Preface^
I state with all modesty, and without presuming to underestimate
the value of preceding works on the subject, that to date there has been
no truly scientific history of the origins of Freemasonry and that such a
study is totally justified.
A number of valuable works on the history of Freemasonry have in
fact been published since the appearance of the grand lodges at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. Indeed, they have flourished in
such number since the end of the Second World War that we can now
hail the birth of a new discipline, which we might call masonology.
Nevertheless, operative freemasonry, which preceded this modern
Freemasonry* and which is its source, has not been the beneficiary of
such extensive examination. Those who have dealt with the origins of
- [The term operative freemasonry as used throughout this book refers to freemasonry
in its original form, as represented by brotherhoods of builders. It is opposed in this
study by the term speculative Freemasonry, having to do with those organizations that
emerged in the seventeenth century divorced from the worker and the meaning of his tra-
dition and made up of "accepted" Masons. Throughout this book and especially in part 2,
the author strives to make a strong distinction between speculative Freemasonry and the
operative freemasonry that is its origin and between more or less "accepted" Masons
and those craftsmen—masons—who actually practiced the building crafts. To make
these distinctions clearer, an upper case F and M are used to distinguish speculative and
modern Freemasonry and Freemasons/Masons and a lower case f and m are used to refer
to operative or original freemasonry/masonry and freemasons/masons. —Editor]
