A Book of Masonic Cipher

[Kate]

This one is for you Yann, as it's in French.  From the images however, it seems we may have found another reason for the double VV on many of the frontispieces V = A in this Masonic table and therefore represents the Double AA.

It's a variation on the standard Pig Pen Cipher. I'm sure there was little distinction at the time of Bacon between French and English Masonry, it was only later when it was formalised as Freemasonry that they would slowly have begun to diverge (btw English Masons tell me that the Freemasonry of the USA is now very different in many ways - although the underlying purpose is the same).

https://archive.org/details/VuillaumeCAManuelMaconniqueOuTuileurDeTousLesRitesDeMaconneriePratiquesEnFrance1820/page/n9/mode/2up 

Editing to add this which Yann sent me from an article on the Leland Manuscript:

‘The Leland Manuscript article indicates Francis Bacon was the first Mason, and thus the originator of Freemasonry.  It puts Freemasonry in France immediately before it came to England.  And, in fact, there is evidence Freemasonry was in France while Bacon was there during the period from 1576 through 1579; moreover, this evidence connects that Freemasonry to Francis Bacon.  In 1577 one of the many editions of Alciat’s Emblems was published.  The “dies meliora” or emblem 45 in this edition is particularly interesting.   There are two interwoven series of allusions in this emblem:

https://sirbacon.org/Mather_Walker/mwLeland.html ‘

Edited July 5, 2022 by Kate