WITH one or two slight exceptions, the whole history of the Round-arched Norman Gothic is comprehended within a period of less than a century. No building in this style is known to have been even commenced before the year 1050, and before 1150 the pointed style had superseded it in its native province. Indeed, practically speaking, all the great and typical examples are crowded into the last fifty years of the 11th century. This was a period of great excitement and prosperity with the Northmen, who, having at last settled themselves in this fertile province, not only placed their dukes on an equality with any of the powers then existing in France, but by their conquest of England raised their chief to an importance and a rank superior to that of any other potentate in Europe except the German emperors of that day, with whose people they were, in fact, both by race and policy, more closely allied than they were with those among whom they had settled. [Illustration: 611. Triapsal Church, at Querqueville. (From Dawson Turner’s ‘Normandy.’)] There are two exceptional churches in Normandy which should not be passed over in silence: one is a little triapsal oratory at St. Wandrille; the other a similar but somewhat more important church at Querqueville, near Cherbourg, on the coast of Brittany. Both are rude and simple in their outline and ornaments; they are built with that curious herring-bone or diagonal masonry indicative of great age, and differing in every essential respect from the works of the Normans when they came into possession of the province. Indeed, like the transitional churches last described, these must be considered as the religious edifices of the inhabitants before that invasion; and if they show any affinity to any other style, it is to Belgium and Germany we must look for it rather than anywhere within the boundaries of France. Amongst the oldest-looking buildings of pure Norman architecture is the church of Léry, near Pont de l’Arche. It is the only one, so far as is known, with a simple tunnel-vault, and this is so massive, and rests on piers of such unusual solidity, as to give it an appearance of immense antiquity. There is no good reason, however, for believing that it really is older than the chapel of the Tower of London, which it resembles in most respects, though the latter is of somewhat lighter architecture.