We have already noticed the suggestion, in early Gothic or Romanesque, of the dividing up of a pier into a multiple pier, of which each part supports a special member of the superstructure, as indicated in Fig. 90. The Gothic pier, in its development in this respect, affords a striking example of that influence of the superstructure on the plan which has before been referred to. The peculiar manner of building the arch in Gothic work led almost inevitably to this breaking up of the pier into various members. The Roman arch was on its lower surface a simple flat section, the decorative treatment in the way of mouldings being round the circumference, and not on the under side or _soffit_ of the arch, and in early Romanesque work this method was still followed. The mediaeval builders, partly in the first instance because they built with smaller stones, adopted at an early period the plan of building an arch in two or more courses or rings, one below and recessed within the other. As the process of moulding the arch stones became more elaborated, and a larger number of subarches one within another were introduced, this characteristic form of subarches became almost lost to the eye in the multiplicity of the mouldings used. But up to nearly the latest period of Gothic architecture this form may still be traced, if looked for, as the basis of the arrangement of the mouldings, which are all formed by cutting out of so many square sections, recessed one within the other. This will be more fully described in the next lecture. We are now speaking more especially of the pier as affected by this method of building the arches in recessed orders. If we consider the effect of bringing down on the top of a square capital an arch composed of two rings of squared stones, the lower one only half the width (say) of the upper one, it will be apparent that on the square capital the arch stones would leave a portion of the capital at each angle bare, and supporting nothing.[4] This looks awkward and illogical, and accordingly the pier is modified so as to suit the shape of the arch. Figs. 111, 112, 113, and 114, with the plans, B C D, accompanying them, illustrate this development of the pier. Fig. 111 is a simple cylindrical pier with a coarsely formed capital, a kind of reminiscence of the Doric capital, with a plain Romanesque arch starting from it. Fig. 112, shown in plan at B, is the kind of form (varied in different examples) which the pier assumed in Norman and early French work, when the arch had been divided into two recessed orders. The double lines of the arch are seen springing from the cap each way, in the elevation of the pier. If we look at the plan of the pier, we see that, in place of the single cylinder, it is now a square with four smaller half cylinders, one on each face. Of these, those on the right and left of the plan support the subarches of the arcade; the one on the lower side, which we will