Thanks Will.

I should however have made it clear that I have no problems with the trait de charpente. It was a part of my carpentry training here and since both my teacher and I were somewhat enthusiastic about it, by the end of my course I was exploring la croche (curved timbers). I'm still trying to get my hands on a reasonably-priced copy of Mazzarolle.

The impression I've been given frequently is that le trait was unique to the French, and what I'm interested in is seeing how much further the French pushed it compared to their counterparts in Europe and the East (China / Japan). Was everyone using basic trait (élévations + vrai grandeur d'arêtier with rembarrement) leaving the French to play with bevel gauge techniques and curves? The problem is that the French are supremely proud of le trait (It's been recognised by UNESCO as an "intangible cultural heritage") and somewhat derisive of other cultures of carpentry making it hard to know exactly where the differences lie.

I've come across Lassen before, but didn't see his thesis. I'll take a look and see if he didn't already cover this ground.

Edit to add: In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TmYdAUX6pA the chap with the very short hair helping Eric Lion was my teacher, and my training took place in the same workshop that it's filmed in (albeit some years later).