Tom Builder and Medieval Gothic Arches

I forgot that I wrote this. It's still funny, at least to me.

Thanks for digging it up Catherine

 http://catherinetoddarchitecture.blogspot.com/

Tom Builder and Medieval Gothic Arches

September 1183 Medieval Builders Scroll’s A Monthly Journal

This work contains the science and practice of constructing Gothic Arches in a simple and familiar manner for the advantages of readers not yet acquainted with geometry, trigonometry or reading, no trigonometry has been employed for it was not necessary. And further, there is always danger of overstocking the average pilgrim’s storehouse of knowledge, the result of which tends to confuse and produce errors.

September 1883 Carpentry and Building A Monthly Journal

This work contains the science and practice of constructing Gothic Arches in a simple and familiar manner for the advantages of readers not yet acquainted with geometry or trigonometry, no trigonometry has been employed for it was not necessary. And further, there is always danger of overstocking the average chipper’s storehouse of knowledge, the result of which tends to confuse and produce errors.

September 2010 JLC A Monthly Journal

This work contains the science and practice of constructing Gothic Arches in a simple and familiar manner for the advantages of readers not yet acquainted with geometry or trigonometry, no trigonometry has been employed for it was not necessary. And further, there is always danger of overstocking the average duster’s storehouse of knowledge, the result of which tends to confuse and produce errors.


Medieval Builders Scrolls September 1183

It was a bitter cold morning in September 1183 and Tom Builder had arisen before the sun lite could flood though the stone clad windows with warm air. With a lite frost on the stone window sills, Tom’s hands could barely grasp the cold steel compass and square. But he knew that his geometric drawing of the ribbed tunnel ceiling for the Cathedral would impress the prior of Kingsbury. The mason’s square and compass were tools used to build strong foundations from geometrically precise cut stones and with Tom’s knowledge of the sacred proportions, masonry and the geometrical drawings that he had seen on the stone tablets at the School of Athens by Euclid, the prior of Kingsbury would see that he was God’s choice for the Master Builder of the Kingsbury Cathedral.

Tom Builder didn’t know what a dodecahedron was, the solid of twelve pentagons, had to do with being a master builder or how to square your square with the 47th Problem of Euclid, but after being named the Master Builder of the Kingsbury Cathedral Tom hired Butch Carpenter who had long since moved on to purlin roofs which allowed ornamental arcading, appropriate to the high decorated and perpendicular styles, to be carried on to the plane of the roof itself and sometimes right up to the apex. Butch’s geometrically precise layout of the Gothic cross vault ribs with ordinates would allow fellow pilgrims to build the elliptical timber false work for the stone cross vaults of any Cathedral.

We submit this method, clearly shown in the diagram, to the readers of Medieval Builders Scrolls for criticism, and shall be pleased to have our fellow pilgrim’s, quarrymen, stonemasons, blacksmiths, mason layers, woodcutters, carpenters, tillers, carters, basket and rope makers that can read, discuss the attach diagram.