Why were these books published, and what kind of architectural style did they illustrate? Did they bring before the eye of the designer masterpieces of Gothic architecture, or details of Gothic work? Not at all: no book illustrating Gothic architecture was published till the end of the eighteenth century.[1] There was, in truth, no need for such a book: the mediæval workmen had their own traditional knowledge, and it concerned them not at all to learn how the workmen in Germany or southern France or Spain differed in method from themselves. They gave no thought to such matters, nor did they think of themselves as being concerned with architecture; they merely built in the manner of their fathers. But although the successors of the mediæval craftsmen in the mid-sixteenth century shared their predecessors’ apathy in respect of what was being done abroad, it was otherwise with those for whom they worked--the great men who were building fine houses all over the land. To these had come new ideas in relation to their buildings. They had heard of the splendid work that for years had been executed in Italy: some of them had seen it; monarchs and wealthy nobles had even brought foreign craftsmen over to exercise their skill in the northern parts of Europe. The Italian manner was a novelty in this land of Gothic traditions, it was unlike anything to which England was accustomed. But the new fashion became popular. Employers demanded the novel detail in their houses; the foreign artists were not numerous, and so the English workmen had to supply the best imitation they could contrive on a scanty training. Here came the opportunity for the bookmakers. They showed the way in which Italian buildings were designed; they illustrated the “Orders” which gave those buildings their distinctive character so far as appearance went; they showed how classic detail might be applied or perverted to meet the exigencies of buildings which had a Gothic parentage. The books, therefore, were published in order to help designers who aimed at working in the new classic style. The effect, of course, was to foster that style at the expense of the native Gothic. It is true that books were not widely distributed; there was not in those days the rapid dissemination of ideas that there is in our own. But if anyone wanted a book about building, he could only find such as dealt with classic architecture. Hence in a short time the operations which had hitherto been thought of as building, began to be thought of as Architecture, and the only architecture that was formulated was classic architecture. The idea of that art became inseparably connected in the minds of men with classic expressions of it. Thus it came about that in the course of half a century people of culture regarded all Gothic buildings--even the noblest--as barbarous, and not worthy the name of Architecture.[2] The “Gothic order,” as it was called, was merely a “fantastic and licentious manner of building.”