The Corporative Masonry of Great Britain 191sixth concerns the construction of the Tower of Babel (33 verses); the
seventh discusses the liberal arts (19 verses); the eighth dwells on reli-
gious instructions (111 verses), and the ninth section is an outline of
expected social graces and civility (101 verses).
The Cooke Manuscript dates from 1410-1420 but is a transcrip-
tion of a compilation that was at least a century older. It is divided into
two parts. The first, consisting of nineteen articles, is a history of geom-
etry and architecture. The second is a "book of duties," including an
historical introduction; nine articles governing the organization of
labor, which were allegedly promulgated at a general assembly that
took place during the time of King Athelstan; nine counsels of a moral
and religious nature; and four rules concerning the social life of masons.
The word speculative actually appears in this document: "the son of
King Athelstan was a true speculative master." The Cooke Manuscript
served as the foundation for the work of George Payne, the second
grand master of the grand lodge of London, who ensured that this
organization adopted a first rule to Saint John in 1721. It also appears
to have been the principal source from which Anderson drew his Book
of Constitutions.
In addition to the Masonic Poem (Cooke Manuscript), we also have
the texts of old charters and statutes concerning corporative Masonry.
There are a great many versions of these, which are known as old
charges, and none of them dates earlier than the end of the sixteenth
century,^9 yet their language seems to indicate that they are copies of
much older documents. The most significant Masonic archives and doc-
uments were destroyed in an auto-dafe initiated by Desaguliers, grand
master of the Grand Lodge of London, on June 24, 1719. The motives
for this destruction are still unknown.
The oldest of these charges are those known as Grand Lodge
Manuscript no. 1, kept at the Grand United Lodge of England, which
dates from 1583, and the Lansdowne Manuscript, which goes back to
the second half of the sixteenth century. The last to convey some impor-
tant additions was the document known as Harlejan 1942, which dates
from approximately the mid-seventeenth century. We should also men-
tion the two Sloane Manuscripts (1646 and 1649), the William Watson