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In the minutes of a meeting of the urban guilds of London in 1375 come across the term “Free mason” for the first time. The term “mason” is of French-Norman origin (masoun, massone, ma’on) and means stone layer or stone-wall builder. The addition “Free” means that the stonemason guilds were granted certain economic freedoms by the State because they had to rely on their services. A “Free Mason” was a trained stonemason, sculptor or architect who also had architectural skills. The German word “Freimaurer” therefore is a quite exact translation of the English term.
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The foundation for today’s Freemasonry was laid on June 24 in London in 1717 with the uniting of four Masonic lodges to form the first Masonic Grand Lodge in the world. Soon thereafter, the preacher James Anderson laid the spiritual foundation for the first Masonic Constitution in 1723 in his record of the “Old Charges” (old duties) and “Old Landmarks”. This established specifically the models of tolerance and fraternity in human society. The Grand Lodge subsequently subscribed to the theses of the Enlightenment and settled specifically for a tolerant understanding of religion. <\/strong> So one would no longer build cathedrals, but would rather build on the spiritual temple of humanity. The majority of English masons’ guilds joined the trend set by this Grand Lodge. Freemasonry as we now practice it, could now thrive and spread throughout the whole civilized world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the minutes of a meeting of the urban guilds of London in 1375 come across the term “Free mason” for the first time. The term “mason” is of French-Norman origin (masoun, massone, ma’on) and means stone layer or stone-wall builder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14718","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t