A 18. századi szabadkőművesség és a brit nemzeti identitás kialakulásának problematikája
The problem of eighteenth-century freemasonry and the evolution of British national identity

Summary/Abstract: Largely due to Linda Colley’s pioneering work Britons: Forging of A Nation recent scholarship has argued over how the concept of ‘Britishness’ developed after the union of 1707, and investigated whether there were, in fact, any national institutions that contributed to the emergence of national identity. One of the few was Freemasonry. As a centrally disciplined body with a highly organised provincial structure, Freemasonry could offer even the most remote areas access to metropolitan facilities and thus help build the idea of Britishness. However, rivalling with the loyal London-based Grand Lodge Freemasonry, members of certain lodges-mainly in the countryside-openly supported the Jacobite cause. This paper, the findings of which are based on four-month research in the Library of Freemasons’ Hall (London), intends to examine how Freemasonry reinforced and/or weakened the Anglo- Scottish nexus in the long eighteenth century.

• Details
• Contents