Wallace McLeod’s article in *Heredom* (2006) addresses the Old Charges with a strong historiographical ambition, aiming both to review their place in Masonic tradition and to advance a particular interpretation of their origins. The work situates itself in the broader scholarly discussion of the genre but also reveals a methodological stance that bends evidence to fit a preconceived framework. The corpus under review consists of key Old Charges manuscripts, collated and interpreted through selective emphasis. The article is representative of a strand of scholarship attempting to systematise and rationalise a heterogeneous tradition.
Thesis and Main Contribution
McLeod argues that the Old Charges should be understood primarily as ideological constructs reflecting attempts by medieval and early modern masons to legitimise their craft through legendary historiography rather than as factual historical records. His main contribution lies in presenting the Old Charges as a literary tradition designed for internal social cohesion, thereby downplaying their value as sources of institutional or ritual practice. This reframing positions the Charges as products of invention and arrangement, tailored to sustain a professional identity rather than preserve authentic historical memory.
Method and Rationale
The author employs textual collation and comparative reading across multiple manuscripts. He highlights recurring motifs, such as legendary founders, Biblical or classical genealogies, and didactic injunctions, and interprets these as deliberate constructions. The rationale is to show that internal coherence results not from historical truth but from conscious arrangement of diverse narrative fragments. However, this method frequently privileges harmonisation over textual criticism: discrepancies between versions are often treated as intentional variations serving the same ideological function rather than as evidence of instability or local adaptation. In this respect, the approach reveals an effort to align the disparate material with the author’s thesis rather than to confront the manuscripts’ contradictions.
Engagement with predecessors is implicit rather than explicit: while earlier scholars such as Begemann, Knoop, and Jones are indirectly echoed, McLeod does not systematically cite or refute their arguments. Instead, he adopts a synthesising tone, as though these debates had already been settled in favour of his interpretative frame. This absence of explicit confrontation creates the impression of continuity while masking potential divergences in method and conclusion.
Main Arguments
- Legendary coherence as ideological design : McLeod contends that the repeated elements across manuscripts—such as the invocation of Biblical patriarchs or royal patrons—constitute a conscious ideological pattern rather than independent traditions. This coherence is treated as proof of a constructed myth serving the craft’s self-legitimation.
- Didactic function of charges : The prescriptive sections are interpreted less as practical regulations than as moralising affirmations. According to McLeod, the Charges are not to be read as legal instruments but as symbolic frameworks embedding craft values within a legendary narrative.
- Continuity through arrangement : The variations among manuscripts are described as secondary elaborations of a stable ideological kernel. Rather than exploring the historical reasons for textual divergence, the author harmonises them as purposeful redactions intended to preserve continuity. This approach sustains the thesis of a coherent literary tradition but glosses over the instability and local context of transmission.
Strengths of the Approach
- Rigour/Originality : The article succeeds in drawing attention to the ideological and literary dimension of the Old Charges, encouraging scholars not to treat them naively as factual records. This reframing challenges simplistic historical readings and highlights their function within the craft’s symbolic self-fashioning.
- Methodological Contribution : By treating the Charges as a constructed corpus with an internal logic, McLeod contributes to the shift from positivist history to discourse analysis in Masonic studies. His emphasis on myth-making anticipates later cultural-historical approaches.
- Clarity of Argumentation : The article is clearly structured, moving from survey to interpretation, and communicates a coherent thesis that readers can readily follow, even if this clarity is achieved at the expense of critical nuance.
Limitations and Potential Biases
- Limitation 1 : The method of harmonising discrepancies risks circular reasoning: divergences between manuscripts are interpreted as supporting the thesis of deliberate construction rather than being allowed to challenge it. This reduces the critical weight of the textual evidence.
- Limitation 2 : The article downplays the historical contexts of manuscript production, effectively reducing the Old Charges to a monolithic ideological project.
- Blind spot : The study does not address linguistic features that might distinguish the dating of copies from the composition of originals. By overlooking such codicological markers, it risks reinforcing the confusion between the date of the manuscript and that of the text it transmits.
Critical Conclusion
McLeod’s article offers a stimulating but ultimately tendentious reading of the Old Charges, insisting on their ideological coherence at the cost of textual nuance. His harmonising method transforms contradictions into confirmations of a thesis that the Charges are literary inventions of self-legitimation. While valuable in redirecting attention to their symbolic function, the study obscures the complexity of their transmission and the possibility of more diverse historical contexts. It is a compelling interpretation, but one that should be read with caution, as its very clarity rests on methodological simplifications. The article endures as a provocative synthesis, but future work must avoid reducing the Old Charges to a mere ideological artefact by reinstating attention to textual plurality, codicological detail, and historical contingency.