History of Freemasonry in Belgium - 1815-1830

1815-1830

The treaty of Paris and the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars annexed Belgium to the kingdom of the Netherlands, with Belgian Freemasonry coming under Dutch instead of French influence. Some of its lodges disappeared with the end of French control, some of which were revived later. The Grand Lodge of the Netherlands (Grand Loge des Pays-Bas) formed at this time, with two administrative Grand Lodges (one for the north, known as Holland, and the other for the south, known as Belgium); the southern one included the "Bonne amitié" lodge of Namur, which was number one on the southern administrative Grand Lodge's tablet. Prince Frédéric d'Orange-Nassau became the overall lodge's Serenest Grand Master and Prince Charles-Alexandre de Gavre, a member of the "Bonne Amitié" lodge of Namur since the mid-1770s, became the southern lodge's official representative. Nevertheless, few records survive on the relations between the two administrative lodges and between the Serenest Grand Master and the various lodges, especially those in Belgium. These relations are illustrated by an episode in 1821 when the Belgian lodges suppressed the upper grades to replace them with a system of two contemporary grades to three top grades ("Élu" and "Maître Élu").

In effect, the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was formalised in 33 grades in 1801 in Charlestown, to return to France in 1804. This Rite also proved highly successful across Europe and the Americas. It was in 1817 that a supreme council of this rite would be created in Belgium, on the initiative of the "Les Amis Philantropes" lodge. In 1818 the Primitive Scottish Rite, also known as the Namur Rite, was officially constituted, with the Prince de Gavre as its Grand Master - its origins date back to the 1780s but it only ever had 4 lodges in Belgium and held its last ceremony there in 1866.

It was not only the upper grades that were practised during this era - some lodges practiced the philosophical Scottish rite, others the rectified rite, the Misraïm rite, the system of Hérédom de Kilwinning, or even the system of two upper grades put in place by prince Frédéric d'Orange-Nassau, among others the "le Septentrion" lodge in Ghent. Thus the diversity of practises in the late 18th century was carried over into the first half of the 19th century