while they terminate in a style differing from it more decidedly than was the case with the perfected Early Pointed architecture of France. The early transitional works of the royal domain of France appear to an English eye more advanced than they really are, because the Romanesque of that district had less of those characteristics which, to our eye, distinguish the style, than those either of England or of other parts of France. The designs of the archivolts—as M. Viollet le Duc says, were sparing in ornament but liberal in mouldings; and if we compare Early Pointed examples with the preceding Romanesque of the same district of France, we shall find that the changes were comparatively slight. In England the change was at first equally slight; but the Romanesque being rich in characteristic decorations, it follows that, to us, our early transition appears more Romanesque than that of France. Compare, for instance, St. Cross with Sens; the proportion of round to pointed arches in each differs but little. At Sens even the vaulting of the aisles is round, while at St. Cross it is pointed; nor do they differ much in their relation to the preceding Romanesque of the same districts, as will be seen by comparing my sketch of an internal bay at Sens with some I give of corresponding portions of French Romanesque churches; yet Sens, being absolutely devoid of those Romanesque ornaments in which St. Cross is so rich, strikes our eye as being more advanced.

We had, in fact, much more to be got rid of in our Romanesque than they had in and about the Isle of France.

The remarkable converse of this is, that at the close of our transition we had not only thrown off this excess of Romanesque characteristics, but had gone beyond the French in altering those of a less palpable kind, and introducing details distinct from those of the preceding style. Thus our arch mouldings became far more rich and more studied in their profile than those in France, which continued to be little more than the repetition of a roll between two hollows, while ours were composed of numerous and beautiful members; the proportions of our windows became much more graceful than those customarily used in France, and the basement mouldings were better. On the other hand, we were far less liberal in the use of sculpture, and we generated a purely moulded capital, which the French can scarcely be said to possess—thus, if I may say so, giving ourselves the choice of a Doric, as well as a Corinthian, variety in our columns; and, finally, we relinquished the square form of the abacus, and made our capitals for the most part round; so that, at the end of our transition, we had departed much more widely from our own Romanesque than the French had from theirs; and while the early French transitional works look more advanced than those of a corresponding stage in England, the case is reversed at its close, when the English examples appear more advanced than the French, as may be seen by comparing the interior of the Galilee at Ely with the western portals of Nôtre Dame, which are of some years’ later date.[30]

I will close my outline of the English transition by referring to four examples which mark the limits of its duration, by showing how soon the true Early English attained its perfect development. The examples I cite for this purpose are the following:—

Thus we see that though the French preceded us in the commencement of their transition, our own was, with very trifling exceptions, equally national with theirs, and that it was not only completed as soon, but that it was carried through to a style more distinctive, and fully as national as the glorious Early Pointed of France.

On this subject I will only add one remark: Early as were the first French developments compared with ours; long as was the interval of stagnation between St. Denis and St. Germain des Pres; many as were the steps between the stages of the transition in both countries, and many more before we had developed out of it that Pointed style we know as the “Early English,” with its lancet windows and round abaci; the whole was, nevertheless, carried through within the period of one lifetime. Not only were the transitions of France and England carried on to perfection under contemporary monarchs, but that queen who was present at the consecration of Suger’s precocious monument, who caused that subsequent stagnation by her frivolity, and who perhaps witnessed the completion of St. Cross during her long captivity at Winchester, actually lived there long enough to have seen the fully-developed Early English of De Lucy’s chapels in the neighbouring cathedral.

The length to which my remarks on the French and English transition have been necessarily extended has compelled me to limit what I hoped to have said on that of Germany to a very few observations.

I have already mentioned the extraordinary tardiness of the Germans in relinquishing their much-loved Romanesque. I am not prepared, as in the case of French and English buildings, to trace out the first appearance of the pointed arch, and I have no doubt that there are numerous instances of its use at an earlier date; but there is nothing like a transition into the pointed-arch style till the commencement of the thirteenth century—after it had been completed both in England and France. Nevertheless, the German transition is as distinctly national and as evident an offspring of their own Romanesque as that of France or England; indeed, it is so peculiar as to appear, at first sight, to have little in connection with the architecture of either of those countries, and is usually spoken of as being only a slight variety upon German Romanesque. Let any one look at a few of its leading productions—as St. Martin, St. Gereon, and a few others at Cologne; the churches at Neuss near Dusseldorf, Limburg on the Lahn, Zinzig, or Gelnhaussen; the western façades at Andernach, Xanten, St. Sibald at Nuremberg, and at Halberstadt, the east end of Magdeburg, or at the representations of the cloisters (now destroyed) of St. Gereon, or Altenberg, or at any of the multitudinous list of German churches of the first quarter of the thirteenth century—and he will at once see that they present as natural and logical a transition from their own national Romanesque as the works of Suger do from that of the royal domain of France. The use of the crochet capitals in some of the later examples is the solitary instance of any direct imitation of the already perfected transition in the neighbouring countries.

The great misfortune of the German transition was that it occurred so late that, before they could perfect it, the French had passed into the second stage of their developed Pointed, and had worked out the great problem of window tracery. The consequence was that German patience at length gave way;—they relinquished their transition just as they were perfecting a Pointed style of their own, and, throwing themselves almost wholly into the hands of the French, passed at one step from their own curious and characteristic art into the fully-developed style of Amiens and Beauvais.

Mr. Fergusson laments this as having prevented the development of a perfect round-arched style; but it must be recollected that the round-arched style of Germany had been almost entirely relinquished previously to the succumbing of their national architecture before the dominant star of France: the loss, then, we have to lament is not that it prevented a more perfect round-arched development, but that it suspended, when on the eve of being perfected, the formation of a really national German variety of the pointed-arched style; and though they did much to remedy this, it unquestionably rendered their architecture for the next century in some degree a German version of French style.

I have, however, dwelt so long upon the mere history of the transition that I have had no time to extract any useful practical lessons from the changes in art we have been tracing out. What, then, are the leading lessons they suggest?

Ist, They show us how absolute must have been the necessity in generating a perfect arcuated style, to cast away the slavery—I will not say of the round arch, for it is one of the most genuine and useful forms—but of the adherence to one unchanging form in the arch, admitting of no variation in its proportion of height to span, nor any change of form suited to its statical duties, or its geometrical or æsthetical position.

2d, They suggest encouragement in the task of working out a style suited to the exigencies of our day, by showing how vast are the results to be anticipated when not only the artists, but when the rulers, the nobles, the ecclesiastics of a country thoroughly set themselves to the task with one heart and one mind, and work on together with all their zeal, energy, and perseverance, till they have insured the great object of their designs. Would that we could see some equivalent effort in our own country and in our own day!

In the age we have been treating of, the previous architecture, though in a great degree original, retained elements derived from the degenerated Roman, and others belonging to the ages of darkness and barbarism which succeeded; but, by the effort we have been chronicling, both these elements were thrown off, and the style came forth like gold tried in the fire—pure and refined.

3d, We may learn a lesson of patience from what we have reviewed. Those of us who have been endeavouring to generate a style on the basis of the architecture of our own family of nations, have been often taunted with the slowness of our progress. Now, it is scarcely twenty years since we set earnestly about the task; and, rapid as the transition in the twelfth century appears, we have seen an interval of twenty years in its history in which we can trace no progress at all; which, with all our deficiencies, can hardly be said of us during a corresponding period. Let us, then, take courage, and press forward in spite of temporary discouragement, and in the end a like success may crown our labours.

4th, It has often been spoken of as a vice to be too fond of studying transitional styles. This may possibly be true as regards taking them as our models; but I hold the very contrary to be the case as to selecting them as special objects of study. They are the very periods of intellectual energy—the moments of the most intense effort of the human mind. From them we learn what zeal, what determination, what strength of will, what unity of purpose, what patient perseverance are required in working out a great good. The result of the mighty struggle was that, freed from every barbaric or lifeless element, our architects commenced the next century with their course clearly open before them, everything in their power, and no hindrance to the attainment of their object. Would that we could say this of ourselves, whatever may be our views as to style!

5th, Then, again, in the style itself of the buildings we have been considering there is much for us to learn. They possess a masculine grandeur, a noble sturdiness of character, an independence of ornament united with a grateful acceptance of its aid, which would supply a wholesome element to any style. A perfected style is often defective in these characteristics. It is toned down to too perfect a symmetry—a too nicely weighed balance of parts: the whole may suggest nothing but harmony, yet the parts are too much lost in the whole; there is too much of the satiety of attainment, and not enough of the excitement of the effort after perfection. The first developments of Pointed architecture produce an excitement on the mind which more perfected examples do not give rise to, and it seems to me that they contain elements which we should not do amiss to instil into our works, as I may have occasion to suggest more practically, if I should continue my course of lectures in this place.

6th, There is something to be learned from the curious history I have traced out of the re-introduction of one classic element—the Corinthian capital—at the moment when all other relics of the architecture of the old world were about to be thrown off. It is a kind of parallel to the revival of classic literature at the same period, on which M. Viollet le Duc remarks:—“It is precisely at the moment when the researches into antique letters, sciences, philosophy, and legislation were pursued with ardour—during the twelfth century—that architecture abandoned the last remnants of antique tradition, to found a new art whose principles are in manifest opposition to those of the arts of antiquity.” “Are we, then,” he proceeds, “to conclude from this that the men of the twelfth century were not consistent with themselves? Quite the contrary; but that which distinguishes the Renaissance of the twelfth from that of the sixteenth century, is this—that the former penetrates into the antique spirit, while the latter allows itself to be seduced by the form.”

The Corinthian capital stood alone among the details of ancient architecture, as being founded on principles of beauty common to all ages. It was foreshadowed in the works of their earliest predecessors, the Egyptians, and had suggested the forms for the capitals used in all succeeding styles, whether by the Byzantines, the Sassanians, the Saracens, or the Gothic conquerors of Rome. It was, then, consistent that, while about to purge their arts of mere dead rudimental relics of ancient art, this one feature should be revived as a nucleus for development. The same may be said of the pointed arch, if the theory be true of its Saracenic suggestion. It had been invented in very early times, perhaps earlier than even the round arch, though its uses were not then appreciated. The Romanesque builders had adopted many dead forms of ornament from Saracenic and Persian manufactures, and the introduction of this one really living feature at the moment when the exigencies of the style demanded it (whether the idea occurred to them spontaneously or by suggestion) was the signal for throwing off, as effete and useless, all the Orientalisms which they already had in use.

From this we may learn not to shrink from adopting into our developments external suggestions from whatever source, provided only that they approve themselves to our eye and our intellect as legitimate sources of beauty, or aids to construction, and as capable of being harmonised with the style we are working out. Let us throw them boldly into the fining-pot, and if we are skilful manipulators, the gold will remain and the dross be thrown off.

Another thing we may learn is, that the mere precedence of one nation in the working out of a style does not deprive the developments of neighbouring countries of the claims of nationality. The English transition began a little later than the French, and it is, as we have seen, distinctly marked in its character and its results, so that no one can ever mistake an English building for a French one.

The German transition came on after the English and French were perfected, yet is (if anything) even more national than our own; while the Italian Gothic, though an absolute importation, and often defective in detail, has more strongly-marked national characteristics than any other.[34]

When, however, we use the term “national,” we do not usually refer to these local varieties, but rather wish to express the general fact that, in our own country and amidst the family of European nations, those styles which were generated during the rise of our own civilisation are more national than the revived architecture of the ancient world. Each country has its own local variety; but the whole is one style, and that style is our own. While reviving this style, then, though we make in each country our own phase of it our groundwork, we must not permit either the narrow prejudices of friends, or the taunts of critics, to lead us into the folly of rejecting any of the really noble and valuable elements of our style, in whatever country they may have been generated.

I will close my too protracted lecture with a quotation from that admirable writer and accomplished architect I have so often referred to.

He thus describes the leading practical principles of the architecture to which the transition we have been tracing out was the pioneer:—

“From the commencement of the thirteenth century architecture developed itself after a method completely new, in which all the parts deduced themselves—the one from the other—with an imperious rigour. Now, it is by the change of method that revolutions in sciences and arts commence. The construction commands the form; the piers destined to bear several arches divide themselves into as many columns as there are arches; these columns are of a diameter more or less substantial, according to the load which will rest upon them, rising side by side with them to the vaults which they have to sustain, their capitals assuming an importance proportioned to this charge. The arches are slight or thick, composed of one or more ranges of voussoirs, as dictated by their function. The walls, becoming unnecessary, in great structures disappear completely, and are replaced by window-openings decorated with stained glass. Every necessity becomes a motive of decoration. The roofs, the leading off of the water, the introduction of light, the means of access and circulation to the different stages of the building—even less important matters, such as iron-work, lead-work, ties, props, the means of warming and ventilation, not only are not concealed, as is so often done in our buildings since the sixteenth century, but are, on the contrary, frankly acknowledged, and contribute, by their ingenious combination and the taste which ever presides over their execution, to the enrichment of the architecture.[35] In a beautiful edifice of the commencement of the thirteenth century, splendid as we may think it, there is not an ornament to be spared, for each ornament is but the consequence of requirement satisfied.”

LECTURE IV.

The Thirteenth Century.

IN the two lectures I delivered during the last session, my object was to trace out the development of Pointed architecture from the Romanesque nucleus of the preceding age; to show how far this was the result of constructional necessities and the natural progression of art, and how far it was aided and furthered by external influences; and to illustrate the unity and grandeur of the artistic movement which, in so short a time, generated an art at once so original and so truly noble. My object on the present occasion will be to give a general sketch of that art when it had arrived at its culminating point, or rather during that wonderful century through which it reigned triumphant, rejoicing in the full attainment of the object of its strivings, and, proceeding from strength to strength and from beauty to beauty, filled the countries of Western Europe with creations at once new to art, and in many respects nobler than anything the world had previously seen.

Though it is convenient to classify our Mediæval architecture under heads of centuries, its points of change do not, in reality, coincide with such a division. It would, perhaps, be nearer to the fact if we classed the last quarter in each century with that which follows: thus, in this country the Norman style would be supposed, roughly speaking, to occupy the interval between 1075 and 1175; the Early Pointed style from thence to 1275; the Middle or Decorated periods from 1275 to 1375; and so on.

On this view of the case, a great deal of what I treated of in my last lecture belongs artistically to the present one, and a portion of what I am embracing under the head of the thirteenth century would better go with the fourteenth. As, however, I should wish to be as comprehensive as possible in defining the period of the unimpaired integrity of the style, I gladly extend it to the very end of the century, and will not quarrel with those who would dip a little into the succeeding one; for, though I prefer the strength and boldness of the works of the earlier part of the century, the style can hardly be regarded as complete if deprived of the more delicate productions which characterise its close.

In my last lecture I showed how, both in France and England, the last quarter of the twelfth century was occupied in bringing the earlier phase of Pointed architecture from a state of mere transition to one of full development and consistency, and how that the works of this period of especial earnestness in onward striding are characterised by a masculine vigour, scarcely equalled at any other stage.

We have now to view the Early Pointed style at the period of the full attainment of its aims, and when its endeavours were rather to amplify and to extend its means than to construct a style.

The thirteenth century commenced under the most favourable auspices for the development of the newly-created architecture. In France, both the secular and the ecclesiastical powers were in the highest state of prosperity; and if in England such was not the case with the Crown, and we were checked by a bad and mean-spirited King, it is clear that both the Barons and the Church were in a state of high prosperity, for, from the very opening of the century, we find works on the grandest scale to have been everywhere undertaken. Whether in the castle, the palace, the cathedral, the monastery, or the parish church, we find the newly-developed style to have been put largely into practice, so that scarcely a building of note fails to show the impress of the youthful art. Every great church must have its share of it; thus, at Canterbury, though they had just completed the eastern half in the style of the transition, the cloisters were added in the perfected manner. At York, again, the choir had been rebuilt in the last half of the preceding century; but the perfected style must have its sway, so the Norman transepts were rebuilt in it. At Lincoln the transformation of style had commenced under St. Hugh before the close of the twelfth century, and before 1280, but small vestiges of the Norman structure remained. At Ely the century commenced with the building of the western porch, which was followed up by the magnificent eastern arm of the cathedral. At St. Alban’s the gigantic Norman church had not been completed much more than half a century before its western façade was demolished and recommenced in the new style, in which one-half of the nave partook; and before the thirteenth century was finished the choir had also been rebuilt. At Durham the Norman church received the magnificent addition of the Chapel of the Nine Altars: at Fountains a similar addition was made, with an entirely new choir and many noble appendages. Wells Cathedral was almost rebuilt in the new style. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to single out any great church which does not more or less evince the influence of the great architectural movement which ushered in the thirteenth century. Its most complete work is the cathedral at Salisbury; and among its later creations we may enumerate the eastern portion of Westminster Abbey, the whole of Tintern Abbey, and the greater part of the once sumptuous church of St. Mary’s Abbey, at York; while its last decade produced some of the most exquisite gems of art, such as the tombs of Crouchback, of De Luda, and of Archbishop Peckham; the chapel of Ely Place, Holborn, and the Eleanor Crosses; so that, taken as a whole, the century can claim most of the noblest, as well as of the most elegant, productions of English art.

In France its pre-eminence is, if possible, yet more manifest. The century opened there under the fully established power of Philip Augustus, the most powerful monarch who had ruled France since the days of Charlemagne. In the days of his predecessor the English King had governed more French provinces than the King of France himself; but now the English

were almost entirely expelled, and this mighty monarch reigned without a rival. In his days commenced an almost general rebuilding (wholly or in part) of the cathedrals, excepting such as were of very recent date. The west façade of Nôtre Dame at Paris, the greater part of Rouen, of Rheims, of Amiens, of Coutance, of Bourges, the eastern half of Le Mans, and a list far too long to be enumerated, owe their grandeur to his reign, or those immediately following.

Towards the middle of the century the same work progressed gloriously under the auspices of St. Louis, and though slackened from actual satiety towards the close of the century, it was not really checked till the commencement of the English war.

As in England, the works thus produced evince masculine grandeur of the highest order at the commencement, and the most delicate beauty at the close of the century, while during its middle portion the two are united in the works of St. Louis. In Germany the works of this century evince great artistic disturbance. The change from the round to the pointed-arch style had been there resisted, while both in France and England it had been worked out to maturity. At the opening of the century, German architecture consisted of a highly-refined variety of Romanesque, with the partial use of the pointed arch, chiefly where suggested by constructional necessities. This, during the first quarter or more of the century, developed itself into an Early Pointed style, strictly German, and holding out promises of great force and originality—promises which were frustrated by the sudden inroad of French Gothic about 1250, after which, though Germany took a course still very much her own, it was one in a great degree severed from her noble early tradition, and emanating from the French graft rather than from the original stem.

Italy received her Pointed architecture from France and Germany, and mingled it freely with her Classico-Lombardic traditions. The union produced many noble and many incongruous developments. The lessons they offer must be used with caution; but Italy being the land of ancient art, the land of sculpture, of painting, of rich marbles, of mosaic work, and of municipal and other civic edifices, the graft of Northern art upon so prolific a stock has, as may readily be imagined, produced varieties which the circumstances of Northern nations would have rendered impracticable in its native lands; and the suggestions they offer, if judiciously used, are well calculated to add copiousness to the style in the hands of its modern revivers. Of this I may have occasion to say more hereafter.

The thirteenth century was to Mediæval art what the Periclean and Augustan ages were to the Greek and Roman; and in each case, though war and bloodshed are in themselves hostile to art, there can be no doubt that the excitement of the human mind, resulting from great national struggles, has tended to produce that advance in art which followed, in one case, the glorious assertion of national independence; in another, the conquest of the world; and in a third, the romantic and unselfish efforts of the Crusaders.

It was a period of deep-seated mental excitement, of a prodigious upstirring of the human intellect. Our learned men at the present day may smile at the quaint and imperfect erudition of these early periods of our civilisation, but they should remember that they were our days of youth, of warmth, and of rising vigour, while the more perfected literature of our own age may possibly be found to superadd to its maturity a few symptoms of old age.

This youthful energy pervaded every branch of art; everything seemed to experience a new, a generous, and vigorous impulse. All Europe became filled with the productions of the newly generated art; every city became a repertory of noble and sublime architecture, and every town and village became possessed of productions equally beautiful, if more modest in their pretensions; while the intervening country was studded over with castles and monastic establishments, in which the same majestic art displayed itself in ever-varying forms, each suited to meet their different requirements.

Nothing is more difficult than to describe a perfected art. My last two lectures traced out the gradual construction of Pointed architecture, and its transition from the preceding style. This was comparatively easy; but to describe it when it had attained perfection is far less so.

The fact is that there is neither in France nor in England any very marked difference between the styles during the later period of its transition, and when perfected beyond that unity and consistency of parts which indicate maturity. In France, particularly, this is the case; for neither had the style there continued long to evince its transitional state by the retention of strictly Romanesque features—unless the square abacus can be so designated—nor did it, when perfected, throw off, as in England, that one detail which to our eye seems a relic of transition. The later transition and the earlier perfected specimens seem in France to be the same art, a little more developed and more homogeneous, rather than to have many describable points of difference. In England the change of the abacus from the square to the round form makes the distinction more marked, so that English examples at the opening of the thirteenth century always appear later and more advanced than contemporary French ones. I instanced in my last lecture four early examples of perfected Early English: the eastern transept of Lincoln, completed about 1200; the eastern chapels at Winchester, about 1204; the western portals at St. Alban’s, finished about 1205; and the western porch or Galilee at Ely, finished about 1214. None of them show any remains of transitional character, and all having the English round capital in full development, appear to the English eye more advanced than such works as the western portals of Nôtre Dame at Paris, which are, if anything, somewhat later in date. In this country, in fact, the form of the abacus is the distinguishing feature between the transition to the perfected style, while in France there is no such distinction to be found. The difference is more one of feeling, which the practical eye perceives at once without being able to define.

Though I speak of the Early Pointed as a newly-generated art—as it in effect was—it must never be forgotten that it is a distinct and natural growth from the pre-existing Romanesque. The more I study old examples the more obvious does this appear. Take either France or England alone, and you may from either construct, ad libitum, unbroken catenæ of examples, showing step by step the natural and logical growth of the new style out of the old; and that without any essential imported element (for the Byzantine capital, which was the parent of the Gothic one, was an accidental, though a happy, importation).

This progressive growth was but the practical realisation of three great aims towards which the Romanesque architects were ever striving—the perfecting of their arcuated and vaulted construction, the increase of the altitude of their proportions, and the general adding of refinement and elegance to their details. Thus, if you take the internal bay of a Norman cathedral, and simply set yourself the task of increasing its height in a given proportion, the result will be a Gothic bay, for the arches cannot participate in the increased elevation without becoming pointed. If the details are further refined, it becomes an ordinary transitional design; and if the process is carried on a little farther, it becomes a perfected Early Pointed work—the distinction between transition and perfected Early Pointed being merely the carrying on of the process by which the former was generated out of Romanesque. This fact, which all who look closely into it must see, was what led a talented writer to say that Early Pointed was only Romanesque improved. He meant this as an argument against it as compared with the still succeeding styles; but I confess, for my own part, while feeling strongly the truth of the observation, and highly appreciating the importance of some of the subsequent developments, I do not the less admire the glorious productions of the Early style from seeing in them the evidences of the vigorous stock from which they have sprung.[36]

It will be seen, by enumerating the leading characteristics of Pointed architecture, that the great majority of them were already perfected, or, at least, brought to that reasonable and consistent state of development which stops short of excess and exaggeration, at the commencement of the thirteenth century.

The pointed arch had obtained universal predominance, though without involving the rejection of the semicircular or the plain segment, where circumstances called for them; the general predominance of the vertical line was acknowledged, without running into the excess of underrating the horizontal; lofty and aspiring proportions prevailed, though not to the extent of exaggeration, and without unreasonably asserting their claims in works of a humbler class; the subdivision of arches into orders, and the clustering of the pillars, so as to satisfy the eye that each member of the arch was severally supported, had arisen during the Romanesque period, and was now carried out still more systematically and with greater elegance; and the system of making the bases and capitals face in the direction of the insisting arch-rib, which had also arisen early, was (in France at least) very generally adhered to. The distinction between constructional and decorative pillars—one of the great characteristics of the Gothic style, both Round and Pointed—was carried to its fullest extent; the vaulting system was perfected, though retaining its normal simplicity; and the corresponding system of buttress (solid or arched) and pinnacle, which are the necessary accompaniments of a perfect arcuated style, had been brought to perfection; the continuity of line was acknowledged sufficiently to suggest a feeling of natural growth of the parts one from another, from the bases of the shafts to the bosses of the vaulting, but without that sacrifice of force and of all salient points which became the vice of later styles.

The principle of rendering the useful features ornamental was fully developed; as an instance of it—the doorways, the only parts of the exterior which must of necessity be seen from close at hand, were rendered magnificent beyond all former precedent, and became the vehicles of noble sculpture, and the great exponents of the objects of the building, whether religious or secular. The windows now became great characteristic objects, not only from their richly painted glass within, but as leading architectural features, both within and without. The bell towers became glorious structures, rendering the cities conspicuous throughout the whole surrounding district, and making every village a distinct and beautiful point in the landscape. The same principle obtained in all secular structures. The castles of the nobility became truly noble structures, glorious for the stern grandeur of their external aspect, and for the massive beauty of their internal architecture; the gates and defences of cities partook of the same severe grandeur; while the street fronts, the town halls, and other civic buildings, displayed architectural characteristics, modest or grand, as suited their several purposes. In Italy, where municipal institutions were more developed, noble street palaces were erected; and everywhere the architecture, whether viewed in the mass or in its details, was suited, as by an unerring instinct, to the objects on which it was exercised.

The decorative system of the architecture had also been brought to great perfection. The mouldings were refined without losing boldness or strength—in fact, were strong or delicate, as suited their position; the foliated carving had arrived at very high perfection, and was of a kind perfectly new—the magnificent creation of the artistic mind; sculpture was often profusely used in connection with architecture, and if not of that perfectly studied symmetry which satisfies the academic critic, it evinces a boldness of conception, a quickness of invention, and an unaffected grandeur of sentiment, which our modern sculptors would do well to emulate, while it is eminently suited, by its rigid lines and severe force, to architectural purposes.

It would be absurd to attempt, in a single lecture, to give any detailed description of the architecture of this great period; nor is it necessary, as no style is so familiar to those whose attention has been at all turned to such subjects; I will, however, take a few of its leading points, and call attention to some of their characteristics.

I will begin with the Column. In no feature is the difference between Classic and Gothic architecture so strongly marked as in the column. In the former, one general idea alone prevailed—the round shaft with a capital, and with or without a base. In the latter this normal type is equally admissible and equally honoured, but, in addition to it, an almost endless list of forms are introduced. In the first place the round column is converted at pleasure into the octagonal or other polygonal form—this is a mere variety of the normal type; then either the round or the polygon is flanked by four smaller shafts, attached or detached, and these subsidiary shafts may be increased in number, subordinated one to another, both in size and salience, and may be all attached, all detached, or the attached and detached shafts may be used alternately or in any other order in the same pillar.

Then, again, instead of the cylindrical pillar, we may have four cylinders united in one, and these may in their turn be made the nucleus round which detached or attached shafts may be grouped: or we may have two or more separate cylindrical main shafts carrying the load, and may group subordinate ones round them; and again, we may take other forms of nucleus—as the square, the canted square, or a pier with receding orders—and place our shafts round them; and, finally, we may form groups in which no specific form of nucleus is to be traced, but which consist of shafts arranged with reference to the superincumbent arch alone.

The number of changes which may be rung on these varieties of pillar are absolutely endless, though it is not desirable to indulge too much in the more intricate forms of grouping, but, as a general rule, to keep to forms which are naturally suggested by the duties the pillar is designed to perform. When detached subsidiary shafts are used, it is somewhat unnatural to joint them in their length without introducing some visible means of tying them to the main pillar within. This necessity gave rise to the use of the moulded band, which forms so beautiful a feature in the pillars of this period. It is sometimes made of brass, but more usually of stone or marble.

The bases of columns throughout the Romanesque period were most usually founded on some traditional variety of the Attic base. The resemblance is often obscure, but in many cases very close.

Towards the end of the Romanesque period very great attention began to be paid to the sections of base mouldings, and in transitional works they are often more beautiful than at any other period. The difference between these bases and the ordinary Attic base is of the same kind which distinguishes Greek from Roman moulding. It is an extreme delicacy of curve, the substitution of elliptical sections for circular, and a wonderfully studious grouping of the hollows, rounds, and arrises, so as to produce a refined and delicate contrast and gradation of light and shade, without destroying the strength necessary to the main supporting feature. In this they showed a high appreciation of what is in all architecture a difficult problem—the uniting the conflicting claims of the lower part of a building, as on the one hand demanding the greatest strength of character as supporting the whole structure, and on the other a delicate finish, as the part open to the closest inspection.

The bases have usually one more part than a Classic base, having in most cases a projecting sub-plinth, either chamfered or moulded. In earlier instances the plinth and sub-plinth are both square in plan; and here, again, we obtain a feature of great beauty which antique architecture did not possess. I mean the beautiful leaves or bosses of foliage which spring out of the lower torus to cover the projecting angles of the plinth.

This projection is often reduced by making the torus overhang the square plinth in the centre of its sides, and a little projecting corbel is often put to carry this overhanging, as well as the leaf to cover the angles of the plinth.

At a later period the square plinth gave way to the octagonal, and in England and Normandy often to the round form.

In early work the bases often faced about diagonally as the caps, to indicate the direction of the arch-ribs to be supported.[37]

In France the elliptical section of the lower torus continued much longer than in England, and the upper torus was often converted into a kind of ogee, and both in France and England the scotia was usually very narrow and deep—so much so, indeed, as to hold water. In England another kind of base is frequent, in which a bead is substituted for the scotia.