![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In 1747, the Chevalier Beauchaine began the Order of Woodcutters (Ordre des Fendeurs), with rites supposedly based on an early version of the Carbonari. Attached to a regular (men only) lodge, wives and female relatives of the masons would be admitted to a parallel system of degrees, with a similar moral undertone to the authentic rite of the lodge. During the 1740s, lodges of adoption began to appear. Lodges of Adoption Admission of a young lady into a Lodge of AdoptionĪs the Freemasonry of the Premier Grand Lodge of England spread in France, the French fraternity stayed within the letter of Anderson's proscription of women, but saw no reason to ban them from their banquets or their religious services. The widow of a master mason could accept commissions from his old clients, provided that she employed a journeyman of the lodge to supervise the work. A burgess could pay for the Freedom to employ and instruct masons. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the status of women amongst masons in Britain is likely to be similar to that codified in the minutes of the lodge at St. While a number of masonic historians have categorised this as a "misprint", Adolphus Frederick Alexander Woodford, who studied and catalogued these documents, considered it genuine. Also, the charge in York Manuscript No 4, dated 1693 and used as a warrant by the later Grand Lodge of All England at York, contains the phrase "hee or shee that is to be made mason". Women were employed in administrative roles in the London Mason's Company, and as such received the benefits of membership. 1390–1425), and in the Guild records at York Minster in 1408. In England, hints of female participation appear in the Regius Manuscript (c. It is reputed that Sabina von Steinbach, the daughter of the architect, worked on Strasbourg Cathedral in the early part of the 14th century, although the first reference to her work comes 300 years later. In Norwich, a woman called Gunnilda is listed as a mason in the Calendar for Close Rolls for 1256. Exceptions occurred mainly in trades linked to traditional women's occupations, such as haberdashery and needlecraft. More rarely, single women would achieve success in their father's trade. This was usually the widow of a tradesman, who was permitted to continue her husband's business after his death, and often established in the rights and privileges of his trade guild or company. The status of women within Medieval trades was largely dependent on the local interpretation of femme sole, the legal term for a single woman. Women in Medieval and Renaissance Europe were legally assumed to be subject to their fathers, then to their husbands after marriage. Women as operative masons The mythical Sabina von Steinbach In Anglo-American Freemasonry, neither mixed nor all-female lodges are officially recognised, although unofficial relations can be cordial, with premises sometimes shared. As a general rule, the admission of women is now recognised in Continental (Grand Orient) jurisdictions. Women-only jurisdictions appeared soon afterwards. In the 1890s, mixed lodges following a standard Masonic ritual started to appear in France, and quickly spread to other countries. These bodies, however, were more careful to discriminate between the mixed ritual and the genuine Freemasonry of the men. In the late 1800s, rites similar to adoption emerged in the United States, allowing masons and their female relatives to participate in ritual together. In the early 20th century, these were revived as women-only lodges and later they adopted male degrees giving rise to French women's Masonry in the 1950s.ġ8th-century British lodges and their American offshoots remained male only. The French Lodges of Adoption, which spread through Continental Europe during the second half of the 18th century, admitted Masons and their female relatives to a system of degrees parallel, but unrelated to the original rite. ![]()
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