The PARAPETS are frequently ornamented richly, with rectangular foliated panelling, and covered with a BATTLEMENT. Both are sometimes pierced instead of being panelled. _Interior Compartment._ The PIERS are usually tall and light, and consist generally, as in the preceding Period, of four shafts with intervening hollows, which latter are continued uninterruptedly round the Pier-arch. Frequently the entire Pier is moulded without shafts, and the whole of the mouldings are carried round the Pier-arch. The Pier is frequently so disposed that its transverse section is greater than its longitudinal section, or, in other words, it is thicker from North to South than it is from East to West. The CAPITALS are usually octagonal, but sometimes circular. Foliage is much more rarely seen in their hollows, and they contain plain mouldings of a more angular character generally than in the preceding Period. They are also taller, in comparison, to their diameter. They have sometimes a battlement moulding on their upper edge, which is in other cases often square. The BASES are generally tall, narrow, and polygonal, and often of several stages. In the PIER-ARCHES occasionally a form occurs for the first time, which is seen in no other Period. This is the _four-centered_ arch, so called from the circumstance of its being drawn from four different centres: its use, however, in _arches of construction_, except in the Vaulting, is by no means so common as in _arches of decoration_, where it continually appears. It is often enclosed in doorways, under a square head. The mouldings of Pier-arches, Window-arches, and all others are usually plain, broad, and shallow; the double Ogee occurs continually, as well as a large shallow hollow, drawn from three centres, between a few small filleted members. Few Arches carry more than two orders. In the STRING-COURSES, CORNICES, and other hollow mouldings, flat square leaves at intervals, continuous training foliage, and the vine-leaf and grapes, frequently occur; but the relief is usually not considerable, and the amount of undercutting in foliage exhibited in the two previous Periods is never seen. The Tudor Rose and the Tudor Flower are frequent ornaments of this Period. The TRIFORIUM is rarely seen, and in its place the Clere-story Window is often carried down in blank panelling to the passage or String-course over the Pier-arches. It is sometimes, however, represented by a band of panelling or pierced work. The CLERE-STORY attains considerable height and importance in this Period; the effect of which, in large buildings, is increased by the suppression of the Triforium, and the substitution in its place of the apparent continuation downwards of the Clere-story. In many buildings the Clere-story windows are in pairs, and so numerous that all blank wall entirely disappears; and the effect of the mass of light thus poured down into the Church is very striking and characteristic.