Historical Origins of the Mark Degree

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The Mark is a ceremony or degree [sometimes called the ‘friendly’ degree], conferrable today only to Master Masons and forms part of a hierarchical organization. In Craft Masonry it was quite a late innovation making its appearance during the mid-1700s.  However we do know that Operative Masons, without any kind of ceremony, were taking marks 150 years before the Mark came into use as part of that particular ceremony.

1813 Revival by Sussex of Restoration Chapter No 1 – 1769

Holy Royal Arch

Records of Royal Arch activity in England, in today’s Supreme Grand Chapter, start with the entry in the first minute book of the unnamed ‘Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter’. They are dated 22 March 1765 and show the first meeting to have been held at the mysterious and still unidentified Mr Inge’s premises, until the move to The Turk’s Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, London on 12 June of the same year. It took a further four years before Supreme Grand Chapter issued warrants establishing the first new Chapters under the jurisdiction of the Order.