Next in importance to the column as a characteristic of the style, we must place the _Window_. Indeed, it has generally been made to take the precedence of it, and is no doubt that by which the date of a building is most readily ascertained and its style defined. The Romanesque windows were simply openings with round heads, the jambs and arches being either perfectly plain, moulded, with or without enrichment, or the jambs shafted. These windows were most usually isolated, but were here and there grouped into couplets, triplets, etc., or made to form portions of continuous arcading. In the early days of the transition the windows remained unaltered, otherwise than as to the general refinement of their details. Later on the arches were made pointed, and their proportions somewhat elongated; and even in the fully-developed Early Pointed style--properly so called--the window differs little in principle from that of the Romanesque period, though, in fact, it assumes a widely different form, through its carrying towards their ultimate results the principles of grouping begun during the previous style, and those of refinement and elongation incident to the transition. It is in carrying out these principles to a still greater extent that the Early Pointed of England differs from that of France. It is really the same style, and no important feature can be pointed out in the one country which is not to be found in the other; but just as the Germans, by dwelling longer on the Romanesque style, rendered it more refined and perfect than elsewhere, so the English, by the continued retention of the unmullioned window, systematised its use in a manner not equalled in other countries. I see no difference of principle in the fenestration of the Early French and the Early English Pointed styles: in both the principle was the decoration and combination of single lights. Nor do I see that in England this was done in a manner essentially differing in any respect from what was common in France. The great difference was the far greater width of the French openings, which often rendered their windows inelegant in proportion, while it offered a noble field for stained glass. The characteristic of the English windows, on the other hand, was narrow and tall proportions, and a greater amount of enrichment of the jambs and arches, though none of these are, by any means, constant features. Sometimes we find in English works lightness carried to a vicious extreme, as in the beautiful but frail eastern transept at Worcester; though in a majority of instances it retains a masculine firmness and solidity, as in the east end of Whitby.