CHAPTER IX

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN

Gothic architecture in England and Scotland followed to some extent the same lines as in France, with, however, certain notable differences that were the outcome of the national feeling which had begun to make itself felt as early as the close of the 11th century. Until then the Normans had remained a distinct and alien element in what appeared to them a foreign land, but now they had become fused with the natives of that land, sharing their aesthetic as well as their political aspirations. The note of change was first sounded in the architecture of the now united races in a rebellion against the heavy massiveness of the Norman style, and a desire for a greater redundancy of what may be called structural decoration in place of extraneous surface ornamentation. The general proportions of buildings gradually became slenderer, the walls loftier, the windows longer, the piers and columns slighter, and the arches more pointed, these peculiarities becoming more and more accentuated as time went on, till they culminated in the noble and exquisitely beautiful cathedrals and churches that vied even with the best of those of Northern France.

It is usual to divide the development of English Gothic architecture into three periods: the Early English, the Decorated, and the Perpendicular--the first prevailing from about 1189 to 1307, the second from the latter date to 1380, and the third from 1380 to 1485, whilst the name of Tudor has been given to the transitional time between the last phase of Gothic and the introduction of the Renaissance style, lasting from 1485 to about 1546. It must, however, be added that hardly any buildings exist belonging entirely to one period, architects having in almost every case been compelled to be content with adding to or modifying the work of their predecessors.

Amongst the characteristics of Early English architecture are groined vaulting with main diagonal ribs only, long narrow lancet-headed windows, clustered piers with capitals consisting generally of delicately carved foliage, pointed arcading, the archivolt or arched portion enriched with mouldings, in which the ornament known as the dog-tooth is of frequent occurrence, ornate yet dignified western facades with deeply recessed doorways decorated with slender columns and beautiful bas-reliefs, high-pitched roofs with stilted gable ends, lofty towers and spires, and plain buttresses ranged in pairs at the angles of buildings.

The Early English lancet window has a unique significance in the development of Gothic architecture this side of the Channel, for it inaugurated an important structural change, its constantly increasing length aiding greatly in the breaking up of the triple division of walls--supposed by some to have been emblematic of the Holy Trinity--with arcading, triforium, and clerestory. By slow degrees the triforium was first reduced to a mere decorative feature, and then eliminated altogether, whilst the clerestory usurped its place in addition to its own.

In Decorated buildings the windows are larger and divided into a greater number of lights than in Early English, the heads being filled with tracery of geometrical design; the facades are more complicated and at the same time less effective, the towers and spires are loftier and supplemented by many pinnacles and finials, flying buttresses are multiplied; parapets with pierced openings, canopied niches containing figures and other purely decorative features give to the exteriors a great richness of general appearance. In the interiors the simple Early English vaulting is superseded by roofs divided into a great number of different compartments, the points of intersection being marked by stone bosses or masses of carving, whilst increased lavishness of decoration characterises every portion of the building, mouldings of a great variety, amongst which the ballflower is of frequent occurrence, being introduced wherever possible.

In Perpendicular Gothic, as its name implies, the vertical tendency became ever more and more marked; towers, spires, and pinnacles became more and more numerous, all decreasing in bulk and increasing in height. Turrets with many airy finials, springing from flying buttresses that were adorned with figures of lions, dragons, and other symbolic creatures, rise above equally ornate parapets, the dignified single-centred arch was replaced by a four-centred form, and rectilinear lines superseded the beautifully flowing tracery of earlier windows. It was, however, the complex and exquisitely delicate groined roofing that chiefly characterised the Perpendicular style, lending to the interior of the buildings in which it was employed an ethereal charm that has never been surpassed. In the so-called fan-tracery roof, that was the culmination of this distinctive form of vaulting, the entire surface of the roof is covered with radiating ribs resembling the sections of an outspread fan, connected by bands of trefoil or quatrefoil ornament known as cusping, and, in some cases--notably in that of Henry VII's chapel at Westminster--with pendant stalactite ornaments drooping from the point of intersection of the groins. In some Perpendicular buildings, as in the Churches of S. Stephen and S. Peter's Mancroft at Norwich, ornate open timber roofs, enriched with beautiful carving, take the place of those of stone, and in the final or Tudor phase of the style such roofs, to which the name of hammer beam has been given, and of which those of Wolsey's Great Hall at Hampton Court and of Westminster Hall are good examples, were almost as elaborate as the fan-tracery variety. Characteristic features of secular Tudor buildings are the extensive use of panelling, the bow or projecting window rising direct from the ground, the oriel window or window supported by a corbel of stone often finely carved, battlements with open tracery work and richly decorated gables, fine specimens of all of which are to be seen at Hampton Court Palace.

One of the earliest Gothic structures in England is the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, designed by the Burgundian Williams of Sens, which recalls in general style certain contemporaneous French ecclesiastical buildings. Foreign influence is also noticeable in the somewhat later Ripon and Chichester Cathedrals, but by the beginning of the 13th century English Gothic had freed itself almost entirely from the trammels of French traditions, and started forward on the path from which it never deviated, combining a consummate mastery of structural principles and an unwearying attention to detail with a unity of expression that makes an English Gothic church or cathedral an ideal reflection of the spirit of the age which witnessed its erection.

The Cathedrals of Wells, Lincoln, and Salisbury, the choir of Ely Cathedral, and the choir, transepts, and part of the cloisters and other details of Westminster Abbey, are typical examples of the Early English phase of Gothic. The first named especially is unrivalled in the symmetry of its general proportions and the richness and appropriateness of its decorations. Its western facade rivals that of Amiens Cathedral in the restrained dignity of its general design, the delicacy of its decorative arcading, and the number and variety of its finely sculptured figures. The central tower, though its upper portion belongs to the Decorated period, harmonises well with the rest of the exterior, whilst the interior is truly a poem in stone, with the long perspective of the nave flanked by graceful arches, springing from clustered piers with capitals of exquisitely carved foliage, noble triforia and clerestories, and a simple arched vaulting of intersecting ribs. The transepts, that are of earlier date than the nave, serve as a kind of introduction to it, and in the choir the transition from Early English to Decorated Gothic can be well studied, the western portion dating from the 12th and the eastern from the 13th century.

Though the exterior of Lincoln Cathedral is of a somewhat hybrid character, the towers and doorways of the west front being Norman, the arcading and decorative sculpture Early English, and the central tower Decorated, the general effect is grand and impressive. The interior, though not quite so ornate as that of Wells, is almost as beautiful, the great rose windows being specially noteworthy features. The so-called Angel Choir, which has a very fine triforium, is a gem of Early English work, and the three 15th century chapels adjoining it are equally characteristic of Perpendicular Gothic.

The beautiful Early English choir of Ely Cathedral contrasts forcibly with the noble Norman nave, and the so-called Galilee Porch is one of the finest examples of the first phase of Gothic in the country, but the exterior of the building has been almost entirely rebuilt, the great central tower, which fell in 1322, having been replaced by the present one in the Decorated phase of Gothic. The Early English portions of Westminster Abbey closely resemble the other examples of the style just quoted, though the bays of the choir are not so well proportioned as those of Lincoln. Before the 15th century additions to Salisbury Cathedral and the sweeping away of the statues and other sculptures that adorned its west front, it must have been almost as typical as that of Lincoln or of Wells of the Early English style, and it still remains, in its rectangular plan and square eastern termination, a true representative of the ideals of native architects.

The transepts of York Minster, in one of which is the famous window with lancet-headed lights, known as the Five Sisters, is a good example of the transition from Early English to Decorated Gothic, and the same may be said of portions of the ruins of Hexham Abbey, the Saxon crypt of which has already been referred to, notably of the transepts with windows resembling those of York Minster, and of the many relics of the noble monastic buildings of Yorkshire, including those at Ripon, Jervaulx, Rivaulx, and Whitby. The Cathedral of Glasgow is another beautiful building in the first phase of Gothic, the choir, beneath which is a noble crypt of earlier date, being especially fine, and with it must be named the ruins of the great abbey churches of Kelso, Jedburgh, and Dryburgh, that have distinctive Norman as well as Early English details.

The first half of the 14th century was the golden age of English architecture, during which the Decorated gradually grew out of the Early English style, the two being in many cases so completely merged in each other that no break is discernible. The foundations of a truly national style had been laid in the Cathedrals of Wells and of Lincoln, in which originality of design was combined with consummate technical skill of execution, and in the buildings that succeeded them, architect and craftsmen still worked together in complete harmony. The wealth of imagination of the latter found its best expression in emphasising the structural lines of the noble conceptions of the former; niches, with their figures, cusping, finials and crockets, ball flowers and bosses, all becoming essential details of one harmonious whole.

The nave and choir of Exeter Cathedral are especially typical of Decorated architecture at its best. They rise from the foundations of an earlier church, of which the Norman towers above the transepts are relics, and are absolutely unsurpassed in the simple dignity of the arcading spanning the clustered piers, the exquisite beauty of the groined roofing, the bosses of which are decorated with delicate carvings of a great variety of subjects, and the fine tracery of the windows. Unfortunately the general effect of the exterior, in spite of the fine Norman towers and the beauty of the decorative sculpture of the west front, is inferior to that of the interior, a 15th century porch harmonising ill with the earlier work, whilst breadth is too great for the height of the building.

Other good examples of Decorated Gothic are the Church of St. Mary, Oxford, with a very fine spire; the nave and chapter-house of York Minster, which has a very beautiful window at the western end, the flowing tracing of which is specially distinctive of the style; the choir of Lichfield Cathedral, which has, however, certain Early English details; the choir of Carlisle Cathedral, with an exceptionally beautiful eastern window of nine lights with elaborate tracery; the Lady Chapel of Wells Cathedral; the crypt, all that is left of St. Stephen's, Westminster, now used as a chapel of the Houses of Parliament, the lantern tower of Ely Cathedral; the ruins of Tintern and Battle Abbeys, with those of Melrose Abbey, which has also characteristic Perpendicular features. To the same period as these ecclesiastical buildings belong the Round Tower at Windsor, the Hall of the Bishop's Palace at Wells, Conway, Caernarvon, and Chepstow Castles, all recalling Norman domestic architecture in the general massiveness of their structure, that is relieved by the comparative lightness of such details as the doors and windows.

Unfortunately the second half of the 14th century was marked by a tendency to destroy or obliterate the characteristic details of Early English and Decorated buildings, a notable example of which is Gloucester Cathedral, the beautiful eastern apse of which was pulled down, whilst the piers and walls of the rest of the building were concealed as much as possible, the barbarism being, it must be owned, atoned for to some extent by the addition of a noble eastern window in the Perpendicular style. The nave of Westminster Abbey, on the other hand, begun just after the restoration of Gloucester Cathedral was completed, harmonises well with the earlier choir, and may be quoted, with the choir of York Minster and the naves of Canterbury and Winchester Cathedrals, as examples of the transition from the Decorated to the Perpendicular styles. To the final phase of the latter belong Beverley Minster, the Cathedral of Chester, and the Abbey Church at Bath, the western facades of all of which are very fine, but it was in Henry VII's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and St. George's Chapel, Windsor, with those of Holyrood and Roslyn in Scotland, that the style reached its fullest development. That development was, alas, however, all too soon followed by a decadence that was ushered in by an employment of too lavish and often meaningless ornamentation which had nothing to do with structural necessities.

Westminster Chapel, in addition to the characteristic fan-tracery roof already referred to, has an exceptionally beautiful chevet with five apsidal chapels, a finely vaulted nave, aisles, and cloisters, in which Decorated and Perpendicular details are harmoniously combined. King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and St. George's, Windsor, are both entirely in the Perpendicular style, whilst the Scotch examples quoted above are specially noticeable for the contrast their massive pillars and arcades present to the airy lightness of their vaulting.

Less important Perpendicular ecclesiastical buildings are the parish churches of Blakeney and Cley in Norfolk, the former with a specially fine east window, the latter unfortunately almost in ruins, but notable on account of the beauty of the decorative carving; the parish church of Fairford, Gloucestershire, the stained glass windows of which are amongst the finest in England; and Christ Church College, Oxford, in which town, by the way, Gothic traditions lingered longer than anywhere else in England.

Notable secular buildings in the latest phase of English Gothic are Westminster Hall, and the earlier portions of Hampton Court Palace, whilst Longleat Palace, Wiltshire, and Christ Church Hall, Oxford, with a fine open timber roof, are good examples of the transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance styles, the general plans belonging to the former and the decorative details being Italian in feeling.