Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/198

Rh a good flying buttress of the early French form over the aisle roof, supplemented by a second one under the roof. In the aisles and in the triforium gallery the tenacity with which the German builders held on to their Romanesque traditional methods of construction is singularly marked. In these parts of the building the vaults have no Gothic rib systems—the groins having no ribs, and the transverse ribs being of the heavy Romanesque type. The external character of this edifice is very far from Gothic. The openings are few and small, and in them the round arch mingles with the pointed arch. As the nave comprises but two double bays, two of the main piers are naturally abutted by the transept and tower walls respectively, and thus but one flying buttress is necessary, that which is brought to bear upon the central main pier. There are no other buttresses of any kind on this portion of the building, either on the walls or on the towers; but against the vaults of the apse flying buttresses, like those of the nave, are brought to bear.

Even after the middle of the thirteenth century such a building as the Cathedral of Freiburg, which was completed in 1270, is still very imperfectly Gothic, though it has a continuous vaulting system, including a system of flying buttresses. Its vaulting conoids are not narrowed against the pier, and the pier itself is not distinctly developed above the ground-story. The triforium space is, in each bay, an unbroken wall surface, and the clerestory opening occupies but a portion of the space between the piers.