Region: France and England

The innovations of the choir at Saint Denis quickly spread, and were applied and developed in successive cathedrals across the Île-de-France and further afi eld, notably in England.

The essentially Romanesque three-storey bay of Saint-Denis was soon superseded by the addition of a triforium level above the gallery at Noyon Cathedral. The inclusion of this arcade often resulted in alternating major and minor piers and supports, which gave a sense of increased height and verticality over the more static Romanesque arrangement.

At Noyon and Laon, for example, each vault spans two arcade bays, as defined by the arches of the lower arcade, with the transverse vault running between the two adjacent bays across the nave. The apparent movement eastwards from the nave through the crossing to the chancel, while enhanced by the narrower bays created by the pointed arch, was  mediated by the wide, almost square vaults above.

While Early Gothic cathedrals in France achieved a spatial unity and harmony, those in England in the style dubbed ‘Early English’ (roughly dating to between 1180 and 1275) retained a more additive, ‘sum-of-their-parts’ quality.

The early choir at Canterbury was designed by a Frenchman (William of Sens) and for that reason can hardly be called English Gothic. Yet as the Gothic spread to Wells, Somerset, and to Lincoln in the 1190s, English masons adapted the style for their own ends.

The arcade bays at Wells and Lincoln are wider than their French counterparts, and their vaults sit on corbels above the piers of the lower gallery rather than extending through them from the arcade below. Begun in 1220 and finished (apart from its façade and spire) comparatively quickly in 1258, Salisbury in Wiltshire is the most consistent example of the ‘Early English’ style: a tall, wide arcade; a platetraceried gallery with a traditional lancetwindowed clerestory; and an elegantly light quadripartite vault soaring above.

Plate tracery One of the earliest types of Gothic tracery,plate tracery seems to cut through a solid stone wall, creating a robust architectural effect that is usually loosely geometric rather than overtly decorative in appearance. It is far simpler than later forms of tracery, which are used to fill in an already-existing open space.

 

Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis, Paris, begun ca. 1135

Pointed arch The central feature of Gothic architecture, the pointed arch is formed from two (or more) intersecting curves that meet in a central apex or point. Their main structural advantage over the round arch is to enable greater height and the creation of rectangular bays.

 

Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis, Paris, begun ca. 1135

 

 Flying buttress 

Four-storey bay