hanzosbm
Premium Member
A friend loaned me a book recently called The Freemasons by Jasper Ridley. It is essentially a history of the Craft starting with operative Masons in the middle ages up to relatively current times. The first thing I liked about it was the abundance of citations. As we all know, books on Masonry are filled with theories and often times authors play fast and loose with their facts to support those theories. I was hoping that this book, having so many citations, would not follow that path. Sadly, I was mistaken. The author does things like cite the origins of the legend of the third degree to things happening in the middle ages when we know that the legend was dramatically different than we know it today up until the 18th century. So, when I went to look into the sources he cited, I ran into some further problems. When I came upon some statements of his that I found questionable and I went to see where he got them, yes, he does give references, but they're all to modern books. I suppose if I were so inclined, I could go down each of those rabbit holes by buying the referenced book and then seeing if it has references, and then track down those references, etc., but I have no interest in doing that.
Which brings me to my point. In the first chapter of his book, Ridley states that operative Masons were subject to a wage cap (as were all trades) but they, being so highly skilled and in demand, could demand higher wages than was legal and used their secret meetings to fix prices. To me, this has some very interesting implications, if true. The source that he cites for this information is an Ars Quatuor Coronatorum article entitled Further Views on the Origins of Freemasonry in England by Geoffrey Markham. I haven't been able to find this specific article and what I have been able to find referencing the article does not collaborate Ridley's claims.
I was wondering if anyone had any contemporary information to the effect that Masons were widely being paid above the pay cap and ideally, that there was some kind of collusion that enabled it.
Which brings me to my point. In the first chapter of his book, Ridley states that operative Masons were subject to a wage cap (as were all trades) but they, being so highly skilled and in demand, could demand higher wages than was legal and used their secret meetings to fix prices. To me, this has some very interesting implications, if true. The source that he cites for this information is an Ars Quatuor Coronatorum article entitled Further Views on the Origins of Freemasonry in England by Geoffrey Markham. I haven't been able to find this specific article and what I have been able to find referencing the article does not collaborate Ridley's claims.
I was wondering if anyone had any contemporary information to the effect that Masons were widely being paid above the pay cap and ideally, that there was some kind of collusion that enabled it.