Berman, Ric


The Foundations of Modern Freemasonry: The Grand Architects – Political Change and the Scientific Enlightenment, 1714–17401 (Recensione a cura di Róbert Péter)


The study of the controversial origins of freemasonry has attracted increasing academic and popular attention in recent decades. For instance, in David Stevenson’s The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590-1710 (1998), Margaret Jacob’s The Origins of Freemasonry: Facts and Fictions (2006). In his doctoral thesis entitled ‘The Architects of Eighteenth-Century English Freemasonry, 1720-1740’ (University of Exeter, 2010), Berman sought to re-examine this well-studied phase of British freemasonry. Having compared the thesis to the book under review, the two are essentially the same apart from some minor modifications such as the rearrangement of some sections, the title and the addition of portraits. Although this is the first book by the author, he bravely questions and refines the interpretations of noted authorities on the subject. Berman aims to illuminate both academics and his fellow


freemasons about the eighteenth-century political and social origins of English freemasonry by drawing on largely unexplored primary sources, many of which have recently become available in digital archives. Following in the footsteps of Margaret Jacob, he provides strong evidence for the pro-Hanoverian and Whig affiliations of many influential freemasons who had close associations with the government. Berman’s first chapter sheds new light on the so-called ‘transition theory’ con- cerning the evolution of freemasonry from the emergence of the medieval operative lodges to the ‘spiritual’ or ‘speculative’ (the distinction between the two is not defined) ‘Free and Accepted Masonry’ of the early eighteenth century. This ancient debate in the historiography of freemasonry entirely depends on the definitions of the terms ‘freemason(ry)’ and ‘speculative’. The author contends that the formation of Grand- Lodge Freemasonry cannot be regarded as a revival or natural extension of the seventeenth-century ‘Acception’. His second chapter concentrates on the background and education of John T. Desaguliers, the self-promoting ‘Homo Masonicus’. Berman’s image of the prime mover of institutionalized freemasonry clearly differs from that of Audrey Carpenter in her recent book on the Newtonian physicist: John Theophilus Desaguliers: a Natural Philosopher, Engineer and Freemason in Newtonian England (Continuum, 2011). Berman’s third chapter,whichis undoubtedly the most innovative and


1 BERMAN, Ric, The Foundations of Modern Freemasonry: The Grand Architects – Political Change and the ScientificEnlightenment, 1714–1740,Eastbourne:SussexAcademic Press, 2012.


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