Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction - Andreas Önnerfors 2017
The 18th century
Three centuries of freemasonry
The organizational history of freemasonry is complex, moving between internal masonic and external non-masonic events and developments. This chapter will explore each century in detail, and while the aim is to cover global aspects of the development of freemasonry, the major focus will be on the Western hemisphere. This largely reflects the fact that the history of freemasonry in Africa and Asia is still under-researched.
Modern freemasonry emerged as a specialized form of voluntary and self-organized sociability within the associational world of urban London during the late 1710s. This was the time of coffeehouses, clubs, and pubs, when a nascent public sphere and press facilitated encounters between likeminded people with shared interests. Founded on previous traditions of medieval stonemasons, modern freemasonry evolved its spiritual message, rituals, and organizational forms to fit the new age of Enlightenment and scientific culture (see Figure 2). From Britain, freemasonry during the 1720s and 1730s spread successfully to the continent and the colonies, despite (or possibly because of) repeated prohibitions and a steady stream of printed so-called exposures and apologies (defences). Although the first or Premier Grand Lodge of London and Westminster (allegedly founded in 1717) assumed the role of a superior body, its authority was constantly challenged within and outside Britain by rival grand lodges.
2. Bernard Picart, ’Les Armoiries des différentes loges de Free-Massons’ (1736).
The cultural impact of freemasonry during the first half of the 18th century was mainly confined to its recurrence as a topic in the periodical press and in urban entertainment such as theatre and music. During the later part of the century, the influence was more profound, for instance in architecture, art, and literature, particularly in a generation of German writers such as Lessing, Goethe, and Herder. The iconic peak of masonic influence was reached with Schikaneder’s and Mozart’s The Magic Flute (1791), which features subjects and themes clearly related to the imaginative world of freemasonry and other initiatory societies.
By the middle of the 18th century, masonic lodges and other orders and fraternities were organized according to the masonic pattern that could be found in almost every European country and were being adapted to fit diverging socio-cultural settings. Initially it was an elite phenomenon, with huge parts of the bourgeoisie increasingly embracing the masonic lodge as a prototype of enlightened sociability. It was a well-known phenomenon in the European press from the 1730s (and from the 1710s in the London press). By the 1780s the number of freemasons throughout Europe had reached at least 100,000. During the 1740s we find the first instances of female membership in separate or mixed gender lodges and orders. Female freemasonry was, however, not officially endorsed until the 1770s.
New ideas such as ’Templar imagination’ contributed to the development of separate masonic degree systems (for the purpose of initiation and communication of knowledge) or ’rites’. Furthermore, a plethora of masonic-like organizations flourished, commonly described as ’secret societies’. France and the old German Empire spearheaded this dynamic between 1760 and 1790, where masonic ideas also started to influence late Enlightenment literature, art, and music. But it was also the time of dramatic political change and the potential masonic influence on the revolutions of the North American colonies (1776) and France (1789) was, and is still, a matter of debate.
Contacts between significant US and French freemasons did take place. Values as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, of freedom, equality, and brotherhood, or in the French Universal Declaration of Human Rights resonated well with masonic ideas circulating at the time. On the other hand, freemasons generally displayed loyal attitudes to their respective governments, belonged to their functional elites, and were more engaged in reform than revolution. In France, freemasonry was also associated with the ’Ancien Régime’ of monarchy and aristocracy and declined considerably in the aftermath of the Revolution.
Another complex issue related to the concepts circulating within freemasonry is its association with perceived core Enlightenment values such as reason, rationality, self-improvement, or the idea of progress. The perception prevails in scholarship that freemasonry was a radical and entirely secular force, a precursor of civil society preparing for change in the spirit of exoteric enlightenment aiming at a profound transformation of society. But on the other hand we find plenty of instances where freemasonry (individual or groups of freemasons) performed and engaged in more esoteric practices, such as alchemical symbolism, mesmerism, or chivalric imagination. It is not easy to find an ultimate explanation for this tension other than that it mirrors the complexity of freemasonry and the members engaged in it, which ultimately forces us to grasp the contradictory nature of Enlightenment culture and thus of modernity itself.
After the French Revolution, freemasonry faced a serious crisis throughout Europe since it was accused of undermining the ’old order’ of Monarchy and Church, which resulted in a steady stream of accusatory pamphlets and books, usually seen as the starting point for the modern conspiratorial or paranoid genre.
Particularly in Catholic countries such as Austria, freemasonry experienced grave difficulties, a trend that prevailed throughout the subsequent centuries. But also in Prussia (1798) and Britain (1799), freemasonry was placed under governmental regulation. It was a period when the West saw the formation of a more mature political culture and when modern political philosophies of conservatism, liberalism, and socialism emerged. Governments started to view all political self-organization and proto-democratic activism among their citizens with increasing suspicion.