GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.--ENGLAND.
ANALYSIS OF BUILDINGS (_continued_)--OPENINGS, ROOFS, SPIRES,
ORNAMENTS, STAINED GLASS, SCULPTURE.
_Openings and Arches._
The openings (_i.e._ doors and windows) in the walls of English Gothic
buildings are occasionally covered by flat heads or lintels, but this
is exceptional; ordinarily they have arched heads. The shape of the
arch varies at all periods. Architects always felt themselves free to
adopt any shape which best met the requirements of any special case;
but at each period there was one shape of arch which it was customary
to use.
In the first transitional period (end of twelfth century) semicircular
and pointed arches are both met with, and are often both employed in
the same part of the same building. The mouldings and enrichments
which are common in Norman work are usually still in use. In the E. E.
period the doorways are almost invariably rather acutely pointed, the
arched heads are enriched by a large mass of rich mouldings, and the
jambs[17] have usually a series of small columns, each of which is
intended to carry a portion of the entire group of mouldings. Large
doorways are often subdivided into two, and frequently approached by
porches. A most beautiful example occurs in the splendid west entrance
to Ely Cathedral. Other examples will be found at Lichfield (Fig. 1)
and Salisbury. It was not uncommon to cover doorways with a lintel,
the whole being under an archway; this left a space above the head of
the door which was occupied by carving often of great beauty.
Ornamental gables are often formed over the entrances of churches, and
are richly sculptured; but though beautiful, these features rarely
attained magnificence. The most remarkable entrance to an English
cathedral is the west portal of Peterborough--a composition of lofty
and richly moulded arches built in front of the original west wall. A
portal on a smaller scale, but added in the same manner adorns the
west front of Wells. As a less exceptional example we may refer to the
entrance to Westminster Abbey at the end of the north transept (now
under restoration), which must have been a noble example of an E. E.
portal when in its perfect state.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--LANCET WINDOW. (12TH CENTURY.)]
The windows in this style were almost always long, narrow, and with a
pointed head resembling the blade of a lancet (Fig. 16). The glass is
generally near the outside face of the wall, and the sides of the
opening are splayed towards the inside. It was very customary to place
these lancet windows in groups. The best known group is the celebrated
one of "the five sisters," five lofty single lights, occupying the
eastern end of one of the transepts of York Minster. A common
arrangement in designing such a group was to make the central light
the highest, and to graduate the height of the others. It after a time
became customary to render the opening more ornamental by adding
pointed projections called cusps. By these the shape of the head of
the opening was turned into a form resembling a trefoil leaf.
Sometimes two cusps were added on each side. The head is, in the
former case, said to be trefoiled--in the latter, cinqfoiled.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--TWO-LIGHT WINDOW. (13TH CENTURY.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--GEOMETRICAL TRACERY. (14TH CENTURY.)]
When two windows were placed close together it began to be customary
to include them under one outer arch, and after a time to pierce the
solid head between them with a circle, which frequently was cusped,
forming often a quatrefoil (Fig. 17). This completed the idea of a
group, and was rapidly followed by ornamental treatment. Three, four,
five, or more windows (which in such a position are often termed
lights) were often placed under one arch, the head of which was filled
by a more or less rich group of circles; mouldings were added, and
thus rose the system of decoration for window-heads known as tracery.
So long as the tracery preserves the simple character of piercings
through a flat stone, filling the space between the window heads, it
is known as plate tracery. The thinning down of the blank space to a
comparatively narrow surface went on, and by and by the use of
mouldings caused that plain surface to resemble bars of stone bent
into a circular form: this was called bar tracery, and it is in this
form that tracery is chiefly employed in England (Fig. 18).
Westminster Abbey is full of exquisite examples of E. E.
window-tracery (temp. Henry III.); as, for example, in the windows of
the choir, the great circular windows (technically termed
rose-windows) at the ends of the transepts, the windows of the
chapter-house. Last, but not least, the splendid arcade which forms
the triforium is filled with tracery similar in every respect to the
best window tracery of the period (Fig. 19).
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--THE TRIFORIUM ARCADE, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
(1269.)]
In the decorated style of the fourteenth century tracery was developed
till it reached a great pitch of perfection and intricacy. In the
earlier half of the century none save regular geometrical forms, made
up of circles and segments of circles, occur; in other words, the
whole design of the most elaborate window could be drawn with the
compasses, and a curve of contrary flexure rarely occurred. In the
latest half of that period flowing lines are introduced into the
tracery, and very much alter its character (Fig. 20). The cusping
throughout is bolder than in the E. E. period.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--ROSE WINDOW FROM THE TRANSEPT OF LINCOLN
CATHEDRAL. (1342-1347.)]
In perpendicular windows spaces of enormous size are occupied by the
mullions and tracery. Horizontal bars, called transoms, are now for
the first time introduced, and the upright bars or mullions form with
them a kind of stone grating; but below each transom a series of small
stone arches forms heads to the lights below that transom, and a minor
mullion often springs from the head of each of these arches, so that
as the window increases in height, the number of its lights increases.
The character of the cusping changed again, the cusps becoming
club-headed in their form (Fig. 21).
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--PERPENDICULAR WINDOW.]
Arches in the great arcades of churches, or in the smaller arcades of
cloisters, or used as decorations to the surface of the walls, were
made acute, obtuse, or segmental, to suit the duty they had to
perform; but when there was nothing to dictate any special shape, the
arch of the E. E. period was by preference acute[18] and of lofty
proportions, and that of the Dec. less lofty, and its head equilateral
(_i.e._ described so that if the ends of the base of an equilateral
triangle touch the two points from which it springs, the apex of the
angle shall touch the point of the arch). In the Perp. period the four
centred depressed arch, sometimes called the Tudor arch, was
introduced, and though it did not entirely supersede the equilateral
arch, yet its employment became at last all but universal, and it is
one of the especially characteristic features of the Tudor period.
_Roofs and Vaults._
The external and the internal covering of a building are very often
not the same; the outer covering is then usually called a roof--the
other, a vault or ceiling. In not a few Gothic buildings, however,
they were the same; such buildings had what are known as open
roofs--_i.e._ roofs in which the whole of the timber framing of which
they are constructed is open to view from the interior right up to the
tiles or lead. Very few open roofs of E. E. character are now
remaining, but a good many parish churches retain roofs of the Dec.,
and more of the Perp. period. The roof of Westminster Hall (Perp.,
erected 1397) shows how fine an architectural object such a roof may
become. The roof of the hall of Eltham Palace (Fig. 22) is another
good example. Wooden ceilings, often very rich, are not uncommon,
especially in the churches of Norfolk and Suffolk, but greater
interest attaches to the stone vaults with which the majority of
Gothic buildings were erected, than to any other description of
covering to the interiors of buildings.
The vault was a feature rarely absent from important churches, and the
structural requirements of the Gothic vault were among the most
influential of the elements which determined both the plan and the
section of a mediaeval church. There was a regular growth in Gothic
vaults. Those of the thirteenth century are comparatively simple;
those of the fourteenth are much richer and more elaborate, and often
involve very great structural difficulties. Those of the fifteenth are
more systematic, and consequently more simple in principle than the
ones which preceded them, but are such marvels of workmanship, and so
enriched by an infinity of parts, that they astonish the beholder,
and it appears, till the secret is known, impossible to imagine how
they can be made to stand.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--ROOF OF HALL AT ELTHAM PALACE. (15TH
CENTURY.)]
It has been held by some very good authorities that the pointed arch
was first introduced into Gothic architecture to solve difficulties
which presented themselves in the vaulting. In all probability the
desire to give to everything, arches included, a more lofty appearance
and more slender proportions may have had as much to do with the
adoption of the pointed arch as any structural considerations, but
there can be no doubt that it was used for structural arches from the
very first, even when window heads and wall arcades were semicircular,
and that the introduction of it cleared the way for the use of stone
vaults of large span to a wonderful extent. It is not easy to explain
this without being more technical than is perhaps desirable in the
present volume, but the subject is one of too much importance for it
to be possible to avoid making the attempt.
Churches, it will be recollected, were commonly built with a wide nave
and narrower aisles, and it was in the Norman period customary to
vault the aisles and cover the nave with a ceiling. There was no
difficulty in so spacing the distances apart of the piers of the main
arcade that the compartments (usually termed bays) of the aisle should
be square on plan; and it was quite possible, without doing more than
the Romans had done, to vault each bay of the aisles with a
semicircular intersecting vault (_i.e._ one which has the appearance
of a semicircular or waggon-head vault, intersected by another vault
of the same outline and height). This produced a simple series of what
are called groined or cross vaults, which allowed height to be given
to the window heads of the aisle and to the arcades between the aisles
and nave.
After a time it was desired to vault the nave also, and to adopt for
it an intersecting vault, so that the heads of the windows of the
clerestory might be raised above the springing line of the vault, but
so long as the arches remained semicircular, this was very difficult
to accomplish.
The Romans would probably have contented themselves with employing a
barrel vault and piercing it to the extent required by short lateral
vaults, but the result would have been an irregular, weak, curved line
at each intersection with the main vault; and the aisle vaults having
made the pleasing effect of a perfectly regular intersection familiar,
this expedient does not seem to have found favour, at any rate in
England.
Other expedients were however tried, and with curious results. It was
for example attempted to vault the nave with a cross vault, embracing
two bays of the arcade to one of the vault, but the wall space so
gained was particularly ill suited to the clerestory windows, as may
be seen by examining the nave of St. Stephen's at Caen. In short, if
the vaulting compartment were as wide as the nave one way, but only as
wide as the aisle the other way, and semicircular arches alone were
employed, a satisfactory result seemed to be unattainable.
In the search for some means of so vaulting a bay of oblong plan that
the arches should spring all at one level, and the groins or lines of
intersection should cross one another in the centre of the ceiling,
the idea either arose or was suggested that the curve of the smaller
span should be a pointed instead of a semicircular arch.
The moment this was tried all difficulty vanished, and groined (_i.e._
intersecting) vaults, covering compartments of any proportions became
easy to design and simple to construct, for if the vault which spanned
the narrow way of the compartment were acutely pointed, and that
which spanned it the wide way were either semicircular or
flatly-pointed, it became easy to arrange that the startings of both
vaults should be at the same level, and that they should rise to the
same height, which is the condition essential to the production of a
satisfactory intersection.
Scott enumerates not fewer than fourteen varieties of mediaeval
vaults[19] and points out that specimens of thirteen are to be found
at Westminster. Without such minute detail we may select some
well-known varieties:--(1) The plain waggon-head vault, as at the
Chapel of the Tower; (2) in advanced Norman works, cross-vaults formed
by two intersecting semicircular vaults, the diagonal line being
called a groin. (3) The earliest transitional and E. E. vaults,
pointed and with transverse and diagonal ribs, and bosses at the
intersection of ribs, _e.g._, in the aisles and the early part of the
cloisters at Westminster. (4) In the advanced part of the E. E.
period, the addition of a rib at the ridge, as seen in the presbytery
and transepts at Westminster. (5) At the time of the transition to
Dec. (_temp._ Ed. 1.) additional ribs began to be introduced between
the diagonal and the transverse ribs. (6) As the Dec. period advanced
other ribs, called _liernes_, were introduced, running in various
directions over the surface of the vault, making star-like figures on
the vault. (7) The vault of the early Perp., which is similar to the
last, but more complicated and approaching No. 8, _e.g._, Abbot
Islip's chapel. (8) Lastly, the distinctive vault of the advanced or
Tudor Perp., is the fan-tracery vault of which Henry VII.'s Chapel
roof is the climax. The vaulting surfaces in these are portions of
hollow conoids, and are covered by a net-work of fine ribs, connected
together by bands of cusping (Fig. 23).
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--HENRY VII.'S CHAPEL. (1503-1512.)]
In Scott's enumeration the vaults of octagons and irregular
compartments, and such varieties as the one called sexpartite, find a
place; here they have been intentionally excluded. Many of them are
works of the greatest skill and beauty, especially the vaults of
octagonal chapter houses springing from one centre pier (_e.g._,
Chapter Houses at Worcester, Westminster, Wells, and Salisbury).
Externally, the roofs of buildings became very steep in the thirteenth
century; they were not quite so steep in the fourteenth, and in the
fifteenth they were frequently almost flat. They were always relied
upon to add to the effectiveness of a building, and were enriched
sometimes by variegated tiles or other covering, sometimes by the
introduction of small windows, known as dormer windows, each with its
own gablet and its little roof, and sometimes by the addition of a
steep sided roof in the shape of a lantern or a "fleche" on the ridge,
or a pyramidal covering to some projecting octagon or turret.
All these have their value in breaking up the sky-line of the
building, and adding interest and beauty to it. Still more striking,
however, in its effect on the sky-line was the spire, a feature to
which great attention was paid in English architecture.
_Spires._
The early square towers of Romanesque churches were sometimes
surmounted by pyramidal roofs of low pitch. We have probably none now
remaining, but we have some examples of large pinnacles, crowned with
pyramids, which show what the shape must have been. They were square
in plan and somewhat steep in slope.
The spire was developed early in the E. E. period. It was octagonal
in plan, and the four sides which coincided with the faces of the
tower rose direct from the walls above a slightly masked eaves course.
The four oblique sides are connected to the tower by a feature called
a broach, which may be described as part of a blunt pyramid. The
broach-spire (Fig. 24) is to be met with in many parts of England, but
especially in Northamptonshire. The chief ornaments of an E. E. spire
consist in small windows (called spire-lights or lucarnes) each
surmounted by its gablet.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--EARLY ENGLISH SPIRE. CHURCH OF ST. MARY
MAGDALENE, WARBOYS, LINCOLNSHIRE.]
In the Dec. period it was common to finish the tower by a parapet, and
to start the spire behind the parapet, sometimes with a broach, often
without. Pinnacles were frequently added at the corners of the tower,
and an arch, like that of a flying buttress, was sometimes thrown
across from the pinnacle to the spire. Spire-lights occur as before,
and the surface of the spire is often enriched by bands of ornament at
intervals. The general proportions of the spire were more slender than
before, and the rib, which generally ran up each angle, was often
enriched by crockets, _i.e._ tufts of leaves arranged in a formal
shape (Fig. 25).
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--DECORATED SPIRE. ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, OAKHAM,
RUTLANDSHIRE.]
Towers were frequently intended to stand without spires in the Perp.
period, and are often finished by four effective angle-pinnacles and
a cornice with battlements. Where spires occur in this period they
resemble those of the Dec. period.
Spires end usually in a boss or finial, surmounted by a weathercock.
Ordinary roofs were usually finished by ornamental cresting, and their
summits were marked by finials,[20] frequently of exquisite
workmanship.
_Ornaments._
We now come to ornaments, including mouldings, carving, and colour,
and here we are landed upon a mass of details which it would be
impossible to pursue far. Mouldings play a prominent part in Gothic
architecture, and from the first to the last they varied so constantly
that their profiles and grouping may be constantly made use of as a
kind of architectural calendar, to point out the time, to within a few
years, when the building in which they occur was erected.
A moulding is the architect's means of drawing a line on his building.
If he desires to mark on the exterior the position of an internal
floor, or in any other way to suggest a division into storeys, a
moulded string-course is introduced. If he wishes to add richness and
play of light and shade to the sides of an important arch, he
introduces a series of mouldings, the profile of which has been
designed to form lights and shadows such as will answer his purpose.
If again he desires to throw out a projection and to give the idea of
its being properly supported, he places under his projection a corbel
of mouldings which are of strong as well as pleasing form, so as to
convey to the eye the notion of support. Mouldings, it can be
understood, differ in both size and profile, according to the purpose
which they are required to serve, the distance from the spectator at
which they are fixed, and the material out of which they are formed.
In the Gothic periods they also differed according to the date at
which they were executed.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--EARLY ARCH IN RECEDING PLANES.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--ARCH IN RECEDING PLANES MOULDED.]
The first step towards the Gothic system of mouldings was taken by the
Romanesque architects when the idea of building arches in thick walls,
not only one within the others, but also in planes receding back from
the face of the wall one behind as well as within another, was formed
and carried out, and when a corresponding recessed arrangement of the
jamb of the arch was made (Fig. 26). The next step was the addition of
some simple moulding to the advancing angle of each rim of such a
series of arches either forming a bead (Fig. 27) or a chamfer.
In the transitional part of the twelfth century and the E. E. period
this process went on till at last, though the separate receding arches
still continued to exist, the mouldings[21] into which they were cut
became so numerous and elaborate as to render it often difficult to
detect the subordination or division into distinct planes which really
remained.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--DOORWAY, KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE.
(15TH CENTURY.)]
This passion for elaborate mouldings, often extraordinarily undercut,
reached its climax in the thirteenth century, the E. E. period. In the
Dec. period, while almost everything else became more elaborate,
mouldings grew more simple, yet hardly less beautiful. In the Perp.
period they were not only further simplified, but often impoverished,
being usually shallow, formal, and stiff.[22]
Ornaments abounded, and included not only enrichments in the shape of
carved foliage and figures, statuary, mosaics, and so forth, but
ornamental features, such as canopies, pinnacles, arcades, and
recesses (Fig. 28).
In each period these are distinct in design from all that went before
or came after, and thus to catch the spirit of any one Gothic period
aright, it is not enough to fix the general shapes of the arches and
proportions of the piers but every feature, every moulding, and every
ornament must be wrought in the true spirit of the work, or the result
will be marred.
_Stained Glass._
Ornamental materials and every sort of decorative art, such as mosaic,
enamel, metal work and inlays, were freely employed to add beauty in
appropriate positions; but there was one ornament, the crowning
invention of the Gothic artists, which largely influenced the design
of the finest buildings, and which reflected a glory on them such as
nothing else can approach: this was stained glass.
So much of the old glass has perished, and so little modern glass is
even passable, that this praise may seem overcharged to those who have
never seen any of the best specimens still left. We have in the choir
at Canterbury a remnant of the finest sort of glass which England
possesses. Some good fragments remain at Westminster, though not very
many; but to judge of the effect of glass at its best, the student
should visit La Sainte Chapelle at Paris, or the Cathedrals of
Chartres, Le Mans, Bourges, or Rheims, and he will find in these
buildings effects in colour which are nothing less than gorgeous in
their brilliancy, richness, and harmony.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--STAINED GLASS WINDOW FROM CHARTRES
CATHEDRAL.]
The peculiar excellence of stained glass as compared with every other
sort of decoration, is that it is luminous. To some extent
fresco-painting may claim a sort of brightness; mosaic when executed
in polished materials possesses brilliancy; but in stained glass the
light which comes streaming in through the window itself gives
radiance, while the quality of the glass determines the colour, and
thus we obtain a glowing, lustre of colour which can only be compared
to the beauty of gems. In order properly to fill their place as
decorations, stained-glass windows must be something quite different
from transparent pictures, and the scenes they represent must not
detach themselves too violently from the general ground. The most
perfect effect is produced by such windows as those at Canterbury or
Chartres (Fig. 29), which recall a cluster of jewels rather than a
picture.
_Coloured Decoration._
Colour was also freely introduced by the lavish employment of coloured
materials where they were to be had, and by painting the interiors
with bright pigments. We meet with traces of rich colour on many parts
of ancient buildings, where we should hardly dare to put it now, and
we cannot doubt that painted decoration was constantly made use of
with the happiest effect.
_Sculpture._
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--SCULPTURE FROM THE ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPTER
HOUSE, WESTMINSTER ABBEY. (1250.)]
The last, perhaps the noblest ornament, is sculpture. The Gothic
architects were alive to its value, and in all their best works
statues abounded; often conventional to the last degree; sometimes to
our eyes uncouth, but always the best which those who carved them
could do at the time; always sure to contribute to architectural
effect; never without a picturesque power, sometimes rising to grace
and even grandeur, and sometimes sinking to grotesque ugliness.
Whatever the quality of the sculpture was, it was always there, and
added life to the whole. Monsters gaped and grinned from the
water-spouts, little figures or strange animals twisted in and out of
the foliage at angles and bosses and corbels. Stately effigies
occupied dignified niches, in places of honour; and in the mouldings
and tympanum of the head of a doorway there was often carved a whole
host of figures representing heaven, earth, and hell, with a rude
force and a native eloquence that have not lost their power to the
present day.
In the positions where modest ornamentation was required, as for
example the capitals of shafts, the hollows of groups of mouldings,
and the bosses of vaulting, carving of the most finished execution and
masterly design constantly occurs. Speaking roughly, this was chiefly
conventional in the E. E. period, chiefly natural in the Dec. and
mixed, but with perhaps a preference for the conventional in the Perp.
Examples abound, but both for beauty and accessibility we can refer to
no better example than the carving which enriches the entrance to the
Chapter House of Westminster Abbey (Fig. 30).
[Illustration: _Miserere Seat from Wells Cathedral._]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] For illustrations consult the Glossary under _Jamb_.
[18] For illustrations consult the Glossary under _Arch_.
[19] Address to the Conference of Architects. Reported in the
_Builder_ of 24th June, 1876. Outlines illustrating some of these
varieties of vault will be found in the Glossary under _Vault_.
[20] See Glossary.
[21] For illustrations consult the Glossary.
[22] For further illustrations see the Glossary.
[Illustration: {STAINED GLASS FROM CHARTRES CATHEDRAL.}]