Not always Brotherly on the square

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The Craft

How Freemasons Made the Modern World

John Dickie

Hodder & Stoughton 2020

Hb, 454pp, £25, ISBN 9781473658196

The Secret Temple

Masons, Mysteries and the Founding of America (2nd edn)

Peter Levenda

Ibis Press 2020

Pb, 286pp, $21.95, ISBN 9780892541881

The Craft offers the reader a highly readable survey of Freemasonry from its origins in Scotland to its expression across the globe; its manifold rites, degrees, and personalities – quite an achievement!

Beginning in the mediæval period, Dickie considers the existence of the “Old Charges” – a written code of practice for stonemasons – to be the origin of what became Freemasonry. William Schaw formalised proceedings in 1598 after gathering Scotland’s elite masons together and securing their approval to establish a secret fraternity. Dickie foregrounds the role of early masonry in preserving the scientific gains of the Renaissance through “the art of memory” and the familiar degree system. As it migrated south to London, he notes, its ranks grew as it provided a forum for new ideas at a time of increasing authoritarianism and burgeoning civil war.

As the Craft went from strength to strength throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Scotland’s greatest export became co-opted by the English establishment and its Hibernian roots obscured. Dickie tackles this phase of masonic growth and the demarcation of its historical and mythological narratives in detail along with its arrival in continental Europe. Incorporating major events such as the Great Fire of 1666 and the French Revolution into a broader account of the period allows Dickie plenty of scope to contextualise the growing political significance of masonry and profile such notables as Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton and the infamous founder of the Hellfire Club, Philip Wharton.