218 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKINGworking methods as well as the economic situations of the artists.
The language of esoteric use until the threshold of the sixteenth
century was French. Its use was so extensive that in order to com-
prehend the so-called rebus writing, the language of heraldry, or
what Menage called "the ambiguities of the painting of the word,"
it was into the French language that these esoteric and allegorical
hieroglyphics so frequently found on ancient monuments and edi-
fices must be translated."This role of French was an important one in the building arts. Isn't
Gothic art, with its distinction between Old Gothic or Romanesque and
"modern" Gothic, primarily a French art? Both the building arts of the
Middle Ages and Gothic art were born in France. The one that first saw
the light of day in the Benedictine monasteries of the old Goth provinces
remained permeated with Roman traditions, while the other arose in
the brotherhoods on the Ile de France. We saw how they spread into
foreign lands, mainly England, which eventually became the birthplace
of modern Freemasonry. It so happens that the French language exerted
a very unique influence in England. Imposed by the Norman monarchs
following the Battle of Hastings and the conquest of the land in 1066,
it remained the official language for three centuries. As noted earlier,
the Statut des Ouvriers (Statutes of the Laborers) of 1351 and the
Articles de Londres (London Articles) of 1356 were written in French.
According to Peladan, the builders of the Middle Ages assumed the
name of gaults or coqs [cocks], because of the homonymy between
galli, meaning "Gauls,"—that is, Frenchmen—and galli, meaning
"cocks" or "roosters." Their symbol was the rooster as well as the pob-
joy, popinjay, or parrot." it is beyond doubt that the rooster figured in
seals or coats of arms of master masons. In 1438, Jehan Lambert, mas-
ter mason of Paris, had a rooster with three stars added to his shield.^14
The rooster also had a profoundly esoteric significance. Without
examining too deeply its symbolism, which would necessitate moving
well outside the concerns of this book, we can say that this animal was
always considered a solar bird. The great initiate Rabelais informs us,
in Pantagruel, Book I, chapter 10, that "the presence of the powers of
the sun, which is the organ and storehouse of all terrestrial and sidereal