NM Freemason
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The Antient and Modern Split

ANTIENT 1751 MODERN 1717 UNION · 1813

Why this matters

In 1751 a second Grand Lodge formed in London, in deliberate opposition to the Premier Grand Lodge of 1717. The new body called itself the Antients, and called the older Grand Lodge the Moderns, on the theory that the Premier Grand Lodge had drifted from older practice. The two Grand Lodges spent the next 62 years competing for territory, chartering rival Lodges, and refusing each other's members until the 1813 Union ended the schism.

Every American Lodge today descends from one side, the other, or some hybrid of both. The published rituals worked out at the Lodge of Reconciliation after the Union are the source of most of what we say. Knowing the schism is knowing why the language sometimes seems to point in two directions at once, and why the unification's particular compromises still shape the work three centuries later.

What this chapter is

From 1751 until 1813, English Masonry was divided into two competing Grand Lodges. The Union that ended that split shaped almost every regular Masonic body in the English-speaking world.

How to practise it

A lesson walks the same seven steps every time. Read the intro, study the material, then drill it through Quick Fire, Matchup, Sequence, Flashcards, and the Mix capstone. Each step opens to the next; no choices to make in the middle of the work.

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What if · take it further ▸

Sit with this

  • Find out which side your own Lodge descends from. American Grand Lodges chartered before 1813 traced from one or the other; many later Grand Lodges (and most Lodges in the western states, New Mexico included) inherit the reconciled tradition from the 1813 Union.
  • The Antients' chief complaint was that the Moderns had stripped Christian and Old-Testament content out of the work. Look at the apron lecture and the third-degree work in your jurisdiction. Do you read it as more Antient or more Modern in spirit?

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