Talk:Antient Grand Lodge of England

Ancient Grand Lodge vs. Wigan Grand Lodge
In the introductory paragraph, it states the full name of the Ancient Grand Lodge as "Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of England, according to the Old Constitutions." This is very close to the full name of the short-lived Wigan Grand Lodge (1823-1866) which was the "Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of England, according to the Old Institutions." (Note difference between "Old Constitutions" and "Old Institutions.") However, neither is the correct full name of the Ancient Grand Lodge, as given in Coil's Masonic Encyclopedia, a pretty reliable source. Coil gives the full name of the Ancient Grand Lodge as "Grand Lodge of England According to the Old Institutions." PGNormand 18:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Note to those who use Wikipedia as a source of information in the mistaken belief that it provides accurate information: It is significant that, after a year and a half, neither the creator of this article nor any of its contributors have ever seen fit to correct this inaccuracy. How many have read this article over the past year and a half, have used the information given above, and still believe that the correct name of the Ancient Grand Lodge included the word "Constitutions"? Users of Wikipedia, beware the information you gather here is often faulty. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.196.127.243 (talk) 20:29, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Errors, errors, errors ...
This article is rife with errors, many of which have been here since almost the inception of the article. The first sentence begins by referring to this grand lodge as the "Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of England, according to the Old Constitutions." This is completely wrong.

The first name used by the Ancients' grand lodge was that of the organization committee in 1751-52, which used the name "Most Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons." The term "Grand Lodge" was first used in the minutes of the Ancients for Dec. 27, 1753. But the name used consistently throughout the minutes of the Ancients and all editions of the Ahiman Rezon up to the Union of 1813 was "Most Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons," without the words "Grand Lodge."

It is worth noting that in 1791 the Ancients issued a certificate which bore the misnomer "Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of England according to the Old Constitutions," but this 1791 certificate, including the words "Grand Lodge" and using the incorrect term "Constitutions," is the only time and place that they used this peculiar variation. It is not known if it was a printer's error or was simply a case of careless editing on the part of the Grand Secretary.

The official seal of the Ancients' grand lodge originally bore the name "Grand Lodge London," but was later changed to read "Grand Lodge in London of Free and Accepted Masons according to the Old Institution" (Note: singular "Institution," not the plural "Institutions"). Notice the inclusion of the words "in London," and not "of England." The seal was again changed at a later time to read "Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons according to the Old Institutions."

All major Masonic historians and encyclopedists from Gould and Mackey, who wrote in the 1800's, down through the present have appended the phrase "according to the Old Institutions," although no one has ever shown when or where that was ever adopted by the Ancients by formal resolution. It appears it was simply used in correspondence to distinguish this grand lodge from its cross town rival.

On Dec. 1, 1813, when the Ancients' grand lodge met for the last time, it called itself "The Most Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, according to the Old Institutions." Note that the words "Grand Lodge" do not, nor ever did, appear in its official title.

I doubt that anyone editing here on Wikipedia will pay any attention to any of this, much less actually correct the text of the article itself. I've long since stopped wasting my time trying to correct inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles, only to see them reverted. But hopefully, some innocent reader will see this here and learn from it. PGNormand 18:52, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The third sentence in the article states: "They called themselves the Antients." Of course, we know that they did NOT call themselves "the Antients." What they called themselves was "the Ancients" spelled with a "c". Looking back through the minutes of the Ancients grand lodge as well as through the various editions of their Ahiman Rezon, we find that they fairly consistently spelled the word "Ancient" with a letter "c". Rather, it seems that it was the Moderns' grand lodge that used the variant spelling of "Antient" spelled with a letter "t". Nevertheless, because the current United Grand Lodge of England often uses the variant spelling in reference to "Antient Craft Masonry," etc., and because the Grand Lodge of Scotland has adopted the variant spelling, and because many modern day would-be Masonic authors consider the variant spelling to be "cute" or "quaint," therefore the variant spelling has been adopted by Wikipedia editors. But it is NOT because the adherents of this grand lodge called themselves "Antients." They did not. They called themselves "Ancients." They may have been many things, but at the very least they knew how to spell.PGNormand 19:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

According to the article's woefully inadequate three-sentence "history" of the Ancients grand lodge: "The grand Lodge was founded in 1751 mainly by Irish freemasons, which were disillusioned by the way freemasonry had been changed by the freemasons of the Grand Lodge of England." This makes it sound as if the founders of the Ancients' grand lodge formed it "because" they were "disillusioned by the way Freemasonry had been changed" by the Moderns' grand lodge. Of course, that is not the case. They were not members of lodges under the Moderns grand lodge, and their act of forming a new grand lodge was not a schismatic act. They belonged to Ancients' lodges that were not, and never had been, a part of the Moderns' innovative grand lodge. They were indeed unhappy with the new Moderns and their Modern grand lodge, and the way the Moderns had introduced innovations into Freemasonry. But that was not the reason they formed a grand lodge. I wrote a fairly extensive article about the history of the Ancient Grand Lodge of England, but it was swept away by someone wanting to put forward his own version of Masonic history. What you have been left with is this article. What a shame.PGNormand 19:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The single-sentence paragraph on the "Constitution" of the Ancients consists of this sentence: "Laurence Dermott wrote a constitution for the Antients, the Ahiman Rezon as an alternative for the Constitution of the Moderns which was written by James Anderson." I feel like someone weeping over the smashed remains of something that is now ruined beyond repair. Dermott did not write the Ahiman Rezon as "an alternative" to Anderson's Constitutions. Why does everything that the Ancients ever did have to be interpreted as a response, or an alternative, or a reaction to something done by the Moderns? This whole article on the Moderns is so negative toward the Ancients. While it is true that the Moderns grand lodge was formed first (1717), the Moderns did not exist first. The Ancients, and their Masonic traditions had existed since time immemorial. We know that the Ancient lodges in Scotland had existed since before William Schaw wrote his Statutes in the late 1500's because we have their written minutes. Ancient lodges and Ancient Masons were operating quite nicely in London (thank you very much) without a "Grand Lodge" (which no one had ever heard of) long before the white-collar, upper-class, aristocratic, London wannabes came along, created their white-collar lodges, and then created what they called a "Grand Lodge" as a means of separating themselves from the unwashed Ancient Masons of London, many of whom were, in fact, Irishmen and other countrymen from the rural parts of England. In doing so, they abandoned many of the older, more complex, Ancient practices of the fraternity, probably because they didn't want to have to learn all that work. So, YES, the Ancients were unhappy with these new "Moderns" grabbing all the headlines, when the Ancients were the original, old-school Masons. But, just because Dermott wrote a "handbook" for his grand lodge, why does he have to be accused of doing it "as an alternative to" Anderson? Why does this article have to be a negative POV "put-down" to all things about the Ancients?PGNormand 19:42, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Ancient vs. Antient
We seem to be having a project wide revert war over whether to use "Ancient" (with a "c") or "Antient" (with a "t"). We need to hammer this out and reach a consensus, and we should do so in one central location. Since this impacts several articles, I have started a thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Freemasonry to be that central location. Please discuss at that thread. Thank you, Blueboar 13:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Problem solved...
I have redirected the "c" page here. There are too many tangential arguments on the other page (justification of "c", for example) and considering the other article made the concession that "t" was used in certain places, it can't be "wrong", which was the main objection to this article in the first place. Any useful material can be re-added here without the hyperbole about the researchers themselves. MSJapan 23:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * My thirty-year-old son said it best when he recently advised me: "Dad, arguing on the internet is like racing in the Special Olympics. You may win the argument, but you are still retarded. I'm done. PGNormand 18:32, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

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