DEGREES to which attention will be devoted in this section are chiefly those that served as steps to the R.A. in the early days. The subject cannot be pursued at length, there being space for little more than an explanation of the relationship of these degrees both to the Craft and to the R.A. Many of the added degrees not only contain R.A. elements, but include the word ‘Arch’ in their titles, as, for example, Royal Arch of Enoch and Royal Arch of Solomon. It is a question whether certain degrees have borrowed from the R.A. or whether, as some students have thought possible, they have all evolved more or less from the same source.
The nomenclature of the added degrees historically associated with the R.A. is perplexing. We have already seen that the P.M. Degree was originally the Antient,’ esoteric Installation of the Master of a Craft lodge. Similarly, what in Ireland was called the High Priest Degree was in England the esoteric Installation of the First Principal. The R.A. of old had at times some curious relationships with some of the added degrees, and we find a startling example in Cape Town, where, early in the 1800s, two lodges, the Union and the British, were each working the R.A. In due course the latter regularized the position by applying to the Supreme Grand Chapter for a warrant and founded the existing British Chapter, No. 334, in 1829. T. N. Cranstoun‑Day, in his history of that chapter, says that the local custom was for the members of the Rose Croix to attend the Craft Lodges in their red robes and also to attend the chapter, even though they had never been exalted to the R.A. Degree, a custom which endured until 1866.
Excellent and Most Excellent Degrees
There is no doubt that the ‘Antients’ lodges worked a number of degrees under their Craft warrants, not, as has already been said, that these warrants mentioned any such degrees, but that the Antient’ mason took a very comprehensive view as to what constituted the ceremonies of the Order. The Antients,’ and later the Moderns’ too, worked in addition to the Craft degrees a Past Master Degree derived from the Installation ceremony, an Excellent Mason or Excellent Master Degree, Super Excellent Mason, Super Excellent Master or High Excellent Master Degree, the R.A., Mark, and occasionally such further degrees as Knight Templar, Red Cross, and possibly others. A common sequence of step degrees was P.M., Excellent Master and Super Excellent Master, the R.A. and other degrees then following.
How old these Excellent and Super Excellent degrees are it is difficult to say, but they certainly were known in 1770, and were worked in that year in the Chapter of Friendship. (W. Redfern Kelly says that the Super Excellent Degree was ‘conferred in 1756 in an Antients’ lodge, and that in 1763 both Excellent and Super Excellent were worked in a Moderns’ lodge, but he does not state the authority.) In the early 1800s one form of the Excellent Master’s Degree worked in England celebrated the completion of an arch. Pillars were erected and bridged with an incomplete arch, one still needing its arch stone or copestone, which in the course of the ceremony was put in place. In another form this degree included historical incidents to be found in the first part of the R.A.
The Excellent Mason Degree as worked in England in the 1820s period was conferred only on P.M.’s, and seemed to be only a step to another degree. Regarded from any other point of view, it was very inconclusive. It led to the Super Excellent Mason Degree, in which the Candidate wore the habit of a High Priest, but apparently this degree introduced very little new matter, but harped back to the Craft ritual and included a reference to the point within a circle.
Some old lodges and chapters refer not to the Super Excellent, but to the High Excellent Degree, and possibly the two were identical. The term ‘High Excellent’ appears a few times in the minutes of St Paul’s Lodge, No. 194, in the 1812‑I3 period.
In recording that of fifty chapters and Antients’ lodges working the R.A. in Lancashire up to 1825 almost all of them, as from at least 1780, worked the Excellent, Most Excellent, and High Excellent degrees, S. L. Coulthurst says that these degrees were generally known as passing the veils. The statement or suggestion that these degrees were related to the ceremony of passing the veils crops up from time to time, but the present author is unable to confirm it from available evidence. However, George S. Draffen, an authority on Scottish masonry, states that the Scottish Excellent Master Degree is actually the passing of the veils, and other students say the same about a ‘Scottish Super Excellent Degree. Neither the Super Excellent Degree ‘given in a well‑known English irregular print of about 1825 nor that now included in the American system is a ‘Veils’ ceremony.
A minute of the Neptune Lodge, now No. 22, of the year 1808 is a typical Antients’ record of a raising and Exaltation:
Proceeded to raise Br. Gibbs to that sublime degree of a Master Mason. Returned thanks in due form. Then adjourned the Master Masons Lodge & opened in the Excellent and High Excellent Masons Degree, then proceeded to exalt1 … to that Sublime degree of an Ext & High Ex’ Master Masons. Returned thanks in due form, then Closed the Business and ReOpened a Master Masons Lodge.
A sequence of degrees brought to light by Norman Rogers as having been worked in an Antients’ lodge in Liverpool, founded in 1792 and erased in 1822, has some special points of interest. Here is a revealing minute of the lodge:
This being regular Royal Arch night, the Lodge was opened on the III of Masonry by Bro. L. Samuel, W.M. in the Chair. When Bros. A.B. and C.D. were duly proposed, and seconded as advocates for Holy Royal Arch, the ballot was in their favour and they were Past the Chair, and a Lodge of Past Masters was formed and they were entrusted with the P.M. degree. The Lodge was then closed on the III of Masonry and the Chapter was opened on the Excellent Super Excellent degree of masons, when the above Brothers were balloted for and approved; they were then passed through the three veils of the temple and into the Holy of Holies; the Chapter was then closed on the Excellent degree and opened on the H.R.A. Chapter, when the above Brothers with amazing skill and courage received the Order of R.A.M. Nothing further for R.A., the Chapter was closed.
The Knight Templar Degree in Relation to the R.A.
The most important of the chivalric Masonic orders, the Knights Templar, is probably younger by twenty years or so than recorded R..A. masonry, but it is well proven that the two degrees were closely related in their early days and that in the 1780s the R.A. was just as essential a preliminary to the Knights Templar as it is to‑day. Members of the K.T. are eligible for the Knights of Malta, one other degree of which we find mention late in the eighteenth century. It has been stated that the Scottish Lodge of St Andrews, of Boston, Massachusetts, had in 1769 an R.A. meeting at which the degree of K.T. was conferred; possibly the degree had been introduced by an Irish lodge in the 29th Regiment stationed at Boston in that year. A well‑known minute of the Chapter of Friendship, Portsmouth, of October 21, 1778, quotes a letter from Dunckerley stating that “we might make Knight Templers if we wanted and it was resolved to”.
A common sequence of degrees in the 1780 period following the three Craft degrees was the P.M., the K.T., and the R.A. For example, the Antients’ Lodge of Antiquity, now No. 146 (founded in 1776 at Leigh, Lancs, and moved to Bolton in 1786), worked in the latter year a long sequence including Royal Arch and Knight Templar, while an attached chapter (Melchisedec; ceased in 1860) worked a degree known as the Holy R.A. Knight Templar Priest. Elsewhere in Lancashire similar sequences were worked in both Antients’ and Moderns’ lodges and chapters. Of the representative minutes to be found in the Irish lodges here is one relating to Lodge 1012, of the year 1845, typical of many:
William Hopkin passed the Chair, was made an Excellent Super Excellent Mason, Went through the ist second and third Vails of the Temple, was made a Royal Arch Mason and consequently Dubbed a Knight of the royal Arch Knight Templars, and has paid all demands that the Lodge requires ｣1 : 11: 4:
If at first sight the fee is thought to be low let it be compared with that charged in another lodge on an occasion in 1827 when a Candidate was passed to the chair and to the degree of Excellent and Super Excellent, passed the First, Second, and Third Veils of the Temple, and was then “Arched and Knighted” ‑ altogether six different ceremonies on the same evening ‑ for 5s. 5d.!
The spread of the Templar degrees in association with the Royal Arch was due in large part, it is thought, to the movements of military regiments, for in their lodges and chapters the Antient’ working was predominant. The Rose Croix is believed to have been originally a Templar degree.
The association of the Royal Arch with the Knights Templars Degrees in Ireland must have been very close. In the 1800 period, for example, a degree known as the “Sacred Band Royal Arch Knights Templars, Priests after the Order of Melchisedec,” issued certificates referring to the Early Grand Encampment and starting with these words: “Wisdom bath built her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars; the light that cometh from wisdom shall never go out.” The certificates mentioned the “Christian Order of Melchisedec,” spoke of “our faithful and well‑beloved Brother and cemented friend” (the exaltee), and prayed that the “choicest blessings of the Eternal Three in One may attend on all those who may in any wise be serviceable to him.”
The Red Cross Degree in Relation to the R.A.
Phillip Crossle is the authority for the statement that in England as well as in Ireland late in the eighteenth century and early in the nineteenth century a ceremony known as the Red Cross Mason was worked in what was termed an ‘encampment’ of R.A. masons. He indicates that the Red Cross Mason Degree had previously been known as the Super Excellent and that it was worked in an encampment in which three symbolic deputy Grand Masters were placed in the East. The President was a Captain General, sometimes called the Royal Arch Captain, supported by First and Second Lieutenants. In Scotland, too, many early R.A. ‘Chapters’ met in ‘encampments.’ We are told that the Chapter of Paradise, a ‘Moderns’ Chapter, then No. 111 and now No. 139, attached to Britannia Lodge, Sheffield, called its meetings ‘encampments’ and, in the very early days of the nineteenth century, always held these encampments on Sundays.
There seems to have been argument as to whether the Red Cross should precede or follow the R.A., and at about the close of the eighteenth century there are instances of a sequence of degrees ending with the Red Cross which would place that degree as a qualification for the R.A. The Lodge of Friendship, a ‘Moderns’ lodge, which later united with an ‘Antients’ lodge to become what is now No. 38, provided in 1813 a typical sequence: John Newman, a London banker, was initiated, made a F.C. and a Master Mason, a P.M. of Arts and Sciences, and then “initiated” as Knight of the Red Cross, all on the one occasion. Here the Red Cross would be a preliminary to the R.A., but it is to be expected that in some other cases this order was reversed.
The Mark Degree in Relation to the R.A.
It is well accepted that the R.A. was a factor in the creation of the Mark Degree, which in England is first heard of in 1769 and in a ‘Moderns’ Lodge, whereas in Ireland, which in so many respects adhered to the ‘Antients’ system, the Mark was not officially known until 1845. J. Heron Lepper says that as late as 1870 there were certain outlying chapters in Ireland which had difficulty in finding a Brother able to confer the degree. The Mark Degree in its early days was closely related to the R.A. The earliest known reference to Mark masonry is in a cipher minute of the Chapter of Friendship, in the year 1769. The minute, translated, reveals that:
“At a ROYAL ARCH Chapter held at the George Tavern in Portsmouth on First Sept’ 1769 … The Pro G.M. THOMAS DUNCKERLEY bro’t the Warrant of the Chapter, and having lately rec’d the ‘MARK,’ he made the bre’n ‘MARK MASONS’ and ‘MARK MASTERS,’ and each chuse their ‘MARK.’“
Further, under date July 21, 1771, it is learned that three Brethren were made Mark masons and Mark Masters, also R.A. masons and Excellent and Super Excellent masons. In this same chapter a minute (already given) of October 21, 1778, records that the Z. “read a letter from Com. DUNCKERLEY, that we might make KNIGHT TEMPLERS if we wanted and it was resolved to . . .” (Two Brethren “took the MARK,” and each chose his mark; one of the two was “made ARCH next time.”)
There is a clear indication in the 1820 period that the R.A. and the Mark Degrees were still intermingled with the Craft, and we find repeated references to these degrees being conferred on Brethren in both regular and emergency meetings. (It is worth noting, by the way, that R.A. certificates of the period often include the phrase “Given under our Hands and Masonic Mark in Chapter this ____day of ____.” Certificates issued by the old Albion Chapter, No. 9, Antients,’ exemplify this.)
In Benevolence Lodge, now No. 226, five Brethren were made Mark masons on October 16, 1825. At one meeting in 1827 “the Brothers met on the Master’s Mark.” Nothing could be clearer than a minute of August’ 30, 1829: “Bro. Thos. Taylor took the degree of Pass [Past] Master and, afterwards took the degree of Mark Mason and also the degree of Arch Mason”‑and all these in an Antients’ lodge going back no further than. 1797, the year in which it was founded in Blackburn, Lancs.
In a much older Antients’ lodge, the Mount Moriah, No. 34, founded: at the Ship and Anchor Inn, Gun Dock, Wapping, in 1775, there are references in 1788 and onward to the Excellent, High Excellent, and Mark Mason Degrees, the first two being prerequisites for the Mark. Similar entries are to be found in the minutes of other Antients’ lodges of the period. As showing the very close connexion between the Mark and the R.A: even as late as the 1866‑87 period, there is a minute of the Serendib Chapter, Ceylon, showing that the chapter had been opened “by virtue,” and was then “lowered to the Mark Degree”; if necessary, the chapter would afterwards be “opened in due form.”
Much has, been said and written on the subject of the Harodim Degree (there are various spellings, such as Herodim, Herodium, Heredim, and Heredom), a degree which may have come between the Fellow Craft and the Master Mason, was possibly an early form of Mark, and may have included “Marked Masons.” It is not within the province of this book to deal at length with the Harodim Degree, but it should be said that one version of it embodied the idea of the Hiramic Degree; the loss and finding of the word; and even a Mark idea, the rejection of the stone! In the Restoration Lodge, Darlington, in the 1780s, and perhaps even earlier, the Harodim Degree was a prerequisite for the Royal Arch, and is thought to have included the Old Mark, Ark, and Link. It should be stated, however, that Harodim, a plural word, is derived from 1 Kings v, 16; the chiefs or princes over the work of building the Temple at Jerusalem were so named, and Anderson in his Constitutions uses the word in this sense. It has been said that from a rite (worked chiefly in the North of England) known by this name came part of the Royal Arch and other ceremonies, but the ‘facts’ are few and confusing, and, indeed, the later Harodim ceremonies may well have been influenced by the Royal Arch. However, some students hold very definite opinions in this matter, as, for example, William Waples, who has told the present author that a perusal of the minute‑books of the Lodge of Industry, No. 48 (founded in Durham in 1735), Phoenix Lodge, No. 94 (founded in Sunderland in 1755), and Sea Captains’ Lodge, now Palatine Lodge, No. 97 (also of Sunderland, founded 1757), shows clearly how the old Harodim system was divided into what are now separate Orders of masonry, and, further, that “the Royal Arch and its subsequent development were originally part of the Harodim.” (The Grand Chapter of Harodim, founded by William Preston in London in 1787, was an organization with an instructional purpose, and has no bearing on the argument.)
In England nowadays the Master Mason is qualified to become either a Mark mason or a R.A. mason and in the order that he prefers, but in Scotland, Ireland, and the U.S.A. the Mark, as’ in the eighteenth century, instill a preliminary to the R.A.
Crossing the Bridge
In some early R.A. and Mark rituals, and even in to‑day’s American R.A. ritual, the Candidate is made to cross a bridge, generally of a shaky and decrepit condition. We are reminded in L. C. Wimber’s Folk Lore in the English and Scottish Ballads that the symbolism of crossing the bridge goes back into the ancient mysteries. The Mohammedans held that the road to Paradise included a bridge laid over the midst of Hell, a bridge finer than a hair and sharper than the edge of a sword and beset with briars and hooked thorns which would offer no impediment to the good but would entangle the wicked, who, missing their footing, would fall headlong into Hell. The Magi, a priestly caste of the Medes and Persians, taught that, on the last day, all mankind will be obliged to pass a straight bridge in the midst of which will be angels who will require of every one a strict account of his actions, while the Jews speak of the Bridge of Hell, no broader than a thread, from which the idolaters will fall into perdition. Folklore contains many references to such bridges.