The evidence relating to the emergence of modern freemasonry is complex, confusing, and often fragmentary. The purpose of this introduction is to help readers gain their bearings before plunging into the jungle of more detailed arguments and explanations.

Masonic history

This book is a study of the emergence in seventeenth-century Scotland of freemasonry, a brotherhood of men bound together by secret initiations, by secret rituals, and by secret modes of identification, organised in groups known as lodges. The functions of these lodges, and the attraction they had for those seeking admission were various. At first, and in some cases well into the eighteenth century, one of the basic functions of many of the lodges was regulating the working lives of stonemasons. But from the start social and ritual functions lay at the heart of the lodges. Already by the mid seventeenth century ideals resembling in many respects those of modern freemasonry can be detected in the lodges, and significant numbers of men who were not stonemasons were being admitted to these lodges.