Re weg 
means of the clergy and other learned perfons,; who brought home 
with them certain foreign artificers, compofed of Greeks and 
Italians, and Greeks and Spaniards formed into fraternities of 
architeéts, and who in fubfequent periods joining thereunto French, 
Germans and Flemings, obtained papal bulls from their encourage- 
ment and particular privileges, became corporate bodies, and ranged 
from one nation to another, under the denomination of Free 
Mafons*. To the firft of thefe fraternitics we are indebted for 
the Roman, Saxon and Irifh architeture of the middle ages, and 
to the latter for the various fpecies of the Gothic, to the clofe of 
the fifteenth century. 
Tue feveral branches of the Grecian and Roman ftyle during 
the middle ages, though they preferved a general likenefs of their 
original, differed in fome refpe&t from each other, according to the 
genius, tafte and manners of the people among whom they were 
cultivated. The Roman, Saracenic, Mafforabic, Saxon and Irifh, 
had fome peculiar traits which fpecified the nation in which they 
were erected. 
x 
Tue Saxon churches were generally. reCtangular edifices, ter- 
minating in a femicircle at the eaftern end, and their roofs low, 
{carcely vifible above the cornice. ‘The fteeples, when they had 
any, were generally fquare, and placed either at the welt end or 
fides; though fome, not common, were round. And they had 
generally under them a cript or under croft, for the prefervation 
of 
* Wren’s Parentalia. 
