One Masonic ‘high degree’ is notably absent from the Kirkwall Scroll: the “Scots Master” or “Scottish Master” degree, probably the oldest ‘high degree’.
Jan Snoek has an interesting text on Freimaurer-wiki.de (in German) called: “Frederik: Die Harodim” (1) In Snoek’s reasoning, “Harodim” is a separate Masonic tradition. It is the same text as the one you can find in British Freemasonry (2016), Ars Macionica (2016) and his “Festschrift” (2017). In the text he writes:
In the 18th century, five Masonic traditions existed side by side and apparently independently of each other on the soil of the British Isles:
- Scotland
- Ireland
- England:
- ‘Premier Grand Lodge’ (First Grand Lodge), later also ‘Moderns’
- Atholl Grand Lodge (‘Antients’)
- ‘Harodim’ / York (‘Grand Lodge of All England’)
Snoek is not the first to say that Jacobites (Catholic, house Stuart supporters) found themselves in exile in France in the late 17th century. He says that this is how the Harodim tradition reached France, many of them were Scots. When rituals started to be published in France, these were: “clearly based on the English rituals of the ‘Premier Grand Lodge’, it was decidedly more dramatic.” The older (Jacobite) lodges had simpler rituals and now saw themselves confronted with competition with more appealing rituals.
In response, however, some of the Jacobite Harodim lodges specialised in the Scottish Master Degree, becoming ‘Scottish lodges’, i.e. ‘high degree lodges’.
And so we have the first “Schotten-Loge” in Berlin in 1742, but it was started from London. Elsewhere Snoek says that Scots Master lodges have existed in England since the 1730’ies. Thus: just after the third degree was developed, the “Scots Master” degree emerged. Just as with the Royal Arch, the oldest known ritual texts are from France, but both the Scots Master and Royal Arch degree were most likely developed in England and travelled to France from there.
The ritual of the Berlin lodge is kept in the Kloss collection. It tells the story of “Scottish” Master Masons who were not satisfied with the replacement of the lost word from the third degree, so they traveled to Jerusalem to find the real word. Needless to say that the temple was in ruins, as it had not been rebuilt after the second destruction. Therefor the destroyed temple is an often used image in Scots Master imaginary. Also very notable are the crossed pillars. Apparently the two pillars in front of King Solomon’s temple have broken in two and they were on the ground exactly in the form of a Saint Andrew’s cross. This is convenient, because the Scots Masters took St. Andrew as their patron saint. The Berlin lodge was even inaugurated on his festive day.
The Scots Master degree was known in England and also abroad. It was fairly popular too. France developed its own “Ecossais” (‘Scots’) degree(s), which -to keep them apart- they renamed to “Secret Master”, the name in which it is still part of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. This degree has similar symbols, including the crossed pillars. Belton and Dachez suggest that France and London/Berlin had slightly different evolutions. Perhaps that means that an earlier form of the Scots Master degree travelled to London than the version that we know from Berlin. A difference -for example- is that in France there is no sight of a destroyed temple while we do find it in the Berlin and Kopenhagen texts and thus -probably- in the London version of around 1745.
But if this degree was so popular in England, why isn’t it displayed on the Kirkwall scroll? As we saw in the beginning, Snoek sees five different Masonic traditions in these early days. The Scots Master emerged in “Harodim” circles and was -most likely- mostly popular in these circles, hence not in Irish, Scottish, “moderns” or…. “Antient” circles. Templar Masonry appears to have been more of an ‘Antient thing’, which is yet another clue that the Kirkwall scroll comes from an Antient environment.
Snoek’s conclusions have been checked, revised and updated in the book Exploring the Vault (2024) by Belton and Dachez, but the point that the Kirkwall Scroll must come from another environment than the one in which H.R.D.M. degrees were worked, remains.
Also see the little text about the Harodim.
https://www.freimaurer-wiki.de/index.php/Frederik:_Die_Harodim (accessed 26/7/2024)