Origins and development

During the Middle Ages, church builders organised themselves into various guilds in accordance with their particular trades.

With the dawn of modern history, the number of men involved in building of castles, monasteries and cathedrals began to fall. The operative stonemasons' guilds gradually developed into “speculative” fraternities whose membership consisted of gentlemen outside the trade. Originating in the British Isles, these so-called “speculative masons” were to become known as Freemasons. These new fraternities were called “lodges”, according to the shelters used by the medieval stonemasons.

Four English Masonic lodges came together in London to establish a central organisation in 1717, namely the first Grand Lodge. Later on, they agreed upon a common set of principles. This is now viewed as constituting the birth of modern Freemasonry.

Already in the earlier operative guilds, attention was paid not only to the professional skills of members but also to their spiritual development. Old traditions were preserved within the new Freemasons' lodges through the use of phrases relating to building terminology. However, this use of language came to symbolise spiritual ideas. The tools of operative masons were taken into symbolic use.

Having thus emerged from origins dating from the Middle Ages, Freemasonry was in the 18th century carried around the world by soldiers, merchants, seafarers and other free men.