said to have called an
assembly of Masons at which laws, rules, and charges were adopted for
the regulation of the craft. Despite these specific details, the story
of Athelstan and St. Alban is hardly more than a legend, albeit dating
at no very remote epoch, and well within the reasonable limits of
tradition. Still, so many difficulties beset it that it has baffled
the acutest critics, most of whom throw it aside.[79] That is,
however, too summary a way of disposing of it, since the record,
though badly blurred, is obviously trying to preserve a fact of
importance to the order.

Usually the assembly in question is located at York, in the year 926,
of which, however, no slightest record remains. Whether at York or
elsewhere, some such assembly must have been convoked, either as a
civil function, or as a regular meeting of Masons authorized by legal
power for upholding the honor of the craft; and its articles became
the laws of the order. It was probably a civil assembly, a part of
whose legislation was a revised and approved code for the regulation
of Masons, and not unnaturally, by reason of its importance to the
order, it became known as a Masonic assembly. Moreover, the Charge
agreed upon was evidently no ordinary charge, for it is spoken of as
"_the_ Charge," called by one MS "a deep charge for the observation of
such articles as belong to Masonry," and by another MS "a rule to be
kept forever." Other assemblies were held afterwards, either annually
or semi-annually, until the time of Inigo Jones who, in 1607, became
superintendent general of royal buildings and at the same time head of
the Masonic order in England; and he it was who instituted quarterly
gatherings instead of the old annual assemblies.

Writers not familiar with the facts often speak of Freemasonry as an
evolution from Guild-masonry, but that is to err. They were never at
any time united or the same, though working almost side by side
through several centuries. Free-masons existed in large numbers long
before any city guild of Masons was formed, and even after the Guilds
became powerful the two were entirely distinct. The Guilds, as Hallam
says,[80] "were Fraternities by voluntary compact, to relieve each
other in poverty, and to protect each other from injury. Two
essential characteristics belonged to them: the common banquet, and
the common purse. They had also, in many instances, a religious and
sometimes a secret ceremonial to knit more firml