Restoring the Temple of Vision: Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture.

Marsha Keith Schuchard. Restoring the Temple of Vision: Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture.

Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002. xiv + 846 pp. index. bibl. $242. ISBN: 90-04-12489-6.

Schuchard attempts to uncover the connections between Scottish Freemasonry, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, and Hermeticism. These connections, she argues, made Scottish masonic lodges radically different from their later English counterparts. She builds on David Stevenson's The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century 1590-1710 (Cambridge, 1988), the first non-masonic historian to recognize the importance of Scottish Masonry as the foundation of the broader movement which spread rapidly in the eighteenth century from England across Europe and North America. Schuchard reaches further back in history than Stevenson to find roots of Scottish Masonry in the guilds of Jewish temple builders, the influence of the Knight Templars returning from the crusades, the Scots Guard that protected the French king, the memory theater of Raymond Lull, and the architectural interests of early Scottish rulers. She pinpoints the construction of Roslin Chapel by William St. Clair in the 1450s as a moment when kabbalistic and hermetic ideas, the craft of Masonry, and the influence of the returned crusaders coalesced to produce a Gothic church incorporating masonic symbolism derived from the legends of the building of Solomon's Temple. This mid-fifteenth century moment gives Schuchard a starting point from which to retell British history from the perspective of Scottish Freemasonry, a fascinating counterpoint to more traditionally Anglocentric narratives.

After introductory chapters that move from 965 B.C. to the death of James IV in 1513, this "long survey" (7) is structured around the reigns of the Stuart kings. Three chapters are devoted to James VI and I, and subsequent chapters to Charles I, the exile and restoration of Charles II, and the rule and exile of James II. Schuchard's Stuart kings emerge as knowledgeable supporters of architectural achievement, initiates of masonic lodges in Scotland, and closely tied to the building trades whose members they sometimes raise to high office. When James journeys to his coronation in London, he brings in his entourage Scottish Masons who influence the growth of the brotherhood on English soil.

Reading history from this perspective challenges many assumptions about the nature of the Stuarts and their courts. James's favorites, like Buckingham for example, may have been his warmly regarded brother Masons rather than the objects of his homosexual interest. The famous rivalry between Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson, Schuchard writes, was not only "the jealous hostility of two egocentric and autocratic personalities, but it also reflected a growing estrangement between two cultures in Great Britain--the radical Protestant devotion to the word and the conservative Stuart devotion to the image" (415). Charles I and Archbishop Laud's concern with church architecture and rebuilding sacred places does not indicate support of papistry but a strong conviction about "the importance of sacred architecture to the spiritual welfare of the nation" (425). Both Charles I and Charles II are noted for their religious toleration. Interwoven with monarchical history are accounts of the rise of Rosicrucianism and its connections to Masonry, the development of the Royal Society (its members mostly Masons), and Freemasonry's attempts to accommodate religious differences.

Despite its suggestive richness, however, Schuchard's work is hampered by the speculative nature of many of its conclusions. "Perhaps," and "possibly" appear in too many sentences for this reader's comfort. As in the work of Frances Yates, to whom Schuchard pays homage even as she records their disagreements, possibility builds on possibility until the tower threatens to topple for lack of solid foundational evidence. Moreover, Schuchard seems too willing to take every reference to the building trades and to architecture as a reference to Masonry itself. Clearly, the two are closely related, but reference to building is not necessarily a reference to the brotherhood of Masons. Finally, Schuchard, whose previous research has been in eighteenth-century Freemasonry, writes for those who already know the basic terms. References to "the Mason word" or "Ecossais lodges" occur without accompanying definition. Stevenson's early chapters in his much more basic study may be helpful to the non-masonic reader.

Schuchard's revisionist account of Scottish/Anglo history under the masonic Stuart kings is nonetheless refreshing and stimulating. While it is too speculative and told from too limited a perspective to unseat traditional histories of the Stuart period, it should force all those interested in the period--and not just from the perspective of Freemasonry--to rethink some basic assumptions. However, its exorbitant cost will consign it primarily to research libraries, and its length is likely to make it more a book to be consulted than one to be read from cover to cover. This double handicap is unfortunate because Schuchard makes an important contribution to the current conversation about "British," as opposed to "English," history and culture.

BARBARA TRAISTER

Lehigh University