What year did freemasonry start?

Answer 1

There are no records to indicate in what year Freemasonry began, and it depends somewhat on how you define Freemasonry. We know that he stone masons who built the cathedrals and castles in the middle ages formed a sort of trade union in some locations in Britain and Europe. This activity can be traced back as far as 926 when Prince Edwin, son of King Athelstan, presided over a meeting of Masons at York, England.

The most widely accepted theory is that the modern fraternal organization of Freemasons evolved out of that group of stone masons. There is evidence that by the mid 1600's there were some independent lodges (groups) of "Free and Accepted Masons" who were not working stone masons.

The current fraternal institution of regular Freemasonry can be said to have started when the first Grand Lodge was formed in London, England, on St John's day, June 24 , 1717 and the fraternity has continued on uninterrupted to today.

Answer 2

Nobody knows. The origins of Freemasonry are lost to history.

Freemasonry as we know it today began in 1717 when four lodges in London agreed to form the Premier Grand Lodge of England and submit themselves to its authority. But obviously Freemasonry already existed at that point because those four lodges already existed. There are lodges with records going back centuries, but as you go farther back in time it gets harder to tell if they were fraternal lodges or stone mason guilds. But the true origins of the fraternity will never be known, there are no written records.

Answer 3

Freemasonry was not invented but evolved and grew from traditions which started sometime in the Middle Ages. There are documents of Masonic Lodges operating in some sense as far back as the sixteenth century; there are masonic legends which can be documented into the fourteenth century. However, it is clear that Masonry as we now understand it grew in Britain, and it was in England that the first Grand Lodge, or organization of Masonic Lodges, was formed in 1717.

Answer 4

18th century