What are the degrees in Operative Masonry?

Operative Masonry recognized grades or ranks of membership based on practical status and skill rather than the ritualistic system of formal degrees known today 1. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these ranks comprised three basic grades: the Apprentice, the Fellow of the Craft, and the Master 1.

An Apprentice served an indenture of seven years under strict moral and practical discipline, performing menial labor while learning the art of building 32. Upon completing this term, the Apprentice submitted a masterpiece—a difficult piece of stone cutting or setting—to the lodge or annual assembly to demonstrate his proficiency 232.

Newton notes that in early English practice, an Apprentice who successfully presented his masterpiece was declared a Master and consequently entered the ranks of the Fellowcrafts as a free man and full peer of the fraternity 2. He distinguishes this general mastership from the position of Master of the Work (or Master of the Lodge), an administrative office conferred on a Master or Fellow chosen to superintend a project or preside over the brethren 2. Mackey similarly observes that while the Master and Wardens possessed specific authority and duties during their tenure, they did not form a separate grade of manual skill beyond that of the Fellows 1.

The formal division of Masonry into three distinct ritualistic degrees was unknown in the operative period 1. Early eighteenth-century records indicate only one form of initiation and catechism, with the modern three-degree structure evolving gradually between 1717 and 1730 1.