The Secret History of Freemasonry

The Corporative Masonry of Great Britain 181

name Freemasonry, now received its principal contribution from
Hermeticists and the Rosicrucian Order after it had ceased being purely
operative and accepted speculative members in large numbers. We will
now take a look at the characteristics and evolution of the British ver-
sion of operative freemasonry.

The Trade Guilds and Mysteries of Great Britain

Guilds (ghilds) were born and grew in Great Britain for the same rea-
sons that prompted this development on the Continent. They were pri-
marily tied to the conquest and defense of municipal franchises.
The first guilds were those of the merchants, which were made up
of people of the bourgeois class, all of whom were expected to be mem-
bers. They controlled commerce and the city insofar as they protected
its inhabitants commercially. But over time, a profound change took
place. These guilds gradually became aristocracies whose membership
was hereditary. At this same time the number of inhabitants of the city
was growing due to a constant influx of artisans. Neither villains or
serfs, they had been either emancipated or had fled their masters and
had dwelled in cities long enough so that their freedom had become a
right. Being unable to obtain admission into the merchant guilds, they
formed their own craft guilds. Despite the resistance offered by the mer-
chants, these new guilds developed and grew so effectively that by 1735
in London, the city's administration had been transferred from a munic-
ipal assembly to that of professional associations, including, notably,
the Company of the Masons. At this point no one could benefit from
the freedoms offered by the city without being a member of one of these
associations that were then known as mysteries.^1
The word mysteries, borrowed from the French in the Norman era,
denoted "craft" in old English. Hence the archaic expression arts and
mysteries, meaning arts and crafts. Etymologically speaking, there was
initially confusion among the meanings of the word ministerium (a
variant of mistere, from the twelfth century), meaning "function" or
"service" in Latin, largo sensu, meaning "craft," and mysterium, mean-
ing "religious mystery."
It should be remembered that during the Middle Ages the theater