Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/482

468 English. These are called the hall-flower and the fourleaved flower, of which we give examples. They are used, particularly the ball-flower, in cornices, capitals, corbels, in the mouldings of doors and windows, and in every place where ornament can be used. The ball-flower is even used as crockets on the spire of Salisbury Cathedral; and the mullions and tracery of some of the windows in Gloucester Cathedral are completely filled with it.

is very extensively used in this style in the backs of niches, on buttresses, and for covering spaces where other ornament could not well be used.

Ruins of Croyland Abbey

Towards the end of the reign of Edward III. a great revolution in architecture was in progress. The change was first indicated by the introduction of straight lines among the flowing tracery of the windows, by which the beautiful freedom of their design was much impaired.

This was followed by the foliage and other ornamental parts becoming more stiff and formal, and losing their truthfulness to nature.

It is curious to see how this idea of the perpendicular line and of a tendency to general squareness of form seems to have taken possession of the minds of the architects of the period; and it can only be attributed to the inherent love of variety and a desire for novelty. All things showed the approach of a change, which certainly was not the work of one man, but the effect of a pervading idea, until William of Wykeham embodied and improved it, and brought out the new or Perpendicular style, which will be the subject of a future chapter.

Of the of the fourteenth century many good specimens yet remain. They were almost all built more or less for defence; and the more exposed the situation, the more were the defences increased, until it is difficult in many cases to say whether a building should be considered a house or a castle. The saying that "An Englishman's house is his castle" was at this time literally true. They were mostly moated, and contained but few rooms, one of which was much larger than the rest—the hall.

Of the military strongholds, or, properly so called, many of the finest we possess were built during this period; among which may be mentioned Carnarvon, Chepstow, Ividwelly, Pembroke, "Windsor, Clifford's Tower, York, Warwick, &c. The masonry of those is of the most perfect description; the courses, as at Clifford's Tower, York, being laid regularly through the whole extent of the building; thus showing that in castellated as well as in every other branch of architecture the Edwardian period stands pre-eminent.

The art of sculpture was necessarily inseparable from ecclesiastical architecture. In our churches of the feudal