“the glorious choir of Conrad” of the beginning of the 12th century at Canterbury which affords also the first example of the eastward extension of the choir which became so characteristic a feature of English planning. The reconstruction of Conrad’s choir after the fire of 1174 led to a further extension eastward with the eastern chapel which was adopted in many of the greater churches, either in the form of a lower building, sometimes of three spans eastward of the east gable or of an extension of the choir itself to its full height. The work of William of Sens at Canterbury (1175–1178) was naturally more French in character than other contemporary works in England, but the work of his successor, William the Englishman (1179–1184) shows the beginnings of what became the characteristically English manner of the 13th century.
The second half of the 12th century was a period of rapid development of architectural forms in the direction of increased elegance and refinement. The pointed arch employed at first for the arches of construction entirely superseded the semicircular arch in doorways, windows and arcades by the end of the century and its adoption finally solved the problem of vaulted construction. The abutting arches under the triforium roofs of the earlier churches were developed into flying buttresses above the roofs springing from buttresses of increased projection and weighted by pinnacles. Mouldings became more graceful and subtle in their profiles. Capitals reverted to the volute type, transformed and refined. The massive Romanesque pier was gradually developed into the lighter Gothic pier in which detached shafts were extensively adopted. The use of Purbeck marble for these shafts must be considered in relation to the painted decoration of the wall-surfaces which although now almost entirely lost, was an important factor in the internal effect.
13th Century (first half ).—The last decade of the 12th century marks the achievement of a fully developed Gothic style, with strongly marked national individuality. During the 13th century, English Gothic follows the same general course of evolution as that of northern France, but the parallelism is less close than in the preceding century.
St Hugh’s choir at Lincoln (begun 1192) had indeed an apse, with ambulatory and radiating chapels though its plan does not appear to have been controlled by the vaulting as in the French chevets and what there is of French influence seems to have come rather through Canterbury than by a more direct route. This choir has the eastern transept which characterizes several of the greater churches of the first half of the 13th century—Salisbury (fig. 43), Beverley, Worcester, Rochester, Southwell. The square eastern termination, the less ambitious height, and the comparatively simple buttress-system combine to give the English Gothic cathedral an air of greater repose than is found in the magnificent triumphs of French Gothic art. In its structural system, too, English Gothic retained something of the Romanesque treatment of wall-surface; the suppression of the wall and the concentration of the masonry in the pier, was never carried so far as in the complete Gothic of France. The general tendency during the 13th century, as in the 12th, was in the direction of increased lightness and elegance. The employment of detached shafts, and the extensive use of marble (generally Purbeck) for these shafts, is a distinguishing feature of the first half of the century. The vaulting system is fully developed; the most usual form is the simple quadripartite, but the tendency to introduce additional ribs (tiercerons) and ridge-ribs already makes its appearance in the nave of Lincoln and the presbytery of Ely (Plate VIII., fig. 82) to be yet further developed in the second half of the century. Capitals are either simply moulded an elaboration of the plain bell capitals of the latter part of the 12th century, or finely sculptured, with conventional, or “stiff-leaved,” foliage of the crocket type. The use of the circular abacus, begun in the preceding century, entirely supersedes the square abacus, which was retained in France. Mouldings are profiled with great refinement, the alternation of rounds and hollows producing effective contrasts of light and shade, and the far more complicated profiles of arch mouldings provide another feature which distinguishes English work of this period from French. Windows of single pointed lights, the so-called “lancet,” though frequently by no means sharply pointed, are the prevalent type, grouped in pairs triplets &c., and arranged in tiers in the large gables, or sometimes with only a single group of tall lights, like the “five sisters” of the north transept of York. Few works are more admirably designed than some of the towers of this period. Probably the greatest excellence ever attained in English art of the 13th century was reached in the great Yorkshire abbeys; for purity of general design, excellence of construction, and beauty of detail, they are unsurpassed by the work of any other period.
13th Century (second half ).—The grouping together of “lancet” windows, the piercing of the wall above them with foiled circles, and the combination of the whole under an enclosing arch, soon led to the introduction of tracery, for which the design of earlier triforium arcades had also afforded a suggestion.
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| Fig. 43.—Plan of Salisbury Cathedral. |
Bar-tracery appears just before the middle of the 13th century, and the great tracery window filling the whole width of a bay, or the entire gable-end, soon becomes a most characteristic feature. The earlier tracery windows show only simple geometrical forms, foiled arches to the heads of the lights and foiled circles above, of which the abbey-church and the chapter-houses of Westminster and Salisbury afford most beautiful examples. In some particulars, such as its chevet plan and its comparatively great height, Westminster approaches more nearly to the French type than other English churches of the 13th century, but its details are characteristically English and of great beauty. In the last quarter of the century, pointed trefoils or quatrefoils are largely used in tracery, and the foliations frequently form the lines of the tracery, without enclosing circles. Contemporary with this change is the gradual absorption of the triforium into the clerestory, of which Southwell and Pershore are precocious examples. Contemporary also was the adoption of an excessively naturalistic type of foliage. The art of masonry and stone-cutting was rapidly developed. The detached shaft, always structurally weak, was abandoned for the pier with engaged shafts separated by mouldings. The mouldings of arches become less deeply undercut, and the greater use of the fillet tends to give a more liney effect. The whole practice of art was growing more scholarly, perhaps, but at the same time it was more conscious, and the cleverness of the mason was almost as often suggested as the noble character of his work.
14th Century (first half ).—The juxtaposition of the foliations without enclosing circles in tracery windows produced curves of contraflexure, which led insensibly to the complete substitution of flowing lines for geometrical forms in tracery.
Flowing tracery makes its appearance in England about 1310, and lasts some fifty years. Up to the end of the 13th century, window tracery had developed in France and England on parallel lines, though the English work was always slightly behind France in point of date. All this is changed with the adoption of flowing tracery in England; its development was purely national, and owed nothing to France. Indeed, the French flamboyant only makes its appearance at the time when flowing tracery was being abandoned in England. Not only window traceries, but mouldings, carvings and other details are changed in character. The ogee form is used in arches, in wall-arcades of great beauty and elaboration, as in the Lady-chapel at Ely, and in the canopies of tombs, such as the magnificent Percy tomb at Beverley. Niches and arcades are richly ornamented, and small decorative buttresses are used in the jambs of doorways, windows and niches. The moulded capital is still used, along with the capital with a continuous convex band of wavy foliage. Many of the most beautiful English towers and spires date from this period, the work of which is perhaps seen at its best in the parish churches of south Lincolnshire.
