As the Gothic style developed and the builders grew all the time more skillful and daring, the churches became marvels of lightness and delicacy of detail and finish, while still retaining their dignity and beauty of proportion. Sculptors enriched them with the most beautiful creations of their art. Moldings and capitals, pulpits, altars, and choir screens, the wooden seats for the clergy and choristers, are sometimes literally covered with carving representing graceful leaf and flower forms, familiar animals or grotesque monsters, biblical incidents or homely scenes from everyday life. In the cathedral of Wells, in England, one capital shows us among its vines and leaves a boy whose face is screwed up with pain from the thorn he is extracting from his foot; another depicts a whole story of sin found out, thieves stealing grapes pursued by an angry farmer with a pitchfork. One characteristic of the mediæval imagination is its fondness for the grotesque. It loved queer beasts, half eagle, half lion, hideous batlike creatures, monsters like nothing on land or sea. They lurk among the foliage on choir screens, leer at you from wall or column, or squat upon the gutters high on roof and steeple. [Illustration: Window in the Cathedral of Sens, France] [Sidenote: Gothic sculpture.] A striking peculiarity of the Gothic structure is the great number of statues of apostles, saints, and rulers which adorn the façades and especially the main portal of the churches. These figures are cut from the same kind of stone of which the building is made and appear to be almost a part of it. While, compared with later sculpture, they seem somewhat stiff and unlifelike, they harmonize wonderfully with the whole building, and the best of them are full of charm and dignity. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF EXETER CATHEDRAL] [Sidenote: Secular buildings.] So far we have spoken only of the church architecture, and that was by far the most important during the period with which we have been dealing. Later, in the fourteenth century, many beautiful secular buildings were constructed in the Gothic style. The most striking and important of these were the guildhalls built by the rich merchant guilds, and the townhalls of some of the important cities. But the Gothic style has always been especially dedicated to, and seems peculiarly fitted for, ecclesiastical architecture. Its lofty aisles and open floor spaces, its soaring arches leading the eye toward heaven, and its glowing windows suggesting the glories of paradise, may well have fostered the ardent faith of the mediæval Christian. [Illustration: Figures (gargoyles) on Notre Dame, Paris] [Sidenote: The mediæval castle.]