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Add MS 23198
- Record Id:
- 032-002097175
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002097175
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000041.0x0002f7
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165146888.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 23198
- Title:
-
Treatise on Geometry and Masonry
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains an anonymous treatise in Middle English prose recounting the history of geometry, which it equates with masonry, through the Bible down to King Æthelstan, ending with nine articles and nine points setting out regulations for masons. It is considered one of the oldest surviving constitutions of Freemasonry. The contents of this manuscript are related to a second 15th-century manuscript on masonry, Royal MS 17 A I.
Contents:
ff. 4r-38r: Treatise on Geometry and Masonry.
Decoration:
Blue initials with red pen-flourishing.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002097175", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 23198: Treatise on Geometry and Masonry" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002097175
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002097175
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165146888.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1400
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 105 x 85 mm (text space: 85 x 60 mm).
Foliation: ff. 40 (ff. 1 and 40 are medieval parchment pastedowns, ff. 2-3 and 39 are medieval parchment flyleaves; plus one unfoliated modern paper insert at the beginning).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Pre-1600. Original oak boards with the remains of a clasp.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
William R., 17th century: inscribed with his name (ff. 1 and 39r).
George Payne (d. 1757), Grand Master of the Grand Lodge (1718-1719 and 1720-1721): presented the manuscript at a dinner at the Grand Lodge on 24 June 1721, as recorded in the papers of antiquary William Stukeley (see Knoop, Jones and Hamer, The Two Earliest Masonic MSS. (1938), p. 55).
Robert Crowe [or Crow] (b. 1710, d. 1786), solicitor: inscribed with his name, the date MDCCLXXXI and 'Printing in Germany in 1458 / in England 1471' (f. 2r).
Sir John Fenn (b.1739, d. 1794), antiquary: inscribed with his name and the date 1786 (f. 2r).
Mrs Caroline Baker, 19th century: sold the manuscript to the British Museum on 14 October 1859 for the sum of £4, inscribed with record of purchase (f. 1), and recorded in the diary of Sir Frederic Madden (b. 1801, d. 1873), Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum (see Prescott, 'Some Literary Contexts of the Regius and Cooke Manuscripts' (2005), pp. 44-45).
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Matthew Cooke, The History and Articles of the "Sciens of Gemetry," or Freemasonry [facsimile and edition] (London: The Freemason’s Magazine, 1861).
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1854-1860 (London: British Museum, 1875), p. 841.
G. W. Speth, ‘The Matthew Cooke Manuscript. Add. MS. 23198: A Commentary Thereon’, Quatuor Coronatorum Antigrapha, Masonic Reprints, II [facsimile and edition] (1890).
Douglas Knoop and G. P. Jones, The Mediaeval Mason: An Economic History of English Stone Building in the Later Middle Ages and Early Modern Times (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1933), pp. 151-55, 192-95, 246-47.
Douglas Knoop, G. P. Jones, and Douglas Hamer, The Two Earliest Masonic Mss.: The Regius Ms. (B.M. Bibl. reg. 17 AI), the Cooke Ms. (B.M. Add. ms. 23198) [edition and commentary] (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1938).
Andrew Prescott, 'Some literary contexts of the Regius and Cooke manuscripts', in Freemasonry in Music and Literature: Transactions of the Fifth International Conference, 1 and 2 November 2003, ed. by Trevor Stewart, The Canonbury Papers, 2 (London: Canonbury Masonic Research Centre, 2005), pp. 43-77.
- Exhibitions:
- Freemasonry, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, 12 April 2016 - 24 July 2016
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)