Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/137

Rh Of external features none is more striking, and after the flying buttress, none shows more of the Gothic spirit, than the stone spire with which, in the design, if not in the executed work, the tower was crowned. It is a feature, too, which, more emphatically perhaps than any other, marks the communal spirit and influence. The spire formed the governing feature in any general view of the mediaæval town, and was a sign of municipal power and prosperity. It was natural, therefore, that the spire should call forth the special enthusiasm and effort of the lay builders. Before the twelfth century nothing like a true spire had been built. The French towers of the eleventh century, when roofed with stone, had these roofs constructed in the form of a low square pyramid, like those which still exist over the towers that flank the apse of Morienval (Fig. 62), and date from about the middle of the eleventh century.

In Normandy a more pointed pyramid frequently took the place of the low one, as at Basly and Rosel (Calvados), but it was still on a square base.

In the Ile-de-France, however, the true octagon spire, surmounting the square tower, with pinnacles occupying the angles of the square, occurs early in the twelfth century, as in the small churches of St. Vaast de Longmont, Chamant near Senlis, and others. Of these Chamant (Fig. 63) is especially interesting as exhibiting features which were afterwards magnificently amplified in the unique spire of the Cathedral of Senlis. These features are the acutely