Mediaeval Masons
The only stone structures in a mediaeval town were likely to be the church and maybe a town hall, guildhall or bridge. Masons were simply unlikely to be able to make a living in a town. They had to follow the work.
An exception is perhaps Royal projects, either voluntarily or by impressment. The same is true for the great cathedrals and abbeys who probably had groups of masons employed directly on a semi-permanent basis.
Only London had need for a permanent local masonic workforce. There was some sort of organisation (Guild or union) back as far as 1306 when newcomers to the City were warned off accepting wages lower than those of the local craftsmen.
In 1356 the famous Master Mason, Henry Yevelle, helped to draw up the regulations for London’s stonemasons but there is no mention at that time of the existence of a London guild.
The Great Plague of 1348-50 had annihilated some half of the population, masons included. The surviving craftsmen were able to negotiate better wages. King Edward III then invoked a “Statute of Labourers” to limit wages and would have perceived the Guilds as offering resistance in much the way of the modern trade unions.
“Freemason”
It was in 1376 that the word “Freemason” first appears in documentation. The word would seem most likely connected with “freestone”, which is the name given to any fine-grained sandstone or limestone that can be freely worked in any direction and sawn with a toothed saw.
Such freestone lends itself to the carving of leaves and flowers in relief for the purposes of decorating capitals and cornices and to the carving of images, gargoyles and regular geometrical shapes also used for window frames, doorways and vaulting.
The word “Free” thus likely dates its rise to the material which was being worked upon and not, as modern Freemasons are taught, to their status as a Free Man.
After the ‘Peasants Revolt’ in 1381, an ordinance was passed that all Guild warrants were to be laid before the crown and in 1425 all annual assemblies of guilds were banned by Henry VI. This “persecution” continued for most of the mediaeval period.
So, during this period when many of the English churches were being built or extended, there seems not to be a single record of a stonemasons guild in London.
Beyond London, there are indications of Guilds, William Horwood who contracted to build the nave at Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire signed himself “Master of Stamford Guild”.
‘Mystery plays’ had become a feature of life in many English towns. They were performed back-to-back by the municipal guilds, each play having a religious or moralistic theme and a list of guilds taking part in the Corpus Christi Mystery Plays* at Norwich in 1449 lists ‘masons’.
So, despite the industry being sparsely regulated outside of London, there existed some sort of influence whereby payment was ‘regulated’ possibly leading to greater antipathy being directed towards Stonemasons than other trades who seem less ‘persecuted’?
The Stamford Guild
Stamford was at that time an important town with fourteen parish churches, a castle, town walls and a bridge. The Stamford Guild was known to exist in 1438. That is, right in the middle of the series of acts designed to control wages.
We know that William Horwood was its “master” and we can see from the contract that Horwood was designated as a “freemason” in that contract and that the House of York who engaged him treated him with something approaching disdain, engaging some masons of their own upon him and threatening him with prison for late completion. It seems that the craft was mistreated up until 1666 when Charles II desperately needed masons to rebuild London after the Great Fire.
It seems likely that, to avoid sanctions around this time, Masons gatherings appeared to be more ceremonial group than Guild. It was around this time that the stonemasons formed themselves into ‘Lodges’, the word possibly deriving from the French ‘Loge’ meaning arbour or hut which is where the meetings would have been held.
The Lodge was thus a physical place on a mediaeval building site. One side would probably have been open to the elements and the lodge might have abutted one of the walls of the building. This Lodge would be the nerve centre of the operation and used for meeting, eating, planning, perhaps for fine carving work and even sleeping.
The physical building, also had a less obvious significance. When a Master Mason moved on, he took his lodge with him. Not the physical building, but the organisation and Master Mason’s culture and those who worked with him.
For a Master Mason, continuity amongst his workforce would be a big advantage and it is probably safe to assume that he would have ‘scouts’ looking for their next job before the work in hand was complete.
This action alone would demand a degree of regular ‘subscription’ upon each worker to fund the sojourning mason(s) looking for work. There may also have been an alms collection whereby a worker’s wage could be continued to be paid if he became injured.
Masonic Hierarchy
At the top of the hierarchy was the Master Mason who would command the whole workforce, not just the stonemasons.
On huge projects he might have a Clerk of Works. Below him were masons which who were either “Hewers” (or “cementarii”) who shaped the stone, “Scapplers” (or batrarii), who were less skilled Hewers who worked in the quarries and used cruder tools like hammers and axes to roughly shape the stones ready for the hands of the more expert workmen and the “Layers” (or “cubitores”) who set them in place.
Indications are that the Hewers were paid around 20% more than Layers who were generally less skilled.
By 1450 when the Magdalen College, Oxford was being built, the terminology had started to change. The words “roughmason” and “freemason” start to be used as well as “Pavers” (“pavours”), “Wallers” (“muratorii”) and “Image makers” (“Ymaginatores”) to name but a few variations. What is clear is that these terms often refer to the work that a man was performing on the site and not to some “grade” or position in masonic hierarchy.
It is interesting to note that only one ‘Apprentice’ is mentioned amongst the four hundred and fifty masons recorded in the Oxford College records. This scarcity demonstrates that they were most likely apprenticed to the master masons.
It’s not as though stonemasons could necessarily walk home after a days work, so living accommodation must surely have been provided on site, likely another use of the Lodge? Sustenance would have been provided at the hour of high twelve and again it’s likely that this would have been part of the Mason’s remuneration. Thus the Apprentice could survive despite the fact that he received no payment, his food and accommodation provided whilst he learned his trade. The financial overhead on the Master Mason would thus have been relatively light, he only having to provide tools on which the Apprentice could learn his trade. It is also likely that the skills of masonry were passed down through the generations, especially in the hope that the apprentice might escape the quarries and prove themselves worthy of working as Hewers or Layers, although records do indicate that masons who worked on buildings also occasionally worked back in the quarries.
The Master Mason
That “master masons” existed both as a role and as a title is a matter of record, but that Guilds existed outside of London is not.
One of the first tasks of the Master was to prepare templates made of wood or sheet metal. If he needed a cross section of a pillar or for window tracery, he would make a template for his men to copy. Examples of these templates still exist in the York Minster roof.
The plans for a church would call for an impracticably large canvas so the skill of ‘scaling’ was imperative thus a simple understanding of geometry was essential. Further to this, the masons, were wont to draw in a box filled with sand or plaster. Again, at York Minster the “drawing floor” or “Tracing Board”, still exists.
So, given that he was required to be an expert at SO many skills and disciplines, we might have expected a master of any craft to have completed seven years of training before attaining the status of what other trades (but not the English stonemasons) called “journeymen”, that is; men who are paid by the day.
Then he might serve two or more years of training before producing his “masterpiece” (easily understood within the context of, for example, goldsmiths), being “examined” by master of his guild and then if he was fortunate being designated “master” of his craft.
There is however, a huge distinction between a master mason and say, a master goldsmith. The worst consequences for a botched job in most trades, even perhaps in other building trades such as carpentry, would be a lot of wasted work and materials, a disappointed client and a ruined reputation.
For a stonemason it could be a large collapsed building, the waste of thousands of man hours of labour and a lasting monument to his incompetence. This was a trade in which working beyond the limits of your competence could have catastrophic consequences, as the innumerable accounts of collapsed church towers amply attest.
It is reasonable to assume that the Master Masons must also have ranged in their abilities.
A master mason who built an extension on a church might not necessarily have the skills, the team or the finance necessary to construct a cathedral and a master mason able to regularly complete a project on time and within budget might not have the delicate carving skills required for a royal palace.
It is considered therefore that recommendation MUST have been by ‘word of mouth”.
The Statute of Labourers of 1353 laid down a maximum wage for common masons as 3d per day. For those designated “Master Freestone Masons” or “Chief master of masons” the maximum was 4d, a premium of only 33%.
The Henry VI statute of 1444 declared “Freemasons” as worth 5 ½ d and a “Roughmason” 4 ½ d. This was updated in 1446 to include meals. There was no mention of master masons which presupposes that the expressions were then interchangeable.
Henry VII’s 1495 statute rates both “Freemason” and “Roughmason” at 6d per day with “Master masons taking charge of work and having under them six masons” to receive 7d but valued the meal allowance at 2d a day.
This demonstrates that a master mason who had qualified and was taking on significant responsibility was to be paid only 16% more than his fellow masons.
Given this paltry differential, the modern Freemason’s view of Master Masons that their secrets were jealously guarded is possibly poorly founded. For a 16% uplift, it’s more likely that they would have been most keen to impart the skills and knowledge to the interested workforce simply to reduce the burden of responsibility upon him.
We now examine the romantic notion that all master masons were architectural and artistic wizards. That there were such men is beyond dispute but as we wonder at our stately and superb edifices, we must never assume the same level of skill for the man who built the parish church despite his vast range of skills and contacts.
In both cases, the master mason had little in the way of drawing materials and no means to produce blueprints. His clients would often have been no better educated or any more literate than himself and would probably have little knowledge of what was possible and what was not.
Having reached some kind of agreement, the master would make a contract with the client and then he would plan and manage the whole project. He would usually recruit the workforce. If the contract demanded it, he would source the materials needed and arrange for their transport to the site at the appropriate time.
He would communicate to his workforce what needed to be done and ensured they did it. He would manage his workforce having the power to hire and fire. Increasingly, he will have managed the project to a pre-agreed budget. He would manage his client’s expectations in the face of misunderstandings, snags such as bad weather and disease, substandard materials and any disputes with contractors.
The general Master Mason had no knowledge of Pi or other mathematical formulae.
He DID however understand practical skills, that the width of three similar circles side by side (3 x Diameter) was roughly the circumference (actually 3.14x).
He knew the power and therefore value of the (3-4-5) right-angle triangle and the science of levers, pulleys and fulcrums so lacked not our intelligence: but the means to further share his knowledge. Hence the derivation of the importance of the oral tradition of the masons’ craft.
