[35] Local illuminators
would thus speedily get hold of every novelty, and the page of the
Psalter or Bible would become, as a French writer has explained it, a
_vitrail sur velin_. If not indeed exclusively following the stained
glass, they copied the mural decorations, and so we find the backgrounds
of the miniatures, whether fitted into the initials or placed separately
in framed mouldings, faithfully reproducing the imbrications,
_carrelages_, panellings, and diapers of these mural enrichments.
[35] Governor Pownall ("Observations on the Origin and Progress of Gothic
Architecture, and on the Corporation of Freemasons," _Arch?ologia_,
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.
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