and intermediate champs or fascia is increased, and the latter are often carved in panels, &c. Thus a second table, B, is introduced above the ground line G. Professor Willis applies the term "ground table, grass table, or earth table," to the slope B, and states that to such tables as D the term "ledgement tables" were probably applied. SECT. VII. VAULTING SHAFTS AND RIBS. When the main shaft supporting the clerestory had an attached circular shaft in front, the latter was often carried up as a shaft to the roof (fig. 1266.) The point has not yet been settled whether this shaft in some early buildings was, or was not, so carried up to receive the cross-rib of a vault, or simply to bear the beam of the roofing. When vaulting became more general, the purpose of the shaft was undisguised (fig. 1278.), and being made correspondent with the vaulting ribs, the groups of the latter were received on a colonnette Fig. 1099. Fig. 1100. AISLE. TINTERN ABBEY. VAULTING SHAFTS. or on small columns. The vaulting ribs at St. Saviour's (Southwark) Church, are given in fig. 662e. In the latter part of the 15th century engaged colonnettes for receiving the vault ribs rise from corbels placed on or above the capitals of the shafts, and sometimes the ribs themselves spring from the corbels (figs. 1274. and 1275.), and later, or in the perpendicular period, the older form was, as it were, reverted to, and the attached circular shaft was carried up to, and received the vaulting ribs, as in figs. 1302., 1307., 1314., 1317., and 1325. CORBELS very frequently supplied the place of capitals both for the springing of arch mouldings and for vaulting. These corbels were either moulded or carved to correspond with the capitals (fig. Fig. 1101. XAVE AND AISLES. 1109.), or they were Aisles, Transverse Rib, and Diagonal. Wall Rib. Fig. 1103. TINTERN ABBEY. VAULTING RIBS. fashioned into a mass of foliage, into heads of males and females, or of animals. Even whole figures were introduced, occasionally deformed if not purposely so carved for admission within the space. In the vaulted sacristy at Winchester College, its "springers present an archbishop in benediction, a bishop, and a king, and over the door a guardian angel. Bosses of CHAP. III. VAULTING RIB. HOOD MOULDINGS AND STRING COURSES. 939 oak leaves and roses alternately, carved with great taste and 'subtilitè,' enrich and cover WESTMINSTER ABBEY CHURCH; NORTH AISLE OF CHOIR. and kitchen, the recreating psaltery and bagpipes are affixed; over the kitchen window is 'excess,' a head vomiting; and opposite is frugality' in the figure of a bursar with his iron-bound money chest. Over the master's windows are the pedagogue instructing, and a listless scholar, scarcely attentive to the book he holds in his hand. Elsewhere we recognise the soldier, the scholar, the clergyman, &c., as suggesting the various professions in which the inmates may occupy themselves in after life. The inept substitutions for these significant and appropriate ornaments are amongst the most palpable evidences of the insufficiency and inaptness of our mimicry of this style, in most instances in the present day; and they betray great ignorance of the poetical mind and spirit of medieval sculpture."Cockerell, The Wykeham Buildings. SECT. VIII. HOOD MOULDINGS AND STRING COURSES. "The strings consist of projecting ledges of stones carried below windows, both within and without a building, round buttresses, and other angular projections, and to cornices, parapets, tower stages, and other parts of edifices, being used as dividing lines. Though subordinate, they are of the greatest possible importance in imparting a character to a building. They at once relieve naked masonry, and bind into a whole the seemingly detached portions of a rambling or irregular construction. In most cases, especially to windows, a string course forms a real drip or weathering, and adapts its upper surface especially to this end, thus becoming what is termed a hood moulding, which when used internally, cannot be said to have any real use; but they form a decorative finish of too important a kind to be neglected with impunity." Norman string courses are generally full of edges or hard chamfered surfaces (fig. 1110.). In most cases they have some sculptured decoration of the style, as the billet, the chevron, Fig. 1115. Fig. 1118. Fig. 1116 Fig. 1117. AISLE the hatched or serrated moulding, or the like (fig. 188.). Figs. 1111. and 1112. are among the simplest, being the latest in the period. The commonest early English strings are like figs. 1114. and 1115.; the under-cutting giving a bold projection is a striking feature of this moulding as of all others of the style. The most frequent decorated form is fig. 1116. That shown on figs. 1179. and 1181. is also very common. The scroll, with a halfround next below it, fig. 1115., is very characteristic. The rounded form of the upper side, or weathering (fig. 1118.), is peculiar to the two first styles; the angular or chamfered, of the last (figs. 1119. and 1120.). String courses follow the principle of the abacus of the capitals, from which indeed they are often continued along the wall of the building. Perpendicular strings and hood mouldings are generally marked by the plane slope of the upper surface. The details of the parts underneath are so varied as to render it impossible here to give any account of them. A characteristic mark of the style is a small boltel in the lower part (fig. 1121.). The wall often recedes above the string, or even overhangs it. Fig. 1122. is the section of the "Angel cornice" over the arches in Henry VII.'s chapel, as shown in the elevation, fig. 1325., at D. Fig. 1123. is the cornice and base over it, over the panelling above the octagon windows. The scale is the same as to fig. 1085. This term is applied to that series of mouldings formed at the base of a wall, which leads the eye from the upright face gradually into the ground. The lowest course of them is even called the "earth table." The early examples are very plain, consisting of one or of more chamfered set-offs at various heights, as fig. 1124. In the early English period, the roll moulding was introduced at the upper edge of a deep chamfer, as figs. 1125. and 1272., and with one or two Fig. 1127. HOWDEN CHURCH CHOIR. chamfered set-offs. They then became very similar, as in the transepts of Beverly Min ster, to fig. 1126., of the geometric or decorated period, in which the tablet or slope took a curved or ogee outline, and was generally only one in number, finished at top by a scroll m by a scroll moulding, with occasionally a string above it, as at Ewerby. The height of fig. 1126 is very small for so large a building. The basement to Lichfield Cathedral is not much more defined. Fig. 1277. is a richer example. The basement in the perpendicular period is one of the glories ded > of the style. That shown in fig. 1306. from Winchester, may be considered very plain, as is also that at Bath, fig. 1319. Reversed ogees and hollows, variously disposed, are the principal members. Fig. 1128. being the basement round the outside of Henry VII.'s chapel, will afford some idea of the work bestowed upon this feature. Yelvertoft Church, Northamptonshire, has four rows of diagonal, square, and circular panelling, one above the other (Rickman, page 213., 6th edit.). In Norfolk, where flint work was used in the erection of the building, it was introduced in upright panelling in the lowest face, above an ogee moulding (ibid, page 214.). ng od SECT. X. PARAPETS. The Norman period may be said not to have exhibited any parapet, the roof being finished by the tiles or lead work projecting over the wall and supported by a corbel blocking. During nearly the whole of the early English period, the parapet in many buildings was often plain, as figs. 1129. and 1126.; or with a series of arches and panels; or with quatre. foils in small panels, as fig. 1277., which is of the next period; or plain, with a rich cornice under it. In the decorated period it was still plain but with moulded capping and cornice, as figs. 1130. and 1131., and with the ball flower, as in fig. 1128., but also closer and connected by tendrils; it is often pierced in various shapes, of which quatrefoils (fig. 1277), in circles, or without that enclosure, are very common; but another, consisting of a waved line, is more beautiful and less usual; the spaces are trefoiled. Pierced battlements are very common, with a round or square quatrefoil. The plain battlement most in use is one with small intervals, and the capping moulding only horizontal. They continued to be used in the perpendicular period. The trefoiled panel with waved line is seen, but the dividing line is more often straight, making the divisions regular triangles. One of the finest examples of a panelled parapet, consisting of quatrefoils in squares with shields and flowers, is that at the Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick. The pierced parapet on Henry VII.'s Chapel (fig. 1133.) is a fine example, with its angle pinnacle. That on the choir at Winchester Cathedral consists of upright panelling only (fig. 1306.). Early period battlements frequently have quatrefoils either for the lower compartments or on the top of the panels of the lower, to form the higher. The later examples have often two heights of panels, or richly pierced quatrefoils in two heights, forming an inducted battlement. They have generally a running cap moulding carried round the indentations. Fig. 1128. HENRY VIL'S CHAPEL. In a few late buildings the capping is ornamented, somewhat like a cresting: and in a few instances figures resembling soldiers on guard have been carved on the battlements. Plain battlements have been divided into four descriptions. I. Of nearly equal divisions, having a plain capping running round the outline. II. Of nearly equal intervals, and sometimes with large battlements and small intervals, the capping being only placed on the top, and the sides cut plain. III. Like the last, but with a moulding running round the outline, the horizontal capping being set upon it. And IV. The most common late battlement, with the capping broad, of several mouldings running round the outline, often narrowing the intervals (Rickman). It is seldom that the battlements will tell the age of the building, as they have been so often rebuilt. A small battlement differing to these four descriptions, is shown in fig. 1128., under the windows of Henry VII.'s chapel. A few more words may be said in the section TOWERS AND SPIRES. SECT. XI. MOULDINGS IN WOODWORK. "If this kind of work be attentively examined, it will be seen that it was wrought altogether on the same principles as the corresponding sculpture in stone. We see the thoroughly conventional early school, the naturalesque middle-pointed school, and the again conventional thirdpointed school of carvers, succeeding each other in exactly the same way, the main difference between the two being that the work in wood is ordinarily very much more thin, flat, delicate, and sharp, than the work in stone; that it has always some limits set to its exuberance by the nature of the framework in which it was wrought. In carpenter's work, it was always the rule only to mould the useful members, and so it was also as regards the carving. It was not useful or convenient to put on to a piece of oak framing a mass of oak to be carved as a boss or a stopping to a label (this sort of device was reserved for the ingenuity of nineteenth century architects), and so it will be found that most of the old wood-carving is so contrived as to be wrought out of the same plank or thickness as that which is moulded, or else is a separate piece of wood -in a spandril, for instance, enclosed within the constructional members. The spandrils in the arcades behind the stalls at Winchester Cathedral are an admirable example; they are carved in thin oak, perforated in all directions, and then set forward about half-an-inch in advance of the back panelling. The effect of this is, as may be supposed, to give the Fig. 1135. HENRY VII.'S CHAPEL. |