Tag Archives: building element

Steps

Another wide subject. Steps in Freemasonry come in a variety of forms and meanings. When you look online for Freemasonry and steps, you usually get an image with different degrees. Three steps for the “craft”/”symbolic” degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason) and more steps for other degrees in whatever system is portrayed.

But you also have three steps in many lodges. The Worshipful Master sits three steps higher than floor level (both officers sometimes two steps). At other times steps refer to the Liberal Arts that Freemasons are supposed to study.

Three steps can refer to youth, (wo)manhood and old age (also see three candles). Seven steps can refer to: “the 7 stages of our life on our way to spiritual joy.” (A. & A. R. The intermediate Degrees 19º – 29º A.C.F. Jackson (1982)).

On the image above, a text is written on the steps for entering the Museum of Freemasonry (and the main seat of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands) in Den Haag (The Hague, La Haye) in the Netherlands:

Vrijmetselarij kweekt verdraagzaamheid
betracht rechtvaardigheid, bevordert
naastenliefde, zoekt wat mensen en
volken vereent, tracht weg te nemen
wat de geesten en gemoederen verdeelt
en brengt tot hogere eenheid door het
bewustzijn levend te maken van de
allen verbindende broederschap

Freemasonry breeds tolerance
practices justice, promotes
charity, seeks what unites people and
peoples, seeks to remove
what divides minds and spirits
and brings about higher unity by
consciousness of the
all uniting brotherhood

Entrance of the Museum of Freemasonry, Den Haag, the Netherlands

Crossed Pillars

Probably the oldest ‘high degree’ was that of “Scottish Master” (or “Scots Master”) which might have been worked in England as early as the 1730’ies. There is a text from Berlin, dated 1747, in the Kloss collection with the content of the degree. The story is that of master builders from Scotland who were not content with the replacement of the master’s word in the third degree. They went to the Holy Land to find clues to what the original master’s word might have been. They search the rubble of King Solomon’s Temple (hence the destroyed temple) and find “4 column-pieces lying on the ground in the shape of a saltire” (an X), which is convenient, because Scottish Master lodges are dedicated to Saint Andrew. Crossed pillars mostly appear on old Scottish Master tracing boards, but are not always obviously pillars. The plaque in the middle (with the original word on it?) is a typical element.

The image above is from the 1747 Berlin text. It can also be found in Feddersen (SD/4), but he found it in a Danish archive.

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Well

Feddersen (F/43 no year) has a tracing board which he says is a French board for the 5th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Besides the well, the board also features the Vessel with Rams.


The short French ritual “Les Antipodiens” (see gun) has an explanation for the well:

The well means that when the brethern finished their labors, they were sanctified.

A 29th degree Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite tracing board speaks of: “a well for purification”.

On a French tracing board in Les Francs Maçons Écrasés (1747) a tracing board is described as containing two “lavoirs”, ‘washing places’. See wheelbarrow (the two dark spots left and right of the mosaic pavements are the “lavoirs”).

I can imagine the fountain having a similar symbolism.

Top: Dąbrowski P. 212. Year and designer unknown.
Bottom: Feddersen (Die Arbeitstafel in der Freimaurerei Band I (1982) F/43, P. 313) gives as source Maurerisches Handbuch, 1829 (first edition 1821, this is a translation of Manuel Maconnique Ou Tuileur De Tous Les Rites De Maconnerie Pratiques En France by C. Vuillaume, 1820)

Five Pillars

Dąbrowski has an unidentified “Masonic Symbols”, see below. The image itself says: “Templar Chart” so I suppose these are symbols from Templar degrees.

Five pillars can be seen every now and then. In the USA they are (sometimes) part of the 2nd “craft” degree. It also appears in the 12th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite sometimes. I suppose they refer to the orders of architecture.

In the image above, the pillars have the letters T, L, P and F. In this case it appears to be one of the temples portrayed on this chart (of a reference to the other two). In this case the Temple of Honor and Temperance.

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Windows

On this “Continental Masonic Tableau” (Dąbrowski) you can see three windows. The often appear on “craft” / “symbolic” / “blue” degree tracing boards. They refer to the three phases of the sun. Rise in the East, high point in the South, dawn in the West.

Dąbrowski P. 162. Year and designer unknown (and edited).

Tracing board

Even though Freemasonry is not the only place where tracing boards are used, it is one of the best known elements of Freemasonry. The usage differs and that makes this a subject that is very large. When the first ‘modern’ lodges met in taverns, they drew “The Lodge” on the floor and wiped it out again when the work was done. Later these drawings were replaced by either carpets or boards. A “tableau” (‘board’) in many cases is actually a “tapis” (‘carpet’). Actual boards are used in England and English-type Freemasonry where the ‘tableau’ does not lay in the middle of the room, but stands against the pedestal of one of the officers.

The trestle boards contain the symbols of the degree that is worked in, so some lodges have a tracing board for every degree. Sometimes the first and second degrees are combined. Tracing boards form a part of many degree, “craft” or otherwise, so there is an enormous variety of them, both in size, but also in shape and of course, in the imaginary displayed.

Emulation tracing board designed by John Harris 1849.

Perfect Ashlar

The perfectly cubical stone is the symbol of the Fellow Craft in most “craft” degrees. It is the stone that has to fit into the wall (mankind). It can usually be found near the Senior or First Warden.

The “ashlar” need not be cubical in every system by the way.

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