Unlike other craft guilds of the time, stonemasons often had to travel to where major building projects were located, leading to the development of systems for recognizing qualified craftsmen from different regions.
The term "lodge" originally referred to temporary workshops or shelters at building sites where stonemasons would work, store tools, and sometimes live.
[1][4] The earliest documented reference to the Mason's Word appears in Henry Adamson's poem "The Muses Threnodie," published in Edinburgh in 1638.
In a dialogue between characters named Gall and Ruthven discussing the rebuilding of the River Tay bridge, the following passage appears: For what we do presage is not in grosse, For we be brethren of the Rosie Crosse, We have the Mason Word and second sight,
[1] This gradual transformation culminated in the formation of the Premier Grand Lodge of England in 1717, marking the formal beginning of modern speculative Freemasonry.