Banquet.
Banquet. Banquets and dinners have been Masonic institutions from early times and are referred to repeatedly in Masonic records. Ashmole (q.v.) tells us in his diary of attending a lodge in London in 1682, after which, the brethren dined at the expense of the newly made Masons. The celebrations of the Saints Johns’ Days soon became feasts and the principal meeting of the premier Grand Lodge in each of the years from 1717 to 1721 was called the Assembly and Feast. In modern times, banquets or dinners almost always accompany important meetings of Masonic bodies. (See FEAST.) There seems to be no reason to confuse the banquet with that peculiar institution known as the Table Lodge (q.v.), for the latter was a real lodge meeting held while the brethren were seated around the table and evidently at liberty to continue eating and drinking.
