Beginning at the east end, he first cut off a space two bays long, then a second of three bays long, then a single bay, then another space of three bays, and finally a single bay at the west end; while to each of his groups of three bays, he gave a central column, and repeated the threefold division on its east and west sides. These square spaces, then, each of whose sides is divided into three, became the key-notes of his scheme, and most ingeniously and beautifully he vaulted them. The principle followed is really, however, nothing more than an adaptation of the ordinary mode of dividing a square into four smaller squares of groining, to a space whose sides are divided into three instead of two (A). The central square resting on the column remains unaltered, but the sides have each three cells, the transverse ribs from the central column being bifurcated at their apices, and instead of going across to an opposite pillar, spread right and left to the two pillars, while the main diagonal ribs remain unaltered. These are met at their apices by half-diagonals coming obliquely from the same pillars in the sides. The result is a star-like arrangement of an exceedingly pleasing, though at first sight, intricate character.
Adjoining one of these beautiful squares comes the compartment first alluded to (B). It is a very parallel case to that last described. On three sides it is the same as the Lincoln chapel, with a portion of a square dome instead of a central column (excepting only that this has the boundary-line), while the fourth side, having three divisions instead of two, is dealt with precisely as has been described in the preceding case. Amongst these intricate compartments are alternated single bays, each divided transversely into three squares of ordinary groining; and the perplexity of the effect of the crypt arises not so much from the difficulty of any of the forms of vaulting, as from the constant change from one form to another, no two adjoining divisions being alike. The whole is carried out with excellent detail, and forms a most beautiful and interesting interior.
Fig. 375.—Choir, Lincoln Cathedral.
The subject of puzzles in vaulting suggests a notice of that of the choir at Lincoln, where the architect (De Noyes) seems to have put himself out of the way to make an easy matter difficult; for, instead of groining his oblong bays in the usual way, he has made each cell strike obliquely to points dividing the central ridge of the bay into three equal parts ([Fig. 375]); so that neither the cells nor the diagonal ribs from either side ever meet one another, but each cell is met by an intermediate or an oblique transverse rib from the opposite side. Professor Willis, in his peripatetic lecture there in 1848, called the architect “a crazy Frenchman,” it being then thought that he had been brought over by Bishop Hugh of Burgundy; but it has since been discovered that he was a member of a Norman family long settled in Lincolnshire; and the beauty of his work is such that we may well excuse this freak of eccentricity, and wish that this form of craziness was more prevalent amongst ourselves!
A curious effect is produced by carrying vaulting out accurately in a circular aisle or corridor, where it gives the diagonal ribs a twisted line, bending them out of the vertical plane. This is well seen in the apsidal aisle in the Cathedral at Bourges, both in the church itself and the crypt.
I will only notice two or three more varieties of this stage of vaulting, and those of a miscellaneous character.
The Chapter-house at Lichfield is an elongated octagon ([Fig. 376]), one of its sides on either hand being double the length of the others, and divided into two bays. The vaulting is a curious elongation of that of the regular octagonal chapter-house: a cell on either hand being interpolated, and the ribs all converging obliquely to the central pillar.