As they promised, the Scottish Rite-Northern Masonic Jurisdiction today is releasing an important historical work that Scottish Rite and other Masonic scholars and students of degree rituals will want in their libraries.
The Francken Manuscript was compiled in 1783 by Henry Andrew Francken and is the earliest known English translation of the French hauts grades degree rituals of the Rite of Perfection (Order of the Royal Secret), from the 4° to the 25°. The work is thought to be the the earliest surviving and most complete English-language versions of the Scottish Rite degrees that appeared in North America. Francken was a key player in bringing these French degrees out of Jamaica into the northern part of America in the period before and during the Revolution. What makes this so important is they are the precursors to the Scottish Rite in their most original form before Carson, Gourgas, Yates, Pike, and others got their mitts on them and began rewriting.
