Capitular Degrees

For any given question in Masonry, the most correct answer is often “it is jurisdictional”. Masons discussing their Craft with others abroad are no doubt all too familiar with this phrase, while those just recently raised, or not yet Masons may not be familiar with it. Each Grand Lodge is a sovereign body and operates under their own authority, practicing Masonry with slight changes that give each jurisdiction its own flavor and culture. Grand Chapters are no different, and in some parts of the word these degrees are not even governed by Grand Chapters. For the purview of our individual Chapter website, this page largely describes the degrees of Capitular Masonry in North America under the York Rite¹ umbrella, but more specifically how it operates under the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Nebraska.

Our body is sometimes referred to as “Royal Arch”, but Grand Chapters are responsible for four Capitular Degrees, leading up to and including the Holy Royal Arch Degree. Capitular is defined elsewhere as either belonging to a church, the regulations of a church, or a cathedral. Masonry is not a religion, nor do we have churches. Capitular Masonry however is largely centered on King Solomon’s Temple, and it is from that symbolic edifice that we take our name. King Solomon’s Temple was not only the setting for the Ancient Craft degrees, it was arguably the primary symbol of those degrees. Three of the four Capitular degrees continue that setting and symbolism, focusing again firmly on that temple. The exception is the Past Master degree. It is the vestigial remnant of the former custom that the degree of the Royal Arch could only be conferred on a Past Master of a Symbolic Blue Lodge.

These degrees continue the narrative started in the Blue Lodge, portraying events before, during and after the Ancient Craft degrees. These degrees are not necessarily presented in chronological order, but then again the point of Ancient Craft Masonry is not to paint a traditional narrative, nor claim these as historical fact, but rather to teach morals via symbols.

The Royal Arch Chapters have occasionally been referred to as the “Red Lodge”² in older Masonic publications, though they should more accurately be described as the “Red Degrees.”

In the United States, all Chapter business is conducted in a Royal Arch Chapter, the other bodies being only opened for the conferral of degrees. Some jurisdictions open Mark Master Lodges as “table lodges,” which act as a social focus for the local York Rite bodies, but Nebraska is not one of them.

Lastly, some call the Mark Master the 4°. This can be confusing to some in other parts of the world who suggest the Holy Royal Arch degree is the 4° as part of Ancient Craft Masonry, or the Scottish Rite who has their own (quite wonderful) 4° titled Secret Master.

MarK Master (4°)

The degree of Mark Master is believed to be the oldest degree in Freemasonry and to predate all others by many years.

The legend of the degree is singularly instructive and is well founded on statements of Holy Writ, relating to the period in the building of King Solomon‟s Temple, (in Hebrew: בית המקדש, transliterated as Beit HaMidkash) atop Mount Moriah in the Holy City of Jerusalem. In the United States, the degree ritual takes place immediately following the death of Grand Master Hiram Abif, although in many countries, the ritual takes place immediately prior to Hiram‟s death – in keeping with the degree‟s lesson plan of completing the Fellowcraft degree [2°]), it teaches the valuable lessons, including:

1) how to receive wages as a fellow of the craft;
2) education is the reward of labour;
3) a man is remembered by the mark he makes in his life;
4) labour is, itself noble; and
5) time served does not create superiority.

Like the Fellowcraft degree, the Mark Master degree is less concerned with the past and future and more with the here and now of our present life. It places emphasis on not judging people or situations on outward appearances but to seek hidden truths. The ritual contains a dramatic message that fraud can never succeed. The story is inspired by the parable in Matthew 20:1-19 and Psalm 118:22.

The symbol of the degree is a keystone on which are engraved certain mystic letters, the collective meaning of which is explained in the ceremony. In the era of operative stonemasons, each fellow of the craft would place his unique mark on the stones he cut, in order to identify his work and receive the wages due him for his labours. Additionally, in the event of faulty work, enabled the foreman or overseer to identify the workman responsible. The Cathedrals, castles and other stone architecture of Britain and Europe, dating back to the early mediæval era (the so-called “Dark Ages”), still bear the marks of the men who built them. These same marks would be used as the masons’ signatures on documents, as literacy was uncommon. Following the ceremony of this degree, each new Mark Master is obliged to choose a distinctive mark and to draw it in his chapter‟s register book of marks.

The Mark Master Mason degree is thought to have originated as a ceremony of registering a craftsman’s mark in his lodge of operative stonemasons. It was later developed into a full fledged degree by the Masonic fraternity as we know it today. There is evidence that a form of Mark Degree was in existence in Scotland as early as 1599. According to the earliest known English records Mark Masonry was introduced in a speculative body at Portsmouth on 1 September 1769, when that ubiquitous brother of the Craft, Sir Thomas Dunkerley, conferred the Mark Degree on brethren of the Royal Arch Chapter of Friendship No. 257. Records do not show whence he received the degree, but all researchers into Freemasonry know of the man and his place in the history of Freemasonry. Mark Masonry is a continuation of the less the lessons the lessons taught in the Fellowcraft Degree (2°) in the symbolic lodge. It is highly regarded by students and ritualists as one of the most beautiful degrees in all of Freemasonry, teaching lessons that have proven of value in all walks of life. Many grand lodges outside of North America; most notably the United Grand Lodge of England; place so high an eminence on the Mark Master degree that they confine it to the jurisdiction of a separate grand body; in England, this is styled as the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons.

In North America, jurisdiction over the Mark Master’s degree is vested in the various Royal Arch Grand Chapters. Thus the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the State of Nebraska simultaneously acts as a de facto grand lodge of Mark Masters, as do our counterpart Grand Chapters within their respective states, provinces, territories and the federal district. To add to the confusion that this may cause, the degree of Royal Ark Mariner, although under the jurisdiction of Mark Master grand lodges in many parts of the world, is not conferred by the North American grand chapters. Rather, it is delegated in the United States and Canada to the councils of Allied
Masonic Degrees.

Although the ritual of the Mark Master degree addresses the candidate as a Fellowcraft Mason, and the curriculum builds upon the Fellowcraft degree (2°), only Master Masons (3°) are eligible to petition for the Mark Master degree. Entry into the Mark Degree is not automatic; every brother seeking to become a Mark Master must be proposed and seconded by two companions of the chapter he seeks to join. It is expected that the proposer and endorser of the candidate will vouch that he is of good moral standard and worthy of being received into the degree.

(Virtual) Past Master (5°)

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Most Excellent Master (6°)

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Holy Royal Arch (7°)

There was some argument at one point that the Royal Arch degree itself was a part of Ancient Craft Masonry. The Antient Grand Lodge of England claimed there were 4 degrees in Ancient Craft Masonry, with the Holy Royal Arch being the 4th. The Premier Grand Lodge of England (the Moderns) however saw it as an extension or completion of the Master Mason degree rather than the fourth degree. Both however saw it as part of Ancient Craft Masonry. When they merged and formed the United Grand Lodge of England on December 27th 1813, they landed on a curiously worded compromise that formed the first declaration of their new rules and regulations.

1, BY the solemn Act of Union between the two Grand Lodges of Free-Masons of England in December, 1813, it was declared and pronounced that pure Antient Masonry consists of three degrees and no more, viz., those of “the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft, and the Master Mason, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.”

Constitutions of the Antient Fraternity of Free & Accepted Masons Under the United Grand Lodge of England