shaft; they are monolithic, and have a slight entasis, like those of the aisles of St. Denis, and their capitals are of distinctly Gothic form in their functional adaptation to the new structural conditions.
The ground-story arcades are round arched except in the sanctuary, where they are pointed. The triforium openings are coupled pointed arches divided by groups of three detached monolithic shafts. Over the triforium is an arcaded gallery in the thickness of the wall, composed of diminutive trefoiled round arches, and the clerestory openings are round arched and undivided.
Unhappily the buttress system has been reconstructed, so that the original forms are uncertain. It can, however, hardly be doubted that flying buttresses sprang over the aisle roofs in true Gothic fashion, for the clerestory rises so high above the vaulted gallery that the vaults of this gallery could hardly have formed effectual abutments to the high vaults; while the walls and piers, being less massive than those of Senlis, could hardly have sustained the vault pressures without reinforcement On the whole, the Gothic principle is far advanced in this choir of Noyon, though its interior is by no means so pure and harmonious in design as that of Senlis. The nave was constructed at a somewhat later, though still at an early epoch; and in it a fuller apprehension of the freedom afforded by the new principles of construction is indicated in the more slender proportions of piers and shafts, and in the increased magnitude of openings. In these respects, indeed, the nave of Noyon is hardly surpassed by any other monument of the twelfth century. Like Senlis, this nave was designed to carry, and it probably did at first carry, sexpartite vaults;[1] its piers differ from those of Senlis in their lighter proportions and in minor details only. The ground-story arcade has pointed arches of one order, and the triforium openings consist of a pointed arch in each bay spanning a sub-order of two pointed arches. These are divided by a shaft of unprecedented slenderness, and the tympanum is pierced with a trefoil, an early step in the direction of plate tracery. There can be little question that
- ↑ The existing vaults date from the thirteenth century (L. Vitet, Monographie de l'Eglise Notre-Dame de Noyon; and Viollet-le-Duc, s.v. Cathédrale) and are quadripartite. The original transverse ribs remain, and are alternately massive and slender in conformity with the requirements of sexpartite vaults.
