Masons' Marks.*

MASONS' MARKS . *

MASONS' Marks furnish one of the most interesting subjects for stud y in Freemasonry , and one productive of entertainment as well as instruction . From the earliest times our operative brethren employed marks , and now that Freemasons no longer design or superintend the erection of material Temjjles and other stately edifices , we retain the custom of the Craft , so far as Masons' Marks are concerned , by their employment in the Mark Master ' s Degree .

In ancient and mediceval times there were two classes of Marks employed —the superior class by the Master Masons , Masters of the work , or overseers , and the inferior b y the Fellow-Crafts , or hewers of the stone . The first were monograniniatic characters , and the second , Craft or mathematical symbols of varied configuration . The last named have often been described , but references to the former are more rare , and the subject appears to us to be of

sufficient interest to warrant a brief article upon it . The ordinary marks are found at the present day on the ori ginal foundation stones of King Solomon ' s Temple ; and they may traced from that time , down , through' Europe , in all important structures . M . Didron , a French writer on architecture , has referred to those found on the Cathedrals of Spire , Worms , Strasburg , Rheims , etc ., and stated that he can classify them as

belonging to distinct schools or Lodges of Masons . The extraordinary marks of superintending architects , on the other hand , all have an individual character , and ordinarily are either monograms or rebnsses . Examples of Fellow-Crafts' marks may be found as follows : the interlaced compasses at Melrose and Fountain Abbeys , and crosses , triangles , the figure 4 , the H , and analagous marks at Cologne , Malmsbury and Gloucester Cathedrals , and Furnas Abbey .

Bro . Fort , in his " Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry , " has an interesting chapter on these , as also has Bro . Lyon in his " Freemasonry in Scotland , " on similar marks in that country . In Fountains Abbey the marks of French and English Masons have been distinguished . All of these marks were apparently a growth , a development , being at first , as Bro . Woodford has pointed out , in the earliest times alphabetical , then numeralistic , and finally symbolic and exoteric .

The monograms or rebnsses ( many of them very amusing ) adopted b y Master Masons or supervising architects as marks , were at first view onl y plays upon words , indicative of the mirthful spirit that dominated our ancient brethren ; but they were in fact much more- than this . At the time , for example , when the mediaeval cathedrals were erected , the majority of the persons who frequented them could not read ; but these pictorial marks were

intelli gible to the most illiterate , and served to commemorate to the populace the names of the architects ( many of them ecclesiastics as well ) to whom they stood indebted for the sculptured glories of their Temples to the living God . We will give some curious examples . Among the monograms or rebnsses carved in stone on famous edifices are the following : Prior Boltonthe architect of the choir of the celebrated London

, Ciiurch of St . Bartholomew the Great , adorned an oriel with a rebus of his name—a bolt through a tun . ( The well-known inn in Fleet street , " The Bolt in Tun , " derived its name from this rebus . ) Another noted Mason ' s mark is that of the Abbot Islip in Westminster Abbey . In the splendid nave of that cathedral—the loftiest of England , over the centre of one of its doorways is a