THE great rapidity with which a decided change in the style and character of the work was taking place at this period, would appear almost incredible if it were not proved by so many instances, and especially by the well-authenticated account of Canterbury. After carefully noticing the great change which took place there during the ten years that the work was in progress, as recorded by Gervase, an eye-witness, and confirmed by Professor Willis, we shall not be much surprised to find some examples of pure Gothic work in the following ten years.
Canterbury was completed in 1184, and in 1185 St. Hugh of Grenoble, also called St. Hugh of Burgundy, was appointed bishop of Lincoln, and immediately began to rebuild his cathedral. It is therefore plain that this portion of the building was completed before 1200, and a careful examination enables us to distinguish clearly the work completed in the time of Bishop Hugh, which comprises his choir and the eastern transept, with its chapels. The present vaults of St. Hugh’s choir, and of both the transepts, were introduced subsequent to the fall of the tower, which occurred in 1240.
The architecture in the north of Lincolnshire, and the south of Yorkshire, appears to have been a little in advance of any other in Europe at that period. St. Hugh’s choir at Lincoln is the earliest building of the pure Gothic style, free from any mixture of the Romanesque, that has been hitherto found in Europe or in the world. The Oriental styles are not Gothic, though they helped to lead to it. The French Gothic has a strong mixture of the Romanesque with it down to a later period than the choir of Lincoln. St. Hugh of Lincoln certainly did not bring the Gothic style with him from his own country, Dauphiny, or from the Grande Chartreuse where he was educated, for nothing of the kind existed there at that period. Grenoble (the place from which St. Hugh was brought to England) and its neighbourhood was quite half-a-century behind England in the character of its buildings, in the time of Henry II. of England and of Anjou, in whose time this style was developed.
Nothing can well exceed the freedom, delicacy, and beauty of this work; the original arcade, of the time of St. Hugh, is of the same free and beautiful style as the additions of his successors. The foliage of the capitals is exquisitely beautiful, and though distinguished technically by the name of stiff-leaf foliage, because there are stiff stalks to the leaves, rising from the ring
St. Hugh’s Choir, South Aisle, Lincoln, A.D. 1195.
This is an unusually perfect example, with the original ornaments, of the earliest building of pure Gothic, free from Romanesque or Norman.
Beverley Minster, Yorkshire.