Universal Freemasonry 215on the portals and capitals, the gargoyles, and the composition and
color of the stained-glass windows. Until the fourteenth century, every-
thing in Romanesque and Gothic art was invested with meaning. Purely
decorative whim and chance were merely exceptions to this basic rule.
It was mainly the excess of motifs drawn from flora and fauna dur-
ing the Romanesque era that earned Saint Bernard's condemnation.
These should be seen as copies of ancient originals from Celtic,
Byzantine, and Oriental cultures, which is not to say that these are the
source of art that is lacking in symbolic meaning, just that it is some-
times difficult to pronounce an accurate opinion on this meaning and
its Christianization. Strictly decorative flora and fauna can be found in
much Gothic art, a charming expression of a deep and tender love for
nature. It's main Christian teaching could be summed up as this: All
God's creatures have their place in the Church, sheltered from the
world.
Some English authors such as E. W. Shaw and A. F. A. Woodford,
who have studied exclusively the simplest forms and professional inten-
tion of their symbolism—masons' marks—believe that while these were
originally simply alphabetical and numerical, they subsequently took
on esoteric and symbolic meaning. They feel that, at least during the
Middle Ages if not during all eras in the history of building, the marks
constituted the external signs of an occult organization. Drawn from
geometry, they form a kind of universal alphabet, which, outside of
some international variations, was a language that all workers could
understand.^7
The symbolism in architecture, sculpture, and stained glass, which
was the work of artists under the direction of the clerics, was the
expression of science and philosophy, akin to that of alchemists and
Hermeticists. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, phi-
losophy, metaphysics, alchemy, and Hermeticism were closely commin-
gled and these disciplines were inseparable from theology. The means of
expression were the same in all these areas, for, in the final analysis,
they could all be boiled down to the formulation of fundamental meta-
physical truths. It is easy to cite famous alchemists who were also mas-
ter builders, such as Gerbert, who was pope from 999 to 1003 under
the name of Sylvester II, or Nicholas Flamel, to whom Sauval attributes