“The architecture in the north of Lincolnshire and the south of Yorkshire appears to have been a little in advance of any other in Europe at that period. St. Hugh’s Choir at Lincoln is the earliest building of the pure Gothic style free from any mixture of the Romanesque that has been hitherto found in Europe, or in the world. The Oriental styles are not Gothic, though they helped to lead to it. The French Gothic has a strong mixture of the Romanesque with it down to a later period than the Choir of Lincoln. St. Hugh of Lincoln certainly did not bring the Gothic style with him from his own country Dauphiny, or from the Grande Chartreuse where he was educated, for nothing of the kind existed there at that period. Grenoble (the place from which St. Hugh was brought to England) and its neighbourhood was quite half-a-century behind England in the character of its buildings, in the time of Henry II. of England and of Anjou, in whose time this style was developed. “Nothing can well exceed the freedom, delicacy and beauty of this work; the original arcade of the time of St. Hugh is of the same free and beautiful style as the additions of his successors. The crockets, arranged vertically one over the other behind the detached marble shafts of the pillars, are a remarkable and not a common feature, which seems to have been in use for a few years only; it occurs also in the west front of Wells Cathedral, the work of Bishop Jocelin, a few years after this at Lincoln; or perhaps under him, of Hugh de Wells.”--(J. H. P.) The eight years during which Hugh carried on the work “were busy ones at Lincoln. Contemporary records enable us to picture him encouraging the workmen by his presence and example, even shewing his zeal by carrying the stones on his own shoulders. He did not live to see his work completed, as Remigius had done. But he had set the example and given the pattern, and the work was continued by his successors until the building was again entire. Hugh had already finished the apse, the eastern transept, the choir, and part of the western transept (i.e., the whole eastern portion of the church) when he fell ill. Finding [Illustration: LINCOLN: WEST FRONT] [Illustration: LINCOLN: GREAT WEST DOOR]