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The Northeast Corner

by S. Brent Morris, FPS

Editor's Note: This is chapter 7 of BrotherMorris's Book, Cornerstones of
Freedom, to be published by the Supreme Council, 33, Scottish Rite, Southern
Jurisdiction, and is copyrighted by Brother Morris and used by permission.

"It is Customary at the erection of all
stately and superb edifices, to lay the first
or foundation stone at the northeast cor-
ner of the building; you, being newly
initiated into Freemasonry are placed at
the Northeast corner of the Lodge, figu-
ratively to represent that stone."

The Standard Ceremonies of Craft Masonry,
Stability Lodge of Instruction.

                The Problem

Suppose someone were to ask about
any building, say the White House, the
U.S. Capitol, or the Washington Na-
tional Cathedral, "Where would I find
its cornerstone?" A Freemason's answer
would be immediate, "In the northeast
corner. " So well established is this idea
in Masonic ritual that few Masons think
to question it. The northeast is most
often suggested as the location for the
"lost" cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol
because of the Masonic ceremonies sur-
rounding its laying. Many, no doubt,
even believe that the first stones of Egyp-
tian pyramids were laid in the northeast
corner. If only reality followed Masonic
symbolism so nicely!

A check with almost any Masonic au-
thor produces an uneasy agreement on
the symbolism of the northeast corner.
Each Brother's explanation is usually a
bit strained.

When the candidate is made to stand in the
Northeast Corner of the lodge as the youngest
Entered Apprentice, both the position in which
he stands and posture of his body have reference
to such laws of "new life" in Masonry as are
deseruing of careful consideration .... If we
recall that the North is the place of darkness, the
symbol of the profane and unregenerated world,
and that the East is the place of Lght, the symbol
of all perfection in the Masonic life, you will
see that it is fitting that an Apprentice be made
to find his station there ....

Meanwhile we may be reminded that the
Northeast Corner is also the place, at least
ideally, of the laying of the Cornerstone, a
ceremony as ancient as it is significant. (1)

The custom of placing the foundation stone in
the northeast corner must have been originally
adopted for some good reason; for we have a
right to suppose that it was not an arbitrary
selection. (2)

The selection does seem to have been
arbitrary, however, evolving from a sim-
ple symmetric arrangement of Lodge
members. The symbolism of the north-
east corner is deeply fixed in modern
Masonic ceremonies, but its historical
roots are rather shallow.

Just as everyone "knows" that George
Washington threw a dollar across the
Potomac River, so Masons also "know"
that the symbolism of the northeast cor-
ner is an ancient usage. It has been
widely assumed that the preference for
the northeast comer came into the mod-
ern Masonic fraternity through the me-
dieval building guilds. Bernard E. Jones
nicely summarized the historical posi-
tion. "There may, of course, be a long-
lost symbolism to account for the prefer-
ence, but the records of stone-laying cer-
emonies relating to notable medieval
buildings do not support any such idea .
. . ." Neither, in fact, do the earliest
records of Masonic ritual. (3)

                  Medieval Records

Professors Douglas Knoop and G. P.
Jones of the University of Sheffield, En-
gland, published A Note on the Position and
the Number of Foundation Stones, in which
they listed some of the medieval refer-
ences to cornerstones they had found in
the course of other research. Their re-
search on operative stone masons is the
most detailed and scholarly published.
The year, building, and location of the
stone are summarized below from their
list.

1. 1277, Vale Royal Abbey Delamere Forest
Cheshire, first stone, "in the place where the
great altar was to be built. "

2. 1441, Old Court of King's College, Cam-
bridge, first stone, "in the right or southern
turret of the gate towards Clare Hall. "

3. 1446, Kings College Chapel, Cambridge,
first stone, "at the altar. "

4. 1447/8, Eton College Chapel, first stone
"in the middle of the High Altar. "

5. 1448, Queens' College, Cambridge, foun-
dation stone, "at the South East corner of the
ChapeL

6. 1473, Magdalen College, Oxford, founda-
tion stone, "in the middle of the high altar. "

7. 1565, New Court of Conville and Caius
College, Cambridge, foundation stone, "in
the middle of the West Wall. "

8. 1632, Gateway of the Botanic Garden,
Oxford, first stone, location unspecified (4)

This register is not exhaustive, but it is
suggestive of practices of that period.
Certainly there was no special import-
ance associated with the northeast cor-
ners of the building listed. The "old
charges" or " gothic constitutions" of
the operative masons are also quite silent
on this issue. Wallace McLeod's recon-
structed "Standard Original" of the old
charges from 1520-83 discusses the lib-
eral arts and sciences, the two pillars,
King Solomon and many more topics
familiar to speculative Masonry, but
there is nothing about the northeast. (5)
One must look beyond the operative ma-
sons for the origins of this custom.

                Early Masonic Catechisms

There are a small number of surviving
manuscript catechisms which presum-
ably reflect authentic Lodge practices of
the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, and there are several unoffi-
cial and possibly disreputable printed ex-
posures of Masonic ritual from the same
period. These documents were reprinted
by Professors Douglas Knoop, G. P.
Jones and Douglas Hamer in The Early
Masonic Catechisms, and they carefully ex-
amined the authenticity of the printed
catechisms.(6) The comments that follow
rely heavily on the pioneering research
of Knoop, Jones, and Hamer and trace
the gradual and irregular association of
compass points with officers of the Lodge
to the firm association of the northeast
corner with Apprentices and corner-
stones .

The Edinburgh Register House Manuscript
of 1696 gives one of the earliest instances
of associating compass directions with
the positions of officers.

Q. Are there any lights in your lodge?

A. Yes, three. The northeast, s[outh] w[est],
and eastern passage. The one denotes the master
mason, the other the warden, the third the setter
croft [a misrepresentation of the word fellow
craft].(7)

Coming shortly after this in time is the
Chetwode Crawley Manuscript of ca.
1700. The question and answer are al-
most the same as in Edinburgh, but it
appears that one of the authors confused
warden for words. The Kevan Manu-
script of ca. 1714-1720 agrees with the
Chetwode Crawley Manuscript.(8)

Q. Are there lights in your Lodge?

A. Three, the Northeast, the Southwest, and
the eastern passage. The one denotes the Master
mason, the other the Words and the Third the
Fellow-Craft. (9)

From these three early catechisms, one can see
that a light (probably a candle) denoting the
Master is in the northeast (or perhaps the north-
east passage, depending on how the sentence is
read). It is not clearfrom these three passages if
the Master is in the northeast or just his light.

The Dumfries No. 4 Manuscript of ca.
1710 clearly positions the Master within
the Lodge. More importantly it locates
the cornerstone of King Solomon's Tem-
ple in the southeast. (This was also the
location for the cornerstone of the U.S.
Capitol, 1793, and the cornerstone of the
University of North Carolina, 1798. The
placement of these two cornerstones
could indicate adherence to an ancient
custom, or the state of Masonic symbol-
ism, or, most likely, the architectural re-
quirements of the buildings in question.)
If the northeast corner were truly an
ancient Masonic symbol, then shouldn't
these old catechisms have the Temple's
cornerstone located there?

Q How many lights is in [that] lodge?

A. 3.

Q. [Which] way stands yee lights?

A. Ye is one in ye East & one in west & one
in ye midle.

Q. What is for ye one [in] ye East?

A. Tis for the master & ye west is for the
fellow craftsmen & ye middle is for ye warden.

Q. Who was master masson at ye buillding
of ye temple?

A. Hiram of Tyre.

Q. Who laid the first stone in ye foundation
of ye temple?

A. Ye above said Hiram.

Q. What place did he layye first stone?

A. In ye south east corner of ye Temple. (10)

The first known printed exposure of
Masonic ritual was appended to an
anonymous letter published in The Fly-
ing Post or Post Master, No. 4712, April
11-13, 1723. It is a short collection of
questions and answers with a brief de-
scription of the ceremonies. The cate-
chism carefully places Master, Wardens,
and Fellow Crafts in the Lodge, but not
consistently with the earlier works cited.
It places both the Master and his "Mark
on the Work in the southeast, and thus
supports the Dumfries No. 4 Manuscript
as to the importance of that location. If
Hiram laid the first stone of Solomon's
Temple in the southeast corner, then it
could be said he placed his mark on the
work in that place.

Q. How do Masons take their place in Work?
A. The Master S.E. the Wardens N.E. and the
Fellows Eastern Passage.

Q. Where does the Master place his Mark on
the Work?

A. Upon the S. E. Corner. (11)

The placement of the Master in the
southeast is reinforced in A Mason' s
Confession of ca. 1727, printed in The
Scots Magazine, March 1755/56. The
text can be interpreted, however, as
placing the Entered Apprentices in ei-
ther the northeast or southwest, depend-
ing on whether the line of Masons ex-
tends from the southeast to the northeast
or from the southeast to the southwest.

To be particular in shewing how the
master-masons stands in the south-east
corner of the lodge, and fellow crafts next
to him, and next to them the wardens
and next the entered prentices . . (12)

        Prichard's Masonry Dissected

Samuel Prichard's Masonry Dissected
of 1730 was the most influential and suc-
cessful of the early exposures. The first
edition was advertised for sale on Octo-
ber 20, and by November 2 the third
edition was in print. In between, the
pamphlet was reprinted in Read's
Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, an-
other newspaper version was published
in two issues of the Northampton Mer-
cury, and a pirated edition was pub-
lished--six versions printed within four-
teen days! As further indication of the
popularity of Prichard's book, another
fourteen editions were published by
1760, and nine more before the end of
the century. (13)

A great deal of the popularity of Ma-
sonry Dissected can be attributed to Ma-
sons who eagerly bought the book for
instruction or inspiration in conducting
lodge business. Prichard presents the
earliest version of the Hiramic legend
and the first explicit working of the third
or Master Mason's Degree.

His influence on the evolution of Ma-
sonic ritual was immense, and his proce-
dures seem to have dominated Masonic
ceremonies until the 1760s. Masonry
Dissected, regardless of the private rea-
sons that had prompted its publication,
provided an accessible, soundly based,
and reasonably accurate working which
would enable the Lodges to achieve some
sort of standard, incomparably superior
to any that had appeared in all the earlier
texts, whether in manuscript or print. (14)

Prichard gave the first hint of a proce-
dure that ceremonially brings the En-
tered Apprentice to the northeast,
though at the beginning rather than at
the end of his initiation. Prichard firmly
established the east for the Master, and
the west for the Junior and Senior War-
dens. (It was not until some thirty years
later that exposures showed the Junior
Warden moved from the west to the
south, in Three Distinct Knocks, 1760,
Jachin and Boaz, 1762, and Shibboleth,
1765.) Prichard also positioned the Se-
nior and Junior Entered Apprentices,
but the latter made it only to the north,
not all the way to the northeast.

Q. How did [the Junior Warden] dispose of you?

A. He carried me up to the Northeast Part of
the Lodge and brought me back again to the West
and deliver'd me to the Senior Warden.

Q. Where stands your Master?

A. In the East.

Q. Why So?

A. As the sun rises in the East and opens the
Day, so the Master stands in the East [with his
Right Hand upon his Left Breast being a sign,
and the Square about his Neck] to open the
Lodge and to set his men at work

Q Where stands your Wardens?

A. In the West.

Q. What's their business?

A. As the sun sets in the West to close the Day
so the Wardens stand in the West [with their
Right Hands upon their Left Breasts being a
sign, and the Level and Plumb-Rule about their
necks] to close the Lodge and dismiss the men
from Labour, paying their Wages.

Q. Where stands the Senior Entered Appren-
tice?

A. In the South.

Q. What is his business?

A. To hear and receive Instructions and wel-
come strange Brothers.

Q. Where stands the Junior Enter'd
'Prentice?

A. In the North.

Q. What is his business?

A. To keep off all Cowans and Evesdrop-
pers. (15)

What Prichard seemed to have done is
symmetrically distribute the principal of-
ficers. The master opens the Lodge from
the east as the sun opens the day, and the
Junior and Senior Wardens close the
Lodge from the west, as the sun closes the
day. The Junior and Senior Entered Ap-
prentices, offices unknown in modern
Lodges, are placed in the north and south
respectively, but their positions and du-
ties are given no solar counterparts. The
best explanation is that Prichard (or the
Lodges whose work he described) sought
symmetry in placing the of ficers, and this
idea of a balanced arrangement seems to
have inspired all ritualists that followed
(or copied) Prichard. There is no evi-
dence of any particular symbolic import-
ance in 1730 of the placement of the Ju-
nior Entered Apprentice, nor is there any
apparent connection of the cornerstone
with the youngest Apprentice and the
northeast corner.

        The Roving Apprentice

After Masonry Dissected in 1730 until
1760, the exposures keep the Master and
both Wardens in the east and west re-
spectively. There was no agreement,
however, on the placement of the other
officers or the Apprentices and Fellow
Crafts. Fortheperiodfrom 1730to 1750,
it is necessary to turn to French expo-
sures to track the evolution of Masonic
ritual, as there were no significant En-
glish exposures during that time.(16)

It should be noted that continental Ma-
sonic ritual has evolved differently from
Anglo-American ritualistic forms, and so
differences found in French exposures
may reflect different ritual sources,
rather than deviations from "standard
practice" (whatever that may have
meant during that turbulent time). The
exposures summarized here, always
have the Master in the east and the War-
dens in the west; Apprentices fairly con-
sistently are placed in the north, indicat-
ing some sort of convergence to an ac-
cepted position.

Only L'Ordre des Franc-Macons
Trahi, 1745, provides any sort of expla-
nation for the placement of Apprentices
similar to the Master and Wardens im-
itating the rising and setting of the sun.
The Masonic association of the north
with darkness is standard today, but 1745
looks to be the earliest such association.
It seems as if Masonic ritualists wanted
a symmetric placement of officers and
members around the Lodge as well as an
explanation for the placement that
matched the association of the Master in
the east with the rising sun.

Q Where stand the Apprentices?

A. In the North, except the last re-
ceived [apprentice].

Q. Why?

A. Because they are still in darkness;
and so that being in the North, which is
the dark side, they examine the work of
Fellows. (17)

By 1760 Masonic ritual was becoming
more solidified, but ritual changes still
can be followed through the exposures.
Three Distinct Knocks, 1760, and
Jachin and Boaz, 1762, showed the Mas-
ter and Wardens in the east, west, and
south as they are today in England and
America. The position for the new Ap-
prentice settled down to the northern
part of the Lodge, though his final rest-
ing place did not yet seem to be fixed.
The following questions from the Ap-
prentice catechism in Three Distinct
Knocks are almost identical to those in
Jachin and Boaz.

Q. After you was invested of what you had
been divested of, what was done toyou?

A. I was brought back to the Northwest
Corner of the Lodge, in order to return Thanks.

Q. How did you return thanks?

A. I stood in the North-west Corner of the
Lodge, and with the instruction of a Brother, I
said; Master, senior and junior Wardens, se-
nior and junior Deacons, and the rest of the
Brethren of this Lodge, I return you Thanks for
the Honour you have done me, in making me a
Mason, and admitting me a Member of this
worthy Society.

Q. What was said to you then?

A. The Master call'd me up to the North-East
Corner of the Lodge, or at his Right Hand.

Q. Did he present you with any Thing?

A. He presented me with an Apron, which he
put on me; he told me that it was a Badge of
Innocency, more antient than the Golden Fleece
or the Roman Eagle; more honour'd than the
Star and Garter, or any other Order under the
Sun, that could be confer'd upon me at that
Time or any Time hereafter.

Q. What were the next Things that were
shewn toyou?

A. I was set down by the Master's Right-
hand, and he shew'd me the working tools of an
enta'd Apprentice. (18)

        Official Masonic Ceremony

The year 1772 saw a significant change
in the promulgation of Masonic ritual
when William Preston published his fa-
mous Illustrations of Masonry. This book
brought order out of ritualistic chaos by
presenting an official version of the lec-
tures, forms, and ceremonies of the
Lodge. Lodges no longer were forced to
rely on the memory of their members,
unsanctioned manuscripts, or unreliable
exposures. Illustrations of Masonry was
officially sanctioned by the Grand Mas-
ter of England, Lord Petre, who wrote,
"we having perused the said Book, and
finding it to correspond with the ancient
practices of this Society, do recommend
the same." (19)

While Preston presented official Ma-
sonic ritual, he published nothing eso-
teric nor anything like the early
exposures' clearly delineated speaking
parts and occasional explanations of
movements. Preston has no mention of
any special position for new Appren-
tices, nor the positions of the Master and
Wardens for that matter. Perhaps this
information about Apprentices was con-
sidered esoteric, or more likely there was
so little uniformity among the Lodges
that no one official form was yet possible.
In any event, Preston did not publish any
information about the movements and
positions in the Lodge. He did, however,
give "The Ceremony observed at laying
the Foundation Stones of Public Struc-
tures."

Preston's ceremony gives instructions
for dress, music, the order of the proces-
sion, odes, anthems, prayers, and the
setting of the stone, but there is not a
word about the the location of the corner-
stone. In the midst of all this detail, the
absence of information about the place
for the cornerstone must indicate there
was no significance to its position. Con-
firming no early preference for the
northeast is what is perhaps the earliest
cornerstone laying by the premier Grand
Lodge, described by Rev. James Ander-
son in his 1723 book, The Constitutions
of the Free-Masons. According to An-
derson, the Bishop of Salisbury laid the
cornerstone of the Church of St.
Martin's in the Fields "on the South-
East Corner." The southeast corner in
fact conforms with the location of the
cornerstone of King Solomon's Temple
given in the Dumfries No. 4 Manu-
script.(20)

        The Northeast Corner

Preston's 1772 Illustrations of Masonry
provided a solid foundation on which
future Masonic ceremony was built, but
even Preston's pioneering work didn't
resolve all ritualquestions. In 1772 there
were two rival Grand Lodges in En-
gland, the Ancients and the Moderns
with differing ideas of ceremonial propri-
ety, not to mention scores of local
Lodges, each with its own idea. The two
Grand Lodges vied for control of the
Craft until 1813 when they merged to
found the United Grand Lodge of En-
gland. At the same time Masonic ritual
was somewhat independently evolving
in the United States and the continent,
greatly influenced by England, Scot-
land, and Ireland, but subject to local
pressures.

By 1829 there is evidence the peripa-
tetic new Apprentice had settled in the
northeast corner with an explanation
that clearly tied him to the symbolism of
the cornerstone. The source is another
exposure, Light on Masonry, published
in 1829 during the American anti-Ma-
sonic period. It is not known where this
final refinement of the cornerstone sym-
bolism originated, but it must have been
in the period 1772-1829.

Q. After you returned, how was you disposed
of?

A. I was conducted to the north east corner of
the lodge, and there caused to stand upright like
a man, my feet forming a square, and received
a solemn injunction, ever to walk and act up-
rightly before God and man ....

Q. Why was you conducted to the north east
corner of the lodge . . . ?

A. The first stone, in every Masonic edifice,
is, or ought to be placed at the northeast corner;
that being the place where an Entered Appren-
tice Mason receives his first instructions to build
his future Masonic edifice upon. (21)

Albert G. Mackey provided a visual
clue to the northeast corner ceremony in
A Manual of the Lodge, 1862 when an
illustration clearly showed the footprints
of the newest Apprentice in the northeast
corner. Perhaps by this time the cere-
mony was considered well enough
known that such an obvious symbol
could be openly published. The illustra-
tion accompanied by the text leaves little
guessing as to the candidate's position.

The candidate receives those first in-
structions whereon to erect his future
moral and Masonic edifice in a particular
part of the Lodge .... he should begin
in the labor of erecting a spiritual temple
just as the operative mason would com-
mence the construction of his material
temple, by first laying the cornerstone on
which the future edifice is to arise. His
first instructions constitute that corner-
stone, and on it, when laid in its proper
place, he constructs the moral and Ma-
sonic temple of his life. (22)

Summary

Despite pronouncements to the con-
trary by most authors on Masonic sym-
bolism, the northeast corner has a rela-
tively recent association with the newest
Entered Apprentice and a quite modern
connection with cornerstones. The
placement of members in the Lodge
began with the Master, who opens the
Lodge and dispenses "light" from the
east as the sun opens the day.

This idea of placing the Master in the
east was first recorded in the Dumfries
No. 14 Manuscript in ca. 1710. Some
twenty years later Prichard's Masonry
Dissected matched the Master in the east
to open the Lodge with two wardens in
the west to close it.

Succeeding ritualists placed officers
and the newest Apprentice arbitrarily
symmetrically around the Lodge. By
1760 Jachin and Boaz had the newest
Apprentice in the northeast to receive his
apron from the Master. He remained
here in future rituals for a presentation
to the Master, but by 1829 the presenta-
tion had become "those first instruc-
tion[s] whereon to erect his future moral
and Masonic edifice. " At about the same
time, these instructions were justified in
being in the northeast corner by explain-
ing this was the site from which buildings
traditionally were erected. This satisfy-
ing symbolism continues today, but with
little appreciation of it as an innovation
on the body of Masonry.

Notes
1. H. L. Haywood, Symbolical Masonry (Kingsport
TN: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1923) 152-53.
2 . Robert Ingham Clegg, reviser, Mackey 's Symbol-
ism of Frccmasonry (New York: Masonic History
Co., 1921), 164.

3. Bernard E. Jones, Frccmason 's Guidc and Compcn-
dium, new and revised ed. London: Harrap,
Ltd., 1988), 328.

4. Quoted in Ray Baker Harris, The Laying of
Cornerstones (Washington, D.C.: Supreme Coun-
cil, 33 ' 1961), 10, 13.

5. Wallace McLeod, Thc Old Chargcs (Toronto:
privately printed, 1986), 39-50.

6.Douglas Knoop, G. P. Jones, and Douglas
Hamer, eds., Thc Early Masonic Catechisms, 2nd
ed., ed. Harry Carr (London: Quatuor Coronati
Lodge, 1975), 9-18.

7. Ibid., 32.

8. Ibid., 43.

9. Ibid., 37.

10. Ibid., 63, 66.

11. Ibid., 74.

12. Ibid., 104.
13. Samuel Prichard, Masonry Dissceted (London

1730); rept. with Analysis and Commentary by
Harry Carr (Bloomington, IL: Masonic Book
Club, 1977), 3-6.

14. Carr, in Prichard, 43.

15. Prichard, 11, 15-16.

16. Harry Carr, ed. Thc Early French Exposures
(London: Quatuor Coronati Lodge, 1971), 24.
75, 220-21, 263-64, 463- 64.

17. Carr, 263-64.

18. A. C. F.Jackson, ed. English Masonic Exposures,
1760-69(Shepperton, England: Lewis Masonic,
1986), 72-73.

19. William Preston, Illustrations of Masonry, 2nd
ed. (London: 1775; rept. Bloomington, IL: Ma-
sonic Book Club, 1975), v, ix.

20. Ibid., 42.

21. David Bernard, Light on Masonry (Utica, NY:
William Williams, 1829), 35, 38.

22. Albert G. Mackey, A Manual of the Lodge, new
and revised edition (New York: Clark & May-
nard, 1870), 41.
