Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/395

 ENGLISH GOTHIC (eAKLY ENGLISH STYLE). 337 were formed into stages by weathered set-offs (Nos. 127 a, b, and 141 b). Their arrises were often chamfered, and the different stages were frequently gabled. Flying or arched buttresses (No. 141 e) were first utilized in this period, but were not of common occurrence till a later period. In the interiors the nave arcade usually occupies the lower half of the height, the upper half being divided equally between triforium and clerestory, as at the choir of Ely, the naves of Lichfield (No. 124 c), and Lincoln ; but sometimes, the triforium was diminished in order to provide a larger display of glass, as at Westminster (No. 127 c) and Salisbury (No. 122 g). c. Openings. — Proportions, generally, are more slender than in Norman work, and pointed arches came into general use for constructive reasons, at first in connection with vaulting, then gradually throughout the whole building. The doorways are often richly treated, and ornamented with carved foliage (No. 143 a). Windows (Nos. 122, 136 d, and 142 a, b, c, e, f, g) are of lancet form, and tracery was developed, especially the early form known as " plate " tracery (No. 142 a, b), so-called because the openings were cut through a flat plate of stone. Cusps or projecting points of Gothic tracery were introduced in the latter part of the Early English style, being let into the soffit of the arches in separate small pieces and entirely independent of the mouldings. This form of detached cusping is found generally in the circular lights, the heads of windows having cusps forming part of the tracery itself. The spaces between the cusps are Ifnown as foils (Lat. folium = a leaf) being trefoil, quatrefoil or cinquefoil when having three, four or five openings. Narrow lancet windows are grouped in two, three, or even five lights, as in the " Five Sisters " in the north transept, York (page 316), the glass being usually kept near the exterior of the wall, making the inside jamb very deep. D. Roofs. — These are steeper than in the last period, approach- ing the shape of an equilateral triangle, i.e., sixty degrees. The framing was exposed where there was no vaulted ceiling. The braces were used to form a waggon shape, or semicircular ribs were employed, when the close setting of the flat rafters produces the effect of barrel vaulting. (Vaulting, see page 286, and Nos. 1 11 and 112.) E. Columns. — Piers consist of a central circular, or octagonal shaft, surrounded by smaller detached columns (No. 146), often of polished Purbeck marble, held in place by bands at intervals, as at Salisbury (No. 123) and Westminster Abbey. Capitals were frequently moulded, so as to produce fine bold shadows (No. 146), or carved with conventional foliage (No. 148), placed on the bell or lower portion of the capital. Tlie normal abacus is circular on plan. F.A. z