Masonic Minute, April 14 2023
After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD, a mixed group of Germans and Danes – called Anglo Saxons – swept into what is now England and took control. Things moved along for about 300 years until Scandinavian Vikings invaded the country in 865 and set up fortifications in various regions. A series of Anglo Saxon rulers, most notably Alfred the Great, fought off the raiders over the next 100 years until his grandson Aethelstan mounted a successful attack on the last remaining Viking stronghold in England: the city of York.
Having driven out the Vikings and all other regional rulers, Aethelstan became the first King of England. After the battle of York, he immediately moved to unify the country by setting up a centralized government – which he did by rapidly ramping up the use of charters.
The word charter in olde English is synonymous with the word warrant as we know it today.
So in 926, at York, now King Aethelstan commissioned a charter which provided the fundamental right of stone masons to assemble, work, take apprentices, make their own laws, have their own organization.
That charter is where the Old Charges & Regis Poems originated from, and why, despite the Grand Lodge of England forming in London in 1717, we still call it the “York Rite Masonry” – pointing back to this event as the origin of the craft in the eyes of its founders.
The York Minster, still standing today, is a rival to Notre Dame is size and scale, while the fortified walls surrounding the town harken back to its Viking roots.
