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Contents PAGE FREEMASONS' MAGAZINE -. — Masonic ' 'Dames" 101 102

Our Patron Saint Mystic Beauties of Freemasonry 103 Masonic Jottings , No . 80 105 Masonic Notes and Queries 106 Obituary 107 Correspondence 108 Masonic Sayings and Doings Abroad 109 MASONIC MIRROR : —

Masonic Mems 110 CRAET LODGE MEETINGS : — Metropolitan 110 Provincial , 110 KOTAI A RCH . Supreme Grand Chapter 112 Metropolitan 114

Masonic Festivities 115 The Mark Degree in England 115 Reviews , 120 Notices to Correspondents 120 List of Lodge , & c , Meetings for ensuing week 120

Masonic " Dames."

MASONIC " DAMES . "

LONDON , SATURDAY , AVGVsT 5 , 1871 ,

BY BKO . D . MURRAY LYON . Interest in the lengendary history of Operative Masonry was a few years ago revived by the reproduction by Bro . William James Hughan of the 'Cole edition of the " Constitutions of the

Freemasons , " with an admirable epitome , ehronologi-¦ cally arranged , of the MS . Constitutions . In his recent exhumation of unpublished records of the Craft , * the same eminent masonic authority has fallen upon a copy of the MS . Constitutions that

had been preserved by the York Lodge , bearing date 1693 , and possessing peculiarities the chief of which he thus describes and dilates upon : " .. . Before the Special Charges are delivered , * The one of the elders taking the booke , and that he or

shee that is to bee made a Mason shall lay their hands thereon , and the charge shall be given / This reference is unquestionably to a female being admitted , and has caused no little surprise in some quarters : we do not , however , see anything to

excite astonishment , because , as we have before stated , this Manuscript must not be judged simply by the date when the copy was written . It is likely enough a transcript ofa much older document , and in former times the Guilds , from which the

Crafts evidently sprung , admitted both sexes . We are not prepared to advocate the opinion that the women , as with the men , were admitted into the Mysteries of Masonry .... There is [ in the MSin question ] more than one reference to the" Dame "

as well as the Master , especially in the " Apprentice Charge , " the like of which we have not read before , and is a strong support of our views that women really did at times employ Masons as the Masters did . We believe then , under certain conditions ,

in early times , women were admitted in the Masons ' Gilds as well as into others , and were generally the ' wives of daughters of Gild Brothers , ' who did not , however , take part in its administrations or councils . Bearing this in mind , the clause in the

MS . of York , 1693 , is fully explained , and is at once an evidence of its antiquity , as the custom to admit women into the Gilds appears gradually to have been discontinued as years rolled on . It is the only Masonic MS . we know of that mentions such a clause for women . "

In other than Bro . Hughan s hands the appearance in the Manuscript under consideration of the noun " shee" might have been held as evidence that in the olden time it had been a custom of the Masonic Fraternity to initiate females . But the

ground are here too slender upon which to build such a theory , and Bro . Hughan , it will be seen , does not adopt it . The introduction of " shee " into this particular copy of the Constitutions appears to us to have been either through an error

in the transcription of the pronoun "they , " or from a desire to make the directions anent the manner in which the charges were to be given and the oath administered harmonise with what

we conceive to be an interpolation of the word " dame" in conjunction with that of master . Taken in connection with the context , the substitution of the article " the " for the adverb " then , " is unquestionably the fault of the copyist . We

are of opinion that the introduction of " shee " proceeded from the same cause , for even had " dame" been in the original , there would have been no necessity for converting they iuto she in the sentence referred to , seeing that the injunction given to apprentices as to their duty to the