Gavels, Mallets, and Mauls In Masonry

By W. Thomas Lamb

Today I am greatly honored to be able to publish another paper from Worshipful Brother Thomas Lamb.

Brother Lamb has been a Freemason for eighteen years, and is a member of five Lodges here in Washington. He has been recognized with both the Hiram Award and the Grand Master’s Achievement award. He has served as Worshipful Master three times, once in Edmonds Lodge No. 165, and twice in Walter F. Meier Lodge of Research, a position he currently holds.

Without further prelude, I’m pleased to commend Brother Lamb’s paper to you…

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Gavels, Mallets, and Mauls In Freemasonry

by W. Thomas Lamb

Almost all masonic lodges use the common meeting gavel as the instrument to control their meetings. This is probably because it was the instrument used in the meetings of most organizations since time immemorial. Interestingly the gavel is not used in British Courts, though there is now a petition to introduce them now in England and Wales, but not Scotland. However, it has no unique masonic connection. There is a mason’s gavel but it is quite different. The masons gavel has a chisel edge at the back of the gavel head, used to “remove the appurtenances in preparing a perfect ashlar”.

There are different users of the common gavels, speculative masonry, law courts, common meetings. Different mallets, and different setting and carving mauls. The carving was often padded for work in carving the softer freestone.

On the other hand, there is one nation in which the mason’s carving maul is used instead of the common gavel in the hands of the Worshipful Master and his Wardens, and that is Scotland and some of its chartered lodges in foreign countries. What is the reason for this difference in approach and the tradition?

The obvious answer is the direct connection of Scottish freemasonry with operative masons. Operative masons used their working tools for masonic ritual purposes. They simply brought their working tools into lodge from the work site: compasses, square, level, plumb, gavel and maul, and used them in their rituals. But why did they choose the maul instead of the operative mason’s gavel? I have not been able to find an answer, but possibly because the carving maul was used in higher level of work, that is the masons mallet worked on rough quarry stone.

Why was this not followed by speculative only lodges at the time and to most lodges over time? I think it was simply because operative working tools were not readily available to the rapidly growing number of speculative lodges, whereas the common gavel was.

One problem in trying to differentiate between gavel, mallet and mauls is that the terms are often used for the same thing or interchangeably. Some dictionaries claim that mallet is the general name and covers gavels and mauls. Also the term maul is used for other trades hand tools as well as heavy long handle hammers such as a 12 lb maul.

Just to confuse the issue further when the Master passed the Maul to another person (usually at the annual visitation) we have heard them say – ‘I hereby present to you the Lodge gavel…’ but of course it is actually a Maul!

One problem this caused is that when the GLOS tried to introduce Desagulier’s third degree into Scottish Lodges in the 1730s was resistance from the Scottish operative lodges who could not accept that the villains were Fellowcraft masons and that they used three important mason’s working tool as the weapons to kill HA.

One other difference in Scottish and English lodges is the opening and closing of the Lodge by the Immediate Past Master as the WM and his officers enter and leave the lodge room in procession.

As gavels are the most common control tool in masonic lodges today it is worthwhile to review some of the masonic meanings attributed to them.

The term “Gavel” comes from an Old English term “gafol” which meant “rent” or “tribute” given to landlords. Specifically, in Medieval England, if a person had no money to pay a land owner, the person could go to “land-court” and offer livestock or grain as payment. It is used almost exclusively in the United States in legislatures and courts of law, but is used worldwide for auctions. It can be used to call for attention or to punctuate rulings and proclamations and is a symbol of the authority and right to act officially in the capacity of a presiding officer.

The following quote is found at http://www.users.on.net/bking/gavel.html.htm

“The gavel, the implement of both the Master and his Wardens, is an emblem of power, by means of which they preserve order in the lodge; but the maul is the heavy wooden hammer with which the mason drives his chisel. Being the weapon with which the Master was traditionally slain, it is an emblem of violent death and assassination. In Proverbs xxv, 18, we find this curious figure of speech: "A man that beareth false witness against his neighbor is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow." In many lodges the gavel is used by the Master at a significant point in the third ceremony where the correct implement is the heavy maul, which was used in the early English lodges and is still used in some lodges to-day. In the Fabric Rolls of York Minster of 1360 a type of maul, or mell, is called a keevil. The word must have long continued in use, because we find it used in a published description, dated 1791.' The Old Dundee Lodge bought in 1739 a set of three 'Hirams,' and we believe that in the old Bristol lodges the maul is presented under the name of the 'Hiram' to the incoming Master. The name is explained by associating Hiram's direction of the work of building the Temple with the Master's direction of the work of the lodge; but it seems more likely that the name derives from the use of the maul for its peculiar purpose in the Third Degree. The present writer has seen a particularly heavy-looking maul put to realistic work in an American lodge, and it can well be imagined that some of the old English lodges knew how to use such a tool with tremendous effect, particularly if judged from a schedule of the property of the Orthes Lodge (a military lodge moribund from about 1869) which included "a heavy maul, padded; handle, 3 feet; top, 1 foot." This was more beetle than maul. An unusual setting maul of T shape in ceremonious use in an old Bristol lodge has a short handle, but its double head is much longer than the total length of the handle, and each of the two striking parts is of padded leather secured by brass-headed nails to the turned-wood foundation-altogether a remarkably 'arresting' tool.”

Paul M. Bessel in his paper GAVELS IN FREEMASONRY (Date unknown) states:

"Perhaps no lodge appliance or symbol is possessed of such deep and absorbing interest to the craft as the Master's mallet or gavel. Nothing in the entire range of Masonic paraphernalia and formulary can boast of an antiquity so unequivocally remote," according to Joseph F. Ford in Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry. (Hunt). Gavels, hammers, mallets, or mauls, have both practical and symbolic uses in lodges and other meetings, as well as both practical and symbolic uses in operative and speculative Freemasonry.

Keeping order and punctuating actions

Symbol of authority

Use by Operative and Speculative Masons

The gavel of the Master of a Lodge is also called a "Hiram" (Macoy) because, like that architect, it governs the Craft and keeps order in the Lodge as Hiram did in the Temple (Mackey and Hunt), or because of the use made of the maul in the third degree. As early as 1739 both gavels and mauls were referred to by that name. (Jones) A negative sense of this implement is found in the Bible, Proverbs XXV, 18, "A man that beareth false witness against his neighbor is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow."

It is used on stone to make a rough shaping or dressing, with the finishing done with a chisel and mallet or maul. Gavel is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (1901) as a mason's setting maul or a presiding officer's hammer, and it is said to be an American usage. (AQC, 101 and XL) The name "gavel" was not known in England before the nineteenth century. (Jones)

Freemasons are taught that the common gavel is one of the working tools of an Entered Apprentice. It is used by operative masons to break off the corners of rough ashlars and thus fit them the better for the builder's use. It is not adapted to giving polish or ornamentation to the stone, and hence it should symbolize only that training of the new Freemason which is designed to give some limited skill and moral training, and to teach that labor is the lot of man and that "qualities of heart and head are of limited value 'if the hand be not prompt to execute the design' of the master." Its meaning has been extended to include the symbolism of the chisel, to show the enlightening and ennobling effects of training and education.

The gavel is adopted in Speculative Freemasonry to admonish us of the duty, often painful (Hunt), of divesting our minds and consciences of all the vices and impurities of life, thereby fitting our bodies (Mackey and Macoy) or minds as living stones for the spiritual building, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (Mackey)

The gavel represents the force of conscience. (Jones) It is our will power, through which we govern our actions and free ourselves from debasing influences. It requires repeated exercise of our will power to subdue our passions. Will power is common to all and it is fittingly symbolized by the "common" gavel, but just as the gavel is of no worth unless it is used, so is our will power. (Hunt)

The gavel is an instrument common to the lowest and the highest in the Lodge. The common gavel is shown to each Entered Apprentices to remind him that symbolically he should use it in Freemasonry to divest himself of the vices and superfluities of life. Years later, even when one has attained the highest rank in the Lodge by becoming its Master, the same implement of a gavel is placed in his hand as a reminder that we all need to continue to strive for improvements in our manner and character.”

Conclusions:

-Most lodges use the common gavel as it was readily available and followed normal practice whereas the masons maul and even masons gavel were not.

-Scottish operative lodges simply used the tools available to them. As the lodges changed from pure operative to mixed and then pure speculative they maintained this practice which was further set by actions of the GLOS.

-Unfortunately, many lodges in Scotland are changing to using the common gavel -lighter, easier to use, often because they are unaware of the stonemasons’ traditions or because someone has donated gavels to the Lodge and it would be rude not to use them.

-Whatever the form the Mallet (using here the term to mean gavel and maul as well as mallet) may assume, or whatever material it is made of, the moral lessons to be drawn from it are the same, and whether wielded by the Master as a symbol of authority, or handled by an Entered Apprentice as a working tool, it is an emblem that illustrates the highest aims of our ancient Craft.

Ref: William Harvey Anthology 1922 J.P: USGC E&D Task Force.

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I owe a debt of Thanks to Brother Lamb for this informative article. His last was extremely well received, and I hope that this is equally so. If you enjoyed it, will you consider forwarding it to your Lodge Brothers with your recommendation?

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Thank you all.

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