GOTHIC REVIVAL The Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century was chiefly confined to England where it grew out of a revival of spiritual energy in the Church itself. This spiritual Renaissance had begun in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, as a protest against the rationalistic temper of the age, its tendency to disregard the claims of faith and dogmatic authority in favour of what appealed to reason. =Religious Revivals.=--The Evangelical revival which ensued was an earnest attempt to awaken the Church from the supine indifference into which it had sunk, to kindle in the clergy a higher sense of their responsibilities and generally to promote a spiritual regeneration. The movement was reinforced both within the Church and on the part of the State by the excesses of the French Revolution, which seemed to menace all forms of authority. The revival grew apace during the early years of the nineteenth century and in time was supplemented by another which is known as the Oxford Movement. For it originated in the University of Oxford with a group of men, including Keble, Newman, and Pusey, who felt that the Church was in danger of becoming merely a humanitarian institution. Accordingly they held that the Church of England was a branch of the Catholic Church and that its priesthood was in direct succession from Apostolic times; and in accordance with this urged a return to the ritual and the rubrical observances, enjoined in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. This movement, known also as the Tractarian movement, from the tracts issued by its advocates, or Puseyite, from the name of its chief exponent, was assailed by the parties in the Church, distinguished as Broad and Low in opposition to the new party which came to be known as High. The point of the controversy, as it concerns our study, is that the religious revival on the one hand led to a general restoration of the cathedrals and churches which had fallen into a condition of shameful neglect and, on the other, laid stress upon mediæval church architecture as the form which had been inspired by the fervour of the Catholic faith and was alone suited to a Catholic ritual. Hence arose the study and the revived use of Gothic architecture.