Derivation Of The Word " Mason."

manifests itself in other details of Lodge and Avork . This Avord , traceable perhaps through old Teutonic dialects from Meg in , might , to its present Italian form , Mazza , a hammer , embodies within itself that idea of strength ancl power with which the irresistible weapon of the Northern divinity

Avas invested , and with the mallet or mace Thor was indifferently represented . The presence of this word as a fundamental one in the original home of European Masons , viz ., in Italy , shadows forth that as this Corporation of builders

diverged from Northern Italy , in order to perpetuate their art throughout Europe ; their name , also originated , in the corruption of a word , signifying the implement not only constantly applied to their handiwork , but for a higher reason that the hammer or

mace was the symbol of unity and confraternity in the Craft guild , and because like the latter mediaeval judicial hammer , it was a type of authority requiring the congregation of all Avho should behold it or be within hearing of its significant blows . Through the intervening changes of time , the adulterated dialect of Spain has preserved the original derivation from Mazo ,

hammer ; hence , Mazonena , Masonry , or an art so intimately associated Avith both the practical ancl symbolical uses of this implement , that the name is directl y deduced trom this source . AVith little labour it may be traced through corrupt media 3 A al Latinity , to the

twelfth ancl thirteenth centuries , at which epoch , the Avord , Mason , Avas fixed by law , and has so continued , without other alteration than a prefix . Perhaps the earliest generic form of this root may be found in the Anglo-Saxon Glossary of iElfric , Avhere

Mationes is re-rendered as Lapidium operaii , or Workers of Stone . At a laterperiod it occurs in a monastic chronicle under the form of Mactiones , in the following sentence : " Reversns autem lapidicium et Mactiones , undecunque jussit aggregari . "

The words Mactiones and lapidicium have here the same signification , and mean stone cutters or Masons . In the Italian , macina , more ancient macigno , a stone lap-mill , can be detected the root of mace , or lianirner , referring to the mace-shaped implement with which corn was in former ages prepared for domestic use . Middle-Age records use the words materio and macerio ,

to distinguish the class of workmen alluded to thus : " Faber fefrarius conveutionem suam fecerat annuam , ut ibidem Suessione remanens , utensilia materonum ( maceronum ) reficeret . " That is , a skilled iron artificer made the usual contract to

properly adjust this tool of the - Masons . In the middle of the twelfth century the Avord appears as now lettered , A'iz ., Mason , and is evidently of Gallic derivation . At the commencement of the ensuing century , it was Avritten Maqon , —still adopted b

y tbe Craft in France ; and in the celebrated Ordinances of Boileau , formally committed to Avriting in the year 1254 , the juxtaposition of this Avord is identical Avitb those

cited above . For instance , in the preceding quotation the Avords , " lapidicium et mationes , " appear conjoined . fn the ordinances referred to they re-appear as " taillieur de peer et niacjon , " and signify a stone cutter and mason . The closfe similarity between the phraseology produced

, is of so marked significance as to lead to a Avell-grounded belief that the vulgar idiom used in Boileau ' s time Avas an exact translation of lapidicium into taillieur de peer and of mationes into macons , which severally decline the same class of operatives ;

or to distinguish artificers Avhose principal working tool was the hammer or mace , symbolizing oftentimes lodge territory , and thus come to be regarded as a type of the

Guild upon whose members the name of Magous or Masons was bestowed . From the foregoing historic references , it will , perhaps , clearly appear that down to the latter part of the thirteenth century , the building fraternity iu the French Empire Avas recognized by lawand carefully

, particularized as Magons , Avho , it may be added , furnished the work for tlie Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris . In Britain , a century earlier , a Master of the Craft designated himself simply Mason , and has so recorded the nomenclature of his

profession on a side wall in Melrose Abbey . Early in the fourteenth century—1331 circa—the English versifier , of a more ancient metrical romance , usea the ivord mace to designate Masonry :

He bysettee the sea and the land , AVith botemay , and mace strong . It may be safely asserted that the Craft Guild of Masons at the epochs mentioned , It 2