ANGLO-SAXON.--Anglo-Saxon may be briefly summed up as an inferior style
of Romanesque, more especially the latter part, when it was considered
necessary to build in imitation of the Roman way. In the early years of
this period the advantages of stone, due to inconvenience of its
carriage or lack of skill, were not widely known in England. For the
most part the buildings were composed of wood with a thatched roof.
Though it is true several buildings were also constructed of stone, and
glass was used, yet it was only with advanced knowledge, introduced by
Continental workmen, who came over in the seventh century, that
architecture approached anything like a definite style.
It reached this stage just a few years before the Norman Conquest. The
arches were usually plain, and always semi-circular. The columns were
cylindrical, hexagonal, or octagonal, and thick in proportion to their
height. The towers, as a rule, were square, and not very lofty. They
were strongly but crudely worked, strip pilasters, _i. e._, slender
columns, being introduced. Circular-headed openings served as upper
windows of these towers. They were divided into two lights by rounded
balusters, sometimes with caps heavily projected.
_Norman_.--The Norman churches were mostly cruciform in plan, with a
central tower. The east end was frequently terminated by an apse. Vast
columns, either circular, octagonal, or simply clustered, separated the
aisles from the naves. The arches were chiefly semi-circular, the round
arch being used everywhere for ornament. The Norman towers are also
generally square, with a somewhat stunted appearance. Many have no
buttresses whatever, whilst others are served with broad, flat, shallow
projections, which assert themselves more for show than for utility. The
reason for this is that the Normans built their buildings with walls
immensely thick with an eye to stability. The heavy appearance of their
towers is cleverly relieved by the introduction of arcades around them,
as at St. Albans, and occasionally richly ornamented, as shown at
Norwich and Winchester.
At one of the angles there is frequently a stone staircase. The upper
windows of these towers differ little from the Anglo-Saxon, except in
that the two lights are separated by a shaft or short column in place
of the rounded baluster.
The Norman doorways are a great feature. They are generally adorned with
a series of columns with enriched arch mouldings spanning from capital
to capital.
Their vaults were heavily constructed at no great height from the
ground, and generally applied to the aisles of churches. They exerted a
greater thrust on the walls than the later Gothic vaults.
_Norman_.--These churches are generally to be found perched on
commanding sites, chosen as natural places of defence. Often a river
wound round the base, and where it led short, a moat was constructed on
the landward side, and borrowed its water from the river.
The activity of the Norman builders is astounding, and forms a great
contrast to the few years before their advent. For a short time
architecture suffered a paralysis. Not till the much-dreaded Millennium
(1000 A.D.), when it was thought the world would certainly come to an
end, had passed did people take heart again, and architects make up for
lost time.
_Early English_.--In this period the massive Norman walls gave way to
walls reduced in thickness. The buttresses became of more structural
significance. Also, flying-buttresses gradually came into use to
strengthen the weakness of the upper works, caused by the reduction of
the walls in thickness. The pillars were elongated, and of slight
construction. The doorways, windows and arcades were built with polished
marble obtained from the Isle of Purbeck.
The science of vaulting became more advanced.
The towers were taller and more elegant, with plain parapets. They were
generally furnished with windows. The lower ones resembled much the
arrow-slit formation of the Norman style. The upper windows were grouped
in twos and threes.
The broach-spire now came into notice. It was added on to the square
tower, and at the early part of this style was low in height, but
gradually became taller.
The circular-headed windows of the Normans gave place to the
narrow-pointed lancets of the Early English. These admitted little
light, and necessitated a greater number of windows, which were grouped
into couplets or triplets.
_Geometrical_.--The window, by the gradual process of piercing the
vacant spaces in the window-head, carrying mouldings around the tracery
(or ornamental filling-in), and adding cusps (the point where
foliations of tracery intersect), gave rise to Geometrical work.
The earliest work of this kind is found in Westminster Abbey.
_Decorated_.--The towers are made to appear lighter by the parapets
being either embattled or pierced with elegant designs, and pinnacles
placed on them.
The broach-spires gave place to spires springing at once from the
octagon. The buttresses are set angularly. In this period the architects
failed to maintain the vigour of the Geometrical period. The Decorated
windows are formed of portions of circles, with their centres falling on
the intersection of certain geometrical figures.
There is a glorious example afforded by the west window at York.
_Perpendicular_.--The towers are generally richly panelled throughout;
the buttresses project boldly--sometimes square, or sometimes set at an
angle, but not close to each other.
The pinnacles are often richly canopied. The battlements panelled, and
frequently pierced. In the middle of the parapet now and then is placed
a pinnacle or a canopied niche.