I refer especially to two churches (St. Mary’s and St. Peter’s, at Gowts,) in the lower town of Lincoln. This portion of the city did not exist till after the Conquest; when, owing to the expulsion of many of the inhabitants of the old, or upper, city to make way for the Norman Castle and Cathedral, they were obliged to build below the hill, where they founded these two churches; building them in their own old English manner, while the castle and minster were being erected by the Normans in conformity with their own taste above. There are a number of towers between Lincoln and the Humber which correspond so closely in style with these as to lead one to assign to them the same date. Nothing can more manifestly prove the distinctness of the two styles than that the most marked church of the period was built by the Norman-loving Anglo-Saxon king in Norman architecture before the Conquest, and that old-fashioned English people still built in the Anglo-Saxon manner in the days of the Norman Conqueror. It is time now that we should consider what were the distinguishing characteristics of the Norman style. According to Mr. Petit and Mr. Fergusson, the Norman is rather an early stage of Gothic than strictly Romanesque; and, though this may be said to be rather a question of nomenclature than of distinctive principle, I am inclined to think there is much real truth in it. I would rather, however, put it thus: that, among the many branches of the great Romanesque tree, this was one,--as the Anglo-Saxon was not one,--of those which contained the intrinsic elements of the future Gothic style. I gave my reasons, in one of my earlier lectures[18] (while not desiring a change of nomenclature), for holding the completed round-arch style to be, in a certain sense, one with the earlier-pointed, and for rather favouring Mr. Fergusson’s custom of calling them respectively round-arched and pointed-arched Gothic. It is better, however, in an historical sketch, to view each phase on its own bearing, and not to judge of it by anticipation of its subsequent results. Norman architecture, then, judging of it from its principles, and throwing aside imperfections resulting from its development occurring in comparatively rude times, may, in the first place, be said to be an almost perfect carrying out into a style of art the arcuated system of construction; using, also, the simplest and most obvious form of arch, the semicircle. Roman buildings, when divested,--as in the case of aqueducts,--of Grecian or trabeated accompaniments, displayed often a perfect system of arched construction; but, in such works, one cannot say that it had been developed into a style of art.