PIERS AND PILLARS.--The piers in early buildings were very massive, consisting frequently merely of heavy square masses of masonry, with nothing but the impost moulding to relieve their plainness. Sometimes they were recessed at the angles, and sometimes they were circular, with capitals and bases, but still of very large diameter. As the style advanced they were reduced in thickness, and had richly sculptured capitals and bases, frequently ornamented with sculpture at the angles. In the Transition period the pillars become slender and clustered, with little to distinguish them from the next style. The Galilee at Durham is an excellent example of late Norman; the round arch and the zigzag mouldings are still retained, but the pillars are as slender as those of Early English. CAPITALS.--The capital is the member by which the styles are more easily distinguished than by any other. In the Saxon style we have seen that the Corinthian capital was rudely imitated; and we find in the Early Norman this imitation continued, but with more resemblance to the original, and this imitation was more and more complete as the style advanced. The general form of the plain capital is that of a hemisphere cut into four plain faces; this form is called a cushion capital. This may be considered as the fundamental form from which other varieties have been worked. It is sometimes doubled or multiplied, and sometimes highly ornamented. The abacus, or upper member of the capital, will at once distinguish the Norman from all other styles, and throughout Gothic architecture it is the feature most to be depended on in distinguishing one style from another. In the Norman it is square in section, with the corner edge sloped or chamfered off. It is commonly quite plain, but sometimes it is moulded, and sometimes highly ornamented; but in all cases it retains its primitive and distinctive form. The capitals of the Chapel in the Tower of London are excellent examples of Early Norman, showing the volutes at the angles and the plain block in the centre, in room of the caulicoli, and surrounded by a peculiar stiff kind of foliage, the whole being an evident but rude imitation of the Corinthian capital. The volutes and the centre block are common features of Early Norman capitals, but the foliage is rare. MOULDINGS AND ORNAMENTS.--These are extremely numerous; the ornamented mouldings are almost endless in variety, but the most general is the zigzag, which is used for decoration in all places, both simple and in every variety of combination, sparingly in the early buildings, but profusely in the later ones. The billet is much used in early work, as is also a peculiar kind of shallow lozenge, and other ornaments which required little skill in the execution. [Illustration: CASTLE RISING, NORFOLK. (_After a Photograph by Poulton & Sons._)]