Fletcher, Banister; Fletcher, Banister: A history of architecture for the student, craftsman, and amateur: being a comparative view of the historical styles from the earliest period (London, 1896)

266

COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE.

ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE.1

2. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER.

Elizabethan Architecture is a transition style, and
immediately follows the Tudor or late Gothic, which carries
us to the reign of Henry VIII. (see page 162). It bears
the same relation to Anglo-Classic, or fully-developed
English Renaissance, as the Francis I. period does to
fully-developed French Renaissance.

The period of the Elizabethan style resembles that of the
Early French and German Renaissance, in that church build-
ing is practically at a standstill, practically no church being
erected in the Elizabethan style at all, sufficient churches
being left from the Middle Ages for the wants of the people.
Elizabethan architecture thus differs from the Italian Re-
naissance, in which church building took the principal
place.

Elizabethan resembles French Renaissance, in that the
principal examples were erected in the country by powerful
statesmen and successful merchants, and differs from Italian
Renaissance, in which the principal examples were erected
in cities.

The Elizabethan style may be said to be an attempt, on
the part of the English, to translate Italian ideas into their
own vernacular; it does not confine itself to architecture
only, but pervades the whole fitting of buildings, in furniture
and decoration. Elizabethan art forms in this respect a style
complete in every aspect.

3. EXAMPLES.

ELIZABETHAN MANSIONS.

The principal features are :

i. The great hall, a feature handed on from Gothic
times (No. 149), lined to a height of 8 or ro feet with

1 English Renaissance is divided into the following periods : Eliza-
bethan, p. 266 ; Jacobean, p. 269 ; Anglo-Classic, p. 273 ; Eighteenth
Century, p. 278; Nineteenth Century (to 1851), p. 284; Nineteenth
Century (1851 to the present day), p. 289.