The Allied Masonic Degrees

Origins and history

Before the nineteenth century a great many short “side degrees” circulated among Freemasons. Some were conferred under the warrant of an ordinary Craft lodge, others were simply passed from one brother to another. When the main Masonic authorities narrowed their work to the Craft degrees and the Royal Arch, these extra ceremonies were left without a home. A number of them survived only because small groups kept them going, and several eventually set up governing bodies of their own.

The Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees was created in England to give these orphaned degrees a single, recognised authority. The usual founding date is 1879; Albert Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry gives 1880, and the Order’s own Kent district simply says “the 1870s”. Mackey describes the Council’s purpose as taking in degrees that had no central authority of their own, and notes that on paper it held the rights to some fifty side degrees besides its principal ones, only some of which were ever actively worked.

One of the best-documented threads is the Knight of Constantinople. Mackey records that in 1864 Brother F. G. Irwin of Devonport held authority to establish the Order, and that on 18 January 1865 he opened the first Council, the Saint Aubyn Council, at the Saint Aubyn Lodge No. 954 in Morice Town, Devonport. William James Hughan, later one of the great Masonic historians, joined at the following meeting, and a second Council was warranted at Truro in 1866. The Devonport body grew into a governing council of its own before joining the Allied Degrees. The three surviving Plymouth Councils came in only in 1910, and on their own terms: they kept a distinctive apron and the exclusive right to confer the degree in the Plymouth manner, which is open to Christian brethren only. They still work today as Councils Nos. 33, 34 and 35.

For some decades the Grand Council also looked after degrees that later went their own way. When J. S. M. Ward wrote The Higher Degrees Handbook in 1921, the Council met at Mark Masons’ Hall in London and worked six degrees, one of them a version of the Secret Monitor. Ward calls this the only degree in English Freemasonry under two separate bodies, the result of a quarrel during the early years of the Grand Conclave of the Secret Monitor. That dispute was settled in 1931, when the degree passed to the Order of the Secret Monitor. The Holy Royal Arch Knight Templar Priests had already become a sovereign body in 1924 (see the Knight Templar Priests). Since 1931 the Order has looked after the five ceremonies described below.

Where these degrees first came from is less certain. Fred Pick and Norman Knight, in The Pocket History of Freemasonry, admit that little is known of their early development. They report the long-standing claim that St Lawrence the Martyr was worked in Lancashire and Yorkshire two centuries earlier, but think it likely that the degrees reached England in their present form from America. In their view the Red Cross of Babylon comes from ceremonial that once belonged to the American Royal Arch, and the Grand High Priest closely follows a ceremony reserved in the United States for High Priests of Royal Arch Chapters.

Membership

In England and Wales a candidate must be a Master Mason who has been advanced as a Mark Master Mason and exalted in the Royal Arch. Membership is by invitation only. Ward pointed out in 1921 that the degrees were not restricted to Christians, even though two of them are plainly Christian in theme. The Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees of England and Wales and Districts and Councils Overseas is administered from Mark Masons’ Hall, and local units are called Councils.

There is no direct equivalent in Scotland, where the Red Cross of Babylon theme is worked inside the Royal Arch as the Babylonish Pass. Even so, the English Grand Council has been recognised since 2004 as a Masonic body in amity with the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

The degrees

Every new member begins with St Lawrence the Martyr. The other four can then be taken in whatever order the local Council works them, though the Grand Tilers of Solomon is often left until last.

St Lawrence the Martyr
The ceremony recalls Lawrence, the deacon of Rome who was put to death in the middle of the third century, and holds up his fortitude and humility as an example. It is also the working, or “administrative”, degree of the Order: a Council conducts its business, receives its candidates and installs its Master in this degree. Its jewel is a gridiron, the instrument of the saint’s martyrdom. Ward thought the degree might preserve a piece of old operative custom from Lancashire, once used to tell genuine working masons apart from the newer speculative kind.

Knight of Constantinople
This is a side degree in the oldest sense. Long ago one brother would confer it on another quite informally, perhaps by drawing him aside at the end of a lodge meeting. The ceremony is set in the courtyard of the palace of the Emperor Constantine the Great in the fourth century AD, and its lessons are humility and the equality of all men. The jewel is a cross surmounted by a crescent.

Grand Tilers of Solomon
Also known as the Masons Elect of Twenty-seven, this degree tells of a craftsman who blundered into King Solomon’s secret vault. The story resembles the Select Master degree of the Royal and Select Masters, but the events are placed at an earlier date and the details differ. Its warning is against carelessness and hasty judgement, and it stresses how much depends on proper tiling, the guarding of the door.

Red Cross of Babylon
Probably the oldest of the five, this degree continues the Royal Arch story of the return from exile and the rebuilding of the Second Temple at Jerusalem, with the candidate taking the part of Zerubbabel. The action runs from the reign of Cyrus, King of Persia, to that of Darius, and a memorable feature is the crossing of a bridge over a river. Its lessons are fidelity, integrity and truth, and above all keeping faith when tempted to break it. The jewel is two crossed swords on a dark green ground. Because the same story is worked under several names around the world, it has its own page: Knight of the Red Cross of Babylon.

Grand High Priest
Sometimes styled the Holy Order of the Grand High Priest, this degree draws on Abraham’s blessing by Melchizedek, King of Salem, and the consecration of Aaron as priest. The presiding officer represents the King of Salem, and the candidate is solemnly set apart to the office of Grand High Priest. The Order’s own published description calls it a most beautiful and uplifting ceremony. A Council normally performs it only once a year. In Ward’s day it was reserved for those who had served as Third Principal of a Royal Arch Chapter, and its jewel is a triangle, point upwards, bearing a mitre.

The videos below introduce the Allied Masonic Degrees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RbkkXOiGE

Regalia

A member of an English Council wears five miniature breast jewels, one for each degree, or a ribbon in their place. Past Masters wear a single jewel hung from a thistle-green collarette. The individual degree jewels described above (the gridiron, the cross and crescent, the triangle, the crossed swords and the mitred triangle) are the emblems that appear in the miniatures.

The Order today

Councils of the Allied Masonic Degrees meet in Great Britain, the United States, Canada, France, Australia, India, Benin and the Congo. Outside England the emphasis often moves from ceremony to study, and members commonly present research papers to one another.

The American body has its own history. According to Mackey, the Sovereign College of the Allied Masonic Degrees of America was organised at Richmond, Virginia, on 1 February 1892, with Hartley Carmichael as its first Sovereign Grand Master. It aimed to preserve degrees worth keeping and to quietly retire those that were not. Today the Grand Council of the Allied Masonic Degrees of the United States of America describes itself as an invitational body devoted to Masonic philosophy, scholarship and research. A candidate must be a Royal Arch Mason in good standing and be invited by a Council. Most Councils are limited to twenty-seven members, and each is led by a Sovereign Master. The Council of the Nine Muses is limited to nine authors, and each new Sovereign Master there must present a fresh essay. Working the degrees in full is encouraged in America but not required.

The American list of degrees is longer than the English one. Besides St Lawrence the Martyr, the Knight of Constantinople and the Grand Tiler of Solomon, it includes the Royal Ark Mariner, the Secret Monitor, several “architect” degrees, the Master of Tyre and the Excellent Master. It also offers honours such as the Royal Order of the Red Branch of Eri, and the Order of the Scarlet Cord under special rules. Canadian Councils work a similar selection, with St Lawrence the Martyr as the required degree.

For more information or if you would like to join, please visit the following URLs:
– https://amdusa.org/wp/
– http://www.alliedmasonicdegrees.org/
– https://markmasonshall.org/orders/allied-masonic-degrees
– https://issuu.com/mediaflash/docs/quovadis/s/10930598
– http://amdkent.uk/
– http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/allied_masonic_degees.html

Or ask the Secretary of your own Lodge, Mark Lodge or Royal Arch Chapter, who can put you in touch with a Council in your jurisdiction.