Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/541

 Bk. II. Ch. VI. PRANKISH PROVINCE 509 one, and the j^erfectly develoi)ed clerestory. These are not found in any of the styles of France hitherto described. Eventually, as we shall shortly see, stone became the material used in the interior ceiling of Gothic vaults, but protected externally by a wooden roof. This stone vault was not, I believe, attempted before the 11th century. In the meanwhile wooden-roofed churches, like that at Bcauvais, seem to have been usual and i)revalent all over the North of France, though, as may be supposed, botli from the smallness of their dimensions and the perishable nature of their materials, most of them have been either superseded by larger structures, or have been destroyed by fire or by the accidents of time. M. Woillez describes five or six as existing still in the diocese of Beauvais, and varying in age from the 6th or 7th century, which probably is the date of the Basse (Euvre, to the beginning of the 11th century ; and if other districts were carefully examined, more examples would probably be found. Normandy must, perhaps, be excepted, for there the rude Northmen seem first to have destroyed all the churches, and then to have rebuilt them with a magnificence they did not previously possess. Churches of the same class, or others at least extremely similar to them, as far as we can judge from such representations as have been published, exist even beyond the Loire. There is one at Savonieres in Anjou, and a still more curious one at St. Genereux in Yienne, not far from Poitiers, which shows in great perfection a style of decora- tion by triangular pediments and a peculiar sort of mosaic in brick- work. The same style of decoration is carried out in the old cliurch of St. Jean at Poitiers, which probably is even older than the Basse Q^^uvre of Beauvais. The old church, M'hich now forms the ante-church to St. Front at Perigcux (Woodcut No. 3-28), seems also to belong to the same class ; but, if M. Felix de Verneilh's restoration is to be trusted, it approaches nearer to a Romanesque style than any other of its class, of which it may nevertheless possibly be the most southern example. Perhaps the most interesting example of the style is the nave of the church of Mortier en Der, near Vassy, almost due east from Paris. It- is perfectly plain, very like San Vincenzo (Woodcut No. 285), and is a jierfect Romanesque example with a wooden roof; the design for which was probably brought direct from Rome when 375. Decoration of St. G6uereux. (Fioiu Gailhabaud.)