Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 2

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

Figs. 347, 348.

I have now gone through all the normal varieties (of which I can think) of the round-arched vault, and it is time that I should allude to a great step which, after perhaps the first quarter of the twelfth century was introduced into their construction. I allude to the addition of a moulded rib beneath their intersecting angles. It is clear that these angular lines are both in reality and in effect, the weak points of plain groining. I have mentioned that the Romans fortified them in construction, by using in them stronger material than in the rest of the vault; and the early Norman builders made a feeble attempt to take off from the dulness of the intersection, where it approaches its apex, by artificially sharpening the edge in plastering it; for, without this, it becomes (in a vault where the courses of stone or brick are concealed) almost invisible.

The great step in advance which I have now to mention provided both the constructive and the artistic strength which the line required.

It is also clear that any irregularity of form may render these lines shapeless and unpleasing, and it is an obvious gain from an artistic point of view, to adopt a system which will at once render them pronounced and regular. While, then, the introduction of the angular rib was in many cases a departure from geometrical accuracy, it was a vast gain both in strength and beauty.

In that form of vaulting, which I have defined as that with the raised ridges, no geometrical inaccuracy would arise, the angles of intersection being semicircular, and in vertical planes; but in the more ordinary form of vaulting, where these lines are elliptical, that curve being unpleasing, two courses offered themselves for choice: the use of segments of circles for the diagonal ribs, or the bringing down the springing to a lower level than that of the vault. In either case the true geometrical figure has to be departed from, and the error has to be thrown into the vaulting-surfaces—a course which subsequently became so thoroughly adopted as a principle, that it may be received as an axiom that in ribbed vaulting, where the ridges are not raised, the ribs are made of such forms as will satisfy the eye, and the vaulting surfaces made to fit themselves to them as best they may, apart from geometrical accuracy,—a principle which, though it may at first sight offend the mathematical mind, has proved in practice so wonderfully useful, and to offer so many facilities, as to be a sort of Magna Charta to the art of vaulting.

This step once taken, round-arched vaulting seems to have completed its work. Square and oblong spaces were vaulted either with mathematical accuracy on the raised-ridge principle, or with deliberate departure from such accuracy on the level-ridge principle. Irregular spaces were covered over by expedients which satisfied the eye, and met practical conditions tolerably well, and many beautiful works were the results. The diagonal ribs, too, became a new source of decoration, not only by means of their own mouldings or enrichments, and through the bosses now sometimes placed at their point of intersection, but also because they were suggestive of additional colonnettes, and thus added more richness and intricacy to the piers; and sometimes they were carried upon sculptured corbels, as in the cathedral at Oxford. Among the richest specimens of this vaulting may be mentioned the gateway and the Chapter-house of Bristol Cathedral, the chancel of St. Peter’s Church at Oxford, etc.

We have now arrived at a stage of our investigation when we must pause for the sake of asking ourselves what need or requirement yet remained unsatisfied which was essential to the perfecting of our arcuated developments, and what means remained—hitherto unused—by which such need might be met.

We have followed out our arched construction, and the process by which it was rendered at once susceptible and productive of artistic beauty, till we might fancy it to need nothing but the gradual additions of refined art to render it a perfect style; and it would be both an interesting and a profitable field of speculation to take up the style at such a point, and to study how best to clothe it with the charms of the highest art, irrespective of our knowledge of its historical destiny; how, in fact, to perfect our round-arched style to the highest and most refined artistic status; and I feel that any one who could fulfil such a task would be a benefactor to our art.

The semicircle is unquestionably the typical form for an arch, and one well suited to the majority of purposes and positions. I therefore wish well to him who will push a style which claims it as its leading element to its highest possible pitch of perfection. I should rejoice to see a round-arched style rendered as perfect, and its accompanying art as noble, as the Greeks did their trabeated architecture and its ever-glorious sister arts; nor do I see why such an end should not be attained, and God speed the man who worthily attempts it!

This task was, in fact, nobly though unconsciously approached by the artists of the twelfth century; nor can any one examine their works, particularly from the close of the first quarter of that century, without being filled with the warmest admiration at their determined strivings after refinement; their earnest aim to perfect every form, and to eliminate every footstep of barbaric element; to rid their work of all rudeness of execution; and in every way within their reach to raise the architecture they were developing into a really high art.