Page:Wood carvings in English churches II.djvu/60

 crocketed and finialled spirelet. Behind the spirelets is arcading composed of window tracery; and above the arcading is a crested horizontal cornice. At first sight the design looks no more advanced than that of Ely; but if the tracery of the arcading be examined, it will be found that the three lower lights have supermullions, and that the centre-pieces are straight-sided. In woodwork, as in stone, it was at Gloucester that the reign of the straight line commenced (38).

Then comes a group of stalls which it is not easy to date, but all of which are redolent of fourteenth century inspiration; those of Lancaster church, those of the cathedral and All Saints' church at Hereford, and those of Abergavenny priory and Norwich cathedral. The Lancaster stalls are the chef-d'œuvre of English woodwork, wonderful alike in design and execution; in woodwork they must have been in their day unrivalled; in stone they find a compeer in the marvellous detail of the Percy monument and in the still finer work at the back of the reredos in Beverley Minster. They do not shew the slightest sign of the revolution of design which had commenced in Gloucester transept c. 1330, and which by the end of the century was to overspread all England; they are the natural development of the design of the first half of the fourteenth century carried forward to an extent for which the only parallel is to be found in the highly developed Flamboyant detail of French, Spanish, and Flemish design of the middle and latter part of the fifteenth century. So inordinately Flamboyant are the traceries (41, 42) that one would unhesitatingly ascribe them to Continental artists did one not see the touch of the English craftsman everywhere; compare for instance the tracery shewn at the top of page 42 with that of the west window of the far-away church of Snettisham, Norfolk. One hesitates to assign to the Lancaster work such an early date; but if the Percy monument was in course of erection, as we know it was, soon after 1340, it is quite possible that the Lancaster stalls also date before the arrival of the Black Death in 1349-50. After that date a great change came over design; the rich exuberance of Ely Lady Chapel, the Easter sepulchres, sedilia and piscinas of mid-Lincolnshire and the Percy monument at Beverley, appear no more. Any lingering hesitation one may have, however, is removed by a scrutiny of the moldings, especially those of the capitals, neckings and bases; they are just those which were in fashion c. 1340. The Lancaster stalls may be regarded as the Flamboyant version of the stallwork of Winchester cathedral,