Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/743

 GOSWIN

G65

GOTHIC

Emery" which was revised and published (1S61) after his death.

Bertrand. Ilisloire lilteraire de la comfognie de Saint-Siilptce (Paris. 19001; Idem. Notice sur Af. Gosse/m, prefixed to his Viede M. Emmj (Paris, 1861); Bhownson, Works, X-XIII.

John F. Fenlon. Goswin. See Marienburg. Gother (or Goter), John, priest and controver- sialist; b. at Soutliampton, date unknown; d. at sea on a voyage to Lisbon, 2 October, 1704 (O. S.). Educated a strict Presbyterian, he became a convert and entered the English College at Lisbon in ItiOS. He was or- dained priest in 1682, and then returned to England to work on the mission in London. He was of a very retiring disposition, and soon began to devote the most of his time to controversial writings, which he began in 16S5. His famous work, "A Papist Mis- represented and Represented", contains a long list of the vulgar errors regarding C'atholic doctrine and practice together with his masterly refutations of them, and is as appropriate for use in controversy to-day, as when it was written, with the solitary exception of his remarks about Papal infallibility, which need to be brought up to date. This work brought no less an antagonist than Stillingfleet into the lists, together with a host of the lesser lights of Anglican Divinity, and then there arose a prolonged series, without end, of Answers, Objections, Re- joinders, and Refutations, throughout which Gother single-handed more than maintained his position. His literary style was exceedingly pure, and was often a great factor in winning converts to the Church. His trenchant simplicity has often been compared to Swift at his best. Dryden once facetiously remarked that Gother was the only person, except himself, who knew how to write English.

He was afterwards chaplain to George Holman of Warkworth Castle, Northamptonshire, where he received into the Church and instructed Ri(hard Challoner, then a youth, the future celebrated Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of the London District. Shortly before his death, Gother was proposed as a possible successor to Bishop Ellis of the Western District. He died at sea on a voyage to Lisbon, having received the last rites from a priest who chanced to be on board. The master of the vessel was so impressed with Go- ther's sanctity, that he preserved the body and de- livered it to the English College at Lisbon, where it was interred. His principal works are "A Papist Misrepresented and Represented, or a two-fold Charac- ter of Popery" (original ed., London, 1665; has passed through numerous editions down to the present day; a good summary is that of Bishop Challoner which is also published as a tract by theCatholic TruthSociety) ; "Nubes Testiuni, or a Collection of the Primitive Fathers" (London, 16S6); "The Sincere Christian's Guide in the choice of a Religion" (London, 1804); "Instructions on the Epistles and Gospels of the Whole Year" (London, 1780); "The Sinner's Com- plaint to God" (London, 1839); "Principles and Rules of the Gospel" (London, 1718); "A Practical Catechism" ; " Instructions and Devotions for Hearing Mass" (London, 1767); "Instructions for Confession, Communion and Confirmation" (Dublin, 1825); and many other similar works.

BuTLEK, Historical Memoirs of English Catholics (1SS2), IV. 425; LlNO.^RD, History of England. X, 226; Gillow. Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath.. s. v.: Cooper in Diet. \at. Biog.,s. v.; Dodd, Chvrch Histon/, III, -182; Petre. Xolices of English Colleges.

C. F. Wemyss BroW'N.

Gothic Architecture. — The term was first used dur- ing the later Renaissance, and as a term of contempt. Says Vasari, "Then arose new architects who after the manner of their barbarous nations erected buildings in that style which we call Gothic", while Evelyn but expresses the mental attitude of his own time when he writes, " The ancient Greek and Roman architecture

answered all the perfections required in a faultless and accomplished building" — but the Goths and Vandals destroyed these and "introduced in their stead a cer- tain fantastical and licentious manner of building: congestions of heavy, dark, melancholy, monkish piles, without any j ust proportion, use or beauty. ' ' For the first time, an attempt was made to destroy an instinc- tive and, so far as Europe was concerned, an almost universal form of art, and to substitute in its place another built up by artificial rules and premeditated theories; it was necessary, therefore, that the ground should be cleared of a once luxuriant growth that still showed signs of vitality, and to effect this the schools of Vignola, Palladio, and Wren were compelled to throw scorn on the art they were determined to dis- credit. As ignorant of the true habitat of the style as they were of its nature, the Italians of the Renaissance called it the " maniera Tedesca", and since to them the word Goth implied the perfection of barbarism, it is but natural that they should have applied it to a style they desired to destroy. The style ceased, for the particular type of civilization it expressed had come to an end; but the name remained, and when, early in the nineteenth century, the beginnings of a new epoch brought new apologists, the old title was taken over as the only one available, and since then constant efforts have been made to define it more exactly, to give it a new significance, or to substitute in its place a term more expressive of the idea to be conveyed. The word itself, in its present application, is repug- nant to any sense of exact thought ; ethnically, the art so described is immediately Franco-Norman in its origins, and between the Arian Goths, on the one hand, and the CathoUc Franks and Normans, on the other, lies a racial, religious, and chronological gulf. With the conquest of Italy and Sicily by Justinian (535-553) " the race and name of Ostrogoths perished for ever" (Bryce, "The Holy Roman Empire", III, 29) five centuries before the beginnings of the art that bears their name. Modern scholarship seeks deeper even than racial tendencies for the root impulses of art in any of its forms, and apart from the desirable cor- rection of an historical anachronism it is felt that medieval art (of which Gothic architecture is but one category), since it owes its existence to influences and tendencies stronger than those of blood, demands a name that shall be exact and significant, and indica- tive of the more just estimation in which it now is held.

But little success has followed any of the attempts at definition. The effort has produced such varying results as the epithets of Vasari and Evelyn, the nebu- lous or sentimental paraphrases of the early nineteenth- century romanticists, the narrow archa?ological defini- tions o"f De Caumont, and the rigid formalities of the more learnecl logicians and structural specialists, such as MM. VioUet le Due, Anthyme St- Paul, and Enlart, and Professor Moore. The only scientific attempt is that of which the first was the originator, the last the most scholarly and exact exponent. Concisely stated, the contention of this school is that " the whole scheme of the building isdetermined by, and its whole strength is made to reside in a finely organized and frankly con- fessed framework rather than in w^alls. This frame- work, made up of piers, arches and buttresses, is freed from every unnecessary incumbrance of wall and is rendered as light in all "its parts as is compatible with strength — the stability of the building depending not upon inert massiveness, except in the outermost abut- ments, but upon logical adjustment of active parts whose opposing forces neutralize each other and pro- duce a perfect equilibrium. It is thus a system of bal- anced thrusts in contradistinction to the ancient sys- tem of inert stability. Gothic architecture is such a system carried out in a finely artistic spirit" (Charles li. Moore, "Development and Character of Gothic Architecture", I, 8). This is an admirable statement