Fig. 23.—Bury, Church.
But there is another feature of the side aisle vaults which is worthy of note before turning to the more developed churches which resemble Bury in their arrangement of vaulting bays. This is the use of small caryatid figures which appear at the springing of the diagonal ribs [(Fig. 23)].[171] These would seem to serve a purely decorative purpose, perhaps to distract attention from the great size of the ribs behind them, or to give an apparent lightness to the vault itself by seemingly placing its burden upon such insignificant shoulders, or more probably still, the figures served to break the transition from shaft to rib by concealing the impost of the latter. Whatever their explanation, other examples besides those at Bury are to be seen. Of these, the angels—now badly mutilated—at the base of the ribs in the narthex of Saint Ours at Loches (Indre-et-Loire) [(Fig. 24)][172] are especially interesting, and perhaps account for the tiny figures employed at the springing of the ridge ribs in a number of churches in Anjou, such as Angers, Saint Serge [(Fig. 21)], as well as for the larger figures in the apse of Notre Dame-de-la-Couture at Le Mans [(Fig. 20)].[173] It may even be through the influence of such figures as these that grotesques were used to support the small shafts in the arcade of the triforium passage in the cathedral of Nevers (Nièvre) [(Fig. 25)].
Fig. 24.—Loches, Saint Ours.