DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29899#0392
372
ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE.
Paet II.
the first instance of the style being carried out in anything like com-
pleteness, not only in the pier arches and openings, but in the vaults
also, which is far more characteristic.
Even after this date the struggle was long, and the innovation most
unwillingly received by the English, so that even down to the year 1200
the round arch was currently employed, in conjunction with the pointed,
to which it at last gave way, and was then for three centui'ies banished
entirely from English architecture.
Be this as it may, in their treatment of tracery, which followed
immediately on the introduction of the pointed arch, the English
architects showed considerable originality in design, though inspired
The Five Sisters Window, York. (Frorn Britton.)
by the same sobriety which characterises all their works. They
not only invenled the lancet form of window, but what may be called
the lancet style of fenestration. Nowhere on the Continent are
such combinations to be found as the Five Sisters at York (Woodcut
No. 824), or the east end of Ely (Woodcut No. 825), or such a group
as that which terminates the east end of Hereford (Woodcut No. 826).
Tracery it can hardly be called, but it is as essentially one design as
any of the great east windows tliat afterwards came into fashion ; and
until painted glass became all-important, such an arrangement was
constructively better than a screen of mullions, and as used in this
country is capable of very beautiful combinations.
So, at least, the English architectsof the 13th centuryseem to have
thought, for they continued to practise their lancet style, as in the
ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE.
Paet II.
the first instance of the style being carried out in anything like com-
pleteness, not only in the pier arches and openings, but in the vaults
also, which is far more characteristic.
Even after this date the struggle was long, and the innovation most
unwillingly received by the English, so that even down to the year 1200
the round arch was currently employed, in conjunction with the pointed,
to which it at last gave way, and was then for three centui'ies banished
entirely from English architecture.
Be this as it may, in their treatment of tracery, which followed
immediately on the introduction of the pointed arch, the English
architects showed considerable originality in design, though inspired
The Five Sisters Window, York. (Frorn Britton.)
by the same sobriety which characterises all their works. They
not only invenled the lancet form of window, but what may be called
the lancet style of fenestration. Nowhere on the Continent are
such combinations to be found as the Five Sisters at York (Woodcut
No. 824), or the east end of Ely (Woodcut No. 825), or such a group
as that which terminates the east end of Hereford (Woodcut No. 826).
Tracery it can hardly be called, but it is as essentially one design as
any of the great east windows tliat afterwards came into fashion ; and
until painted glass became all-important, such an arrangement was
constructively better than a screen of mullions, and as used in this
country is capable of very beautiful combinations.
So, at least, the English architectsof the 13th centuryseem to have
thought, for they continued to practise their lancet style, as in the