The chapter-house at Christ Church, Oxford, the choir of Worcester Cathedral, a considerable part of Fountains Abbey, the choir of Rochester, the south transept of York, the presbytery of Ely, the nine altars of Durham at the east end, and the same part of Fountains Abbey, the choir of the Temple Church, London, and the nave of Lincoln, are well-known examples of this period, the first half of the thirteenth century.
In the year 1245, King Henry the Third, “being mindful of the devotion which he had towards St. Edward the Confessor, ordered the church of St. Peter at Westminster to be enlarged, and the eastern part of the walls, with the tower and transepts, being pulled down, he began to rebuild them in a more elegant style, having first collected at his own charges the most subtle artificers, both English and foreign.” These portions of the church are the choir and apse; the work is of the richest character, but still pure Early English.
The north transept of York Minster was built between 1250 and 1260, by John the Roman, treasurer of the church, who afterwards became Archbishop of York. The records of this cathedral clearly prove that it was the regular practice of the chapter to keep a gang of workmen in their pay as part of the establishment; the number varied from twenty to fifty, and the same families were usually continued generation after generation: to their continued labour, always doing something every year, we are indebted for the whole of that glorious fabric. This practice was by no means peculiar to York, but appears to have been the usual custom.
This completes an outline of the Architectural history of the principal known buildings of the Early English style.
THE GRADUAL CHANGE FROM THE EARLY ENGLISH STYLE TO THE DECORATED.
The change from the Early English to the Decorated style was so very gradual, that it is impossible to draw any line where one style ceases and the other begins. The time of Edward I. was that of the change, and some of our most beautiful examples belong to that period.
In the early Decorated the sculpture of the human figure is remarkable for the ease and chasteness of the attitudes, and the free and graceful, though at the same time rich, folds of the drapery. Few figures can surpass in simplicity and beauty the effigy of Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abbey, and those on the crosses erected to her memory are almost equally fine, especially those on the Northampton cross; those at Waltham have been mutilated and restored. They were all executed between 1291 and 1294, as appears by the builders’ accounts, which are still extant. The cross at Geddington is perhaps the most perfect of those which remain. This is not mentioned in the executors’ accounts, but probably only because that part of the accounts has been lost; it is as plainly a memorial cross to Queen Eleanor as either of the others.
| Eleanor Cross, Geddington, A.D. 1295. | Beverley, c. A.D. 1300. |