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Origin of the word Freemasons.
R.W.Bro. Bruno Gazzo
Editor, PS Review of Freemasonry
The first-known use of the word Freemasons - in the form
Free Masons - occurs in City of London Letter-book H of 9
August 1376, though the word is in fact deleted in favour of Mason. Masons
and Freemasons were interchangeable during the 15th and 16th centuries and
Freemasons were generally meant to denote hewers or setters of freestone,
Masons being used to embrace all stoneworkers. Ashmole in his diary wrote
that he was made a Free Mason and referred in 1686 to the "Fellowship of
Free Masons". James Anderson when writing his 1723 Constitutions did not use
the single word - Freemasons - once. Whatever the reasons, the 1723
Constitutions contain approximately 126 references to Masons, 12 to Free
Masons, 10 to Free and Accepted Masons, 9 to Free-Masons, one to Accepted
Free Masons and none to Freemasons. And such is the tenacity of tradition
that to this day the most of the Constitutions are addressed to Free and
Accepted Masons and not to Accepted Freemasons. The earliest-known anti-masonic
leaflet, of 1698, warns the public against "those called Free Masons" -
almost certainly what we now know as speculative Freemasons.
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