The combatant forced over
the boundary was regarded as disgraced, as one who had fled from
battle. As there was a religious ritual in connection with such
duels, and the enclosure was ceremonially prepared, the latter is
not to be regarded as a mere practical convenience. The proceeding
partook of the nature of an ordeal for determining the rights of a
quarrel, which relates it closely to methods of divination and
magic.

SHIP MARKINGS

In Denmark and Sweden there are a number of enclosures called
"ships." The outline of a boat is marked in smaller or larger
stones, seldom more than two feet high and more often only
comparatively small boulders. In the middle is usually a larger
stone set upright where the mast would be. What they were used for
is quite uncertain, unless a primitive ritual custom from Ireland
may be held to throw some light on the question. This observance
used to be carried out at a "wake." It seems to have become an
occasion for a lot of horse play, but that originally a more
serious intent lay behind it is at least probable. It may be added,
too, that it had become almost obsolete by the middle of last
century. It was called "building the ship." A number of men were
laid on their backs head to heel, down the room. This made the
keel. Then others were laid down with their feet against the keel
and heads outwards to make the ribs, the tallest men in the middle
and boys at the stern and prow. There was much business of fitting
the timbers and driving them into place, and their soundness was
tested by hitting them on the head with a stick. Finally a boy was
taken for the ceremony of stepping the mast. It was doubtless
originally the climax of the whole ritual, and also undoubtedly the
reason for the disuse of this particular "wake game," for it brings
it very obviously into the class of fertility rites, and that
phallicism which certain writers are able to discover so many
traces in all sorts of unexpected corners in Masonic symbolism.

The conclusions that may be drawn from the instances of enclosures
more or less sacred, here gathered together, must be deferred to a
later occasion. But it may be noted now that in the first place the
marked out area is the important thing, and that its form,
entrances and orientation and so on are secondary. The first is
purely practical, but the secondary features bring us at once to
the realm of symbolism.

NOTES

The following works are among those consulted in the preparation of
this article:

A.Q.C., Vol. XXIX. E. H. Dring on the "Evolution of the Tracing
Boards."
The Arcana of Freemasonry, by Dr. A. Churchward.
The Medieval Stage, by E. K. Chambers.
Zeus, by A. B. Cook.
Ancient Legends of Roman History, by Eltore Pais.
The Mummer's Play, by R.J.E. Tiddy.
The American Indian, by Clark Wissler.
The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, by W. Y. Evans Wentz.
The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, by M. Murray.
The Folklore of Bombay, by R. E. Enthoven.
The Swastika, by Thomas Wilson.
The Drama of Savage Peoples, by Loomis Havemeyer.
Field Columbian Museum Anthropological Series.
The Golden Bough, by J. G. Frazer.
Pausanias Description of Greece, by J.G. Frazer.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Is the tradition of lodges held on hill tops and in valleys an
ancient one? If so, what bearing does it have on the antiquity of
the Masonic ritual?
2. What is implied in the conception of "holy ground," or a "sacred
precinct" (a) historically? (b) psychologically?
3. What was the underlying meaning of consecration, and how has it
been expressed in ritual?
4. Is there any relation between the form of sacred enclosures and
mystical or magical diagrams and other figures?

