The Entered Apprentice Degree - A Look at the Past

The Entered Apprentice Degree is the first degree in Freemasonry, which takes its inspiration from the practices of the ancient builders, though not without modifying them somewhat and adapting them to its own purpose. The Entered Apprentice Degree is essential if you pretend  to refer to the symbolism of a trade.  All trades require an apprenticeship, which is generally codified and sanctioned by promotion within the trade. The Entered Apprentice Degree in Freemasonry obviously fulfils these conditions. But has it always been considered a Degree ?

Is Entered Apprentice a degree ?

In modern speculative Freemasonry, Entered Apprentice is clearly the first degree. It is reached through an initiation ceremony, which clearly marks a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ and symbolically corresponds to a death in the profane state that leads to a rebirth as an Initiate. The new Entered Apprentice becomes an integral part of the Lodge, even if he or she does not yet have full rights. Was this the case in the ancient builders' guilds ? It would appear not. 

Apprenticeship among the ancient British builders 

As far as we know, ancient English masonry was practised differently in the sixteenth century, in accordance with the customs also practised in other trades. It should be remembered that, while Freemasonry today is a completely autonomous institution that is not accountable to any other power, the ancient trades were part of the social fabric of the place where they were performed and had to obtain legal recognition in order to be able to practise them. 

A distinction therefore needs to be made between what went on inside the brotherhood, with its customs, secrets and traditions, and its relationship with society, the civil authorities, the law and its clients. And some titles concerned only relations with civil society: this was the case with the title of Master, which was not a degree, but a function in the eyes of the law. A Master was any Fellow who could afford to buy the title, which authorised him to sign a contract with a client, manage a worksite and train apprentices. But within the brotherhood, he remained Fellow, and those who ran the brotherhood were called Wardens or Deacons instead of Masters.

The apprenticeship straddled both worlds. To begin with, a very young boy would enter the service of a Master on a personal basis. A contract was signed between the Master and the legal representative of the Apprentice, who had to be between 14 and 21 years old. This contract was called an "Indenture", and the Apprentice was then called an "Indentured Apprentice" or sometimes a "Registered Apprentice". But the Apprentice did not yet belong to the Brotherhood, he only worked for a Master, who taught him the rudiments of the trade for seven years. 

Seven years and counting...

At the end of this seven-year apprenticeship, if he had proved himself worthy, the Indentured Apprentice could be admitted to the brotherhood, with the title of Entered Apprentice (a title still used in Anglo-Saxon Freemasonry to designate the first grade). But he was not yet a full member, and did not have the right to hold office or take part in decision-making: these prerogatives remained those of the true members, the Fellows. 

The duration of this second part of the Apprenticeship, which of course included the transmission of Masonic secrets and traditions, does not seem to have been fixed in England, whereas in Scotland, according to the first Shaw Statutes of 1598, it was a new period of seven years.

The Entered Apprentice Degree nowadays 

Things are very different today. Freemasonry is no longer operative and no longer participates in the socio-professional fabric of the community. It is no longer a vocational training course, but an initiatory process. 

The new Freemason Entered Apprentice therefore begins his Masonic journey with his initiation and thus joins the Lodge, which represents the brotherhood of Masons. Instead of the seven years of prior apprenticeship, he carries with him his aspirations, his desire to become a new Mason and dies to his past life. This is very different from the approach of the ancient operative Masons, but it is not a question of imitating them point by point. 

In European continental Freemasonry, the first degree only bears the title of Apprentice, thus seeming to forget the different stages that the future Mason went through in the past. But in Anglo-Saxon countries, the title has remained that of Entered Apprentice, which corresponds to the second part of the Mason's training, provided by the Lodge and no longer only by the Master.

A revival of old practices

There were however two attempts to revive old operative practices. The first is English: The Operatives (I.e. The Worshipful Society of Free Masons, Rough Masons, Wallers, Slaters, Paviors, Plaisterers and Bricklayers). This structure claims to be a direct continuation of the last English Operative Guilds that did not join speculative Freemasonry in the eighteenth century. In its present form, the society was founded in the 1910s by the English engineer and Freemason Clement E. Stretton (1850-1915), who claimed to have been received into such a Guild in 1866; he was assisted in this task by John Yarker (1833-1913), the first Grand Master of the Memphis Rite in England. Among the Operatives, the first grade retained the title of "Indentured Apprentice".

In France, research carried out in the 1960s into the ancient rituals led some Freemasons of the Grand Orient of France to create in 1972 the first Lodge of what was to become the Operative Rite of Solomon. They left the Grand Orient of France in 1974 to create their own obedience, which practises only this Rite, the "Ordre Initiatique Traditionnel de l’Art Royal" (Traditional Initiatic Order of the Royal Art).

The Operative Rite of Solomon does not claim to be a continuation, but a reconstitution of ancient Masonic practices. It is particularly sensitive to the operative character of the rituals and was inspired by both the ancient English practices and the French Compagnonnage. It thus divided the rank of Apprentice into three stages : Entered Apprentice (probationary stage), Registered Apprentice and Accomplished Apprentice. A most interesting approach, to be sure, but it is regrettable that they made a mistake in reversing the titles of Apprentice Entered and Registered Apprentice : the opposite would have been more in keeping with old English practice.