Trapezoidal Ambulatory Vaults with Added Ribs
If there was one fault in the broken ribbed type of ambulatory vault just described, it lay in the form of its intersection with the outer wall. For example, if the ambulatory was comparatively low or the apsidal arches of wide span, this intersection became either segmental or semicircular or, at best a very low pointed curve, under which it was most difficult to arrange the exterior windows and still produce a pleasing interior effect. Thus in the ambulatory of Sens cathedral,[435] the two round headed windows do not fill the space beneath the wall rib and are in fact awkwardly placed beneath it, while in the ambulatory of Trinity chapel in Canterbury cathedral,[436] where the vaults are but slightly domed, the arrangement is even less pleasing. Of course when these arches opened into radiating chapels, their shape did not make so much difference since their supporting piers ran all the way to the floor and therefore gave a fairly good proportion to the arch. But if the entire space beneath them were occupied by a window extending only part way to the floor, it would be largely head and very little jamb and thus of displeasing proportions. Even in the ambulatory clerestory of Le Mans, where the transverse and diagonal ribs are all of very pointed section, the window is too broad for its height. It would seem, therefore, to have been with an eye to a more pleasing arrangement of the windows beneath these trapezoidal vaults, that many of the mediaeval builders subdivided the outer severy of extra ribs running out from the central keystone. This made possible two or more windows in the outer wall of each bay. Thus in the alternate bays of the ambulatory of Rouen cathedral ([Plate III-d.]), where there are no radiating chapels, a single rib is added in the outer panel making the vault of five-part form, so that the heads of the two slender windows of the bay are
Fig. 82.—Coutances, Cathedral.
each situated in a separate cell. This same arrangement is characteristic of a number of other ambulatories, including the lofty inner one at Coutances cathedral (Fig. 82, and Plate III-e),[437] where the windows are limited in height by the elevation and would be of awkward shape were they not arranged in pairs under separate vault cells.[438] Nor did the mediaeval builders restrict themselves to a single added rib in this outer severy of the vault. In the ambulatory gallery of Saint Remi at Reims [(Fig. 83)] there is an excellent example of the subdivision of this panel into three window cells and in the church of Saint Germain and the cathedral at Auxerre (Fig. 84 and Plate III-f) there are excellent examples of a similar method, applied both in bays with exterior windows and in those which open into a radiating chapel. In the latter instance, the lofty and slender shafts between this chapel and the ambulatory with their many radiating ribs and arches give a charming appearance of grace and lightness to the design.
Fig. 83.—Reims, Saint Remi.