Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 2Scott, George Gilbert, Sir
History
Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 2
Scott, George Gilbert, Sir
Architecture, Gothic; Architecture, Medieval
The vaulting of the Lady Chapel at Salisbury is remarkable for the
extraordinary slenderness of the columns which support it, being thin
Purbeck marble shafts of great height, reducing the width of the chapel
by cutting off a very narrow range of vaulting from either side.
Somewhat similar in idea is the vaulting of the crypt beneath the Sainte
Chapelle at Paris, where, to avoid the segmental vaulting which would be
the natural result of its limited height, the span is reduced by a range
on either side of small pillars;--in this case so near the wall as to
necessitate a great amount of stilting, and the introduction of a kind
of tracery beneath the transverse ribs to give abutment to the central
vault.
I should, in passing, mention, that segmental vaulting is very frequent
at this period, where the height is limited; and that, even where the
main arches are not so, the diagonal ribs frequently assumed that form;
indeed, it became necessary wherever the length of a diagonal exceeded
double the height of its arch.
Taking this stage of the history of vaulting as a whole, we have
peculiarly favourable opportunities of studying it here in London:
possessing, as we do, excellent examples of all its most leading
varieties.
In the Temple Church we have the curious circular aisle already
described, being a specimen of the earliest era of true pointed-arched
vaulting; while in the eastern portion, dating some forty or fifty years
later, we have the most typical specimen conceivable of vaulting, all
springing from a given level, and with level ridges. It is rendered the
more marked in character by the division of the three ranges of vaulting
by means of the pier-arches, which, coming close under the vaulting,
assume the character of enlarged ribs.
Very similar to the last-named is the vaulting of the Lady Chapel of St.
Saviour (or St. Mary Overie), Southwark (Fig. 378). The only striking
difference being the number of spans and the absence of pier-arches, so
that it assumes the form of a space divided into twelve equal and square
compartments, and carried by six similar columns.
[Illustration: Fig. 378. Lady Chapel, Southwark.]
In the choir of the same church we have an excellent specimen of
clerestory vaulting, with oblong compartments and stilted side-cells,
worked in a manner somewhat different from the usual ploughshare system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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