Assembly, Annual, or General

Assembly, Annual, or General. There is considerable uncertainty about the Assemblies of Masons as referred to in the Gothic Constitutions and not only authorized but required by the Ancient Charges therein. Some historical background and authority for various assemblies in Medieval England exists but the descriptions of the Annual or General Assemblies of Masons as set forth in the old MSS. are not clear or specific. The Regius MS., speaking of King Athelstan of England, states:

”An Assembly then he let them make
Of divers Lords, in their state,
Dukes, Earls, and Barons also,
Knights, Squires, and many more
And the Burgesses of that city,
They were there in their degree;
These were there each one always
To ordain for these Masons’ estate.
There they sought by their wit
How they might govern it.”

The second article then provides: ”Every Master that is a Mason must be at the general congregation, provided he be told where the Assembly shall be held”; Point XII for the Craftsmen states: ”XII At the Assembly there shall be, besides the Masters and fellows, many great Lords, the Sheriff of the County, the Mayor of the City, Knights, Squires, and Aldermen. The ordinances then made shall be put into effect by them against any man belonging to the Craft, who, if he dispute the laws so enacted, will be taken into their custody.” The Cooke MS. refers to an assembly and states that Athelstan ordered that ”once a year, or every three years, as might appear needful to the king and great lords of the land and all the community, congregations should be called by the masters from county to county and from province to province of all masters, masons and fellows in the said art.” The second article or charge then requires ”That every master of the art shall be warned beforehand to come to his congregation, in order that he may duly come there, unless he may be excused for some cause or other.” That point indicates that fellows, as well as masters, were present at the congregations, and also the usual sheriffs, mayors, aldermen, etc, The Grand Lodge MS., speaking of St. Alban, says: ”And he gave them a Charter of their Kynge & his counsell for to houlde a Genrall Counsell and gaue yt the name of an Assemblye, and was there at him self and helped to make Masons, and gave them Chardges as yee shall heare afterwards.” Then, speaking of Edwin, it continues: ”and he got of the Kyng his father a Charter and a comission to houlde evy yere assembly once a yere where they would whin thee Realme of Ingland, and to correct within them faults and trespasses that weare done whin the Craft. And he held himself an Assembly at Yorke, & there he made Massons,” etc. Among the Charges was: ”Also that evy Mr. and Fellowe shall come to the assembly, that if it be within fyftie mylles about him, yf he haue warning.” In lieu of the above 50 miles, the Watson MS. says 40 miles; the Tew MS., 7 miles; Hope MS., Harleian MS. No. 2054, and Papworth MS., 5 miles. Antiquity MS. of 1686 recites that St. Alban ”gott them a Charter from the King and his Counsell to hold a General Counsell and gave it the name Assemblie” and that Edwin ”got of the King his Father a Charter and Commission once every yeare to assemble within the Realme where they would * * * and he held them an Assemblie at Yorke and there he made Masons and gave them Charges.” The tenth Charge was ”that every Master and Fellow shall come to the Assemblie if itt be within Fifty Miles of him if he have any warning.” Harleian MS. No. 1942 of the 17th century repeats the story of the St. Alban charter to hold a generall assemblie and the Athelstan charter to hold a yearely Assembly and then states that Athelstan called a ”generall assemblie of all Masons in the Realme at York & there made many Masons.” The 22nd charge is ”You shall come to the yearely assembly, if you know where it is, being within tenne miles of the place of your abode.”

It satisfied the needs of Dr. Anderson in preparing his Constitutions of 1723 (q.v.) to treat the assemblies as a prior Grand Lodge which had fallen into decay and was revived in 1717, but those who came after him, though rejecting his facile solution, have never been able satisfactorily to explain the nature of these bodies, or to state positively whether or not they were held and, if they were, whether or not they were purely Masonic, or were national or local. In the many MSS. mention is found of a congregation, a general congregation, an assembly, a general assembly, a yearly assembly, and a General Council. If there was any difference intended by these variations it is not apparent. While some of the MSS. indicate that the obligation to attend was on Masters only, most of them seem to apply to Fellows also. If a Mason were required to go no more than 50 miles, the assembly could not have been national, and since some require the Mason to go no more than 7 to 10 miles, it seems clear that local district or shire meetings must have been referred to and these may have been in units as small as hundreds. That they were not purely Masonic is indicated by the presence of Great Lords, Sheriffs, Mayors, Knights, Squires, and Aldermen, and the presence of those officials in a meeting for making Masonic laws must mean that the assemblies were public and for the purpose of applying a sort of mixture of Craft regulations and public laws.

Gould, in both his History of Freemasonry and his Concise History of Freemasonry devoted considerable space and effort to the problem and concluded that no such Masonic General Assemblies were ever held, and that the meetings mentioned in the Gothic Legends were merely the Sheriff’s Turn, Shire Court, or Court Leet, where men of all crafts were required to attend each year and renew their frankpledge or oath of allegiance. The problem deepens, however, and Gould finds the going hard when there is considered the statute 3 Henry VI passed in 1425, purporting to dissolve and forbid the yearly congregations and confederacies by the Masons in their General Assemblies, because they violated the Statute of Laborers. (For the text of the statute, see ANTI-MASONRY; LELAND MS.; STATUTES OF LABORERS.) That this was deemed crucial even in 1723 is indicated by the fact that it is set forth in a footnote on page 65 of Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723 and on page 87 is another note stating that Lord Coke held that the statute had been repealed by the statute 3 Elizabeth Ch. 4. But the repeal is immaterial; the fact that in the early 15th century, Masonic congregations and assemblies were active and notorious enough to provoke legislation is significant. The probabilities are that these assemblies were more or less local and more or less mixed public assemblies but, like all other institutions, they changed as time went by, though the scriveners and copyists who penned the Gothic Constitutions stuck to the letter and kept on repeating the charge about attending the assemblies long after they had ceased to be held. We know that is true, for many of these MSS. were written in the late 17th and early, 18th centuries, when it is obvious that no such meetings were held.