‘Some background on Ashmole’s Free Mason Acception’

    

John Riley’s portrait of Elias Ashmole, c.1681-82, hangs in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University, a gift from Ashmole personally. (Prints, in various sizes, available from the gift shop here.) That book under his right hand is Ashmole’s The Institutions, Laws, and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1672), a 1693 edition of which is displayed at the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia.

On this date in 1646* Elias Ashmole was made a “Free Mason.”

You probably knew that even if you’re not in the habit of noting the anniversary when it arrives. And what has it to do with us today? I don’t know, except I think it proper to remember the early Free Masons despite the tantalizingly little we know about them.

This edition of The Magpie Mason takes a quick look inside The Diary and Will of Elias Ashmole, in which pages we locate the source of that blurb which appears in so many Masonic history and reference books. After the date and time (“Oct. 16. 4:30 p.m.”), there is only this single sentence:

I was made a Free Mason at Warrington in Lancashire, with Colonel Henry Mainwaring of Karincham in Cheshire; the names of those that were then at the lodge, Mr. Richard Penket Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Richard Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Richard Ellam, and Hugh Brewer.

Title page of the aforementioned Ashmole book on the Order of the Garter displayed at the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia.

It’s an interesting diary that frustrates through omission of details, like the exact place of this acception into Free Masonry; and alternately serves odd points, such as Ashmole being named Elias, rather than the agreed upon Thomas (after his father’s father), because his godfather at the christening blurted out “Elias” for a reason he couldn’t explain afterward. And then there are circumlocutions, like referring to the Civil War as “the troubles in London.”

Anyway, what I mean to share here are the footnotes the editor of this 1927 printing added to give some biography to those names. To wit:

  1. Colonel Mainwaring, b. 1608, a scion of the younger branch of the Mainwarings of Peover, succeeded to the Karincham estate in 1638.

  2. Richard Penketh, son of Thomas P. of Penketh Hall, d. 1652.

  3. James Collier held lands at Newton-le-Willows, d. 1674.

  4. Richard Sankey was the father of Edward S., b. 1621, who was evidently the copyist of a Sloane Masonic MS.

  5. The Ellams were of a yeoman family then long resident in the parish of Winwick, Cheshire.

  

  

Gosh, I wonder what the lodge meetings back then were like. Service club activities? 50-50 tickets?

Title page.

In time, I will look into the life stories of these men. They do not sound like obscure English countryfolk. I have to believe each is biographized in early AQC volumes.

*They used a different calendar back then, so just play along.

     

‘Landmark Freemasons teaser is posted’

     
The pilot episode of a YouTube show titled Landmark Freemasons, that will explore Elias Ashmole the Freemason, is coming, and a teaser of about a minute in length has been posted. Looks like episode one will address Ashmole’s personal Bible, owned in more recent centuries by the local lodge.




And here’s a look at the introduction:





Can’t wait to see more!
     

‘Tuesday morning news’

     
Magpie coverage of the stellar lecture on Plato’s Divided Line at the School of Practical Philosophy Saturday night is still to come, but in the meantime I just want to throw out some news briefs from the past few days.

First up, let’s all congratulate Adam Kendall on his election to membership in Quatuor Coronati Lodge 2076! Amazing! (This isn’t the Correspondence Circle. This is the actual lodge—“the premiere lodge of Masonic research in the world,” etc., etc.)

I bet he doesn’t even read The Magpie Mason anymore, but that’s okay. Once you attain such exalted heights, everything changes. So I am told.

Courtesy @davisshaver

‘The Bond’

On Saturday, the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania unveiled a pair of bronze statues of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin on the sidewalk outside its headquarters Masonic Temple in Philadelphia. Named “The Bond,” they depict Washington showing his Masonic apron, that he received as a gift from Lafayette, to Franklin. The actual apron is exhibited inside the building, in the museum. The statues themselves are a gift from Shekinah-Fernwood Lodge 246, which meets in the Temple. They are the creation of James West. Check out his most impressive website here.

Courtesy Ashmolean Museum

Sunday night I wrote a short essay on the early history of Freemasonry that might be published somewhere, and I included not only the inevitable mention of Elias Ashmole and his initiation into the fraternity in 1646, but also mentioned his bequest that created Oxford University’s museum of art and archaeology, the Ashmolean. And just by coincidence, today is the anniversary of its opening day in 1683. It is the first university museum. Happy anniversary!


I have been writing here about Henry David Thoreau several times of late in this bicentennial year of his birth. Last Friday, the Morgan Library and Museum—a stunning place to visit—opened its exhibition “This Ever New Self: Thoreau and His Journal.” This collection of unpublished writings dwarfs his published work in volume, and gives far more insight into Thoreau the man. More than 100 items have been assembled for this exhibit. It will close September 10. Click here.


Next week, on Thursday the 15th, the Spiridon Arkouzis Lecture Series in Masonic Studies will continue with Iván Boluarte being hosted by the Tenth Manhattan District to present “Pre-Columbian Builders.” Seven o’clock at Masonic Hall in 1530. Photo ID to enter the building, etc.


And finally, and returning to the School of Practical Philosophy (12 East 79th Street), it is having a book sale, and some recordings have been added to the inventory on sale. From the publicity:

Courtesy School of Practical Philosophy

JUST ADDED: Select recorded-lecture titles on sale at a 20 percent discount in our wonderful Get Ready for Summer Sale.

Plan ahead and stock up to make your summer an enlightening and enjoyable break. Consider books and CDs as treasured gifts to pass on to friends and family.

During this event, a large portion of our inventory is sale priced at a 20 percent discount and recorded lectures have just been added. Subject areas included: scripture, philosophy, history, language, government, literature, and economics.

Discounted titles will be sold as long as inventory remains, but we suggest you make your choices early since availability may be limited.

Note: Items cannot be put on hold or reserved by anyone for purchase. Sale applies only to the Bookstore in our New York City location.
     

‘The Ashmole anniversary’

     
Attention Freemasons, wherever dispersed:

Three hundred and seventy years ago today, renowned scholar, antiquarian, and public official Elias Ashmole was reportedly initiated into Freemasonry in England, so raise a glass and drink to the memory of our famous predecessor.

According to his notes:

Elias Ashmole (1617-92)

Oct. 16, 1646 at 4:30 p.m. “I was made a Free Mason at Warrington in Lancashire, with Coll: Henry Mainwaring of Karincham in Cheshire. The names of those that were then of the Lodge: Mr. Rich Penket, Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Rich. Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Rich. Ellam & Hugh Brewer.”

Vivat!
     

‘Elias Ashmole’s alchemy anthology’

     
Initiated into Freemasonry on this date in 1646: Elias Ashmole!

It’s been a while since I posted an unsolicited promotional announcement of Ouroboros Press’ wonderful publications, but the books these people produce are of such luxurious and dazzling quality, that I am happy to help spread the word.

Courtesy Ouroboros Press

Ouroboros’ latest is Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, the Complete and Corrected Edition, which is “An Annotated Catalogue of Printed Books on Alchemy, Chemistry and Cognate Subjects.” Manly Hall called the text “marvelous” and by “the most learned antiquarian of his age.”

In Freemasonry, Ashmole is merely a curiosity, remembered only because someone discovered his brief notes among his personal papers recording the day—October 16, 1646—when he was initiated into the fraternity. Outside Masonry however, Elias Ashmole (1617-92) was an aristocrat, public official, Fellow of the Royal Society, gentleman, doctor of medicine, Royalist for Charles II, and, among other admirable pursuits, the benefactor of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University—regarded as the first public museum in the West.

Courtesy Ouroboros Press

“Wherefore you that love to converse with the Dead, or consult with their Monuments, draw near: perhaps you may find more benefit in them then the Living; There you may meet with the Genii of our Hermetique Philosophers, learne the Language in which they woo’d and courted Dame Nature, and enjoy them more freely, and at Greater Command, (to satisfie your Doubts) than when they were in the Flesh; For, they have Written more then they would Speake; and left their Lines so Rich, as if they had dissolved Gold in their Inke, and clad their Words with the Soveraign Moysture.”

Elias Ashmole
Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum


This book, first published in 1652, is an anthology of poetry written by diverse English authors on alchemy. I’m sure there are other editions available, but none like this. From the publicity:

Courtesy Ouroboros Press

The Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum is a major collection of English alchemical texts which encapsulate the arcana of the Magnum Opus in poetic form. Originally gathered by Elias Ashmole from several rare medieval manuscripts, the text represents the largest collection of verse concerning the production of the Philosopher’s Stone to be brought together in one volume. Ashmole’s pride in English literature was amplified through the consideration he gave to the project. In deciding which texts should be included in the book, he details ancient British examples among the Druids and the Bardic Tradition and explains that poesy is much better than mere verse. Here we find well-known names in the alchemical corpus, among whom are included: Thomas Norton, George Ripley, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Daston, Pearce the Black Monke, Richard Carpenter, Abraham Andrews, Thomas Charnock, William Bloomefield, Edward Kelley, John Dee, Thomas Robinson, William Backhouse, John Gower, John Lydgate, W. Redman, and several anonymous authors. This who’s who of English alchemists is placed in historical context by a Prolegomena by Ashmole, which supports his thesis that England may be proud of its alchemical literary heritage. In addition, Ashmole has provided ample annotations and commentary on each of the texts as supplementary material in the concluding chapter of the book. The text has a new introduction by William Kiesel and a full bibliography of alchemical and bibliographic materials used in researching the text.

Click here for a full list of the contents.

This complete edition of Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum goes beyond the mere reprinting of the original pages as past facsimiles have done. Using the original errata sheets provided by Ashmole, the entire text has been corrected and reset in a more readable typeface and features clear reproductions of the original engravings produced by Robert Vaughan. In addition, this edition features a more complete version of the Breviary of Natural Philosophy by Thomas Charnock by employing a complete manuscript of the text not available to Ashmole in 1652. This is the most ambitious publishing project embraced by Ouroboros Press in its years of laboring to bring source works of western esotericism to scholars and collectors alike. Over a dozen individuals and institutions worked hard to bring the book into this complete and corrected edition. This is fine esoteric book arts at its best, a volume Elias Ashmole himself would be proud of.


“In scope, these poems encompass all of the aspects of the great work: theory and practice, instructions on furnaces and vessels, or on substances to be avoided, and allegorical accounts intended to convey the most important secrets.”

Didier Kahn, author of Alchemical Poetry in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: A Preliminary Survey and Synthesis Part I — Preliminary Survey
Ambix Volume 57, Number 3, November 2010

Courtesy Ouroboros Press

Robert Vaughan’s Engraving.

Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum features several engraved plates by Robert Vaughan (not to be confused with Thomas Vaughan, author of Lumen de Lumen.) C. H. Josten notes “these engravings are probably the earliest engraved reproductions of miniatures from an illuminated manuscript.” The manuscripts in question are preserved in the British Library. The engravings are certainly among the most beautifully rendered in the alchemical corpus. Heralding from the emblematic tradition, such engravings are by now hallmarks of the famous alchemical books extant. According to Ashmole’s diary, Vaughan actually came to stay with him where the artist “wrought and finished all the Cutts.” The images themselves feature several alchemical scenes depicting famous alchemists, work in laboratories, astrological charts, as well as allegorical themes, and the larger images are each surrounded by foliated borders which are also populated with animals, insects, and birds. The book also has a few engraved ornamental grotesques, alchemical dragons, trees, and fleurons scattered throughout the text.

Courtesy Ouroboros Press

The Folding Plate: John Goddard’s Diagram.

In addition to Vaughan’s engravings there is a folding plate by another artist which is to be found in the Compound of Alchemie, or Twelve Gates by George Ripley. This typographical diagram labeled “Here followeth the Figure conteyning all the secrets of the Treatise both great & small” was originally rendered by John Goddard. Again in keeping with the original, the folding plate is included in the Ouroboros Press edition with the Latin parts translated into English by Darius Klein.

Text designed by William Berkson, is based on an early font cut by William Caslon who in the 18th century made British printers’ dependence on Dutch type a thing of the past. Caslon’s typeface was also popular in America and it was utilized by Mary Katherine Goddard of Baltimore for the printing of the Declaration of Independence. The Fleurons Garamont ornaments, based on 16th century originals, were designed by Bruce Rogers, the famous American book and type designer. The fine engravings by Robert Vaughan were scanned from a first edition copy of the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum which was originally owned by Isaac Newton.


Two versions of this text are still available.

Trade Cloth Edition: Gilt-stamped cloth over boards in letterpress printed dust jacket. Over thirty alchemical texts in 528 pages. Illustrated, bibliography and table of obscure words. $75.00

Special deluxe bindings in leather and vellum will be executed with traditional bookbinding technique by the studios of Ars Obscura Bookbinding utilizing antique book presses.

Deluxe Leather Edition: Full tanned goat with gilt-stamped spine bands and central ‘grotesque’ ornament to boards. Ebony and gilt leather spine label, silk bookmark and hand-marbled endpapers. Limited to 200 copies only. $250.00


Click here to make your purchase.
     

On this date in 1646...

On this date in 1646, renowned scholar, antiquarian and public official Elias Ashmole was reportedly initiated into Freemasonry. According to his diary:

Oct. 16, 1646 at 4:30 p.m.
“I was made a Free Mason at Warrington in Lancashire, with Coll: Henry Mainwaring of Karincham in Cheshire. The names of those that were then of the Lodge: Mr. Rich Penket, Warden, Mr. James Collier, Mr. Rich. Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Rich. Ellam & Hugh Brewer.”