Claude Antoine Thory

Claude-Antoine Thory (26 May 1759 – 22 October 1827) was a French court official, naturalist, collector and historian of Free-Masonry in France. Active in Parisian Free-Masonry from the 1780s into the nineteenth century, he became closely associated with the lodge Saint-Alexandre d'Écosse, the Mère Loge Écossaise de France and the Rite Écossais Philosophique.

Thory is particularly known for two early works of Masonic historiography: Annales originis magni Galliarum O. : ou Histoire de la fondation du Grand Orient de France, published in 1812, and the two-volume Acta Latomorum, published in 1815. His writings drew on printed works, lodge records, correspondence and private Masonic collections, some of which were subsequently dispersed.

Outside Free-Masonry, Thory was a recognised amateur botanist specialising in roses. He wrote the botanical text accompanying Pierre-Joseph Redouté's celebrated three-volume Les Roses, published between 1817 and 1824, and produced several independent botanical works on the genus Rosa.

Early life and legal career

Claude-Antoine Thory was born in Paris on 26 May 1759 and was baptised on 28 May. His date of birth is established by archival research based on documentation produced when he entered the judicial administration of the Châtelet.

Thory completed legal studies and was described in contemporary Masonic records as an avocat en parlement. Specialist archival research indicates, however, that he did not practise as an advocate before the Parlement of Paris and that his name does not appear in the rolls of its bar.

In 1806, the activities associated with Saint-Alexandre d'Écosse and Le Contrat Social were brought together under the name Saint-Alexandre d'Écosse et le Contrat Social Réunis, with Thory serving as Venerable Master.

The book attempted to trace the institutional history of the French Grand Lodge and the conflicts and reorganisations which culminated in the establishment of the Grand Orient de France in 1773. It also contained appendices reproducing or discussing documents relating to French lodges, additional grades and Masonic systems.

The work remains an important early source for the history of French Free-Masonry, but its assertions are generally compared by modern historians with surviving eighteenth-century archives and later scholarship.

In the third appendix to his 1812 history, Thory reproduced the Latin text of the alleged patent and a French translation and devoted an extended discussion to challenging its authenticity.

Published in two volumes, the work attempted to establish a chronological record of events in French and foreign Free-Masonry through 1814.

It included information concerning:

Grand Lodges and Grand Masters; French and foreign Masonic rites; systems of additional grades; the Strict Observance; the Élus Coëns; the Philalèthes; the Rite Écossais Philosophique; lodge and chapter foundations; Masonic legislation and prohibitions; Cagliostro and related controversies; and a bibliography of Masonic publications.

Because Thory had access to private and institutional collections that were later dispersed, the Acta Latomorum became an important documentary source for later Masonic historians.

The translation formed part of Thory's broader effort to make foreign Masonic historical material available to a French-speaking readership.