in Notre-Dame of Dijon, built about 1225. In these instances the main pier has three vaulting shafts, and the intermediate pier but one—the longitudinal ribs being carried by shafts which rise from a ledge at the clerestory level.
Of these various modes of adjustment of sexpartite vaults to their supports the most logical are perhaps on the whole the earliest. In these every member in the vault has, except in the intermediate piers, its own support from the pavement; and these supports are graduated in size in conformity with the weights with which they are charged. In Bourges the continuity of support from the pavement in all of the piers makes the system of its construction more logical than that of Senlis or of Noyon, except for the defect of the equal magnitude of the vaulting shafts.
These examples are enough to show how great are the minor differences exhibited by these early Gothic buildings. No two buildings ever show precisely the same arrangements of structural parts; yet every one of them exhibits the clear apprehension by their builders of the governing principles of the new style. The differences are largely due to local and individual differences of genius. Each locality developed to some extent its own natural modes and predilections, which modified the central influence that went forth from Paris and its neighbourhood, and thus produced more or less mixed forms of art. Sens and Dijon, for instance, show the united influences of Burgundy and the Ile-de-France, Bourges is a creation of the school of Poitou modified by the central school, while the Cathedral of Reims is a product of the school of Champagne, with a large infusion of influence from that of the Ile-de-France. [1]
We have thus far considered the dispositions and adjustments of vaulting systems to vaults, for the most part in buildings of the twelfth century and of the first quarter of the thirteenth. We have now to examine these adjustments in the more fully developed structures of the thirteenth century; and it may be well to begin with the early
- ↑ The Carte des Monuments Historiques de France, prepared by the Commission of Historic Monuments for the French Government, is a valuable aid to the student in respect to the various schools and their mutual influences during the twelfth century.
