THE EARLIEST USE OF THE WORD 'FREEMASON'

It is commonly assumed that the stonemasons of the middle ages are obscure, anonymous people who have escaped the historical record, but medieval administrative records, such as building accounts, contain an enormous amount of information about stonemasons and their craft. For example, the journal of the clerk of the works at Eton for 1444-5 records the name of every stonemason, carpenter, dauber, smith and labourer employed on the works, and gives details of the hours worked by each man. These records are usually in Latin or French. The general Latin terms used for stonemasons were cementarius or lathomus. The French word masoun, usually spelt mazon, first appears in the twelfth century. There were many different grades and specialisms among the stonemasons, and these were described either by qualifying the general word for stonemason, so that the Eton records refer to lathomos vocati hardehewers (the stonemasons known as hardhewers), or by the use of specialist words, such as the Latin cubitores for cutters or imaginatores for ...... ==> http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/prescott02.html