98 
Ifflev Church near Oxford, dating from the beginning of the 13th 
century, shows a good example of its use in the moulding. 
When it comes to considering the general application of 
flowers and foliage as ornaments for the various parts of the 
church buildings it has to be remembered that, almost 
without exception, they were placed there solely for decorative 
purposes and not as symbols, and hence it follows that an in¬ 
timate connection existed between the plants and the styles of 
architecture to which they were applied. When decorative 
architecture flourished flowers were studied and copied for the. * 
effects produced, and when at the end of the 14th century the 
Perpendicular style was in favour the foliage ornament was largely 
abandoned and the plain deep cut mouldings took its place. 
The reason why such a close association of the similar orna¬ 
ments existed in buildings in different parts of the country is 
answered by recalling that at the period now under consideration 
there were no architects such as are recognised at the present 
day, whose art is occupied in planning, making drawings and 
superintending. The work was in those days carried on by 
officers often called “ masters of masonry,” who not only designed 
the building and its decoration, but carved these with their own 
hands, helped no doubt by other craftsmen that put into rough 
shape the ideas of the master. 
It seems certain that such workers were closely bound 
together in schools of carving, which flourished where suitable 
stone was found, such as at Ham Hill by Yeovil, Boulting by 
Wells, and the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. Each monastery pro¬ 
bably had also a permanent staff of workmen attached to it, 
and, by some means not clearly known, the bands of workmen 
were in touch with each other to make known the designs and to 
keep up a uniformity of style in the ornament. Only in such a 
way can the use of the similar foliage and flowers be accounted 
for at the same limited periods in many different parts of Eng¬ 
land. 
When regarded from a botanist’s point of view the leaves 
of those plants already named—the campanula, plantain, trefoil, 
and herb bennet—that were used at this early period, are found 
to be of species with small leaves and a well marked stalk and 
central rib. These two characteristics of the leaves treated in a 
conventional manner rendered them specially suitable for the de¬ 
signs of the carver, who desired to decorate the capitals in such 
a way that the leaves appeared to be growing around them, 
rather than placed there to cover a blank space, and the know¬ 
ledge of how to adapt the plants to this style was still on trial. 
Having experimented to produce these small conventional 
ornaments the craftsman passed on to more complicated produc¬ 
tions, which show from the ease with which the different leaves 
