Who wrote the first Constitutions of Freemasonry?
This article addresses the problematic authorship of The Constitutions of the Free-Masons (1723). Traditionally associated with James Anderson, using stylometry, we examine whether and, if so, where John T. Desaguliers, the prime mover of early English institutionalized Freemasonry, contributed to t...
| Publicado en: | Digital Scholarship in the Humanities Vol. 39; no. 2; pp. 690 - 709 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Jun2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=177947267&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 177947267 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 2055768X JEO9 jtl: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities issn: 2055768X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2024 vid: 39 iid: 2 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 177947267 10.1093/llc/fqae023 ppf: 690 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.7MB tig: atl: Who wrote the first Constitutions of Freemasonry? aug: au: Péter, Róbert Jawerbaum, Alejandro Napolitano affil: Institute of English and American Studies, University of Szeged , Szeged, Hungary English Language and Applied Linguistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham , United Kingdom su: Freemasonry Attribution of authorship Constitutions Constitutional history Stylometry sug: subj: Freemasonry Attribution of authorship Constitutions Constitutional history Stylometry keyword: authorship studies eighteenth-century studies freemasonry history stylometry ab: This article addresses the problematic authorship of The Constitutions of the Free-Masons (1723). Traditionally associated with James Anderson, using stylometry, we examine whether and, if so, where John T. Desaguliers, the prime mover of early English institutionalized Freemasonry, contributed to this publication. Our corpus includes writings by Anderson, Desaguliers, and two contemporary Freemasons used as distractors. The transcribed works contain texts from different genres and of varying lengths. In our methodology, we employ a wide range of robust, multivariate, unsupervised, and cross-validated supervised tests, verified through significance testing, which can hopefully contribute to the establishment of standards for historical authorship attribution. Our results suggest, in line with historical evidence, that the legendary history of the Constitutions was most likely primarily authored by Anderson. However, several of the Charges including the first one ' Concerning God and religion', one of the most disputed texts in the history of Freemasonry, are closer to the style of Desaguliers. The General Regulations concerning the organization of the lodges, hitherto attributed to George Payne, played a fundamental role in spreading Freemasonry worldwide. Our analyses show that the stylistic affinity of fifteen of the thirty-nine regulations has a pronounced closeness to Anderson's style, five align more closely with Desaguliers' style. The authorship of the rest remains inconclusive partly due to the insufficient length of texts by Payne. These novel findings are also supported by a close reading of the Constitutions and other contemporary primary sources. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: © 2019 EADH: The European Association for Digital Humanities. item: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities holder: Oxford University Press / USA dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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