The Masonic Book Club, Vol. 1

THE OLDEST EXTANT DOCUMENT in the world with direct Masonic significance is the poem known as The Regius Poem, sometimes described as the Regius Manuscript or the Halliwell Manuscript. It is believed to have been written around the year 1390; and as indicated in line 143 of the Poem itself, it is believed to have been copied from an older document. The tide "Regius" attached to the document is the result of the fact that it was part of the Royal Library commenced by Henry VII and which was presented to the British Museum by George II in the year 1757. The book is four by five and one-half inches, and is written on thirty three folios of vellum. It was bound for George II in 1757, before presentation to the Museum. It was rebound in its present form in 1838, probably after Halliwell's discovery of its unique importance. The item was buried in the archives of the British Museum under the title "A Poem of Moral Duties" and was unknown to Freemasons for its Masonic connotations until it was discovered by James O. Halliwell, a non-Mason, in the year 1838. James O. Halliwell-Phillips (he added the name "Phillips" in 1872), was an English antiquarian, librarian and Shakespearean scholar. For years, as librarian of Jesus College, Cambridge University, he concentrated on the writings of Camden, Percy, and Shakespeare, and collected many of their works. Some of his literary works were:-Nursery Rhymes of England; Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words; and Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. The Regius Poem at one time apparently belonged to a John Thomas, since he had his name written in it twice. It apparently came out of Gloucestershire, through Ann Hart Theyer, the grandmother of the first known owner of record, John Theyer, an antiquarian, who died in 1673. After his death, his library was offered to Bodley Library at Oxford, but although Bodley's librarian, Edward Barnard, went to see the Theyer Library, and even went so far as to catalogue it, (The Regius Poem being No. 146 in his inventory), Oxford University did not purchase the Theyer collection.