At this time Oddfellowship seems to have consisted off the several degrees, namely The Test Degree, The Obligatory Degree The Royal Arch or Promise Degree and the Five, Seven and Nine Degree. The Royal Arch degree certainly suggests some masonic influence, The Royal Arch being one of the degrees of Freemasonry, particularly popular with the "Ancient" branch of the craft, we will learn more about this at a later date. The 18th Century was a time of political turmoil and Odd Fellowship was viewed with great suspicion by the governments of the day, in response to this the tone of Oddfellowship's ritual was made more politically acceptable by removing promises in favour of obligations.
These changes did not go down well with the American branch of Odd Fellowship who withdrew from any official relationship with the UK branches in 1817 starting their own society which has now evolved into the IOOF. In fact Oddfellowship has often been the subject and schism, the Ancient Order (The original order) split in the early 19th Century with the creation of the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows who very quickly became the leading order in England. Oddfellowship has in fact been rife with schism with dozens of "Unities" existing at one point. The Manchester Unity had three degrees namely The Making, The White and The Blue. Over the years following the orders foundation Scarlet and Gold degrees were added, in fact there is some suggestion that degrees of this name had been conducted by Odd fellows orders anyway and just formalised by the Manchester Unity. The IOOF had six degrees, Initiation, White, Covenant, Blue, Remembrance and Scarlett. The Covenant degree has striking similarities the masonic "Order of the Secret Monitor", so much so that one must have influenced the other -Notably the Oddfellow degree is some 50 years older than the first American OSM lodge.
Nearly all versions of Odd Fellowship have some kind of further degrees, the purple degree for example appears in both.
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| An extraordinary example of a "Noble Grand's" Oddfellows Robe. |
Many Odd Fellow groups had extraordinary robes and regalia, this was particularly true of the IOOF but it was not uncommon in Britain as well. There are fantastic reports from some of the smaller "Unities" of costumes of equal splendour. S
The language of the ritual of Odd fellowship is poetic and extraordinary as Fraternal rituals go. There is are a number of beautiful pieces for example this -
"So
when the last, the closing, hour draws nigh,
And earth recedes before thy swimming eye;Whilst trembling on the doubtful verge of fate,
Thou strain’st thy view to either state,
Then may’st thou quit this transitory scene
With decent triumph, and a look serene;
Then may thou fix thine ardent hopes on high,
And, having nobly lived, so nobly die."
Many Odd Fellows groups have hacked their ritual to bits not realising their value perhaps,and no doubt in an attempt to modernise. I would suggest that the changes and the move from grand costume to hardly any regalia at all is a missed trick! Perhaps this is where the future of the order lies as much as the surviving mutual funds and financial products. Even with these changes I consider Oddfellowship to be a noble set of ideals and something worth sharing.
