The Splendor of English Gothic Architecture. John Shannon Hendrix
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transparency, between human intellect and divine intellect. The nave of Salisbury Cathedral contrasts a simple vault with highly-articulated arcades. The chapter house of Salisbury Cathedral, constructed between 1263 and 1279, is based on the model of the Lincoln chapter house, with sixteen ribs forming a cone at the centre blooming into the vault.
Nave, facing east, 1235–1245. Lincoln Cathedral.
The architecture of the chapter house at York Minster, between 1275 and 1290, represents significant departures from the Early English style. It includes overhanging canopies and foliate corbels which can be seen as “pendants”, a motif developed later in the Perpendicular period. The vault of the chapter house at York is a centralised tierceron and lierne vault (the lierne is a segment of a non-structural rib). At Exeter Cathedral, the vault of the Lady Chapel shows the influence of Lincoln. The Bishop of Exeter at the time, Bishop Quivil, was present at Lincoln Cathedral in 1280 for the consecration of the Angel Choir. The profusion of tiercerons in the vaulting at Exeter suggest the fan vault to come. Vaulting in the retrochoir aisle at Exeter presents a syncopated composition which refers back to vaulting at Canterbury and Lincoln. It is possible that masons at Exeter also worked at Lincoln. The carvings in the chapter house at Southwell Minster, celebrated by Nikolaus Pevsner as the “leaves of Southwell”, present one of the most complete fusions of the human being and nature, or geometry and organic forms, to be found in architecture. The vault of the chapter house is a centralised lierne star vault.
The next chapter, “Curvilinear”, examines architectural details at Southwell, Exeter, York, Wells, Norwich, Bristol, Gloucester, Tewkesbury Abbey, Ely, St Mary Redcliffe, Beverley, Ottery St Mary, Chester, and Worcester. The Curvilinear period begins in the last decade of the 13th century. The vault of St Mary Undercroft of St Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster Palace, designed by Michael or Thomas of Canterbury, established an important precedent for the development of lierne vaulting, a defining motif of the Curvilinear and Perpendicular. A lierne vault in the transept of St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol represents a new level of detachment of the vault pattern from the vault structure. Vaulting in the Lady Chapel and retrochoir aisles of Exeter introduce new variations, as do the elevations of the York nave. The chapter house at Wells combines the Early English model with Curvilinear tracery, combining geometrical and organic forms. At the turn of the century, flying ribs which appear in Bristol Cathedral can be related to the tiny flying ribs in the Easter Sepulcher at Lincoln, and to the experiments in spatial vistas at Lincoln and Canterbury. The vault in the choir at Bristol is a lierne vault with conoid or cone-shaped bundles of springer ribs, tiercerons and transverse ridge ribs, as developed from Lincoln. The elevations of the Exeter choir, between 1300 and 1310, can be seen as Decorated variations of Lincoln nave arcades, with stonework grilles.
The nave vault at Bristol, reconstructed in the 19th century, is a tierceron vault. The flying rib appears again in the antechamber of the Berkeley Chapel in Bristol Cathedral, designed by William Joy in 1310. The nave elevations at Worcester are based on the nave elevations of Lincoln. The pulpitum of Lincoln represents an early example of the use of the ogee arch and carved decoration associated with the Curvilinear style. The pulpitum at Exeter, designed by Thomas Witney, incorporates ogee arches, cusping (decoration on the edge of the tracery) and crocketing (foliate decoration on the vertical edge), and a lierne vault. The nave vault of Tewkesbury Abbey combines the lierne patterns of St Mary Redcliffe with the thick ribs of Exeter to create a catechism of the vault of the cosmos, as an architectonic texture in the form of a “net” vault. The pulpitum at Southwell Minster contains flying ribs, ogee arches and crocketed gables, and fragments of architectural vocabulary elements which produce a literary or poetic architecture.
Crossing vault and lantern, c. 1322–1336. Ely Cathedral.
Stained-glass window. Canterbury Cathedral.
The Lady Chapel at Wells, by Thomas Witney, is a composition based on the Early English vocabulary (umbrella column, ridge rib, tierceron, lierne), with a domed vault with liernes forming an eight-pointed star pattern, similar to patterns found in contemporary illuminations, as a representation of the celestial vault. The adjoining retrochoir, by William Joy, contains clusters of Purbeck piers. The arcade of the Lady Chapel of Ely is composed of nodding, cusped ogee arches and crocketed gables in the Curvilinear style. The vault of the Ely Lady Chapel is a tierceron vault with lierne star patterns, resulting in a crystalline organic form. The vault of the Ely choir is a lierne star vault, based on vaulting at Lincoln and St Mary Undercroft. The octagonal crossing at Ely, designed by Alan of Walsingham and topped by a timber lantern designed by William Hurley, is the most elaborate composition of the Curvilinear style, creating a geometrical and material progression from the material world to the spiritual world. The vault of the North Porch of St Mary Redcliffe is a centralised tierceron vault taking on the appearance of a crystalline organic form. The remodelled south transept of Gloucester, from 1331 to 1336, is seen as the first manifestation of the Perpendicular style, with its vertical panelling and mullions, and tracery, derived from the exterior elevations of St Stephen’s Chapel, but with Curvilinear elements such as ogee arches and cusping. The vault in the Gloucester transept is a lierne net vault, taking on the form of an organic structure based on underlying geometrical and mathematical proportions.
The choir vault of Wells, built by William Joy between 1333 and 1340, introduces a geometrical net pattern which displays a dematerialisation through surface texture. The lierne star patterns in the choir aisle vaults suggest a crystalline form or cosmic diagram. The Percy Tomb at Beverley Minster is a masterpiece of the Curvilinear style, with nodding ogee arches, cusping and crocketing. The nave vault of St Mary Redcliffe is a development of the transept vault there, with liernes zigzagging, folding, and undulating across an uneven vault surface. Between 1337 and 1367 the elevations of the choir and presbytery of Gloucester were covered with Perpendicular panelling, and densely textured lierne net vaulting was designed by William Ramsey, taking to an extreme the vault as surface texture. The choir and nave vaults of Ottery St Mary were designed by William Joy, showing the influence of the Wells choir vault. William Joy’s nave vault at Exeter is a Lincoln-style vault with the tiercerons increased in size and density, suggesting organic form. The vault of the south transept of Chester, from around 1350 (restored) is a Lincoln-style vault, as is the nave vault at Worcester.
The first full fan vault in English Gothic architecture was constructed in the Gloucester cloister between 1351 and 1364, attributed to Thomas of Cambridge. The fan vaulting can be seen as a logical consequence of the development from the tierceron vault, as it consists of conoid bundles of tiercerons with liernes applied to the surface. The fan vaulting merges the geometrical and organic, the human mind and nature, or the human mind and the divine mind, with underlying geometrical matrixes. The original nave vault of York Minster, replaced by a timber reproduction in the 19th century, is a simplified version of the tierceron vault. Tierceron and lierne patterns fluctuate, as do the concave surfaces of the vault. The vault was painted to symbolise the vault of the cosmos. A more complex version of the vaulting appeared in the choir and retrochoir of York, continuing the fluctuating patterns. Openwork arcading in the presbytery at Norwich recalls the treatments of Geoffrey de Noyers at Lincoln and William the Englishman at Canterbury, in their dematerialisation and experiments in spatial vistas. Vaults in the transepts at Worcester also appropriate the Lincoln or Early English vocabulary.
The Perpendicular, the subject of the final chapter, is the last period or style in the continuous development of English Gothic architecture from the precedents at Canterbury and Lincoln. The chapter on the Perpendicular style includes details at Tewkesbury Abbey, Lincoln, Gloucester, Beverley, Winchester, Worcester, Sherborne Abbey, Norwich, Peterborough, Bristol, Chester, York, Oxford Divinity School, Oxford Christ Church, Salisbury, Wells, Ely, Bath Abbey, and Cambridge King’s College Chapel. The Curvilinear and Perpendicular overlap, as elements of the Perpendicular appear in the early 14th century. The Perpendicular style is dominated by vertical lines, linear patterns, repeated cusped panels, the lierne rib, and overlapping ogee curves forming reticulated patterns.
The choir vault at Tewkesbury Abbey, from between 1375 and 1390, is a tierceron vault with lierne star patterns composed of curved liernes, which are segments of ogee arches, blurring