Robert Turner’s article addresses the question of lost or untraced manuscripts of the Old Charges. His focus lies not on presenting new texts but on reconstructing, through archival traces and secondary references, the existence of constitutions once known to scholars or collectors but now missing. The article belongs to a documentary and historiographical genre: its aim is to catalogue what has disappeared, consider the reasons for these losses, and evaluate their implications for Masonic manuscript studies.
Thesis and Main Contribution
The central thesis is that the history of the Old Charges corpus cannot be written solely from extant manuscripts, since many once recorded have since been lost. Turner argues that acknowledging and documenting these “missing constitutions” is essential for a complete understanding of the tradition. His main contribution is to gather references to such manuscripts scattered in catalogues, correspondence, and sales notices, and to consolidate them into a coherent survey. By doing so, he both recovers traces of vanished witnesses and highlights the fragility of the corpus over time.
Method and Rationale
Turner’s method is essentially archival reconstruction. He examines auction catalogues, antiquarian notices, references in earlier Masonic scholarship, and institutional records to trace evidence of manuscripts no longer extant. Where possible, he identifies provenance, date, and family affiliation, even in the absence of the physical manuscript. His rationale is that documenting absence is as important as documenting presence, since the contours of a tradition are shaped by what has been lost as well as by what survives.
In terms of engagement with predecessors, Turner positions his work as a continuation of Hughan’s and Knoop–Jones’s catalogues, extending their scope by drawing attention to the lacunae. Rather than challenging their classifications, he supplements them with the record of manuscripts that once existed but are now untraceable. His contribution is thus primarily corrective and complementary, filling a gap in the historiography.
Main Arguments
- Existence of lost manuscripts : Turner documents references to constitutions formerly in private collections or libraries, recorded in sales catalogues or antiquarian notes, which have since disappeared from scholarly sight.
- Patterns of loss : He suggests that losses often result from dispersal of private collections, neglect, or reabsorption into archives without proper cataloguing, highlighting the vulnerability of such documents.
- Implications for classification : The absence of these manuscripts complicates genealogical reconstruction, since lines of transmission may have depended on witnesses now irrecoverable.
- Need for systematic documentation : Turner stresses the importance of recording every reference to such missing manuscripts to prevent further erasure from scholarly memory.
Strengths of the Approach
- Documentary vigilance : The article systematically consolidates fragmentary references to lost manuscripts, preserving evidence that might otherwise vanish.
- Historiographical corrective : By drawing attention to missing items, Turner complicates overly tidy views of the manuscript corpus and reminds scholars of its instability.
- Practical utility : The survey provides future researchers with leads for rediscovery or archival tracking of vanished documents.
Limitations and Potential Biases
- Limitation 1 : The study relies exclusively on secondary references such as catalogues and antiquarian notes. This dependence reduces the certainty of reconstruction and leaves room for error if these sources were inaccurate.
- Limitation 2 : Several of the recorded “missing constitutions” are described only briefly, without enough detail to confirm their family affiliation, which limits the solidity of classificatory conclusions.
- Blind spot : None. Turner does not attempt broader contextual or interpretive analysis, but this is consistent with the article’s stated aims.
Critical Conclusion
Turner’s “The Missing Constitutions” is a valuable supplement to the cataloguing tradition of Masonic historiography. By documenting manuscripts no longer extant, he broadens the field of evidence and underscores the fragility of the Old Charges corpus. The study’s main limitation lies in its dependence on secondary references, which makes some reconstructions tentative. Yet this cautious and strictly documentary approach is also its strength: it preserves the memory of manuscripts otherwise lost to scholarship. Ultimately, Turner’s work stands as an act of historiographical conservation, ensuring that the history of the Old Charges accounts not only for what survives but also for what has disappeared.