Note 35 — Chapter I

Governor Pownall (“Observations on the Origin and Progress of Gothic Architecture, and on the Corporation of Freemasons,” Archæologia, 1788, vol. 9, pp. 110-126) was of opinion that “the Collegium or Corporation of Freemasons, were the first formers of Gothic architecture into a regular and scientific order by applying the models and proportions of timber framework to building in stone,” and that this method “came into use and application about the close of the twelfth or commencement of the thirteenth century.”

See also Gould (R.F.), History of Freemasonry, vol. i. p. 259, note. “Without going so far as to agree with Governor Pownall that the Freemasons invented Gothic, it may be reasonably contended that without them it could not have been brought to perfection, and without Gothic they would not have stood in the peculiar and prominent position that they did, that there was mutual indebtedness, and while without Freemasons there would have been no Gothic...without Gothic the Freemasons would have formed but a very ordinary community of trades unionists.”