Q. Was the transition from this style to the next gradual?
A. Both the transition from the Early English to the Decorated style, and from the Decorated to the Florid or Perpendicular, was so gradual, that though many individual details and ornaments were extremely dissimilar, and peculiar to each particular style, we are only able to judge from examples when a change was generally established.
Q. From what cotemporary writers of the fourteenth century can we collect any architectural notices, either general or of detail?
A. In Chaucer we find allusions made to imageries, pinnacles, tabernacles, (canopied niches for statuary,) and corbelles. Lydgate, in The Siege of Troy, in his description of the buildings, adverts to those of his own age, and uses several architectural terms now obsolete or little understood, and some which are not so, as gargoiles. In Pierce Ploughman’s Creed we have a concise but faithful description of a large monastic edifice of the fourteenth century, comprising the church or minster, cloister, chapter house, and other offices.
Q. What edifices maybe noticed as constructed in this style?
A. In Exeter Cathedral this style may be said generally to prevail, although some portions are of earlier and some of later date. Great part of Lichfield Cathedral was also built during the fourteenth century. The beautiful cloisters adjoining Norwich Cathedral, commenced A. D. 1297, but not finished for upwards of a century, although proceeded with by different prelates from time to time, rank as the most beautiful of the kind we have remaining. Several country churches are wholly or principally erected in this style. Broughton Church, Oxfordshire, may be instanced as an elegant, pleasing, and complete example of plain decorated work. Trumpington Church, Cambridgeshire, is also deserving of notice; and Wimington Church, Bedfordshire, built by John Curteys, lord of the manor, who died A. D. 1391, is a small but late edifice in the Decorated style. Annexations were also made during this century to numerous churches of earlier construction, by the erection of additional aisles or chapels as chantries. In all these structures we find more or less, in general appearance, form, and detail, of that extreme beauty and elegance of design which prevailed, as it were, for about a century, and then imperceptibly glided away.
[106-*] The allusion is made to the vaulted roofs of the nave and choir of this cathedral as they existed previous to the late unfortunate and destructive fires.
[109-*] The Flamboyant window, common in France, is not often met with in this country. On the north side of Salford Church, Warwickshire, is, however, a window of this description, filled with flamboyant tracery.