THE DOUBLE HEADED EAGLE OF LAGASH

By Ill. Bro. John V. Lawer, 33°, PSGC
Copied from his article on the Symbols of the Scottish Rite
as printed in the 2011 Edition of the Clarion

The double headed eagle has an ancient lineage. Known then as the storm bird, it was the symbol of power of the great Sumerian city of Lagash on the Tigris River five thousand years ago. It has been said that no heraldic bearing, no emblematic device anywhere today can boast such antiquity.

As empires rose and fell the symbol followed the conquerors north and west through Mesopotamia to the men of Akkad and to Babylon, and, with the Hittites into Anatolia, where it became the standard of the Seljuk Turks with the crowning of Tugrul Beg at Mosul in 1058 as King of the East and the West. In the Roman Empire the consul Marius, shortly before the birth of Christ, consecrated the eagle to be the sole standard at the head of every legion, and thus it became the symbol of Roman imperial power.

The single eagle remained the symbol of the Empire for several centuries after the de facto division of the Empire into an eastern and western Roman Empire following the dedication, on May 11, 330, of its eastern capital named in honour of its founder, the Emperor Constantine the Great, and the later defeat of the last of the Emperors in the West, Romulus Augustulus at Ravenna in 476.

Indeed, it remained so even after the Papacy claimed to revive the Western Empire when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as Emperor, at Rome, on Christmas Day in the year 800.

In the Eastern Empire it was the Emperor Isaacius Comnenus, who was born in Paphlagonia in Asia Minor, who first adopted the double headed eagle as the symbol of empire, and it is interesting to note that he did so at almost the same time as the Seljuk Turks adopted it at Mosul. It was the conquest of Palestine by the Seljuk Turks and their harassment of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land which led to the Crusades.

It has been said that it was the Crusaders who introduced the double headed eagle into Western Europe. If they did not see it in battle with the Turks they certainly would have seen it with their complicity in the Venetian-Papal scheme which diverted the Fourth Crusade to the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

After the recapture of Constantinople in 1261 by the Emperor Michael VIII Paliologos, with the aid of the Genoese, the double headed eagle was restored as the symbol of the Byzantine royal family and state until the City and Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mohammed II in 1453.

From 1472, when Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow, married Sophia Paliologo, niece of the last Byzantine Emperor, the double headed eagle became the symbol of the “Third Rome,” and subsequently of the Russian Empire from 1721 to 1917. Today it is the Coat of Arms of the Russian Federation.

In the West a claim to the right to display the double headed eagle of Byzantium was made as early as 972 upon the marriage of the Emperor Otto 1 with the niece of the Byzantine Emperor Ionnis Tzimiskes. From about the middle of the thirteenth century it became the arms of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Following the dissolution of the Empire by Napoleon in 1806 its use was perpetuated by Austria.

The double headed eagle was probably first introduced into Freemasonry in 1763 when a Body calling itself the Council of the Emperors of the East West was established in Paris.

The appendix to the traditional history of the Scottish Rite, as set forth in the Grand Constitutions of 1786, by whomsoever and wherever they were written, said to have been promulgated in the name and in the presence of Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia, on May 1 of that year, describes the Standard of the Order as bearing a double headed eagle surmounted by the Golden Crown of Prussia.

Despite the fact that the Prussian eagle was a single eagle facing left and that Frederick II did not have it in his power to confer the double headed eagle, - indeed, he had spent most of his life fighting the two empires - Austria and Russia, both of which claimed the double headed eagle as their own, and that some Supreme Councils, - such as England and Wales, - simply refer to it as a Crown, the Supreme Council of Canada has seen fit to retain the reference to the double headed eagle and the Golden Prussian Crown, content to recognize Frederick the Great as the traditional patron of the Scottish Rite.

The Symbol of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of Canada is a double headed eagle, its wings displayed, ensigned of a Prussian crown, perched on a sword fessway Argent, hilt and pommel to the dexter. From the sword is draped a scroll bearing the motto “Deus Meumque Jus.”

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of Canada
The Official Double Headed Eagles of AASR of Canada

The Symbol of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of Canada is a double-headed eagle, its wings displayed uplifted, surmounted by a Prussian crown, perched on a sword fessways Argent, hilt and pommel to the dexter. From the sword is draped a scroll bearing the motto: "DEUS MEUMQUE JUS".
*Note: This symbol represents the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of Canada. Each of the three bodies have their own symbol and the Supreme Council 33° exclusive symbol is below.