King Æðelstan and the Stone Masons

published in Withowinde Spring 2017 no.181 pp.47-50 (2000 words)

This might seem a rather whimsical piece at first sight, but I hope that it is both reasonably
entertaining while also raising some interesting questions. It concerns a series of medieval
documents which name King Æðelstan and the æðeling Edwin (probably Æðelstan’s younger
brother) as founders of the guild of stone masons. These documents are usually known as “the Old
Charges” or “Constitutions”, as they outline the current rules and regulations of the guild as well as
its supposed origins. Although these are genuine manuscripts which provide fascinating insights into
the workings of medieval guilds, they are perhaps not as well known as they deserve. This is possibly
because they were adopted by the Freemasons at the institution of their first Grand Lodge in 1717
and most of the research and discussion since has been undertaken by the modern Freemasons
themselves (cf. Prescott 2006). This association with Freemasonry may have discouraged academic
historical research, for which I suppose we must thank popular authors such as Stephen Knight and
Dan Brown. Nevertheless the documents are openly available and worthy of study (see for example
www. http://theoldcharges.com, or http://www.rgle.org.uk/RGLE_Old_Charges.htm, for the text of
these and other documents; both accessed 9 November 2016). It is, however, fair to point out that
it is difficult to take the Old Charges seriously, as they also link the craft of masonry to such
predecessors as Euclid, a range of biblical characters and St Alban. The oldest documents are the
two manuscripts known respectively as the Regius (or Halliwell) manuscript, and the Cooke
manuscript, both now in the British Library (respectively Royal MS. 17 A.I and Additional MS. 23198).
The older of the two is the Regius text of about 1425, written in rhyme, and it states (roughly
translated into modern English prose):

“The Craft came into England in good King Aethelstan’s time..... This good lord much loved the Craft
and wanted to strengthen it....He sent for all the masons throughout the land....and called an
assembly....to make regulations for them.”

It goes on to say how Æðelstan set down fifteen articles for the master mason, concerning both
moral behaviour and practical regulation of a building site, and fifteen points for the craftsmen who
would be working under the master. Finally, an annual assembly was to be held to govern the craft
and enforce Æðelstan’s rules. The Cooke manuscript (probably written a little later, perhaps 1450,
and in prose) gives a slightly expanded version and mentions Æðelstan’s “youngest son” as the
organiser, relating how he became a mason himself and obtained permission from the King to hold
assemblies. Manuscripts from the sixteenth century eventually identify Æðelstan’s son as “Edwin”.
Even disregarding everything else, the figure of Edwin is implausible. Æðelstan had no known
offspring (his successor, Eadmund, was his half-brother) and the only Edwin recorded is his younger
brother, with a brief mention in version E of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: “933. Here the æðeling
Edwin drowned at sea”.

So far I expect that the reader will be viewing this as nonsense – mildly entertaining, but nonsense
nevertheless. There was certainly a contemporary event making the attribution a rather timely and
suspicious coincidence. In 1425 a statute was passed by Parliament which prohibited assemblies of
masons (3 Hen 6 c.1). What argument against it could have been more persuasive than that an
ancient king had specifically authorised and organised such assemblies? Furthermore, there is
absolutely no evidence in the usual sources, despite the fact that there are a considerable number of
documents surviving from Æðelstan’s reign. There is no mention in any of the 75 charters from the
period. Several sets of laws issued by Æðelstan have survived (I As through to VI As, in the usual
method of reference). Apart from those promulgated as general laws (II As, IV As and V As) there
are laws relating to tithes (I As) and a record of thanks and pledges of obedience from the bishops
and thegns of Kent (III As). The introduction to VI As refers to “on urum friðgegyldum” which seems
to have the aim of applying Æðelstan’s laws on public order, and the contents “may be called the by-
laws of an association” (Attenborough 1922 p.212). This set up is echoed in another manuscript (III
As) and also a document issued by an association in Cambridge 50 years or so later (BL Cott. Tib. B v
fol. 74; Whitelock 1979 p.603). VI As also contains regulations for London commerce and there are
clauses relating to the sale and purchase of goods or livestock in other laws, with the first
appearance of regulations concerning coinage as well. The “peace associations” may have provided
a model for guilds of workmen as commerce developed, but there is no specific reference to any
such association. As the laws frequently lay down rules on all sorts of matters it would not be
unusual to see regulations relating to a body such as masons, if they were deemed important to
royal policy. Of course, “no evidence” is not the same as “evidence of none”, but the absence of any
mention of masons throughout the extensive law-making of Æðelstan is as close as one is likely to
get to proving that no such regulations were ever made.

So I would be hard pushed to disagree with the contention that it is, indeed, all nonsense; but for a
few points which have given me pause. First, there are sources, of an Anglo-Norman origin, which
suggest that there is a lost “Life” of Æðelstan. The main source for the more intimate details of
Æðelstan’s life is William of Malmesbury’s “Gesta Regum Anglorum”, written almost 200 years after
Æðelstan’s death. It does carry some weight of authenticity however, because William states that it
is based on a contemporary “Life”, written in the form of a poem. William’s reputation as a serious
historian makes it likely that such a book did once exist, and there is even some supporting evidence
in the form of an enigmatic reference in a thirteenth century library catalogue to a “bella ethel[s]tani
regis” (Wood 1983 p.265). Certainly modern historians of the period take it seriously, and Michael
Wood argues convincingly for its authenticity (ibid. pp.265-266).

Secondly, the connection between Æðelstan and masons is not altogether ridiculous. Although the
Anglo-Saxons built largely in wood, there was a gradual increase in the use of stone during the ninth
and tenth centuries, especially on the continent of Europe. By the time of Æðelstan’s reign such
construction techniques were widespread, and the removal of the Viking threat and increased
stability and wealth of the kingdom (it was now feasible to speak in those terms of England) led to a
resurgence of church building in stone. Stenton (1971 pp.441-442) notes a “strong impulse towards
church building at work in the tenth to early eleventh centuries” after a dearth of activity during the
Danish wars, inspired by the Carolingians. The material mentioned by William says nothing to link
Æðelstan to the regulation of guilds in general, or masons’ guilds in particular, but does suggest a
strong connection to the Carolingian continent and possibly even a desire to emulate Charlemagne
himself. Æðelstan was renowned for donating books, relics and treasures to religious houses
throughout the kingdom, and for being determined to restore the infrastructure and culture of the
church, inspired by his connections with continental kingdoms (Blair 2005 p.348). It is therefore not
beyond the bounds of possibility that he also directed his energies into putting the actual
construction of churches on a more organised footing, especially as he knew of Charlemagne’s
efforts in that direction. As Michael Wood says, “Aethelstan and his advisers knew that Carolingian
power meant Carolingian responsibilities” (op.cit. p.272). It is notable that I As is not only a general
provision on the payment and enforcement of tithes, but consolidates the rules for ecclesiastical
revenue in one provision, apparently for the first time (I As 4). This could make it a real possibility
that he wished to encourage the development of masons’ skills in his own kingdom, although it must
also be pointed out that there is little evidence for the use of dressed masonry until the eleventh
century, probably after all available Roman stone had been used up (Blair op.cit. pp. 411-414). But
presumably masoncraft would still have been needed to work with rubble and whatever dressed
stone had been left by the Romans. That might only have meant some direct encouragement of
masons and royal support in organising experienced groups to stay together and move from building
site to building site. The possibility is that the fifteenth century masons picked up on these stories in
the lost “Life” and embroidered them, with the anachronistic invention of a grand convocation and
the formation of an actual guild. It seems unlikely that historical knowledge of the fifteenth century
extended to the depth of analysis sufficient to invent the connection completely, hence the
confusion over the identity of Edwin.

The suspicion must still be that the whole basis of the stories was simply made up. Yet if invented,
why pick on Æðelstan and Edwin as the key figures? The more obvious character would have been
King Ælfred, but he did not rule all of England, having ceded half of the country to the Danes. A
more suitable character would have been King Eadgar. He in fact consolidated royal control of the
whole of England, as York has been re-captured by Scandinavians after Æðelstan’s death and had
had to be recovered once more. When Eadgar succeeded to the throne in 959, he took over a
relatively settled kingdom and preserved it as such for seventeen mostly peaceful years. His reign
seems to have been viewed favourably, as one of King Cnut’s first acts was to promise to follow
Eadgar’s laws (Cnut 1020 c.13). As a new, foreign ruler by conquest, with large parts of Scandinavia
to worry about, Cnut was keen to have a trouble-free kingdom, and so was attempting to mollify the
population. Associating himself with Eadgar’s laws, despite the fact that they were 40 years in the
past, seems to have been part of that policy. Cnut himself might have been a suitable father-figure,
or his successor (after the short reigns of Cnut’s sons) Eadward “the Confessor”. Perhaps Eadgar
was not sufficiently martial, Cnut too foreign, and Eadward too saintly to be associated with practical
English masons, but Æðelstan still seems an odd choice.

There is so much we do not know about the period, that every potential source of information is
valuable. The Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History only takes us up to the mid-eighth century,
Asser’s account of King Alfred’s life up to the end of the ninth century, and the various lives of the
saints are too hagiographical to provide much of practical value in a historical sense. The sources for
our more intimate knowledge of the characters from the period are mainly twelfth century Anglo-
Norman, but it is clear that these are using many works of older date which are now lost. Even those
lost works could “form the tip of an iceberg”, but that “is difficult to determine”, to put it mildly (van
Houts 2003 p.110). Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “Historia Regum Britanniae” is a strange mixture of
fantasy and fact finishing with the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, so books with a relatively more robust
approach to historical verity are important. Hence the frequent references to William of
Malmesbury’s “Gesta Regum Anglorum” and even Henry of Huntingdon’s “Historia Anglorum”,
which also utilised written sources which are now lost, as well as oral traditions which seemed
reliable (cf. van Houts op.cit. pp.113-115). The Old Charges appeared almost 200 years later but
may be using the same old sources as William of Malmesbury, or even a different lost source. There
is of course a fine line between legitimate and fanciful speculation, and perhaps the Old Charges fall
the wrong side. But only just?
 References

Attenborough “The Laws of the Earliest English Kings” (Cambridge University Press 1922)

Blair “The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society” (Oxford University Press 2005)

Harper-Bill & van Houts “A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World” (Boydell Press 2003)

Prescott “The Old Charges Revisited” (Transactions of the Leicester Lodge of Research No. 2429
2006), available on-line at “Pietre-Stones Masonic Papers” (www.freemasons-
freemasonry.com/prescott07.html, accessed 9 November 2016)

Stenton “Anglo-Saxon England” (Oxford University Press 1971)

Van Houts “Historical Writing”, p.103 in Harper-Bill & van Houts 2003

Whitelock “English Historical Documents c. 500-1042” (Oxford University Press 1979)

Wood “The Making of King Aethelstan’s Empire: an English Charlemagne?”, p.250 in Wormald,
Bullough & Collins 1983

Wormald, Bullough & Collins “Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society” (Oxford
University Press 1983)