Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/468

 346 NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. omission of so splendid an example as Lincoln cathedral is remarkable. Chapter xiii., " The Period of Geometric Tracery," requires some remark. The introduction of a new style, between the Eai-ly English and the Deco- rated, was proposed to the Oxford Ai-chitectural Society by Mr. E. A. Freeman in 1842; the same idea has since been taken up by Mr. Paley, and now by Mr. Poole ; it is an attractive theory, and we are not sur- prised at its finding many votaries, but the objection which was made to it on its first proposal still holds good. It is not easy to define such a style, and whilst geometrical tracery was used throughout nearly the whole of both the Early English and tlie Decorated styles, there are no other peculiar features, no characteristic mouldings, or doorways, or buttresses that can be defined as belonging to the " Geometric Period." The foliated circles, or trefoils, and quatrefoils in the head of the window which form geometrical tracery, are constantly used in good Early English work, almost from the beginning of the style. Mr. Poole himself points out ex- amples at St. Albans in 1214, and in the Galilee at Ely, about the same time, or a little earlier, but these do not agree with his definition of tracery. " So long as the additional piercings remain separated from their lancets by a portion of unmoulded masonry, and unassociated with them by a series of mouldings common to the whole composition, they cannot be said to foi'm tracery. They are no more entitled to that name than the foliated pierc- ings or panels in the spandrels of archies, or other places where relief is re- quired. As for instance the trefoils in spandrels at Ely, whei'e the quatre- foils between the lancets have been already mentioned. But by and bye the circles or other figures (but circles in nine cases out of ten at the least) are formed of the same mouldings as the window-jambs, and rest immedi- ately on the tops of the lights, or on one another, and no unmoulded ma- sonry is left between them ; even the several triangles or other spaces left by the contact of the circles, being pierced, wherever they are large enough for the mouldings of the several touching circles to be carried through them. And now we have tracery^ strictly so called ; that is, a net-work of open masonry, in no part more solid than it necessai'ily becomes by the touchings and intersections of several lines of equal thickness." p. 240. But allowing this definition of tracery to be good, still such windows as agree with this definition are constantly found, evidently of the same age and part of the same work with simple lancet windows. On the other hand windows with geometrical tracery are constantly found side by side with others having flowing tracery, and evidently both of the same age and part of the same work ; and that not always early Decorated work. The form of tracery alone is not sufficient to constitute a style of architecture ; it is a convenient mark by which readily and at first sight to distinguish a style, and as such Mr. Rickman employed it, bat other characteristic features must go along with it to constitute a separate style. Geometrical ti-acery was used during a great part of the tliirteenth and fourteenth centuries, simultaneously with both the Early English and the Decorated slyles, and the confusion of which Mr. Puole complains would be