Tracing board

Tracing boards are painted or printed illustrations depicting the various emblems and symbols of Freemasonry. They can be used as teaching aids during the lectures that follow each of the three Masonic Degrees, when an experienced member explains the various concepts of Freemasonry to new members . They can also be used by experienced members as self-reminders of the concepts they learned as they went through their initiations.

History and development

The Masonic tracing board took several decades to develop into its pictorial form. Initially a drawing was made on the floor of the hired tavern room in which a Masonic Lodge had met, the work being executed either by the Tyler or Worshipful Master. ["The Evolution and Development of the Lodge or Tracing Board" by E.H. Dring in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum No.29 (1916) pg 243] Evidence suggests that a simple boundary in the shape of a square, rectangle (or "double square"), or a cross was drawn first, with various Masonic symbols of a geometric type (e.g., circle, pentagram, etc.) were drawn later, the former possibly being drawn by the Tyler and the latter by the Master. Later various objects, such as a (ladder, beehive, etc.,) were added. ["The Evolution and Development of the Lodge or Tracing Board" by E.H. Dring in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum No.29 (1916) pg 244]

By the second half of the eighteenth century the Masonic symbols were being painted on a variety of materials ranging from small marble slabs to canvas, though the various Grand Lodges were then generally hostile to the creation of physical representations of the Ritual and symbols of the Craft. prior to the development of the upright-standing tracing board such as is used today a "floor cloth" displaying a degree's symbols was common. ["Tracing Boards Their Development and Their Designers" by T.O. Haunch in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum No.75 (1962) pg 24]

In 1820 Bro. John Harris created tracing boards for the first three Degrees of the Craft, establishing them as an accepted, though unofficial part of Craft Freemasonry in England. [ [http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/tracing_boards_from_st_andrews_lodge.htm] Phoenix Masonry 'Tracing Boards from St. Andrews Lodge No. 1817'] The tracing board became a near-essentialFact|date=October 2008 piece of equipment for Masonic Lodges in Britain, continental Europe, Australia and elsewhere. As different Masonic jurisdictions established official, or standard, Degree rituals the creation of new tracing boards by Freemasons waned and has since all but entirely disappeared.

References

Publications

* Tracing Boards Their Development and Their Designers by T.O. Haunch Pub by QC Correspondence Circle Ltd (April 2004) ISBN 0 907655 95 5

External links

* [http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/tracing_boards_from_st_andrews_lodge.htm Article on the history of the tracing board at Phoenix Masonry]
* [http://themasonictrowel.com/Articles/degrees/Tracing_Boards/some_thoughts_on_the_history_of_.htm An article on the history of the tracing board at the Masonic Trowel]