A Text-Book of the History of Architecture: Seventh Edition, revisedHamlin, A. D. F. (Alfred Dwight Foster)
History
A Text-Book of the History of Architecture: Seventh Edition, revised
Hamlin, A. D. F. (Alfred Dwight Foster)
Architecture -- History
+MINOR MONUMENTS.+ The student of Gothic architecture should also give
attention to the choir-screens, tombs, and chantries which embellish
many of the abbeys and cathedrals. The rood-screen at York is a notable
example of the first; the tomb of De Gray in the same cathedral, and
tombs and chantries in Canterbury, Winchester, Westminster Abbey, Ely,
St. Alban’s Abbey, and other churches are deservedly admired. In these
the English love for ornament, for minute carving, and for the contrast
of white and colored marble, found unrestrained expression. To these
should be added the market-crosses of Salisbury and Winchester, and
Queen Eleanor’s Cross at Waltham.
+DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.+ The mediæval castles of Great Britain belong to
the domain of military engineering rather than of the history of art,
though occasionally presenting to view details of considerable
architectural beauty. The growth of peace and civic order is marked by
the erection of manor-houses, the residences of wealthy landowners. Some
of these houses are of imposing size, and show the application to
domestic requirements, of the late Gothic style which prevailed in the
period to which most of them belong. The windows are square or
Tudor-arched, with stone mullions and transoms of the Perpendicular
style, and the walls terminate in merlons or crenelated parapets,
recalling the earlier military structures. The palace of the bishop or
archbishop, adjoining the cathedral, and the residences of the dean,
canons, and clergy, together with the libraries, schools, and gates of
the cathedral enclosure, illustrate other phases of secular Gothic work.
Few of these structures are of striking architectural merit, but they
possess a picturesque charm which is very attractive.
Not many stone houses of the smaller class remain from the Gothic period
in England. But there is hardly an old town that does not retain many of
the half-timbered dwellings of the fifteenth or even fourteenth century,
some of them in excellent preservation. They are for the most part wider
and lower than the French houses of the same class, but are built on the
same principle, and, like them, the woodwork is more or less richly
carved.
+MONUMENTS+: (A. = abbey church; C. = cathedral; r. = ruined;
trans. = transept; each monument is given under the date of the
earliest extant Gothic work upon it, with additions of later
periods in parentheses.)
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