Cathedrals, or indeed any large, medieval church, can be a fun place to visit if your mind is warped (as mine is). As well as the grotesques and gargoyles outside, there is frequently 'baboonery' inside. Comical faces peeking out from the carved vegetation at the tops of pillars. out-of-the-way little carvings showing scenes or incidents full of the rough-and-ready humour of the times.

Because a skilled mason was a valued craftsman, he could get away with stuff like this! On the other hand, the slightest slip up in agreeing to a job or contract and he could find himself in villeinage to a lord, who would love to have such a craftsman bound to him for life. All kinds of dirty tricks (including arrests for trespass) were employed by lords to 'capture' skilled craftsman, and this is one of the reasons that 'charter boroughs' and guilds were so important. A guild could protect its members from being taken into villeinage.

Some people say that the Freemasons evolved from such a guild, one that provided safe-houses, protected by passwords and the like, for masons who, by the nature of their work, had to travel a lot.