Square Chevets
Such a vault as that just described was, in a way, a sort of square chevet.[289] It was built to provide a better arrangement of windows in the terminal wall than would be possible beneath the transverse cell of a regular four-or six-part vault. Nor was its use confined to the transept for it is found with a varying number of cells at the end of the nave and choir as well. Such Norman churches as Saint Georges at Saint Martin-de-Boscherville [(Fig. 51)], Saint Étienne at Caen and Saint Cross at Winchester (choir cir. 1135-1189) are examples of this,[290] while the vaults of the transepts of Limburg Cathedral[291] (1235) and that of the chapter house at Boscherville [(Fig. 52)] resemble a chevet even more closely in that all but one of their severies are subdivided. When the ribs all rise from the same level, the appearance of such a vault is pleasing, but when,—as in the nave of Boscherville [(Fig. 51)],[292]—the intermediate ribs are shortened,
Fig. 51.—Saint Martin-de-Boscherville, Saint Georges.
Fig. 52.—Saint Martin-de-Boscherville, Saint Georges, Chapter-house.
the effect is very unsatisfactory, though this shortening of the ribs probably had a structural advantage in preventing the light from being partly cut off, or the windows partly concealed by the radiants and the masonry above them.