THE BUILDER, NOVEMBER 1926

The Precious Jewels
By BROS. A. L. KRESS AND R. J. MEEKREN
(Continued)

IN view of the facts brought forward in the first part of this
article [THE BUILDER, October, page 314], it begins to appear very
probable that at the revival and reorganization of Masonry two
hundred years or so ago there was a process of collection and
compilation going on in different places analogous to that, which
according to modern Biblical scholars, produced the many parallel
passages found in Old Testament history, and the more expanded and
composite accounts of ancient Hebrew legends. In our own particular
case it would seem that different versions of what were sometimes
called "jewels", and sometimes "furniture", were placed side by
side, or rather in series; and that in order to obviate the
appearance of mere duplication they were given different
interpretations; and finally in the last stages called definitely
by different names. There is no need to suppose that this was done
all at once, or by any one person, or that it was done consciously.
There is no need to suppose that anyone concerned had any other
object in view than that of attempting to elucidate difficulties
and to 'recover what they supposed to be the original meaning. To
confirm this is the fact that Prichard in his "Master's Part" makes
mention of another set of jewels, as follows:

What are the Master jewels?
The Porch, Dormer and square pavement.
Explain them.

The Porch the entering into the Sanctum Sanctorum, the dormer the
windows or lights within, the square pavement the ground flooring.

In later English printed works a parallel and almost identical
passage occurs, only prefaced by the demand:

Name the ornaments: 

and in the explanation the pavement is said to he:

. . . for the High Priest to walk on.

The curious point in this is that we here have not only the "square
pavement" which appears in all the lists of jewels now being
discussed, excepting only Prichard's, but that the two words
"Porch, Dormer" which appear in juxtaposition, resemble very
closely in sound the unexplained "Broached Dornal." It is not in
the least impossible, considering the extraordinary transmutations
that occur in an oral tradition, that we have here another attempt
at rationalization. If so, we might assume that mention of the
ashlar was in time omitted under the influence of the idea that the
jewels should be in threes. We have already seen in the case of the
Examination version that there is reason to think that three things
had been made into four through a misunderstanding, so that such a
change would have a perfect parallel.

THE TRESTLE BOARD

With the assumption that Masonry Dissected is a compilation rather
than an original document we see that Prichard appears to bear
witness also that a "square pavement" was one of the jewels of
Masonry. It is quite possible therefore that his first list was
derived from a source in which appeared the square pavement instead
of a "trasel board." What the exact derivation of "trasel" may be
is not easy to determine, but it may very well be a form of
"tressle," a common pronunciation of "trestle." The dictionaries
give us the actual form "trestle board" as meaning a drawing board
or table, which is the exact equivalent of the French planche d
tracer, which appears as early as 1745. It is now quite generally
held by the foremost Masonic students in England that early French
printed works had a great influence on the evolution of the ritual
of the Moderns, and it may be that the term "tracing board" is a
translation of the French term. Although "trasel" and "tracing"
have such a similarity in sound that it may be possible to thus
account for its adoption. However this may be, while "trestle
board" is actually a technical term of sufficient importance to be
inserted in a standard dictionary of the English language, "tracing
board," though clear enough in meaning, seems to be an artificial,
and, so to speak, a purely "speculative" technical term; although
it must be admitted that we have a very early and undoubtedly
operative use of the phrase in the Fabric Rolls of York Minster,
where in an inventory of the year 1399 ". . . ij tracyng bordes"
are mentioned. From this it does not seem at all impossible that
the term might have come down through certain lines of the Masonic
tradition, and that the French "planche a tracer" of 1745 and later
was really a literal translation of it, instead of being its origin
as has been supposed. On the other hand the "trestle board" might
in the first place have been simply the table in the lodge room
round which the officers and brethren sat when there were no
"makings", or even (as in some cases it would appear) when there
were. It is very difficult to decide, only our contention that it
was put in place of the to floor or square pavement seems probable
in any case.

The Sloane and Chetwode Crawley MSS, give no explanation of the
jewels, but as the Confession explicitly states that the pavement
was used by the Master to draw his "ground draughts" or plans on,
we will not be assuming too much in supposing that operative
Freemasons would understand this to be its use. There is not a
little evidence to show that details and plans of the different
parts of a building were thus drawn by medieval Masons. One of the
present writers has seen the same method employed by some country
stonemasons when putting up an addition to an old stone church in
Canada. The spring and plan of two arches were drawn with a chalked
line and trammels on the floor of a nearby building; and from these
drawings wooden templets were made for the angles of the different
stones. There was here no tradition of course; it was a simple way
of doing without architects' drawings--and fees. Being such an
obvious device it has doubtless been invented and reinvented
hundreds of times. But with the advent of the professional
architect and his scale drawings on the one hand, and the dying out
of the operative element in the lodges on the other, it may well
have come about that what was quite simple and straightforward
eventually came to be a difficulty, just as the term "oblong
square" exercises many good brethren today. To the non-operative a
pavement would be a "flooring" simply, a thing "to walk on," and so
a drawing board was substituted in its stead. And this
notwithstanding the fact that the diagram of the lodge with its
emblems was still being drawn on the floor of the tiled chamber
where they met. No longer by the Master, though, for in most cases
this responsible task seems to have been passed on to the Tyler of
the lodge.

In an earlier article [BUILDER, December, 1925, page 376] the
question of the possible influence of symbolism on the proportions
and plans of medieval buildings was touched upon, and reasons given
for thinking that in general purely practical considerations were
taken into account in making them. We have now to take up the
question of the technique of the operative Freemasons in order if
possible to see what significance the "square pavement" might have
had for them. The issue has been to a very considerable extent
clouded by ingenious attempts to base the plans of the buildings
erected by them upon ideal geometrical constructions, as well as by
an imaginary technique suggested by modern ritual statements and
practices.

That some buildings were planned upon an ideal geometrical figure,
such as the equilateral triangle or pentagon, is very possible, and
even probable, and it is even possible that some more or less fit
such schemes by pure coincidence; but on the whole it is the
opinion of those, who by their special knowledge are best fitted to
judge, that ancient buildings, and Gothic buildings in particular,
were planned in this respect precisely as buildings are planned
today, entirely with a view to the purposes of the structure and
the conditions of the site.

When it comes to details, such as the designs of canopy work,
panels, window tracery and the like, there is no doubt that they
are in many cases evolved out of geometric figures, of which the
equilateral triangle and the vesica piscis is the most frequently
employed. Examples are given in Figs. 1 and 2. According to
Caesarianus, (1) the facade of Milan cathedral fits into such a
triangle whose sides are divided into twelve parts. The
intersections made by lines joining these seem to give most of the
principal points in the design. Yet even so there are so many
discrepancies that it is hard to think that the architect regarded
it as an absolute canon of design.

The late W. H. Rylands, in a paper written more than thirty years
ago, quoted, apparently with approval, the attempts of Mr. Edward
Cox to show that the plans of certain buildings in the north of
England were based on the pentagon, or rather a peculiar form of
pentagram. (2) The constructions shown to demonstrate this are very
complex and do not strike one as being very convincing. Some reason
can be seen in using a symbolic plan for a church, but why it
should be applied to such a pre-eminently practical set of
buildings as a castle is very difficult to appreciate.

Bro. Sydney Klein (3) believes that the vesica piscis was the unit
of design in the best period of Gothic architecture, though he
admits that the earlier Norman work and the later perpendicular
style did not follow it. He points out that in the full
construction of the third proposition of Euclid we get two
equilateral triangles on opposite sides of the same base, which in
the accompanying diagram (Fig. 3) are designated by the letters ABC
and ABD. This gives a rhomb, or diamond, inside the vesica piscis
formed by the two intersecting arcs, which are drawn from the
centers B and A with the radius AB. If a rectangle be drawn about
this figure it is found to have some remarkable properties. In the
first place its diagonals are exactly twice the length of the
shorter sides, and in the second, if it be divided in three parts
by lines parallel to these, in the figure FG and HI, each of the
three rectangles thus formed is similar to, and possesses all the
properties of, the original one, while the length of the sides of
the triangles inscribed within them is just two-thirds of the
height of those first drawn. These secondary rectangles can of
course be themselves divided in the same way, and so on
indefinitely. The original rectangle is also divided into four by
the intersecting axes AB and CD, and each of these four are also
similar figures, and can be subdivided again into four, as shown in
the upper half of the diagram, or they can be divided into three.
And all these subdivisions can be carried on indefinitely without
any further construction other than ruling lines through the
intersections already made, as can be easily demonstrated by trial
and a little experimentation.

Thus we have a basic figure that is characterized by the ratios of
two and three, with all their multiples and combinations. If one
side of the basic rectangle be taken as a unit, it cannot only be
divided into two. three and four parts, but also into six and
twelve; so that supposing it to be a foot in length it could thus
be divided into inches. It must be acknowledged, however, that
there are simpler ways of reaching the result.

Bro. Klein seems to suggest that plans were first sketched on paper
or parchment that had thus been divided up into triangles and
rectangles, in the same way that engineers use squared paper, and
that these sketches were then enlarged to the full size by using a
larger unit. In this way, if intersections were used for the
principal points in the plan certain proportions would be
automatically obtained which would be common to all buildings so
designed. It must be admitted that it is an exceedingly attractive
hypothesis, and there is a great temptation to accept it. It seems
to offer us a clue to a real operative secret, and what is more, it
would give us an interpretation of the "diamond" as one of the
jewels of the lodge. For that being the basic figure from which all
such designs were evolved it would serve as a compendious symbol
for the technique.

As has been said above much Gothic detail is obviously based on the
equilateral triangle, but to the supposition that it was the
universal and exclusive rule there are insuperable objections. In
the first place, though the shorter sides of the basic rectangle
are in a numerical ratio to the diagonal they are incommensurable
with the longer ones, being in the ratio of one to the square foot
of three. This would cause no difficulty of course in making the
full size drawings, for the intersecting points would be at
proportional distances from each other, but when the actual work
was begun upon the stone it would need either two units of
measurement, a long and a short foot as it were, or else the
abandonment of a standard of measurement altogether, every
dimension being taken directly from the drawing ad hoc; for the
reason that horizontal measurements could only be expressed in
approximate fractions in respect to perpendiculars, or vice versa.
Neither alternative would be very convenient in practice.

Another objection, though being purely aesthetic it may not seem
perhaps of equal weight, is that to base all designs upon one set
of geometrical proportions would inevitably produce a mechanical
and monotonous effect, utterly and entirely foreign to the genius
of Gothic architecture, which above all others is distinguished by
spontaneity and freedom. For example, there are many cases where
doors and windows and the arches of the interior of the building
seem to be equilateral (there are of course many that obviously are
not) which upon measurement turn out to be just a little more or
less, but with enough difference to make it certain that it was so
intended and not merely an error in setting out the work. Such
variations show either that the builders deliberately sought to
avoid monotony for artistic reasons or else that they did not have
any rule at all and did things just as it happened; and either
supposition is fatal to the hypothesis.

But these are not the only objections that call be raised. While in
theory any set of co-ordinates will determine the position of a
given point or line, yet in practice it is far more convenient to
have them consist of straight lines perpendicular to each other,
for then all angles made by their intersections will be equal; just
as it is much more convenient to have them divided into equal parts
so that one unit of measurement will serve. Further the main lines
of a building are of necessity horizontal and perpendicular; which
is true even of a pyramid though the fact is masked by the profile;
and it is therefore in the nature of the case simpler to have the
controlling lines of the drawings, the base and center lines,
parallel to these directions. A method based on triangles must give
spaces "neither oblong nor square," or if the horizontals and
perpendiculars are put in, there will be four sets of lines instead
of only two, an unnecessary complication. Rather reluctantly
therefore we are forced to the conclusion that as an actual
technical method this hypothesis is not practical, and most
unlikely to have been employed by men, who whatever else they may
have been, were first of all and all the time very skillful
workmen.

In 1610 an order regarding rates of wages for different classes of
men mentions "a freemason which can draw his plot, work and set
accordingly." This does not tell us very much, but it is evidence
that even so late as the seventeenth century a skilled mason was
expected to be able to make his own working drawings. From Germany
we get a little more light. Articles xii and xiii of the Steinmetz
"Brother Book", speak of executing carved or proportioned work
"from the ground plan" (aus dem grund) and of "making extracts from
the ground plan." In the accompanying illustration (Fig. 4) which
is taken from the tomb of Guillaume Letellier, Master Mason of the
church at Caudebec, who died in 1484, we have the actual
representation of the ground plan of a church. In December of last
year the BUILDER reproduced an elevation of a design of one of the
bays of Cambrai cathedral [page 367] from the sketch book of
Villars de Honnecourt. The two parts of the drawing giving the
exterior and interior respectively. In the former the buttresses
have not been shown higher than the cornice of the aisle, in order
apparently not to interfere with the representation of the
clerestory window. Another design here reproduced (Fig. 5) appears
to be that of the front of a large church. This last was drawn upon
vellum that was used later for other purposes, the design being
effaced.

Though the information is by no means as full as might be desired,
yet it may be possible to deduce certain conclusions. First of all
the last fact mentioned reminds us that drawing materials were
neither plentiful nor easily obtained, and were economized as much
as possible. Then it must be remembered that though in the course
of centuries great developments took place in the style and methods
of building, still from the point of view of the individual the
change was so gradual as to be hardly observed. Everyone in the
Craft was accustomed to the style in use, all were trained in a
common tradition and skilled in a common technique. While this
might vary a little from one place to another, and still more in
different countries, yet so much would be common to all, would be
taken for granted and understood, that the need for detail drawings
such as are used today would not arise. A country carpenter even
yet needs no plans to put up a barn or a shed. His employer tells
him how long and how wide it is to be; he may make some sort of
sketch on the back of an envelope or other odd piece of paper so as
to keep them in mind, but for the rest he plans as he goes. In
somewhat the same way, in spite of the much greater complexity of
the work, we may suppose the master mason who contracted to put up
a porch or a window by "task work" needed only to get the
dimensions of the ground plan and to see the sketches of the
elevation made by the Master of the Work to make whatever working
drawings he might need to carry out his job. So long as it fitted
into the rest of the structure it was sufficient, the details were
left to him. Of course it would have been quite natural if the
Master of the Work wanted to see them, and perhaps make
suggestions, but it does not seem that he always did. For instance,
at Westminster Abbey many of the arches seem to have been let out
"to task" and different masters took contracts for them. In some
the mouldings are continued right down to the capitals of the
supporting columns, while in others a seating block is used from
which the mouldings rise. Mr. W.R. Lethaby, in Westininster Abbey
and the King's Craftsmen [p. 132], explains the difference as
follows:

If we design an arch section having deeply indented hollows and
bring two of these together, as they would be at the springing over
a capital, then the bearing surface may at this point seem
dangerously weakened.... Now a seating at the springing of the
arches will swallow up the hollows of the mouldings until the
arches have diverged far enough to be of any desired sectional
strength. That this feature is not used throughout we may explain
best by the fact that portions of the work (like so many arches)
were done by task work. Some of the masters thought this seating
desirable and others did not.

The King's Mason in charge of this work apparently did not care
which way it was done. And this devolution of design doubtless
often went further still. The journeymen working for the
contracting master might be left to fill in the minor details of
the work actually done by them.

A Gothic church was in a way very like a living organism. Given
certain principal dimensions the rest of the design followed in its
main lines by a sort of inner necessity. Not that it was done by
any rule or formula, still it always kept within certain limits. It
is quite possible that such a sketch as that reproduced in Fig. 5
was all that was required, even in the case of important buildings.
Many craftsmen may well have been able to cut the stone for a
pillar or an arch with nothing more to guide them than the chief
measurements of height, width and thickness of the wall. An
existing contracts seems to show that this was still true even so
late as 1630. In it Thomas Bates agrees to build a "chapell in the
Chirch Yarde of Ste Marie on the hill." It was really an addition
to the church and built against the south side of the chancel. It
was to be

. . . eighteen feet wide withenne the walls and as high as hit
nedes resonably to be with V faire and clenely wroght windows at
the Est end with iiii lightes, iii windows on the south side each
one of three lightes, and on the west side in the best way to be
devised and iiii botras [buttresses] on the south side with a great
arch in the west end. And the chapell to be battlet [battlemented]
above like to the little closet in the Castel of Chester with a
corbyl table longying thereto and at eyther end iii honest fynials
. . . and the aforesaid Thomass shall by ov'sight of Maester John
Asser make the chapell and althings longen thereto in masoncraft
honestly.

"Maester John Asser" evidently acted as supervising architect on
behalf of the employer, but Thomas was to do the work with no more
guidance apparently than the few specifications mentioned in the
contract.

NOTES

(1) Quoted by Bro. S. Klein from Hawkins Gothic Architecture.
A.Q.C. XXIII, 119.
(2) A.Q.C. VIII, 91.
(3) A.Q.C. XXIII, 116 et seq.
(4) Gould, History of Freemasonry. Chap. III.
(5) Bro. J. Walter Hobbs in Transactions of the Merseyside
Association for Masonic Research, 1923-24, page 36.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. In what ways has Masonic ritual phraseology led to
misinterpretations of operative technique?
2. Supposing buildings to have been planned on some geometrical or
symbolical figure, what may the purpose of the designer presumably
have been?
3. To what extent did ancient buildings actually conform to an
ideal plan, geometrical or symbolical?

