Building structures in the middle ages

This video explains the simple engineering secret that enabled medieval builders to achieve skyscraping heights. Building enormous monuments 600 years ago was no easy feat. The laws of motion were not yet discovered. Furthermore, many of the key materials we use today were not yet developed. The medieval builders had only a few of the tools available today.
Yet, mostly through trial and error, they created works of art even to today's standards. One of their biggest secrets was the invention of the flying buttress. The buttress enabled the medieval builders to successfully transfer lateral loads down to the earth mostly through compression. Avoiding tensile behavior was key since masonry stones are very poor at transferring tensile forces but excellent when acting in compression.
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References:
[1] C. Bartlett, "The Design of The Great Pyramid of Khufu," Nexus Network Journal, vol. 16, pp. 299-311, 2014.
[2] Wikipedia, "Lincoln Cathedral," Wikipedia, 4 July 2021. [Online]. Available: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln.... [Accessed 8 July 2021].
[3] J. Porteous and A. Kermani, Structural Timber Design to Eurocode 5, Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
[4] V. Quintas, "Structural Analysis of Flying Buttresses," Taylor & Francis, no. 21, pp. 471-507, 2016.
[5] D. Parker and A. Wood, The Tall Buildings, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2013.