The Most Excellent Master Degree is a product of American innovation. The earliest record of conferral dates back to 1783 in a Royal Arch Chapter in Middletown, Connecticut. It dramatizes the historical incidents of the completion and dedication of the First Temple of Jerusalem, and why King Solomon, instead of his father King David, was chosen to build the Temple.

Essentially, the Past Master Degree was the first of the Capitular Degrees and dates back to 1768 in England. It was originally designed to be conferred in a Symbolic Lodge on an actual Past Master to qualify the candidate for admission to the Holy Royal Arch. However, the restriction proved difficult to maintain, and because the degrees from Entered Apprentice to Royal Arch were conferred in the Craft Lodges, it prevented many worthy Brethren from receiving the light of all the degrees of Freemasonry.

The Mark Master Degree is believed to have originated as a ceremony of registering an individual mark which distinguished the accomplished skill of a master craftsman from that on operative apprentice. Some scholars suggest it may be one of the earliest forms of an operative ritual, which has since developed into the rite of Masonic degrees. In the York Rite (though it wasn’t always this way), the Mark Master is the first of the Capitular degrees.