St. John's Day, Masonic feast
John the Baptist
The first Grand Lodge was formed on 24 June the feast day of John the Baptist in 1717.[1] This may arise from an old tradition, as the Baptist appears to have been regarded as the patron of stonemasons in continental Europe during the Middle Ages. The guild of masons and carpenters attached to Cologne Cathedral was known as the Fraternity of St. John the Baptist.[2] The earliest surviving record of Grand Lodge of Ireland installing a Grand Master is dated to 24 June 1725.[3] As records of individual lodges appear in Ireland and in the Antients' in England, it seems many of them met to install a new master twice a year, on the feast days of both the Baptist and the Evangelist.
This date is also a popular day for cornerstone laying ceremonies. The first Masonic Hall in New York City had its cornerstone laid on June 24, 1826.
John the Evangelist
The Evangelist is particularly associated with Scottish lodges. The Lodge of Edinburgh was associated with the aisle of St. John the Evangelist in St. Giles Cathedral from the 15th century.
References
- ^ Douglas Knoop, "The Genesis of Freemasonry", Manchester University Press, 1947
- ^ G. W. Speth, Quatuor Coronati Antigrapha, vol I, part 3, p xiii
- ^ Benjamin Franklin Lodge #83, Madison, WI Archived 1 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine Robert Blackburn, A Brief History of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, retrieved 9 June 2013
- ^ Robert L.D. Cooper, Cracking the Freemason's Code, Rider 2006, p13
- ^ Albert Gallatin Mackey, The History of Freemasonry, Masonic History Co., 1906, Volume Four, Chapter XXXIX, pp. 1043–1078
- ^ Witham Matthew Bywater, Notes on Laurence Dermott G.S. and his Work, London, 1884, p23 & p30