The Masonic Apron: Meaning, History, and the Degrees

The Masonic apron is the badge of a Mason, and its plain white lambskin is an emblem of purity and innocence. It is presented to every candidate during his first degree, before any other working tool or symbol, and the lambskin is chosen with intent: the lamb has stood for purity across the ages, and the apron lecture given at the presentation calls the badge ‘more ancient than the Golden Fleece or Roman Eagle’, and more honorable than any order of knighthood. A Mason is taught to value it not for its cost, which is nothing, but for what it represents, which is everything the Craft asks of him.

The apron also carries the dignity of labor. Where a king or a knight wore a badge of rank, the Mason wears the badge of a working tradesman, a reminder that the worth of a man lies in what he builds and not in what he is given. For many members it remains the most personal of the Masonic symbols, and the same lambskin badge, with the same meaning, is worn in mainstream and Prince Hall lodges alike.

The Masonic apron descends directly from the working apron of the operative stonemason. The medieval mason wore a long, heavy apron of animal skin to guard his clothing and body from chips of stone, and it reached from the chest to below the knee, its bib often buttoned up at the top. When Freemasonry passed from an operative craft to a speculative one in the early 1700s, the apron came with it, but over the following century it shrank, lost its protective purpose, and took on ornament instead.

Surviving aprons from the late 1700s and early 1800s, including examples associated with George Washington, are often hand-painted or embroidered with emblems and bear little resemblance to the plain badge of today, since each was an individual work. Much of the modern uniformity dates from the union of the two rival English grand lodges in 1813, after which the United Grand Lodge of England set out standard patterns. Those patterns shaped the aprons of the jurisdictions that followed the English model, while others, the American grand lodges chief among them, went a plainer way.

How far the apron changes from one degree to the next is the point on which jurisdictions differ most. The most fully developed system belongs to the English constitution and the lodges around the world that follow it, where each of the three Craft degrees has its own distinct apron. The progression there is exact.

Under that English pattern, the Entered Apprentice receives a plain white lambskin apron of about fourteen by sixteen inches, with no ornament and the triangular flap worn up. On passing to the Fellowcraft degree, two sky-blue rosettes are added at the lower corners and the flap is turned down, marking his progress. On being raised a Master Mason, a third rosette is added on the flap, and the apron gains a sky-blue lining and edging, silver tassels, and a serpent-shaped clasp. The three rosettes set in a triangle are explained in the English lectures as a reminder of the three who rule a lodge and of the three degrees themselves, though the ornament was almost certainly adopted first to tell the grades of members apart.

In most American lodges the custom is plainer, and this is the difference a traveler notices first. Rather than a separate apron for each degree, many United States jurisdictions use a single plain white lambskin apron throughout the Craft degrees, and the degree is shown by how the apron is worn, with the flap up for the Entered Apprentice and down thereafter, rather than by rosettes or colored edging. A Master Mason taking his place on the sidelines most often wears a plain white apron, frequently a simple cloth one kept at the lodge. Yet the American picture is not uniform either: some grand lodges do follow the rosette-and-edging progression, some permit more ornament on a Master Mason apron than others, and many reserve particular colors, often purple and gold, for grand lodge use alone. The safe rule in any jurisdiction is the local one.

Beyond the three Craft degrees, the apron becomes a mark of office and of further rank. The officers of a lodge wear aprons carrying the jewel of their station, the square for the Worshipful Master, the level for the Senior Warden, the plumb for the Junior Warden, so that a visitor can read the offices of a lodge from across the room. A Past Master, one who has served as the elected head of his lodge, wears a distinct apron: in many American jurisdictions it carries gold edging in place of blue, with the square and compasses and emblems such as the sun, the all-seeing eye, and the 47th problem of Euclid, while under the English constitution the three rosettes are replaced by three small levels, or taus.

Higher still, grand lodge officers wear aprons heavy with gold embroidery and the emblems of their office, often larger than a private member’s and worked in garter blue and gold. The appendant bodies keep their own aprons as well: a companion of the Royal Arch wears an apron trimmed in red and bearing the triple tau, and a member of the Scottish Rite may wear one charged with the double-headed eagle of his degree. None of these is interchangeable with a Craft apron, and each belongs only to the body whose work it serves.

The apron is worn over the clothing, fastened at the waist by a belt or cord so the body of it lies flat against the front. The position of the triangular flap is the oldest signal it carries: worn up, with the point raised over the bib, it marks the Entered Apprentice, who stands at the beginning of his work; worn down, it marks the Fellowcraft and the Master Mason. In the American lodges that keep a single apron, this turn of the flap is the chief way a member’s degree is shown.

An apron is worn at every degree and at the stated meetings of a lodge, and it follows a Mason to the end. At a Masonic funeral the white lambskin apron is laid with or upon the casket as an emblem of the pure and spotless life the brother is hoped to have led. One point of etiquette holds everywhere: a Mason wears the apron of his own degree and office and no higher, and to wear an apron above one’s standing is a plain breach of Masonic manners. A man who wishes to wear the badge honestly earns it, by the path our guide to how to become a Freemason describes.