COIL’S MASONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA by HENRY WILSON COIL, 33° Edited by DR. WILLIAM MOSELEY BROWN, 33° DR. WILLIAM L. CUMMINGS, 33° HAROLD VAN BUREN VOORHIS, 33° i Published by MACOY PUBLISHING & MASONIC SUPPLY COMPANY INCORPORATED NEW YORKTraveling Warrant Severall-Lodges in several Counties for their recep- tion; and when any of them fall into decay, the brotherhood is to relieve him &. The manner of their Adoption is very formal, and with an oath of Secrecy.” Next, a Preface written by Dr. Richard Rawlinson to Ashmole’s Aniquities of Berkshire in 1719 con- tained the following: “On October 16[1646] he [Ashmole] was clected a Brother of the Company of Freemasons, with Col- lone Henry Mainwaring of Kerthingham in Chesh- ire at Warrington in Lancashire, a Favour esteemed so singular by the Members, that Kings themselves have not disdain’d to enter themselves into this So- ciety, the original Foundation of which is said to be as high as. the Reign of King Henry TI, when the Pope granted a Bull, Patent or Diploma, to a particu- Jar company of Italian Masons and ‘Architects to travel over all Europe to build Churches. From this is derived the Fraternity of Adopted Masons, Ac- cepted Masons or Freemasons, who are known to fone another all over the World by certain signals ‘and Watch Words known to them alone, They have several Lodges in different Countries for their Re~ ception; and when any of them fall into Decay, the Brotherhood is to relieve him. The manner of their ‘Adoption or Admission, is very formal and solemn and with the Administration of an Oath of Secrecy, which has had better Fate than all other Oaths, and has been ever most religiously observed, nor has the World been yet able, by the inadvertence, surprise or folly of any of its Members, to, dive into this Mys- tery or make the least discovery.” A similar statement was attributed to Sir Christo- pher Wren, but, since he supposed that the Gothic Style of architecture originated with the Saracens, a theory not accepted by the weight of authority, hi judgment of historical events and transmission o' arts and authorities possibly did not measure up to his engineering skill. The German Steinmetzen, how- ever, had a similar tradition or legend but, though search has been made in the Vatican Library, no trace of any such Bull or Diploma can be found. Thomas Hope, in Historical Essay on Architecture, assumed a leading place among the sponsors of the story of the traveling architects or masons. He there assumed that architects seeking work came from Italy, particularly Lombardy, and passed into the counirles to the north, receiving monopolies for the erection of all religious edifices, and he even assumes that they were independent of the sovereign in the countries where they worked, After filling Europe with cathedrals, churches, and monasteries, he sup- poses they passed into England and there introduced their peculiar style of building. (The fact is, how- ever, that the first building of this type—Gothic, was erected in England half a century before the first of the kind in Germany.) Indeed, Hope goes into so much minute detail about the experiences of these Tialian architects in their ceaseless wanderings. as clearly to give the impression that he was romancing, ‘a conclusion confirmed by his attempt to bolster up his theme by reciting some of the well-established rules and customs of the Freemasons, which would ave been the same whether the Freemasons tray- led or remained at home. Clavel (Pictorial History of Freemasonry) followed the popular fancy in tracing the Ttalian architects from the Colleges of Artificers. The African Archi- fects (see RITES 11), which was simply one of the numerous degree groups or systems of the late 18th century, had a ritualistic legend of having originated in the Traveling Freemasons, and some writers have grasped at this in an attempt to lend historical evi- dence to the theory. ‘There are a ntmber of circumstances which are 658 Trestle-board; Tracing Board inconsistent with the theory but they have not been answered by the exponents of the Traveling Builders ‘Architects, Freemasons, or Bridge Builders. In the first place, the architecture of Italy, France, Spain, Germany,’ England, and even Scotland, all show dis tinct national characters so that if a cathedral were moved from any country to another, a person who knew nothing of the change could easily detect the nonconformity between -that structure and all the others around it. In the second place, all the cathe- drals and other religious buildings of the period from the middle of the [2th century to the middle of the ‘16th in Western Europe and the British Isles are of the Gothic style, while Italian Architects did not use that type at all, there being in all of Italy not a single example of pure Gothic. In the third place, the theory of traveling Italian architects assumes that the builders of all other countries would have sat idly by while the strangers invaded their coun- tries and took all the work. If the theory is that m- sons from each country generally went over into ‘other countries to work, there is lacking any incen- tive for such strange action, and it must be assumed that that particular eraft was carried on generally by foreigners unfamiliar with the language and customs of the countries where they worked. Viewing the building trades in Western Europe as a whole, they would have comprised something of a Tower of Babel on an unprecedented scale. In short, all varia- tions of the story seem to have been pure inventions. ‘Traveling Warrant, See MILITARY LODGES. Travenol, 1 French Freemason who wrote un- der the pen name of Léonard Gabanon, He was the author of several Masonic books, including Cate. chism of Free Masons, preceded by an Abridged History of Adoram, Paris, 1843. Trestle-board; Tracing | Board. The — argument whether or not these are the same thing, or, if dif- ferent, what is the nature and function of cach will probably not be settled by the present article, since the history of these symbols is obscure and the pre}: udicial notions about them are so great. At least some of the presumptions and assumptions of prior commentators may here be rationalized or clarified. ‘Those who are inclined to be dogmatic must remem- ber that the two terms have come from their first use in the rituals of the early 18th century. Samples of some of these are open to us, whence it appears that Trestle-Board and Tracing Board were, like many other words and phrases in Masonic rituals, mis- spelled, mispronounced, and misunderstood: Of course, we of today are’ not bound by early. use of terms ‘any more than we are by modern misinter- pretations but we can, at least, attempt to locate the Origin of the present confusion. The case somewhat resembles that of the Indented Tessel or Tarsel or Tassel or the Tesselated Border ot Tasselated Border or Tasserated Border (sce FLOOR OF THE LODGE) Indeed, as we pursue the present investigation, we will be brought back to the same Floor of the Lodge and be required to inspect the Floor-Cloth or Carpet. “The first presentation of the idea of drawing de- signs appears in A Mason's Conjession, an exposure Of the ritual of unknown authorship’ published in 1727, as follows: "Q. How many jewels are there in your lodge? A. Three. Q. What are these three? A. A Square pavement, a dinied ashler, and a broached dornal. Q. What's the square pavement for? A. For the master-mason to draw his ground-draughts on.” Three years later, appeared the first mention of a drawing board of any kind. This was in Masonry Dissected published by Samuel Prichard in 1730, being a more complete ritual and the first to contain 3 degrees. In it the following appears: “Q, What are the Immoveable Jewels? A. Trasel Board, Rough ‘Ashlar and Broached Thurnel. Q. What are their Uses? A. Trasel Board for the Master to draw his designs uipon,”” etc.Triad 2 In those two excerpts, we have the idea of a draw- ing on the floor and of 2 Trasel Board to draw upon. But Trasel was easily corrupted into either Tassel or Tessel or Tracer and, hence, Trestle-Board ot Tracing Board, both being bourds to draw upon. Now, Tassel and Tessel also became confused with Tesselated Border and, s0, all three became more or less related to the Floor of the Lodge, and, hence, with Floor Cloths, Carpets, or Charts, Notwith- Slanding that. the ‘Trestle-Board and the Tracing Board are both drawing boards and ure used for the same purpose, some authorities draw a very pro- nounced distinction between them, asserting that the former sets in the lodge on a trestle and is for the Master to draw designs upon and that the latter con- tains only the fixed drawings of the symbols of a de- gree and lies on the floor, being substantially a Floor Cloth, Carpet or Chart. Such distinction, if it exists, must arise purely arbitrarily from. the adoption of one or the other term in modern rituals, which will be referred to below. “There seems to be no great difference between them either in medieval operative Masonry or modern ar- chitectural terminology. ‘There have always been boards variously called drawing boards, draughting boards, and tracing boards, which, when supported fon a “irestle” of two four-legged “horses” are called frestle-boards. The Fabric Rolls of York Minster 1399 included mention of 2 tracyng bordes. Specu- lative Freemasons have never used either for actually drawing plans but could have adopted either or both terms for symbolic use. There seems to be some di ference of opinion as to which they did adopt. Mac- Kenzie (Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, England, 1877) and Kenning (Cyclopaedia of Freemasonry, England, 1878) ignore Trestle-Board but, define Tracing Board as a representation of the emblems of the degrees, but Macoy (Illustrated History and Cy~ clopedia of Freemasonry, New York, 1868) ignores Tracing Board and defines Tresile-Board symboli- cally as consisting of designs for a spiritual building, While Oliver (Dictionary of Symbolical Masonry, England, 1853), skips Trestle-Board and defines Tracing Board as being for the Master to draw de- signs upon. ‘Spectilative Freemasons needed some vehicle to ex: plain the symbols quite as much as the operatives to exhibit the plans for a building, and these sym- bols, emblems, points, lines, superfices, solids, steps, etc, were at first drawn with chalk upon the wooden floor of the tavern or inn apartment where the lodge met, being later erased by the Youngest Entered ‘Apprentice with Mop and Pail (see carrer). Next, Floor Cloths or Carpets were used consisting of permanent designs painted on an oil cloth or canvass Which could be rolled up and carried away. Some- ies these were used spread upon the floor, some- times hung on the wall and sometimes suspended on an easel, a form of ireste!. E. H. Dring has expressed the opinion that the earliest known ‘Tracing-Boards in Great Britain were those used by Faithful Lodge constituted at Norwich in 1753, The boards bear the date 1800, In that set, the E. A. degree board shows a beehive, a sundial, a trowel, and a cornu- copia, The M. M. board illustrates an arcade of col- umns, five of the columns representing the 5 Orders of Architecture. Tracing-Boards were used in France before they were enployed in England, one set being estimated as of 1745. It seems that either the Trestle-Board or the Trac- ing Board might have been adopted by the ritualists or even that Foom might have been found for both, and that it may have been chance or mere taste Which induced Preston to adopt the former. ‘The Webb lectures generally used in the United States, which are abbreviations of Preston’s, read as follows in the E. A. degree: 659 Trial “The Movable Jewels are the Rough Ashlar, the Perfect Ashlar, and the Tresile-Board. * * * The Trestle-Board is for the Master to draw his designs upon. * * = and by the Trestle-Board we are r minded that, as the operative workman erects his temporal building agreeably to the rules and designs Iaid down by the Master on his Trestle-Board, so should we, both operative and speculative, endeavor to erect our spititual building agreeably to the rules and designs laid down by the Supreme Architect of the Universe in the great book of nature and revela- tion, which is our spiritual, moral, and Masonic ‘Trestle-Board.” We conclude that a fracing board is a board used to draw designs upon or exhibit de- signs already drawn and, if supported on a “horse,” easel, or trestle, it is a irestle-tracing board or trestle board. (See Jones’ Freemasons’ Guide and Com- pendium, Macoy, N. Y., 1950, p. 399; FLOOR CLOTH; CARPET.) Triad, See THREE. ‘Trial. We are apprised by a leading authority on Masonic law that Masonic trials are to be conducted in the simplest and least technical method and no recourse had to technicalities, the use of which in the courts appears simply to offer means of escape for the guilty. Though that may be a popular opin- ion, it hardly does justice to one posing as an expert and searcely comports with the opinions of jurists or others who understand Anglo-Saxon criminal pro- cedure, sanctioned by Constitutional law. It flows from a thoughtless subconscious feeling that one charged with crime must be guilty, else he would not be in trouble, therefore a rather shallow conclusion is drawn that wherever an accused escapes, there has been bribery of the jurors, negligence of the prose- cutor or those atrocious “technicalities.” An infor- mal, nontechnical, slovenly criminal procedure would be the gravest menace to the security of all of us. While it may sound very solemn and philosophi cai to say that no guilty man should escape, no na- tion, people, jurisprudence, or fraternal society has ever devised any method absolutely certain to con- Viet the guilty and discharge the innocent. Hence, anyone having the slightest familiarity with jurisprudence knows that the law must cast the ad- Vantage one way or the other. Bither it must be Weighted in favor of the State, the accuser, the gibbet or the guillotine, with the purpose to convict As many as possible and on that basis has been or- ganized all the despotic governments of the world in- cluding the most savage and cruel and on that basis Jacques De Molai and Jeanne d'Are were tried. Or jt must be weighted in favor of the accused on the theory that it is better that 100 guilty men should escape than that one innocent man should suffer unjustly and on the latter basis the criminal, proce- dure of the most advanced and cultured nations of the world has finally come to be based after cen- turies of experience with the other kind. A lynching bee is quite informal and rejects all technicalities and dilatory tactics. Actually, Masonie trials are al- most invariably conducted by the lawyer members of fa lodge and on appeal the record usually goes before a Grievance Committee composed entirely of ex- perienced lawyers. ‘The same authority informs us that the trial lodge must be opened in the highest degree attained by the necused, Which supposes that the trial may be held by a lodge of Entered Apprentices or Fellow Crafts, that authority having evidently forgotten that he has informed us elsewhere that there are no lodges, except. Master Masons’ lodges, though the latter sometimes do ritualistic work in the E. A. and F, degrees. Much nonsense has been written about Ma- Sonic Law and Jurisprudence. Charges may be pre- ferred against an Entered Apprentice or a Fellow Craft in the same way and will be tried in @ Master