The Order of the Pug

In 1738, Pope Clement XII banned Roman Catholics from joining the Freemasons, on pain of excommunication. Two years later, Clemens August of Bavaria — Elector of Cologne, and not a man inclined to be told what clubs he could join — is believed to have founded a workaround: the Mops-Orden, the Order of the Pug.

Why a pug?

In courtly society the pug was the emblem of loyalty, trustworthiness and steadfastness — the virtues the Order wanted in its members. The pug had another advantage: nobody takes a pug seriously, which is exactly what you want in a secret society's cover.

The rites

Members called themselves Mops — German for pugs — and carried a silver pug medallion, worn discreetly. The Order's insignia was a collar with bells, of the kind you see on the dogs throughout this collection. Novices were initiated wearing a dog collar of their own: they scratched at the lodge door to be admitted, were blindfolded, and led nine times around a carpet of symbols while the assembled Pugs barked loudly to test their steadiness — shouting memento mori, "remember you must die." As a final act of devotion, the novice kissed a porcelain pug beneath its tail.

Ahead of its time, briefly

The Order was, for its era, quietly radical: it admitted women as full members, provided they were Catholic. Each lodge had two masters — the "Grand Pugs" — one man and one woman, taking turns in charge.

The fall

In 1745 a tell-all book published in Amsterdam exposed the rituals, complete with engravings (one of them is design No. 8 in this collection). In 1748 the University of Göttingen banned its student lodge, and the Order faded — though reports place a lodge still meeting in Lyon as late as 1902. Meissen's porcelain workshops, meanwhile, produced pug figurines for members and admirers alike; the belled pug on a lady's lap became one of the most charming objects of the century.

This shop

Order of the Pugs is a small act of loyalty of our own: the dogs of the Order, and of the artists who loved them — Hogarth, Goya, de Dreux — printed on shirts, each framed like the museum piece it is. Scratch at the door below to join.