ABSTRACT
This chapter considers three relevant elements in eighteenth-century freemasonry: first, the changes to English masonic ritual that were introduced in the early 1720s; second, the self-improving lectures given in masonic lodges from the 1720s through to the 1730s and beyond; and third, the adoption of elements of medieval chivalry into European freemasonry. The combination of Enlightenment and antiquarian mores, an opportunity for self-improvement and financial betterment, and its open association with the ruling elites, gave freemasonry a uniquely attractive set of aspirational characteristics. European freemasonry differed from its Anglo-Saxon counterpart in that it embraced a more theatrical and spiritual format, albeit that it also incorporated elements of self-improving chivalric ritual. Freemasons were enjoined to become ‘moral persons’ and ‘men of honour, purpose and integrity’, and freemasonry–‘the Craft’–would be advanced as a mechanism through which personal differences could be healed, becoming ‘the means of conciliating true Friendship’.
