with its outer side. The centre of the pier is preserved throughout, and so placed as always to balance the masses around it equally. The circular shafts at Gloucester Cathedral, Tewkesbury Abbey Church, and several others, were probably of carlier date than pillars formed of several shafts; those in the church of Saint Germain des Prez, at Paris, are delicate examples of the former style.

That aisles, galleries, and passages, belonged to the construction of a Saxon church, we have sufficient evidence in the accounts left us by contemporary historians; but the present subject is almost conclusive on this point, there being a preparation for a wall 6 feet 8 inches in thickness, containing the passage 2 feet in width, indicated by the plan of the pier at fig. 1267. The arrangement of the columns shows that there was intention of vaulting the side aisles, for the two which carry the cross springers appear to have been added some time after the original construction, as were also those in the pier, fig. 1268.

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Athelwold is supposed to have executed the whole of this work before the year 980: the mouldings throughout are rudely cut, the capitals of the main pillars being the only portions which are at all enriched by sculpture, and they are very simply carved.

The Norman manner of Building can scarcely be said to differ from the Saxon, though the masons employed after the Conquest certainly acquired a superior knowledge in their art. The ornaments which we find in Norman buildings had all been previously used by the Saxons; hence the difficulty of distinguishing the works of one from the other: where written authority is not handed down to us, we can only judge by the difference of the workmanship; it cannot be denied that there were many very able masons among the Saxons, who were qualified to raise buildings and enrich them with sculptured

ornament.

The finest examples of Norman work may be seen at Caen and its neighbourhood, and have been engraved from measurements taken by the late Mr. Pugin.

In England the same style prevailed throughout our religious structures; there is a great similarity of arrangement, and little variety of ornament. The Norman style was generally adopted after the Conquest, but that named by the monkish historians the "Opus Romanum " was continued in many of our parish churches, as well as in some larger buildings. The Norman pillar was sometimes composed of a cylinder with four small half columns attached, as at Amiens, which is 7 feet 2 inches diameter.

For the Saracenic or Arabian Styles we must refer to the beautiful work recently published by Mr. Owen Jones, where the decorative parts of this curious and highly ornamented architecture are admirably given, and proceed to the description of the principles which guided the constructors of pointed architecture.

Fig. 1269.

PIER AT AMIENS.

The Lancet Style succeeded the Norman, and we find it well defined in many churches and cathedrals as early as the year 1180; in it decoration was sparingly introduced, and throughout every part of the design there was simple uniformity, and a display of a considerable knowledge of geometry: the heads of the windows and doors were formed of a pointed arch, constructed upon an equilateral triangle; all the mouldings which surrounded those apertures were delicately formed, and had both capitals and bases; this style was practised till 1230, when it was followed by another, which by some writers has been termed

The Early English or the Geometric Style, from the manner in which the several portions of a building were set out; and we find it adopted generally up to the year 1280.

Salisbury Cathedral, founded by Bishop Richard Poore, in the year 1220, was finished in 1260. Its plan is that of a Greek or patriarchal cross, the extreme length being 480 feet, that of the great transept from north to south 232 feet, and that of the lesser transept 172 feet the stone used for the external walls and buttresses was brought from the quar rios at Chelmark, which lies about 12 miles distance, westward from the city. The middle

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of the walls is filled in with rubble, and the shafts of the columns are of marble, from the Purbeck quarries. At the intersection of the nave with the great transept rises a noble stone tower and octagonal spire, the total height of which is 400 feet; the stone of the spire is in thickness about 2 feet to the height of 20 feet above the tower, after which it is only 9 inches in thickness to the summit: this spire, though braced and strengthened throughout by timbers and ironwork, has declined from the perpendicular 224 inches; but since 1681, when the observation was made, there has been no further declination.

The walls, after they were carried up to the floor of the triforium, appear to have beer. increased by corbelling, as if it had been doubted whether, as originally set out, there would be sufficient strength to carry the cross springers of the vaulted nave; the total width is exactly 100 feet. The clear width of the nave, as measured on a level with the triforium, is 33 feet 3 inches, and that of each side aisle half that dimension, or 16 feet 9 inches; had this last been 16 feet 7 inches only, the proportions shown by a section would have been exactly one-third for walls and two-thirds for voids; after appropriating the third of the 100 feet to the walls, half the remainder is given to one side, and halt to the other; we also find that each of these dimensions of 16 feet 8 inches is divided into three, two parts of which are given to the outer wall and buttress, and the other to the main pillar that divides the nave and side aisles, or nearly so.

The inclination of the arched buttresses is not such as to resist the spreading of the vault at its base, the knowledge of their use not having then been attained The height of the vaulting of the nave from the pavement is 81 feet.

Wells Cathedral has some peculiarities in its construction, particularly in the application of its arched buttresses: they pitch against a stone corbel inserted below the springing of the

middle vault, and a tangent drawn at the back of the vault and elongated determines the inclination of the top of the flying buttress: here some improvement is shown upon those

at Salisbury. The masonry of the arches is admirably constructed, and the joints all radiate to a com

mon centre.

The total width of this cathedral from face to face of the buttress is 86 feet 5 inches, and that of the nave 31 feet 10 inches, instead of 28 feet 9 inches, as it would have been if a third had been adopted; the side aisles are also diminished in consequence, being only 13 feet 7 inches in the clear; they are, however, equal to the buttress, outer wall, and main pillar added together, the first projecting 2 feet 8 inches, the second or outer wall being 6 feet in thickness, and the piers 5 feet diameter; whilst the width of the side aisle measures 13 feet 7 inches, an approximation sufficiently near to suppose that the proportions of thirds was still adopted in practice. The nave has been increased at the expense of the side aisles, and its height is 68 feet 9 inches to the top of the vaulting from the pave

ment.

Fig. 1273. TRIFORIUM, INSIDE.

Chapter House at Wells, erected between the years 1293 and 1302, is an octangular building of great beauty. A section through the buttresses shows that two equilateral triangles crossing each other have determined the mass and void, which are in the proportion of one to two, or the thickness of the two walls is equal to one-third the entire diameter: the base line of the triangle, on which the supports of the crypt are placed, clearly indicates this arrangement. Of the twelve equilateral triangles comprised in the parallelogram formed by uniting the bases of the two larger, each outer wall and buttress Occupy two, or the two walls and their buttresses four of the twelve divisions, leaving eight for the space between them.

Fig. 1275.

Fig. 1274.

CHAPTER-HOUSE AT WELLS,

Where it is determined that the walls shall occupy one-third of the section of a building no figure is so well calculated for such a distribution as the equilateral triangle; it enables the architect at once to limit and fix the proportions of his design; hence its universa application: and the mysterious qualities attached to it by the freemasons no doubt arose from the extraordinary facility it afforded them in setting out their several works. What can be more simple or more beautiful than the distribution of this edifice? Within a circle a hexagon is set out, the perpendicular sides of which mark the outer faces of the buttresses; the junctions of the angles, by forming a base to every two sides, produce the two equilateral triangles, which sub-divided not only enable us to arrange the other portions accurately, but also to measure with the greatest nicety their relative dimensions. The quantities of material employed in construction can be estimated by such means much more easily than by measuring each portion separately, cubing it, and adding the numerous dimensions so obtained together; there is decidedly more simplicity in the former than in the latter system: the area of one triangle being found, we at once know that of all the rest,

or of any portion. In the subject before us the distance from the middle of one buttress to that of the other is 31 feet 6 inches, and the diameter taken through them at this level is 92 feet; omitting the buttresses, the outer side measures 26 feet, and the inner 21 feet 6 inches, the respective radii of the circles which comprise the octangular outer walls and the void being 38 feet and 31 feet 5 inches. Hence we find that the entire area of the building without the buttress is

3264 feet.

2176 feet.

1088 feet.

At the level of the crypt, above the outer plinth, we have these regular proportions, twothirds void and one-third walls.

The height of the entire building, from the pavement to the top of the parapet, is 72 feet 6 inches, and to the top of the pinnacles 92 feet, the total height being equal to the extreme diameter taken above the plinth moulding on the outside. The interior of this chapter

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house exhibits the most perfect proportions as well as appropriate decorations; the eight windows, divided into four days, have their heads filled in with circles set out upon equilateral triangles; the vaulted stone roof rests partly upon the octangular central pillars, 3 feet in diameter, surrounded by sixteen small columns, one at each angle and another between; the height of the pillar is 22 feet 8 inches.

Thoroughly to comprehend the expression, as well as use of the various members found in the architecture of the middle ages, we must trace the progress made in vaulting, and observe the changes it underwent, from the simple cylindrical to the more complex and difficult display of fan tracery or conoidal arches. The ridge ribs, or liernes, as they are termed, in the crypt of the Chapter-house at Wells, pass from the centre of the building to the middle of each buttress; the diagonals, or croissées, mitre into them as well as into the formerets or ribs against the outer walls. In the vaulting of the Chapter-room, we have evidence of greater refinement, and an

improvement in the decoration, by the addition of a number of intermediate ribs terminating against the octangular one in the middle.

At a later period we find transverse ribs made use of, then others between; but although the design may seem complicated, yet when laid down the plan will assume the greatest simplicity, as shown in the division representing the groining of the crypt.

When this system had been carried out to a considerable extent, the fan tracery was introduced, and although apparently more difficult of execution, it is far more scientific in its application and arrangement, evincing a higher knowledge of mathematical principles and geometry, and is another evidence of the gradual progress of the mind towards perfection in this style of architecture.