The Origin of the MB Word in Freemasonry: History, Variants, and Interpretations

The MB Word in Freemasonry is one of the oldest and most enigmatic elements of the Master Mason degree. It appears very early in the manuscript tradition, often in obscure or inconsistent forms whose origins remain debated. Today, the MB Word is linked to the legend of Hiram, but was this association truly original? Long before Hiram, other narratives circulated and other symbolic logics were at work. To trace the history of the MB Word in Freemasonry is to return to the earliest known rituals and to examine what, as early as the seventeenth century, gave meaning to a word that would later become central.

The First Occurrence of the MB Word in Freemasonry: What Does the Sloane Manuscript Reveal?

The earliest known reference to an MB Word appears in Sloane Manuscript No. 3329, dated around 1700 but sometimes regarded—particularly by the Reverend Woodford, who published it in 1872—as a copy of a much older document, perhaps earlier than 1640. The text stands at the crossroads of two worlds: it refers to operative Freemasons, suggesting an English origin, yet it also employs typically Scottish terminology such as the titles of Apprentices and Fellows (Interprintices and Fellow craftes) and the Words J and B. Everything points to a direct influence from the Scottish Mason Word tradition. 

Facsimile of Sloane Manuscript No. 3329 (c. 1700), one of the earliest documents mentioning a word reserved for Master Masons. A key witness to the transition from the Scottish Mason Word tradition to early English Speculative Masonry.

It is within this hybrid context that a word reserved for Masters appears, transmitted through an attouchement that closely resembles what would later become the Five Points of Fellowship. This word is Mahabyn, offered without explanation. While byn means nothing in Early Modern English, it is attested in Scots English with the sense of “bone”. The Scottish origin of the term is thus suggested, though the first element, maha, remains obscure. At this stage, we are faced with a linguistic and ritual enigma whose keys will only appear later.

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How Does the MB Word Evolve Between 1710 and 1730?

Between 1710 and 1730, manuscripts and exposures present a series of variants of the MB Word that help clarify the earlier Mahabyn of the Sloane manuscript. The Trinity College Manuscript (1711) records Matchpin; A Mason’s Examination (1723) gives Maughbin; The Whole Institutions of Free-masons Opened (1725) mentions Magboe; and finally, Pritchard’s Masonry Dissected (1730) establishes for the Moderns the now-familiar form Machbenah, interpreted as “the Architect is struck”, directly connected with the legend of Hiram. 

But it is the Graham Manuscript (1726) that offers the crucial clue: it does not give the word itself but explains it through the enigmatic phrase “marrow in this bone”. This link between marrow and bone—absent from the Hiramic context—points to an older narrative and already signals the Noachite foundation of the earliest MB Word.

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Does the MB Word Truly Refer to a “Bone”?

The decisive clue provided by the Graham Manuscript—“marrow in this bone”—confirms that the second element of the earliest MB Word, byn, corresponds to “bone” in Scots English, where the term appears in various spellings (ban, bane, bin, byn). The later evolution toward Mahabone or Moabon only strengthens this interpretation. 

What remains to be understood is the first syllable, maha, entirely foreign to Early Modern English and still unexplained at this stage.

Does Scots English Clarify the First Syllable of the MB Word?

Yes it does. The form Maughbin, attested in A Mason’s Examination (1723), provides an essential key. In Scots English, maugh (or moach, moch) denotes something damp, macerated, fermenting, or in a state of decay. It is a term used to describe degraded organic matter, sometimes unpleasant in smell. This nuance corresponds directly to the scene in the Graham Manuscript, in which the sons of Noah find their father’s body in an advanced state of decomposition. 

Noah and his sons building the Ark. Nineteenth-century chromolithograph (Aurea Bibbia classica, Giovanni Ladislao Sykora). The Noachic imagery echoes the symbolic background of the earliest MB word.

Thus, maugh does not refer to the marrow itself, but to the condition of the body in which it is discovered—a crucial detail of the Noachite narrative.

Does the MB Word Contain a Hebrew Root Referring to Marrow?

Very likely. Scots English alone cannot account for the explicit link between the word and the phrase in the Graham Manuscript. A Hebrew term corresponds precisely: מֹחַ (moaḥ), meaning “marrow”. The Graham speaks specifically of marrow, and a seventeenth-century Scot, unfamiliar with Semitic gutturals, would naturally render the final ḥ as a sound approaching gh, ch, or och, which leads directly to maugh / moach / moch. 

In this way, Maughbin clearly brings together the following elements: the marrow (moaḥ in Hebrew), the bone (byn in Scots English), and the state of decay (maugh in Scots English). The earliest MB Word thus appears as a bilingual construction, formed from Biblical Hebrew and Scots English, in a context where Scottish Protestant ministers—often trained in Hebrew—played an active role in the Mason Word tradition.

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Do MATCHPIN and MAGBOE Contradict This Interpretation?

The variants Matchpin (Trinity College Manuscript, 1711) and Magboe (The Whole Institutions of Free-masons Opened, 1725) do not undermine the hypothesis of an original MB Word based on Maughbin/Mahabyn. They appear instead to be distortions arising from a transmission that was both oral and written, shaped by differing linguistic environments. 

In the case of Matchpin, all evidence points to a phonetic deformation of Maughbin. The guttural ch sound common in Scots English does not exist in Early Modern English and tends to become tch when an English speaker attempts to reproduce it, thereby altering the structure of the word. 

Furthermore, the ending -bin can easily shift to -pin, since the affricate tch combines more naturally with a voiceless stop (p) than with a voiced one (b). An English listener pronouncing Maughbin quickly might therefore hear—and transcribe—Matchpin, without any awareness of its original formation. 

As for Magboe, the shift is even more straightforward: maha can plausibly become mag, especially if an intermediate form such as Maughbone circulated; boe may be a direct deformation of bone or the result of imperfect articulation; and a non-Mason printer, copying from a poorly deciphered manuscript, could easily omit a letter, notably the final n of bone. 

Thus, Matchpin and Magboe do not indicate the existence of a competing MB Word; rather, they confirm the diffusion of a Scottish-derived term that was difficult for English scribes to pronounce and to reproduce consistently.

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What Was the Earliest Form of the MB Word, and How Does It Relate to the Origins of the Master Mason Degree?

The earliest form of the MB Word appears to have been Mahabyn/Maughbin, emerging from the Scottish milieu of the Mason Word. The Sloane manuscript provides its earliest attestation, while the Graham manuscript offers the interpretive key (“marrow in this bone”) that clarifies its original, distinctly Noachite meaning. Both documents show that elements of Scottish ritual and terminology had already permeated English Freemasonry. 

This convergence suggests that a primitive form of the Master degree—based not on Hiram but on Noah—may have circulated in Scotland prior to the London-based structuring of the early eighteenth century. We know nothing of its precise ritual form, but the existence of a distinct word for Masters, predating Machbenah, strongly supports the idea of such a degree, perhaps reserved for a limited number of brethren. 

The scarcity of sources is easily explained: seventeenth-century Scottish Masonry left no manuscripts before 1696—the Edinburgh Register House Manuscript, followed around 1700 by the Chetwode Crawley Manuscript, whose contents are nearly identical and neither of which mentions a third degree. 

The documentary silence does not disprove the existence of such a degree; it simply reflects the overwhelmingly oral nature of seventeenth-century Masonry and the strict respect for the sworn secrecy of the craft. A hypothetical third degree conferred only on a restricted circle of brethren had virtually no chance of leaving written traces.

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Why Did the Moderns’ Word MACHBENAH Prevail in the Eighteenth Century?

The Moderns’ Machbenah appears for the first time in Samuel Pritchard’s exposure Masonry Dissected (1730). It is interpreted as meaning “He is struck, the Architect,” and is embedded in an entirely new narrative: the Hiramic legend, staged around the murder of the Master and the search for his body by nine Masters. Nothing suggests that this legend existed before the 1720s; it is absent from all earlier manuscripts. 

Several elements show that this new MB Word marks a rupture with Mahabyn/Maughbin. The explicit reference to a murder redirects the degree toward a moral and symbolic reading: Hiram becomes the one who keeps his secret unto death, while his Assassins embody human passions. This dramatic construction contrasts sharply with the Noachite legend, where death is neither crime nor punishment but a simple human occurrence, associated with a more universal secret. 

Yet the structure of the new degree preserves clear reminiscences of the earlier model: the breaking of the joints, the raising by the Five Points of Fellowship, the adoption of an MB Word, and the choice of the first utterance spoken upon the discovery of the body. These parallels show that the Moderns did not create their system ex nihilo; they reorganised older ritual elements around a newly invented narrative frame. 

Machbenah prevailed precisely because it suited this new Hiramic story, aligned with the Moderns’ desire to establish a three-degree system with a coherent moral, dramatic and symbolic progression. The Word became the signature of that refounding.

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Where Does the Hiramic Legend Come From, and Why Did It Require a New MB Word?

The Hiramic legend, in the form known today, appears to have been developed by the Moderns in the 1720s–1730s. No earlier manuscript mentions it, and it does not belong to the Scottish tradition of the Mason Word. Yet the notion of a murdered master-builder is not entirely new: in the lore of operative builders, one already finds narratives in which the chief craftsman meets a tragic end, such as the story of Maître Jacques in the French Compagnonnage. Such legendary material may have provided a narrative matrix. 

Introducing this story profoundly reshaped the Master degree. The secret being transmitted was no longer that of a founding patriarch (Noah) but that of a master-builder embodying fidelity to an inner law. Hiram’s murder gives the degree a stronger moral dimension: the passions that strike down the Master become the very forces the Mason must learn to master within himself, while the search for the lost Word assumes a more introspective meaning.

Reception of a Master Mason. Eighteenth-century engraving depicting a traditional scene of the third degree in early Masonic catechisms.

This shift in perspective required a new MB Word. The term inherited from the Noachite narrative—Mahabyn/Maughbin—suited neither the dramatic tone nor the symbolic logic of the Hiramic story, which emphasises violence, rupture and the quest for a buried utterance. Machbenah expressed this dynamic more fittingly: a darker, more forceful word, crafted to comment on the central event of the legend, and whose sound pattern preserved the traditional MB structure. 

Thus, the emergence of the Hiramic narrative was not a mere innovation; it demanded a full recomposition of the symbolism of the third degree, with the change of MB Word standing as its most visible marker.

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How Did the Antients Respond to the Moderns’ New MB Word?

When the Antients founded their Grand Lodge in 1753, they accused the Moderns of having altered the original rituals and of introducing a Master Mason degree they considered inauthentic. It is unlikely, however, that their criticism targeted the very idea of a third degree: the presence of a Word reserved for Masters in manuscripts predating 1730 shows that such a distinction already existed. What the Antients objected to was the new dramatic structure created by the Moderns, and above all the MB Word associated with that narrative. 

Rather than adopting Machbenah, they retained or revived a much older form: Mahabone, inherited from the Scottish variants of the Master’s Word. This choice was not merely terminological; it signalled a desire to align themselves with what they regarded as a more ancient tradition, truer to the spirit of the early speculative Masons. 

Yet the boundary between the two systems was not entirely impermeable. Many rituals show that the Moderns still recognised the idea of the “bone”—inherited from Mahabyn/Maughbin—and that this symbolism did not disappear altogether: Machbenah was sometimes interpreted as “the flesh leaves the bones.” Likewise, the 1738 edition of Anderson’s Constitutions, more overtly theistic than the 1723 edition, explicitly placed Freemasonry under the figure of Noah and described Freemasons as “true Noachidae.” 

These traces reveal that even among the Moderns, the memory of the earlier tradition was not fully erased. The debate between Antients and Moderns was therefore not merely a dispute over words; it expressed a deeper tension between two foundational narratives—Noah or Hiram—and two conceptions of the Masonic secret.

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Conclusion: What Remains of the Noachite Tradition in the MB Word?

When Mahabone became established in English usage during the nineteenth century, it did not simply replace Machbenah: it quietly reintroduced part of the earlier tradition. The Hiramic framework remained dominant, yet the vocabulary of the first MB Word—built around the bone, the marrow and the degraded body—continued to surface as the lingering trace of an older Noachite reading. 

This subterranean memory appears less in the symbolic degrees than in certain higher degrees, where Noah remains associated with a primordial secret distinct from that of Hiram. Freemasonry thus inherits two symbolic strata: one Hiramic, now predominant; the other Noachite, more archaic but never wholly erased. 

The history of the MB Word bears witness to this layering. It shows how a new tradition can prevail without extinguishing the former, and how a single ritual structure can, from one period to another, accommodate different meanings without losing its inner continuity.

By Ion Rajolescu, Editor-in-Chief of Nos Colonnes — dedicated to a Masonic voice that is just, rigorous, and alive

To further explore the Noachite tradition, discover our Royal Ark Mariner collection.

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Read the full transcript of the podcast here for those who prefer reading or want more detail.

Podcast – The Origin of the MB Word in Freemasonry 

There is, within Freemasonry, a singular word. An old word, reserved for the Master Mason degree, known today under several forms: Mahabyn, Maughbin, Mahabone… the MB Word. It is often associated with the legend of Hiram, yet when we return to the earliest manuscripts, we encounter a very different story—older, more obscure, and in a certain sense, more fundamental.

It begins with the Sloane Manuscript No. 3329, around seventeen hundred. It mentions a word for Masters: Mahabyn. No explanation. No narrative. Simply a word, transmitted through an early form of what will later become the Five Points of Fellowship. And this word does not yet refer to Hiram, but to an older Scottish tradition: the Mason Word. Another manuscript, the Graham Manuscript of seventeen twenty-six, provides the key. It recounts a strange scene: the sons of Noah discovering the decomposed body of their father. They attempt to raise him. The joints come apart. And one of them exclaims: “There is marrow in this bone.” The phrase seems simple, but it is decisive. In Mahabyn, the second element, byn, means “bone” in Scots English. And the first may derive from the Hebrew moaḥ, “marrow”, pronounced with a Scottish guttural: maugh, moach, moch. The earliest MB Word therefore brings together two elements of the Noah legend: the marrow, and the bone.

Between seventeen ten and seventeen thirty, several variants appear: Matchpin, Maughbin, Magboe. They do not reflect a separate tradition. They reveal the distortions that occur when Scottish gutturals pass through the ears and the writing of English scribes: a guttural becomes an affricate, bin becomes pin, bone becomes boe. Nothing suggests a competing word. Everything points to a Scottish word imperfectly heard.

If this word existed, was there a Master Mason degree before the Hiramic reform? Possibly. We know nothing of its ritual form, but the existence of a specific word for Masters, predating the Moderns’ innovation, suggests an early degree, perhaps known only to a limited circle. Scottish sources are scarce. No manuscript of the Mason Word appears before sixteen ninety-six, with the Edinburgh Register House Manuscript, followed by the Chetwode Crawley Manuscript. Neither mentions a third degree. Yet this silence proves nothing: seventeenth-century Masonry was an oral culture, deeply faithful to its oath of secrecy. A restricted degree would have left almost no trace.

Then come the Moderns. In Masonry Dissected, in seventeen thirty, a new word appears: MACHBENAH. It corresponds to a new narrative: the legend of Hiram, centred on the murder of the Master Builder and the search for the Lost Word. The dramaturgy changes. The moral emphasis grows. And the word itself changes. The Antients, a generation later, reject this innovation—not the idea of a third degree, but the Moderns’ Hiramic version. They retain Mahabone, which they regard as the older form. Two traditions now coexist: one Noahite, one Hiramic.

When the two currents unite in the early nineteenth century, Mahabone becomes standard. Yet it does not entirely erase the memory of the first word. Its etymology, its sound, its symbolic texture continue to carry, quietly, the trace of an earlier layer. It survives in certain higher degrees, in the figure of Noah, and in symbols linked to the bone and the marrow. The history of the MB Word is not the history of a replacement. It is the history of a superimposition. Two narratives, two symbolic strata, two ways of expressing the same mystery: what is lost, what is transmitted, and what endures—even when the words themselves change.