, ANDERSONS CONSTITUTIONS OF 1723 - L VIBERT, Masońskie 

ANDERSONS CONSTITUTIONS OF 1723 - L ...

ANDERSONS CONSTITUTIONS OF 1723 - L VIBERT, Masońskie
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1723
Bro.
LIONEL VIBERT
Past Master Quator Coronati Lodge No. 2076,
England
Bro. Lionel Vibert, of Marline, Lansdowne, Bath,
England, is author of Freemasonry Before the
Existence of Grand Lodges and The Story of the Craft
and is editor of Miscellanea Latomorum. He has
contributed papers to the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum,
notably one on "The French Compagnonnage," a
critical and exhaustive treatise that is bound to replace
Gould's famous chapter among the sources available
to the rank and file of students of that important
theme. After having devoted his attention for several
years to pre-Grand Lodge Masonry, Bro. Vibert is now
specializing on the Grand Lodge era the records of
which are still so confused or incomplete that, in spite
of the great amount of work accomplished by scholars
in the past, a work "great as the Twelve Labours of
Hercules" remains yet to be done. The paper below is
one of the author's first published studies of the Grand
Lodge era. To us American Masons, who live under
forty-nine Grand Jurisdictions and to whom Masonic
jurisprudence is an almost necessary preoccupation,
any new light on that formative and critical period,
and especially on Dr. Anderson whose Constitutions is
the groundwork of our laws, is not only interesting but
useful.
THE GRAND LODGE THAT WAS brought into
existence in 1717 did not find it necessary to possess a
Constitution of its own for some years. Exactly what
went on between 1717 and 1721 we do not know;
almost our only authority being the account given by
Anderson in 1738 which is unreliable in many
particulars. Indeed it cannot be stated with certainty
whether there were any more than the original Four
Old Lodges until 1721; it would appear from the Lists
and other records we possess that the first lodge to
join them did not do so till July of that year; the
statements as to the number of new lodges in each
year given by Anderson are not capable of verification.
It was also in the year 1721 that the Duke of Montagu
was made Grand Master on 24th June, having
probably joined the Craft just previously. The effect of
his becoming Grand Master, a fact advertised in the
dally press of the period, was that the Craft leapt into
popularity, its numbers increased, and new lodges
were rapidly constituted. Even now it was not
anticipated that the Grand Lodge would extend the
scope of its activities beyond London and
Westminster, but Grand Master Payne, possibly
anticipating the stimulus that would be provided by
the accession to the Craft of the Duke, had got ready a
set of General Regulations, and these were read over
on the occasion of his installation. Unfortunately we
do not possess the original text of them but have only
the version as revised and expanded by Anderson. But
we can understand that in a very short time it would
be found necessary for these regulations to be printed
and published to the Craft. Their publication was
undertaken by Anderson, who took the opportunity to
write a history of the Craft as an introduction, and to
prepare a set of Charges; his intention clearly being to
give the new body a work which would in every
respect replace the Old Manuscript Constitutions. The
work consists of a dedication written by Desaguliers
and addressed to Montagu as late Grand Master; a
Historical introduction; a set of six Charges; Payne's
Regulations revised; the manner of constituting a new
lodge; and songs for the Master, Wardens, Fellow
Craft and Entered Apprentice, of which the last is well
known in this country (England) and is still sung
today in many lodges. There is also an elaborate
frontispiece. The work was published by J. Senex and
J. Hooke, on 28th February, 1722-3, that is to say 1722
according to the official or civil reckoning, but 1723 by
the so-called New Style, the popular way of reckoning.
(It did not become the official style till the reform of
the calender in 1752.) The title page bears the date
1723 simply.
Dr. Anderson was born in Aberdeen, and was a Master
of Arts of the Marischal College in that city. He was in
London in 1710 and was minister of a Presbyterian
Chapel in Swallow Street, Piccaldilly, till 1734. He was
also chaplain to the Earl of Buchan, and as the Earl
was a representative peer for Scotland from 1714-1734,
it was probably during these years that he maintained
a London establishment. We do not know that the
Earl was a Mason, although his sons were. When
Anderson was initiated we do not know either; but it
may have been in the Aberdeen Lodge. There is a
remarkable similarity between his entry in the
Constitutions of his name as "Master of a Lodge and
Author of this Book," and in entry in the Aberdeen
Mark Book, of "James Anderson, Glazier and Mason
and Writer of this Book." This was in 1670 and this
James Anderson is no doubt another person. It just
happens most unfortunately that the minutes for the
precise period during which we might expect to find
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