A B C of Gothic Architecture

by John Henry Parker

Shewing Perpendicular tracery, with sub-arches and a transom, the heads of the lights cinquefoiled (five foiled).

In the later examples the arches of the windows are

Haseley, Oxon, c. A.D. 1480.

much lower than they were in the earlier period, and the four-centred arch, which began now to be extensively used, was gradually depressed, until all beauty of proportion was lost, the arches being little more than two straight lines rounded at the angle of junction with the jambs. These late windows had frequently great width in proportion to their height, as at Haseley, and were placed so near together, that the strength of the building entirely depended on the buttresses.

Presbytery, York, c. A.D. 1460.

A little later in the style, one of the best examples that is anywhere to be found is the Presbytery at York, in which the windows are very large and divided into five lights; in the central division the mullions are carried straight through the arch, and two horizontal transoms are introduced, which is a very unusual arrangement; there are also transoms across the side lights on each side, and there are two of them.

These windows having all been originally filled with painted glass, we have rarely an opportunity of judging of the proper effect of them; the glare of light which we now complain of having been caused by the destruction of that material, which was intended to soften and partially to exclude it. The church of Fairford, in Gloucestershire, affords a rare instance of the painted glass having been preserved in all the windows, and the effect is solemn and calm—very far from glaring; and it is remarkable that they impede the light so little that a book may be read in any part of the church, which is seldom the case with modern painted glass. The clere-storeys also are frequently almost a sheet of glass merely divided by lighter or heavier mullions, thus offering a complete contrast to the small and distant openings so frequently found in Early English and Decorated work. Square-headed, segmental, and other flat-arched windows, are frequent in this style. In rich churches there is sometimes a double plane of tracery, the one glazed, the other not. In the choir of York the inner one is glazed. The east window of the nave of Chipping-Norton Church, Oxfordshire, over the chancel-arch, is a fine specimen of this kind of window: in this instance the outer plane is glazed.

The Doorways are frequently very rich, but have generally one prevailing form, which is a depressed arch within a square frame, and over this a label.