Some further light is thrown on the term by John Shute, who published his book The Chief Groundes of Architecture in 1563. Shute calls himself a "Paynter and Archytecte," and in the heading of one of his chapters he speaks of an "Architecte or Mayster of Buyldings." This is the signification of the term which became gradually accepted, but there is no evidence that in Shute's time (that is, in 1563) a master of the buildings was generally employed, or that being employed he was designated an architect. John Thorpe was called a "surveyor." Robert Smithson, who died in 1614, fifty years after Shute, is designated in his epitaph as "architector and surveyor unto the most worthy House of Wollaton."

All the evidence points therefore to co-operation in design as well as execution, and while men like Thorpe provided plans and "uprights," each trade provided its own details. This view will account for much of what is otherwise very puzzling—the diversity in character between buildings supposed to have been the work of the same "architect." The difficulty largely disappears if we suppose the small scale drawings to have been supplied by the "surveyor," and then elaborated on the works by the foreman and the various craftsmen. But that there was a desire among wealthy patrons to establish an educated class of "architects" is proved by the Introduction of Shute's book, for he tells us there that he was sent to Italy by the Duke of Northumberland in the year 1550 for the express purpose of studying architecture, and that having there studied it and amassed a number of drawings and designs of sculpture, painting, and architecture, he thought good on his return to set forth some part of them for the profit of others, especially touching architecture. How far Shute himself was able to put his knowledge to the test of practical experience is not known, for no buildings are identified as his, and he died in 1563, the same year in which he published his book. He speaks of his patron having shown the results of his studies to Edward VI. after his return: Edward died in 1553, and there were ten years, therefore, during which Shute might have put in practice what he learned in Italy.

The history of architectural design during the sixteenth century cannot, therefore, be written round the names of great men in England as it can in Italy, and in a less degree in France. Those who do most towards giving character to a building are those who determine its plan and general outlines; and the men who did this to our English houses were the surveyors. Of these John Thorpe is the only one about whom anything much is known; but enough is known to place him in a high rank as a designer. There must have been many others, but their names have disappeared and their fame has evaporated. A list of all those who could be considered architects has been drawn up by Mr. Wyatt Papworth,[36] but the names of those prior to Inigo Jones include patrons, masons, and carpenters as well as surveyors, and the task still remains to assign to each his proper share in the production of the architecture of his day. This architecture was not the work of a single class of men, but resulted from the joint efforts of many minds directing many different tools. High and low, rich and poor, gentle and simple, cultured and uncultured, all combined to the same end, and the authors of the architectural books of the period knew their business when they appealed on their title-pages to so many different artificers.

[36]The Renaissance and Italian Styles of Architecture in Great Britain, 1883.

A LIST OF SELECTED WORKS ON

EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE
IN ENGLAND.

I. WORKS ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE TUDOR PERIOD, &c.

Dollman (F. T.).—An Analysis of Ancient Domestic Architecture in Great Britain. 2 vols. 4to. 1864.

Hunt (T. F.).—Exemplars of Tudor Architecture. 8vo. 1836.