The pointed arch having, as I have before shown, been first introduced in the vaulting,[11] where its particular statical advantages were most required, it naturally follows that the change would commence earliest in those countries in which the builders set themselves most actively about the solution of the problem--the steps of which I somewhat at length traced out in my last lecture; I mean the conversion of the basilica, with its timber roofs, into a completely vaulted structure; and I think there can be no doubt that that country was France. This, however, would not be the only condition on which the probable precedence among the different nations, in taking the step which was necessary to generating a perfect form of arcuated architecture, would depend. It seems necessary that it should _not_ be a country already so thoroughly provided with noble churches as to preclude the probability of a great architectural movement, nor one which had already made so determined an effort in perfecting its national style as to have become too much enamoured of its successes to be in a position to strike out boldly in a new line: indeed, it should be a people of so active a spirit, and with so strong a tendency to progress and to change, as to render it improbable that they should ever settle down in quiet contentment with their own attainments. The question as to where the great stride forward was to be expected would naturally lie between France and Germany--the dominions of the two great successors of Charlemagne in his _kingly_ and his _imperial_ capacities. Neither Italy nor England were so likely: the former, from her too great proximity to Classic monuments; while the latter--though her political power was equal to that of France, her continental possessions most extensive, and her architectural strivings most vigorous--had too newly risen from the position of a conquered country to take the first place in such a movement, and was also the less likely to do so from the fact of her builders having for the most part avoided the vaulted construction (on a large scale at least), from which the first advance was largely suggested.