This document summarizes the contents of ancient Masonic documents called the Old Charges, which date back to 1390. The Old Charges outlined the history, traditions, and regulations of operative Masons. They served a similar purpose to modern construction codes of practice. The Old Charges were copied by hand over centuries and contain regulations on apprentices, behavior at lodges, and maintaining the dignity and reputation of Masons. They demonstrate the continuity of Masonic traditions from medieval times to the present.

1. Appendix.
Extract from the Grand Lodge No.1 MS dated 25th December 1583
……...
Also that noe mason sclanber an other behynde his backe to make him lose his
good name or his worldly goods also that , no fellowe wthin the Lodge or wthout myse
answer another vngodly nor reprochefally without some reasonable cause Also that eu'y
mason shall reu'nce his elder and put him to woorship. And also that no mason shall be
no comon player at hassard or at dyce nor at none other vnlawfull playes wherby the
Crafte might be slaundred And also that no mason shall vse no leachery nor be no
baude wherby the Crafte might be slandred And also that no ffellowe goe into the
Towne A nights tyme there as is A Lodge of ffellowes wthout that he 'haue A fellowe
wth him that might beare him wyttnesse that he was in honest placs Also that eu'y mr
and fellowe shall come to the assembly if that it be withn fyftie myles aboute him, yf he
haue any warning. And if he haue trespassed againste the Crafte then for to abyde the
awarde of the mra & fellowes Also that eu'y mr & fellowe that haue trespassed againste
the Crafte shall stand there at the award of the mrs and ffellowes to make him accorded
if they can And if they maye not accorde them to goe to the Comon Lawe Also that no
mr nor fellowe make no moulde nor Squayer nor rule to no lay' nor sett no lay' wthin the
logge nor wthout to hewe no moulde stones. And also that eu'y mason receive &
Chirrishe, staying ffellowes when they come ou’ the Countryes . And sett them a worke
if they will as the mann' is that is to saye if they haue mould stones in his place, or els
hee shall refreshe him wth moony vnto thee next Logging. Also that every mason shall
truely serve the Lorde for his paye and eu'y mr truly to make annend of his woorke be
yt Taske or Jorney if he haue yoT Commaunds and that they ought for to have.
……..
Full details of this and other Old Charges can be found on the Philbrick Lodge web
site at :-
http://www.philbrick2255.org.uk
Masonic Booklet
By Bro. Alec Hall
The Old Charges
or
The Antient Constitution.
A fragment from the Regius Manuscript.

2. Foreword.
The target audience for this series of little booklets is the new Freemason in the
first year or two of his Masonic career. It is in these early years that they will be
most curious about the organisation they have just joined.
These booklets will provide the ‘flavour’ of Craft history and enable the curious to
ascend the first rung in making their daily advance in Masonic knowledge. The
booklets may be of some use to Lodge Mentors as a teaching aid as they guide the
new Mason through the degrees. You may be able to use the content of these pages
to prepare a talk to for your Lodge. You don’t have to ask my permission. You are
free to use the booklets in any way you wish.
Everything in these booklets is freely available either in books or on the World
Wide Web. You may not have the time to carry out an extensive search so these
booklets have done the hard, time consuming work for you. You can do your own
research when you have the time.
If any senior member of the Lodge disagrees with these notes, he is most probably
right and I am wrong.
You don’t have to know much about the history and symbolism of Freemasonry to
be a good Freemason. However, if you are interested and take the time to learn a
little, you may become a better Freemason.
Have fun.
Bro Alec Hall
Contact me at:-
alec@tlsl.demon.co.uk
or
crusty@philbrick2255.org.uk
More booklets available at..
http://www.philbrick2255.org.uk
about this fascinating subject.
Acknowledgement and references.
“The Old Charges” by Bro. Walace McLeod. Prestonian Lecture of 1986.
Available at http://www.philbrick2255.org.uk/pdf/oldcharges.pdf
http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/history/old_charges.html
See http://www.philbrick2255.org.uk
Halidom = that which you regard as sacred.
AQC Volume 82 pp 263
York No.1 MS. Bro. G. Markham AQC Vol 102 pp 201

3. on by word of mouth. That may be why the Regius MS is in poetry; so that it could
be more easily remembered
The York No. 1 MS is worthy of a mention here. Probably written circa 1600, it
contains the names of two men who are also referred to in the Register of the
Freemen of the City of York for the year 1569. If the same men are referred to in
these two documents then a spurmaker and fishmonger or haberdasher being
associated with the Old Charge may indicate a non-operative Masonic purpose.
A few excerpts from the Old Charges taken from the Standard Original may be of
interest. “And also that every Mason shall receive and cherish strange Fellows when they
come over the country, and set them to work, as the manner is; that is to say, if they
have mould stones in place, he shall set him a fortnight at the least on work, and
give him his pay; and if he have no stones for him, he shall refresh him with money
to the next lodge.”
A surprising moral attitude toward fellow Masons at a time when ‘Caring’ for
others was not as important or affordable as it is today. “These charges that we have rehearsed, and all other that belong to
Masonry, ye shall keep, so help you God and Halidom, and by this Book to
your power. Amen.”
By the second half of the 17th Century this had been modified (Buchanan
MS) to read.
"These Charges that you have Received you shall well and truly keepe, not
discloseing the Secrecy of our lodge to man, woman, nor child, stick nor stone,
thing moueable nor immoueable, so God you helpe and his holy Doome. Amen."
Secrecy was a part of the ‘ritual’ by 1650 for the Operative and Non-operative
Masons as it is or us. From about the same date we have…
:”Then let the person that is to be made a Mason choose out of the lodge any one
Mason who is to instruct him in those secrets which must never be committed to
writing; which Mason he must call his tutor. Then let the tutor take him into
another room and show him all the whole mystery, that at his return he may
exercise with the rest of his fellow Masons.” The Mentoring Project currently being promoted by Grand Lodge is not as original
as we may think
You may recall that a copy of the Old Charges was most probably used in the
ceremony when Ashmole was made a mason and that the Old Charges were
mentioned by Plot in his Natural History of Staffordshire.
As a final note, I shall mention that in 1720 Grand Master Payne, of the Premier
Grand Lodge, instructed that copies of the Charges were to be gathered so that a
History of the Craft could be produced. Unfortunately, zealous brethren burnt some
copies fearing that they should fall into the wrong hands.
I hope this article will have wetted the appetite and will persuade you to read more
Old Charges.
The Old Charges or Ancient Constitutions, provide a continuous link illustrating
the evolution of freemasonry from the 14th Century medieval operative Mason,
through the early days of a non-operative form of freemasonry in the 17th century
and eventually to modern Freemasonry. There are over 100 copies of the Old
Charges known which span the centuries.
The oldest known copy, The Regius MS, dates from 1400 or earlier. A copy was
used when Elias Ashmole was made a Mason at Warrington in 1646. A selection of
the ‘Old Charges’ were used by Dr. Anderson when he produced the first
Constitution in 1717 and vestiges remain in our present Constitution. A fragment
from the Grand Lodge No.1 MS is shown in the appendix.
The ‘Charges’ were copied, by hand, by a succession of scribes on velum or
parchment with additions, and errors of omission occurring over the centuries. This
is hardly surprising when we consider the conditions under which the scribes
worked. Poorly lit, damp, cold rooms trying to copy words that were partially
illegible and which they didn’t fully understand. No wonder errors occurred.
But what was their purpose? They were the medieval counterpart of our modern
CDM (Construction, Design and Management Regulations 2007) and a Code of
Practice for building workers and gave dignity and importance to the Masons by
providing a fantastic history stretching back to biblical times.
What did the Old Charges contain?
Finally, Regulations and Charges, which defined how Masons were to behave
toward apprentices, their master and each other and are as relevant now as they
were in the 1300’s.
“Don’t have an affair with the Master’s wife or daughter”.
“Don’t indulge in binge drinking in the town or if you did, make sure you had a
brother with you.”
“Wash your hands before sitting at the Festive Board and behave with decorum.
“Pass food rather than make a grab for it.”
“ Don’t blow your nose on the napkin.”
“ Don’t speak with your mouth full.”
Good advice in the 1400’s and still valid today!
Continuing in more detail.
It is most probable that a copy of the Old Charges was especially made and used
when Elias Ashmole was made a Freemason back in 1646 and on which he took his
obligation. Dr. Anderson used them when he wrote the Book of Constitution for the

4. Premier Grand Lodge, which was published in 1723 and again in 1738. Your
current Book of Constitution has at the beginning a section of ‘The Charges of a
Free-Mason’ which is clearly based on the ‘Antient’ Charges’ and also quoted in
the Constitution of many Grand Lodges overseas.
The term, ‘Old Charges’, refers to ancient documents dated from 1390 until the
eighteenth century. They are called variously "Ancient Manuscripts", "Ancient
Constitutions", "Legend of the Craft", "Gothic Manuscripts", "Old Records", etc,
they were handwritten on paper or parchment rolls some of which have been sewn
or pasted together. Some are in beautiful gothic script with the largest number of
the Old Charges held by the British Museum.
The Old Charges incorporate the traditional history, legends and regulations of
[operative] Freemasons. Although some were destroyed by overly cautious
brethren in 1720, the texts of 113 copies of these Old Charges, dated from 1390 up
to 1700, have survived, and there are references to fourteen more that are now lost.
All are so similar in form that they must have had a common origin. We are
indebted to Bro. W. McLeod who, with others, has constructed a Standard Original
of the Old Charges with its origins between 1470 and 1560.
These Old Charges had a practical purpose. They were the medieval equivalent to
the current building site Codes of Practice. They defined not only the way men
were expected to behave on the building site but made it clear that they were
members of no servile trade of recent devising but an ancient and honorable
institution with roots in antiquity.
It is inevitable that changes occurred in the Old Charges over the years. In practical
terms consider the scribe, sitting in a cold, damp, poorly lit room, copying text
written in an unfamiliar hand, sometimes barely legible and using unfamiliar
words, thinking mainly of his dinner time. No wonder mistakes were made. Other
scribes ‘translated’ rather than copy a document and some ‘modernized’ or thought
they should add to the text.
There is one instance where a scribe, unable to read the text, left a blank in the new
manuscript. The scribe who followed him didn’t like the blank space so, to fill the
void, he wrote a word or two which looked suitable.
The earliest available Old Charge is the Regius or Halliwell Manuscript. It is
uniquely, a poem, with a date of about 1390. Mr. Halliwell pointed out that the
writer of the poem was evidently a priest, from the words, "And when the gospel
me rede schal," .[line 629]. He also drew attention to line 143, “By olde tyme
wryten y fynde” which suggests that a still older MS. must have existed when the
poem was written.
Let us summarize the contents, with a few typical examples of the wording.
(1) They all begin with an Invocation: 'The might of the Father of Heaven,…
(2) Then comes an announcement of the purpose and contents, followed by a
brief
description of the seven liberal sciences with which we are all familiar …
(3) Then there is an extended Traditional History of Geometry, Masonry, and
Architecture, taking up over half of the text. It is based in the first instance
on the Bible, the only book that most people ever saw or heard in the
Middle Ages.
(4) Then we have the manner of taking the oath; usually for some reason,
given in Latin; a literal translation runs. 'Then let one of the elders hold
the Book, so that he or they may place their hands upon the Book, and
then the rules ought to be read' ...
(5) Next comes the admonition: 'Every man that is a Mason take right good
heed to these charges, if that you find yourselves guilty in any of these,
that you may amend you against God…
(6) Next are the regulations or Charges proper. Some are to administer the
trade and regulate the work while others concern the morals and
behaviour of the Mason.
(7) Finally comes the Oath: 'These charges that we have rehearsed, and all
other that belong to Masonry, ye shall keep, so help you God and
Halidom, and by this Book to your power. Amen' …
But what is the origin of these Old charges? How were they propagated throughout
the land and even into Scotland, with a minimum change in content?
A paper “External Influences on the Evolution of English Freemasonry” by Bro. J.
R. Clarke gives one possible and plausible explanation.
Speculation, without supporting evidence, would suggest the following
explanation. In 1360, the construction of Windsor castle started using masons
impressed from all over the country even from as far away as the northern counties.
Nearly all of the Masons in England were employed on the project; probably the
largest assembly of them there has ever been.
William of Wykehan was Clerk of the Works, John Sponlee, chief Mason and
Robert of Gloucester, warden of the masons. With such a large work force, a code
of practice and rules of behaviour would have been essential and would have had
its basis in the West Country where these men originated. These Charges could be
the origin for the Regius or its predecessor, and later the Cooke MS, which was
written in western and south-western dialects of the English of the period.
When these impressed masons returned to their home counties and towns, they
could well have taken copies of the Old Charges with them or at least passed them