Waterhouse, Percy Leslie: The story of architecture throughout the ages: an introduction to the study of the oldest of the arts for students and general readers (London: B. T. Batsford, 1924)

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE 131

by its own distinctive features, but showed at
the same time a general similarity of style.
Almost all the buildings were constructed with
the same object, and it became a question of
solving the same problem in different ways—
the problem, namely, of combining the vaulted
roof construction with the basilican plan. The
heavy “ barrel-vault ” of the roof demanded
massive walls and piers, and the use of the
semicircular arch required piers or very sturdy
columns at frequent intervals. The resulting
style was of necessity somewhat ponderous, so
that relief was sought in rich carving and in a
multiplicity of recessed spaces ; and the archi-
tects did not successfully grapple with the
difficulty until the introduction—in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries—of ribbed vaulting,
which, with the pointed Gothic arch, revolu-
tionised the conditions of construction, and
gave the builders a happy and complete solution
of their problem. What is called “ Gothic ”
architecture is in reality nothing more than the
logical outcome of the progressive Romanesque;
the transition is a natural one, just as, in
English architecture, is the transition from the
round-arched Norman to the pointed style of
the thirteenth century. The name “ Gothic ”
is an unfortunate one, for readers are apt to
regard it as a foreign and distinct style, break-
ing in upon, and interrupting the continuity of,
the architecture of the period. It is only by
following the Romanesque architects in their
constructive difficulties with the round arch

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