File:Collected essays and papers relating to freemasonry (1913) (14780786931).jpg

Identifier: cu31924030271021 (find matches)
Title: Collected essays and papers relating to freemasonry
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Gould, Robert Freke, 1836-1915
Subjects: Freemasons
Publisher: Belfast
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
for the standard of St. John over that of St. Wilfrid, as being a talisman of highereificacy, to be carried before him in the wars. The Beverley Charter has been described, though somewhat loosely, as a productionof the reign of Ed\Nard i., about the year 1300.§ This invites comparison. The argumentof Mr. Poulson may be convincing or the reverse, but at any rate it is free from Masonicbias, and supplies us therefore with an independent criticism of an ancient writing, between\\hich and the Old Charges in matter, and the Regius MS. in matter and form, there arepoints of resemblance. Similar causes produce similar results. Three shrines were visited and endowed byAthelstan, and if his grants to two of them were embodied in verse about the year 1300, it isat least a reasonable conjecture that the same thing may have occurred with the third. * Green, Shori Hist. Eng. People, 83, ui supra. t Ante, 32. ( Anglia Judaica, 244, 245 ; Blunt, The Jews in England. 65. § Ante, 49, q.v. MAP lllio
Text Appearing After Image:
65 But even if the supposition be entertainable, that the rhyming charters of Ripon andBeverley, are indebted for their existence, to the memory of Athelstan and his expedition,having been stirred up by Edward i., the date of production assigned to them, at least inmy judgment, is too early. There may, indeed, at some time, have been a metrical charter, either written ortraditionary, at York, similar to those at Ripon and Beverley, and if so, it may have formedeither wholly or in part, the original basis on which the Craft Legend has been erected. But I am inclined to attach greater importance to the circulation of heroic deeds, andpious benefactions, by means of song and recitation ; and if there was a charter at all—inthe sense that one formed the groundwork of either the poem or the Old Charges—I thinkit must have been a charter to a Guild, with which some kind of a metrical history ofMasonry or Geometry was incorporated. The question of such a charter, however, will come in mo

Note About Images