§ 41. But even more conspicuous than these are the chancels which are found with some frequency in the ancient and widespread dioceses of York, Lincoln, and Lichfield. The chief features of these are, traceried windows of great beauty of proportion and variety of design, with carefully moulded arches and jambs, boldly projecting buttresses with gables or pinnacles, strings and base courses carried right round the building, often with much elaboration. The internal furniture includes stone piscinae and sedilia, canopied niches on each side of the east window, founders' tombs, and, in some cases, stone Easter sepulchres in the north wall. In almost every case, the masonry is composed of large dressed stones; and the building capacity of the masons reaches a high level of architectural skill. The probable source of the development of masonry and sculpture shewn in these structures is to be found in the architectural work which was going on at York during the last quarter of the thirteenth and first quarter of the fourteenth century. It can be shewn that the York school of masoncraft had some influence at Lincoln. Its influence at Southwell, the southern _matrix ecclesia_ of the diocese of York, is undoubted. That it had some influence as far south as the lady chapel of Ely, begun in 1321, is very probable; and the work done there may have reacted in a northward direction. Its influence at Lichfield, during the episcopate of Walter Langton (1296-1321), is more than probable, as Langton was intimately connected with York from his early years till his death. In Yorkshire, the rebuilding of the cruciform church at Patrington was completed, with the chancel, towards 1350. Earlier than this, probably between 1320 and 1330, the chancels of Patrick Brompton, Kirkby Wiske, and Ainderby Steeple had been built: Croft, near Darlington, and Romaldkirk in Teesdale, belong to much the same period and sphere of influence. Round Southwell and Lincoln, and probably during the same decade, the greatest triumphs of the period were achieved. The founder of the chancel of Hawton, near Newark, died in 1330. The rector who was the founder of the chancel of Heckington, near Sleaford, was presented by the crown in 1308-9, and had licence to found a chantry in the church, probably at the high altar of the rebuilt chancel, in 1328. The chancel of Navenby, near Lincoln, belongs to the same period. At Sibthorpe, near Newark, a college of chantry priests was founded by stages during the first half of the fourteenth century, and the present chancel seems to have been built about 1330: the founder, as already noted, rebuilt the aisles of his church at Beckingham, a few miles away, before 1347. The architectural likeness between his work at Beckingham and the chancel of Boothby Pagnell, near Grantham, built about 1350, cannot be mistaken. The whole church of Fledborough, north of Newark, was rebuilt, probably about 1343, when a chantry was founded in the lady chapel.