SECT. XII.

WINDOWS.

In the body of the work we have, under each period of Gothic architecture, given a description in general terms of the windows prevailing at the several times. The examples here brought together, are inserted merely for the purpose of showing the gradual change in their forms and combinations, which are almost infinite in number, and yet that the latter are far from exhausted, is conclusively shown by R. W. Billings, in his work on Geometric Combinations; and by E. Sharpe, in Decorated Window Tracery. The earliest windows are extremely small, always semi-circular headed, or nearly so, and without moulded archivolts. They are usually with a single light (fig. 1266.), except in belfry towers, where we often find them divided into two by a shaft with a capital, as in the tower at St. Alban's (fig. 1160.). The simple plain head, however, in the latter part of the early period, was more or less ornamented with the chevron or zigzag, and other orna

ments of the time, as in fig. 1161. One of the greatest and most striking changes brought in by the pointed style was that of introducing, from the suddenly elongated dimensions of its windows, a blaze of light into its edifices, which, from the low and narrow sizes of their predecessors, were masses of gloom.

From the beginning of the 12th century we see them lengthened in a surprising manner, and terminating with a lancet-head, which sometimes became occasionally cusped. An instance of the simple lancet-head is given in fig. 1162., from the Trinity Chapel at Canterbury Cathedral. Sometimes an elegant combination is obtained by grouping lancet-headed windows under one hood, the centre rising above the side ones, as at Salisbury Cathedral (fig. 1163.), where the spaces between the heads are ornamented, or have a sunk panel or device. These spaces are frequently pierced with foliated circles, or with trefoils or quatrefoils not enclosed. In an example at Lincoln (fig. 1164.), the height of the group is equal, but the light of the centre being wider than the two side lights, the curvature of the arches of the latter is necessarily much less than that to the former, and the effect is not satisfactory. There were, however, many other arrangements in designing these lancet-headed windows than the single and triple ones just mentioned. Two, four, and five, lights occasionally form the group. Of the last-named, are windows at Irthlingborough, in Warwickshire, and at Oundle, in Northamptonshire, in which the lights on the sides gradually rise up to the centre one. In the latter part of the period. heads finish with trefoils; the mullions are moulded and finished, both inside and outside, with shafts or colonettes, from the capitals of which spring the mouldings of the subdivisions.

The finest and largest group of early English lancets in the kingdom is the five, commonly called the five sisters,' in the north transept at York Cathedral, completed 1250. They are each about 5 feet 7 inches wide, and nearly 60 feet high, and in the interior have a beauty altogether their own, not surpassed, if it be equalled, by any decorated or perpendicular window in the kingdom. The rich effect of the arrangement of the two stories, each having three lights, at the east end of Southwell Minster, is well deserving of attention. Ely cathedral has internally five lights over three, while externally three more are observed over the five.

At Kilkenny Cathedral there are three huge early English lancets, the centre one being

62 feet high and 8 feet wide. The detached shafts are filleted in four rows; the mouldings over are formed into trefoil arches. In the south side of the choir of St. John's Priory, in the same city, is a continuous arcade of 54 feet of lancets, the largest pier being only 9 inches wide.

These filleted bands are an interesting work, as they are found in many parts both of Ireland and England. Perhaps the most remarkable example in England is that at Walsoken Church, near Wisbeach, where the chancel arch has four small shafts in each pier, all banded five or six times. It is additionally striking from its greater antiquity than any of the Irish examples, being, as at St. Alban's, romanesque. These banded columns and roll mouldings find their counterpart at Margam Abbey, in Glamorganshire, the west front of which shows a fine triplet, and a doorway below banded in this peculiar manner. Transactions of the Institute of British Architects, 1865-66, pp. 80-86.

The foliations seen in windows belonging to the earlier examples of this style in England are not generally cut out of the same stone as the head of the arch to which they belong, but form the tracery, in small pieces, and these enter into the class of plate tracery, i.e. they belong to the flat soffit, and not, like bar tracery, to the outer mouldings.

Fig. 1165. PAINTED CHAMBER.

By perforating the space between the heads of two adjoining lancet-headed windows, as in the old painted chamber at Westminster (fig. 1165), the elements of the ornamented window are obtained. To cover it, however, ornamentally, the enclosing arch must be depressed and modified; and at Ely (fig. 1166.), we find an example for illustrating the remark. The lozenge-shaped form between the heads of the arches is converted into a circle which, as well as the heads of the lights, is foliated. Instead of a single

Fig. 1166.

ELY.

circle inserted in the head of the window, we then have them with three foliated circles, as

Fig. 1167.

MERTON COLLEGE.

Fig. 1169. ST. OUEN, ROUEN. at Lincoln, one above and two below; the same cathedral furnishing an example in the east window of its upper part having one large circle inclosing seven smaller foliated ones, be

sides its containing similar ones in the heads of the two leading divisions below. The windows just described belong to a transitional style between the early English Gothic and the decorated; but the ornamented windows of the 14th century exhibit in their general form and details a vast variance from them in the easy unbroken flow of the tracery with which they abound.

In the next stage come the examples shown by fig. 1167., Merton College Chapel, and fig. 1168., the Cathedral, both at Oxford; the latter whereof has a tendency towards the Flamboyant style, which has been before mentioned, and which, in the 14th century, had thoroughly established itself in France, as may be seen in the windows of the church of St. Ouen, at Rouen, exhibited in fig. 1169. It may be observed that the principal lights are seldom divided by transoms; when they, however, occur they are mostly plain, and rarely embattled. Though the ogee head is often found, the usual form is that of the simple-pointed arch. In the clerestory, squareheaded windows are of en seen, but more often in other parts of the edifice. In the preceding, as well as in this period, occurs the window bounded by three equilaterally segmental curves foliated more or less as the date increases. The arrangement of the tracery of windows has, by the French antiquaries, been divided into two classes rayonnant and

Fig. 1170.

CAWSTON.

flamboyant. Their rayonnant, so called on account of the great part the circle plays in it, and on whose radii its leading forms are dependent, was flourishing throughout the 14th century in France. The flamboyant or tertiary pointed style followed it. We have already observed that the Continent preceded us in each style as much as half a century. After this comes the Florid style, in which the edifices seem to consist almost entirely of windows, and those of the most highly ornamented description. It is scarcely necessary to do more than exhibit the figures for a comprehension of the nature of the change which took place; in short the introduction of the Tudor arch alone was sufficient hint for a totally new system. In the example (fig. 1170.) of a window at Cawston Church, Norfolk, we may observe the commencement of the use of transoms, which at length were repeated

Fig. 1172.

AYLSHAM.

twice and even more in the height of the window, and indeed became necessary for affording stays to the lengthy mullions that came into use. Fig. 1171. is an example of the square-headed window of the period, and fig. 1172, of a Tudor-headed window at Aylsham Church, Norfolk. Another example may be referred to in fig. 200., and in the several illustrations given under the section PRINCIPLES OF PROPORTION, at the end of this chapter. Mullions appear to have been introduced about the end of the 12th century as substitutes for iron frames, and were at first built in courses that corresponded with the other work of the wall in which they stood, or were in small pieces. But as early as 1235 they were face-bedded stones dowelled with iron. As the oxidation of the metal

proved injurious, iron was superseded, after the end of the 14th century, by dowels made from the bones of sheep or from the horns of deer. Fig. 1173., from the west windows in the tomb-house at Windsor, temp. Henry VII., illustrates the arrangement usually adopted in drawings to show the distance from centre to centre, as at M, N and O, that is to be allowed in forming the length of radius employed in striking the curves for the tracery. Other examples of such sections are given from the clerestory of the nave of Winchester Cathedral, fig. 1303; Rouen Cathedral, fig. 1290.; King's College Chapel, fig. 1312.; St. George's Chapel, Windsor, fig. 1316.; and from Amiens Cathedral, fig. 1329.

The simplest mullion or monial or tracery bar would be a plain rectangular block of stone. The next, with the edges chamfered, varied by substituting a hollow for a plain chamfer; by giving an ogee form to the chamfer; and by cutting out a hollow in the chamfer with receding angles instead of a receding curve; this last is perhaps peculiar to the early decorated style. The hollowed chamfer is the only moulding ordinarily made to carry the ball flower ornament of the

Fig. 1173.

WINDSOR.

14th century, and the four-leaved flower of the 15th century. When the tracery becomes at all elaborate, the subordination of the parts is effected by giving to the jambs and mullions, or perhaps to some of the mullions only, and to some of the tracery bars, an additional order of mouldings. Then the fillet or boltel of the outer moulding (N, in fig. 1173.) describes the greater lines; that of the inner moulding (0) the smaller lines of the tracery and the whole of the cusping. In like manner a third order is often added by the same means and for the same purpose (as M). Each of these orders

Fig. 1174.

FOUNTAINS ABBEY, CHOIR.

Fig. 1175.

may be as varied as was the first. Perhaps the most common form for the first is the hollowed chamfer, and for the second and third, the ressant with a fillet. In a very few

instances, the outer fillet becomes a sharp edge, i.e. the mullion is chamfered to an arris.

"Nothing is more essential to the good effect of windows (except where the mullions are treated as shafts under a mass of tracery without glazing), and nothing is so much neglected by modern architects, as making the mullions of adequate thickness," writes Mr. Denison, in Church Building. The modern works are very seldom more than th of the width of the lights; probably about 4 inches in the ordinary side windows, and sometimes less, and perhaps a few as much as 7 or 8 inches in large east and west windows. In the east window of Tintern Abbey, which has eight lights (fig. 1178.), the principal mullion is 15 inches thick, and the two secondary ones

Fig. 1176.

TINTERN ABBEY.

CHOIR.

Fig. 1177.

66

are 11 inches, and the four smallest very nearly 8 inches. At Guisborough Priory, of the geometrical period, a window of only seven lights had two principal mullions, both as thick as the middle one at Tintern. The great mullion of the east window at Lincoln is about 2 feet thick. Even the two small east windows of Guisborough, with only three lights, has 9-inch mullions, and those at Tintern 7-inch. Some four-light windows at Whitby have the middle mullions about 13 inches, and the short cierestory windows of Bridlington are above a foot thick. No mullion ought to be much less than one-third of the width of the adjacent light. The lights of the small Guisborough windows are exact y three times the width of the mullions; the aisle windows of Selby are about the same; where there are more lights than these, and therefore two or more classes of mullions are required, the larger ones must be considerably more than this. In all cases the depth from back to front ought to be at least twice the width or thickness from side to side. There are a few old geometrical windows, with 'thin' mullions, but they are exceptions, and do not look well.

Fig. 1178.

Fig. 1179.

"The difference between good and bad windows, strikingly exhibited in the same church, may be seen in the north aisle of the choir at Selby, where a set of windows of no more than three lights, and those rather short ones, having tracery of the simplest possible pattern, only three quatrefoils in the head, are perhaps the most beautiful windows of the size to be found anywhere. Above them in the clerestory are windows of four lights and The much more elaborate tracery, and yet almost as ill-looking as any modern ones. reason is that the lower ones are deep set, and have thick mullions and tracery, and high arches, whereas the others are very shallow, on account of the passage in the wall; the mullions are thin, and the arches are low."

SECT. XIII.

WINDOW JAMBS AND ARCH PLANES.

The following details of window jambs and mouldings, are reduced from those given in the valuable publication already mentioned, namely Sharpe's Architectural Parallels.

1174. is the plan of the

jambs, and fig. 1175. of the mouldings of the arch over them, to the early English choir at Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire. Figs. 1176. and 1177. are the similar portions to the geometric choir at Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire. The same publication gives, amongst its numerous details, the elaborate grouping of mouldings to the magnificent east (figs. 1178, and 1179.) and west (figs. 1180. and 1181.) windows of this building, which is somewhat transitional to the decorated period, and of very great beauty. Fig. 1182. is the jamb mouldings to the decorated east window at Howden Church, Yorkshire, showing a passage in the wall, which materially deteriorates from the good effect of the window.

The following illustrations are from Henry VII's Chapel. Fig. 1183. is the wall jamb to the first cant of the angular windows to the aisles. Fig. 1184. is the first angle mullion of the circular or bow windows; it also shows the arrangement for the mullions or monials, and (L) the mitring

Fig.