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Latest revision as of 13:27, 29 September 2026
The Schaw Statutes are two sets of regulations for Scottish stonemasons, dated 28 December 1598 and 28 December 1599. They take their name from William Schaw, Master of Works to James VI and General Warden of the mason craft. They are evidence of how Scottish lodges were organised before the eighteenth-century Grand Lodges.[1]
Regulation of the building trade
The 1598 statutes address the responsibilities of working masons. They cover competence to undertake a building contract, relations between employers and craftsmen, apprenticeship, the election of wardens and the settlement of disputes. They also require masters to ensure that scaffolds and working platforms are secure. These provisions concern the conduct of a trade and the authority of its lodges.[1]
The 1599 regulations give particular attention to Kilwinning and its authority in western Scotland. They set out a precedence among Edinburgh, Kilwinning and Stirling, and provide for a notary to serve as clerk, recording the craft's legal and administrative business. References to existing customs and privileges show that the statutes dealt with institutions already in existence.[1]
Lodges and their records
Historian Andrew Prescott describes Schaw's reforms as establishing territorial lodges answerable to the General Warden, with regular meetings and written records. This organisation forms part of the background to the later admission of people who did not earn their living as stonemasons.[2]
The Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) preserves minutes beginning in July 1599. Its account of its records distinguishes the working stonemasons of that period from the non-operative members recorded in the seventeenth century. Those later entries include Lord Alexander, Sir Anthony Alexander and Sir Alexander Strachan in 1634, and Robert Moray in 1641.[3] The records allow changes in membership to be studied over time without treating the organisation described in 1598 as identical to a present-day lodge.
Historical context
The statutes belong to the history of Scottish lodge government. The Grand Lodge of Scotland was founded much later, in 1736.[4] Schaw's office of General Warden should therefore be understood in its sixteenth-century setting.
The statutes can be compared with The Old Charges, the manuscript traditions of craft history and duties that also circulated among Scottish masons. Prescott places both in the development of Scottish Masonry after Schaw's appointment in 1583.[2] Their relationship is a subject for documentary history; the dates of the statutes alone do not establish a single date for the origin of all Freemasonry.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 William Schaw, Schaw Statutes of 1598 and 1599, texts reproduced in a compilation edited by Gary L. Heinmiller, May 2012, pp. 4–8. Hosted by the Nebraska Masonic Foundation. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Andrew Prescott, A History of British Freemasonry 1425–2000, Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Working Paper Series No. 1, section “1583–1717”. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) No. 1, Oldest Masonic Minutes and The admission of Speculative Freemasons. Accessed 24 September 2026.
- ↑ United Grand Lodge of England, History of Freemasonry, entry for 1736. Accessed 24 September 2026.
Chronology: Timeline of early Freemasonry
Documents: The Old Charges · The Regius manuscript · The Cooke manuscript · The Schaw Statutes · The St Clair Charters · The 1723 Constitutions
Scottish lodges and ideas: William Schaw · Early Scottish lodges · Lodge Mother Kilwinning · Mary's Chapel · Canongate Kilwinning · Haughfoot Lodge · Operative and speculative Freemasonry · The art of memory and Freemasonry · Freemasonry and the Royal Society · The Templar theory of Masonic origins
People: Robert Moray · John Theophilus Desaguliers · James Anderson · William Preston · Andrew Michael Ramsay
Chivalric systems: The Strict Observance · Karl Gotthelf von Hund · Lyon (1778) · Wilhelmsbad (1782) · Jean-Baptiste Willermoz · Rectified Scottish Rite
English Grand Lodges: Formation of the first Grand Lodge · Antients and Moderns · Laurence Dermott · Ahiman Rezon · The Union of 1813
Ireland, Scotland and overseas: Early Irish Freemasonry · Grand Lodge of Scotland · Military and travelling lodges
France and the Jacobites: Early French Freemasonry · Freemasonry and the Jacobites
Atlantic connections: Benjamin Franklin · The Lodge of the Nine Sisters · George Washington · Paul Revere · African Lodge No. 459 · Prince Hall
Research: Sources for studying early Freemasonry · Masonic museums and libraries
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