Southampton Radiant Star Lodge 806 F&AM

05/02/2019

04/16/2019

The Relationship Between Freemason's and Notre Dame Cathedral.

Yes. Absolutely. The relationship between Freemasonry and the Knights Templar goes waaaaaaay back.

Freemasons built many of the Knights Templar commanderies, knights halls, churches, abbeys, preceptories and castles. In France, the Knights Templar were major financial backers for many major building projects, including the great cathedral Notre Dame de Paris, which was constructed under the direction and particiaption of operative Freemasons. Wherever Knights Templars built or funded the building of great buildings, Freemasons were heavily involved; from the Middle East, through France, Italy Portugal, Spain, England, Scotland France and other European countries.

Wherever these building were constructed, the Knights Templar had holdings. Templar 'districts' were holdings that weren't subject to city or country taxation (they were - technically - Church property), where the ancillary personnel for the Commandry or other Templar operations lived. Many masons lived within the Templar districts, and by the 1200s, both group began profiting from each other's expertise. Both groups simultaneously created labor unions, Masons (through historic documents) joined the Templars and worked on Templar and church buildings. Templars needed buildings for banks, churches and other buildings, and Masons ... well, they were builders. Built by Masons, financed by Templars.

After the Knights Templar were arrested, their buildings certainly didn't disappear. Neither did the districts where many Freemasons and Templars lived. This same held true in England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain and other nations throughout Europe. Masons & Templars living in the same communities, doing much the same work (especially after the collapse of the popularity of running Crusades in the Holy Land).

This included building Roslin Castle (not to be confused with Rosslyn Chapel), which was started in the early 1300s, after a large influx of Freemasons from France ... this "large influx" happened right around the same time as the French arrest of the Templars. Henry Sinclair (who was a witness at at least one Templar trial) is linked to the Knights Templar, as is his son and the entire Sinclair clan from the 1300s.

There is plenty of paperwork and documentation to prove the intermingling of the two from the earliest founding of the Templars, through their arrest, and up through the point where Freemasonry changed from an operative fraternity to a speculative one.

01/07/2019

Eagle Scout – Freemason Lapel Pins At the request of R. W. Grand Master S. Eugene Herritt, the Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation, in cooperation with the Boy Scouts of America’s National Eagle …

01/03/2019

Many knightly Masonic orders bestow an accolade upon their members. But, what is an "accolade?" It derives from the Latin "ad" and "collum," meaning "around the neck." Generally, but incorrectly, it is supposed that an accolade means the blow given on the shoulder of a newly created knight with the flat of the sword. The best authorities define it to be "the embrace, or a slight blow on the cheek or shoulder, accompanied with the kiss of peace, by which the new knight was at his creation welcomed into the Order of Knighthood by the authority who created him." (Source: An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences, Mackey.)

01/01/2019

Happy New Year!

12/29/2018

Have yourself a very merry Christmas

12/27/2018

We're stopping in Ionic Hall for our last 360 photo tour of 2018. 24 Ionic columns and portraits of Past Grand Masters decorate the hall.
There are only three photos left in our 360 series: Oriental Hall, the museum and the main corridor. Which one should be 2019's first 360 photo post?

12/27/2018

Visit the post for more.

12/27/2018

Today in Masonic History provides information about events in history tied to the oldest fraternal organization in the world, Freemasonry.

12/21/2018

The Grand Holy Royal Arch Chapter of Pennsylvania meets in Renaissance Hall. The paintings on the east and west walls (Joshua the High Priest and St. John the Evangelist, respectively) were added in 1907 and 1908.

11/23/2018

How the New Yorker and the West Wing botched the history of the icon