Architecture, Medieval; Church architecture; Vaults (Architecture)
A single opening occupying the entire
space beneath the wall rib would have been all head and no jamb. One
upright window would have admitted too little light for a large nave,
and two windows near together not only left a great deal of wall space
unused but were most awkwardly placed in churches where one nave bay
corresponded to two bays in the aisles as in Le Mans cathedral,[176]
because they were not on an axis with the arches of the nave arcade. On
the other hand, if placed on this axis, the resulting windows were
necessarily of small size like those in such Rhenish churches as the
cathedral of Speyer where a second stage of windows has been added one
in the center above each lower pair in a far from satisfactory manner
since it brings a window above the intermediate pier.
ORIGIN OF SEXPARTITE VAULTING
In view of these facts it is at least a reasonable assumption that the
lighting problem had much to do with the discarding by the French
builders of the simple square four-part nave vault. As a matter of fact,
however, they did not exactly discard it, but evolved from it a vault in
six cells, which, while it still retained the old division of the nave
into square bays, each corresponding to two bays in the aisle, at the
same time permitted the uniform treatment of these in elevation and made
possible larger windows,--one to each aisle bay,--symmetrically placed
and, in the course of time filling the entire space beneath the wall
ribs. This six-part ribbed vaulting would seem to have originated early
in the twelfth century, in the French province of Normandy. This
province has already been mentioned as the center of a Romanesque
school, which extended over the greater part of England after the
conquest of 1066, and reached its height during the reign of Duke
William, the Conqueror (1035-1087), when a vast number of churches were
constructed, many of them of large size. These were in general wooden
roofed throughout, though, occasionally, as has been shown,[177] groined
vaults were used in the choir or aisles, or both. Toward the beginning
of the twelfth century, however, the Norman builders determined to vault
the naves of a number of these churches, among them the two abbeys at
Caen, and the result of this determination was the evolution of the true
and false six-part vault.
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