A Daily Advancement TREASURES
Treasure trove Team members from the Museum of Freemasonry pick their favourite treasures from the library and archives
T
his February we launched a new display at the Museum of Freemasonry to showcase some of the wonderful items in our library and archives. Treasures is a rotating selection of important as well as beautiful books, documents, prints and papers. Two of the team members responsible for Treasures are Assistant Librarian Peter Aitkenhead and Assistant Archivist Louise Pichel. They share with us their personal favourites.
Peter’s favourite is the Irish Royal Arch certificate, dated 1825
What is immediately striking about this certificate is the brightness of the decoration despite the fact that it is nearly 200 years old; even the red ribbon has retained its colour. All early Irish Royal Arch certificates have their own style, and this is no exception. Many have quite distinctive designs and are crowded with emblems. When looking through the museum’s certificates to select an example for this exhibition I found this to be one of the most striking of the hand-coloured 19th-century items we have. Unlike the mass-produced certificates of today, early examples such as this were produced specially for the recipient, making them unique. What I found particularly interesting about this certificate is that it makes reference to elements of the Royal Arch ceremonies now no longer in use. The curtains at the top, for instance, are a reference to the Ceremony of the Veils, which disappeared in England after 1835. The text refers to a sequence of degrees once worked in England but now obsolete. Many elements of the Royal Arch ceremony have since changed, but I noticed that the illustrations include the square, level and plumb line, which are familiar to all Freemasons as representing the Master, Senior Warden and Junior Warden of the lodge. By appearing on this 1825 Royal Arch certificate they emphasise that the relationship between the Craft and Royal Arch was just as important then as it is today.
40
‘What is immediately striking about this certificate is the brightness of the decoration despite the fact that it is nearly 200 years old; even the red ribbon has retained its colour’ Peter Aitkenhead, Assistant Librarian
FMT Spring 2020
