[MANUSCRIT] - Thuilleur Of High Masonic Grades. (Metz ?), 17 - Lot 375

[MANUSCRIT] - Thuilleur Of High Masonic Grades. (Metz ?), 1777. Pet. in-4, (87) ff. including one blank, 85 figs, brown ink, yellowed paper small window in upper margin of one leaf without missing, 19th c. half-perc. Seventy-two grades of freemasonry. Are noted the questionnaires to the postulant, gestures, passwords, batteries, clothing attributes. Accompanied for each (except the first two) of symbols, coats of arms or emblems, some full page. After the table is a preamble: ''All these sublime ranks and which can be known in full only true knights g. i. g. e. Kdos (Grand Inspector Grand Chosen Kadosh) come from the famous mountain of Heredom in the kingdom of Scotland. Qui potest capere capiat. Year of grace 1777.'' Signature illegible. The rank of Knight Kadosh appeared in Metz around 1761. Incorporated into the Scottish rite, it is linked to a German influence on Freemasonry, referring to the Knights Templar who disappeared after the execution of Jacques de Molay. They would have become in Germany the Knights of the Rose Cross. In the table, the presence: ''Knight of the black eagle - Sovereign Knight Prince of Rose Cross'' is typical of the Rose Cross. In 1766 the rank of Knight Kadosh was condemned by the Grand Lodge of France and gradually fell into disuse. Another trace of German influence can be seen in the presence of the grade "Noachite or Prussian Knight" practiced in Berlin in the mid-eighteenth century. A number of grades were created between 1750 and 1770: Perfect Master: second half of the eighteenth century (Scottish lodges) - Great Scotsman or Perfect Master English and Crusader (V. Flaming Star of Tschoudy, 1766) ? - Knight of the Dawn: Kadosch knight ? - Prince of the White Eagle - Knight of the Black Eagle (1760-1765) sometimes assimilated to the Knight Kadosch - The Great Chosen of Saint Andrew of Scotland (c. 1765) - Prince of Ptolemaid ? - Palestinian Knight: Tschoudy ? - Knight of the Black Eagle - Perfect Knight of Rose Croix (c. 1763, Lyon) - Sovereign Knight Prince of Rose Croix (Tschoudy, 1766) - Commander of the Court of the 15 Chosen (c. 1750) - Perfect Irish Master Provost and Judge (V. Rite of the Grand Lodge of the Masters Regular of Lyon, 1761) (Ligou, p. 1015). Tschoudy (1727-1769) attended in Metz the lodge Les Parfaits Amis, the first workshop to have practiced around 1761 the rank of Grand Chosen Knight Kadosh. Most of these grades will be found in the 33 degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (REAA) set in 1804. However, a large number were not retained. There are no printed tuileurs in the eighteenth century, the Masonic tradition is opposed. The few surviving manuscripts are therefore an essential source for the study of Masonic symbolism. Most of them do not have as many drawings made with a pen with the care proper to this one.