231. " Plan (Circular) John Thorpe. 250 EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The progress of style in the mediæval architecture of England was regular and continuous: so much so, that any one thoroughly acquainted with its various phases can tell the date of a building within some ten years by merely examining the mouldings which embellish it. These successive phases, moreover, merge into one another so gradually, that although it has been possible to divide them into four great periods--called Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular--yet the transition from one to the other is unbroken, and the whole course of development can be traced as regularly as the change from the simplicity of the trunk of a tree to the multiplicity of its leaves. For about four centuries (A.D. 1100-1500) this growth continued, English architecture finding within itself the power of progression. But about the beginning of the sixteenth century it began to feel the influence of an outside power--that of Italy--which acted upon it with increasing force until, after two centuries, its native characteristics had nearly disappeared, and Italian buildings were copied in England almost line for line. The object of the following pages is to display the effect of this foreign influence upon our native architecture up to the point when it became predominant, and stamped our buildings with a character more Classic than Gothic. But it will be desirable first of all to glance shortly at the causes which led to Italy having this extraordinary influence, and at the general effect which that influence produced upon England.