More and more valuable ancient documents become available to the larger public. There are a couple of massive Masonic archives that have been handed over to professional archives. These archives have started to digitize material and put it on their websites. So we have the famous collection of Johann Georg Burckhard Franz Kloß (also: Kloss) (1787-1854). The “Bibliotheca Klossiana” was gifted by the long time Grand Master of the Grand Orient of the Netherlands, Willem Frederik Karel (Frits) (1797-1881) to the Grand Orient which has digitized it all and the result is freely available on the website of the Dutch Museum of Freemasonry (1). The Kloss archive is massive and contains many old rituals, correspondence, histories and what not.
The archives of the Grand Orient de France, the largest Masonic organisation in France, was confiscated by the Germans during World War II. During the liberation, the Russians ran into the German archives and took it all with them. An enormous amount of such archival material had been kept in Russia for decades. In 1992 negotiations were started to return the material to their rightful owners. It would take until 2001 before this happened. In the meantime, the gigantic and unstructured archives had to be investigated in order to try to find out if these owners could actually be identified. The Grand Orient de France took care of further distribution among European obediences and got 224 boxes of themselves. These boxes were transferred to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France who have added them to their “Fonds Maçonnique” (‘Masonic Fund’) which also contains the famous collection of Jean Baylot (1897-1976) and two more archives. This “Fonds Maçonnique” can be accessed through the website of the French National Library (2). I estimate that about 25% of it, is available in digital form.
Then there is the “Fonds Gaborria” also a collectors archive. This time the collector was Armand Gaborria (1753-1835). This archive is now in the hands of the Bibliothèque Numérique Patrimoniale (3). It contains a large number of old rituals, but here is more ‘exotic’ Freemasonry, such as Memphis-Misraim and rites that no longer exist.
These collections were usually created by copying rituals and other texts by hand. Collectors visited other collectors and when they found something that they did not yet have, they copied the document. Therefor many documents in these archives contains many documents with a lot of handwritten texts. Just an example (see right) (4).
You can imagine that when there are hundreds upon hundreds of these kinds of documents, not all have been studied yet. There have been people transcribing specific texts, sometimes even translating them. The 81 degrees that form the basis of the French Rite (of seven degrees) have been looked up and transcribed by Collette Leger and published in three volumes under the title Les 81 grades qui fondèrent au siècle des lumières le Rite Français (‘The 81 grades that founded the French Rite in the Age of Enlightenment’) late 2017. Matthieu Ravignat did something similar for what he calls “Traditional Egyptian Freemasonry” (see book reviews).
Many of the documents look like the one on the right. When you are lucky, there is also a drawing of regalia, or a tracing board. There are also documents that are full of drawings. It is hard to know beforehand what kind of document you are about to open and since there are thousands of them in the three named archives, you either have to know what you are looking for, or be lucky.
When I was testing my luck in the BnF’s Fonds Maçonnique and I opened a specific document, my jaw dropped. As I continued paging, my jaw went lower and lower.
The document is called La Géométrie du Maçon par François-Nicolas Noël and was published in “5812” (1812). It is not a collection of Masonic rituals, but more of a collection of ‘things of Masonic interest’. A few pages to give you an idea of the document (5).
Over 150 pages like that! And do you recognise the image on the right? That is one of the Geheime Figuren of the Gold- und Rosenkreuzer. The “Geometrie” part includes Kabbalah and other things of interest. I have not even began to try to read the tiny French scribbling and there is more: there are more parts.
According to the library, the other three parts are called: “La Physique du Maçon”, “La Stéréométrie du Maçon” and “L’Alchimie du Maçon”. They are available in one 400 page file (6), but strangely, I cannot find the “Stéréométrie” part.
As the titles suggest, somewhat different subjects, but they are as elaborate as the examples above. Three more for you (6).
When I am clicking through the volumes, I see imaginary that I recognise from Masonic books and rituals, things that I recognise from the Geheime Figuren, but not things that I know from Fraternitas Saturni, or other Gold- und Rosenkreuzer material. Perhaps the works were actually written by François-Nicolas Noël, inspired by texts that he knew. Perhaps his works are compilations, like much of the rest of the collection. Without having read anything of it, the text seem to be making cross references between Masonic symbolism and ‘kindred symbolism’.
It would be very interesting to be able to actually read this material that comes with these magnificent images. Hopefully this little text inspires somebody to take a much closer look to these works that I have so far.
I have to say something about the digital archives. Both the Kloss collection and the Fonds Maçonnique have awful navigation. You really have to know what you are looking for and especially in the case of the BnF website, it takes a while before you can just click through a page and continue to the next. It is especially annoying that after you have clicked three or four times, there are will document one click further. Fonds Gaborria works a lot better.
The two files of interest to the above, can be found here (at least when I write this). Open the first two links on that page and then choose “Voir le document numérisé” (‘See the digitised document’).
Enjoy!
(1) https://collecties.vrijmetselarijmuseum.nl/ (accessed 3/1/2025)
(2) https://www.bnf.fr/fr/fonds-maconnique (accessed 3/1/2025)
(3) https://bibliotheque-numerique-patrimoniale.cu-alencon.fr/Fonds-Gaborria (accessed 3/1/2025)
(4) Bibliothèque Numérique Patrimoniale, Fonds Gaborria, Rite ancien et accepté. 5e degré, Maître Parfait, Ms.-379
(5) Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Fonds Maçonnique, Atlas FM ICONOGR (1)
(6) Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Fonds Maçonnique, Atlas FM ICONOGR 2