THE architecture generally known as Gothic, but often described as Christian Pointed, prevailed throughout Europe to the exclusion of every rival for upwards of three centuries; and it is to be met with, more or less, during two others. Speaking broadly, it may be said that its origin took place in the twelfth century, that the thirteenth was the period of its development, the fourteenth that of its perfection, and the fifteenth that of its decline; while many examples of its employment occur in the sixteenth.

In the following chapters the principal changes in the features of buildings which occurred during the progress of the style in England will be described. Subsequently, the manner in which the different stages of development were reached in different countries will be given; for architecture passed through very nearly the same phases in all European nations, though not quite simultaneously.

It must be understood that through the whole Gothic period, growth or at least change was going on; the transitions from one stage to another were only periods of more rapid change than usual. The whole process may be illustrated by the progress of a language. If, for instance, we compare round-arched architecture in the eleventh century to the Anglo-Saxon form of speech of the time of Alfred the Great, and the architecture of the twelfth century to the English of Chaucer, that of the thirteenth will correspond to the richer language of Shakespeare, that of the fourteenth to the highly polished language of Addison and Pope, and that of the fifteenth to the English of our own day. We can thus obtain an apt parallel to the gradual change and growth which went on in architecture; and we shall find that the oneness of the language in the former case, and of the architecture in the latter, was maintained throughout.

For an account of the Christian round-arched architecture which preceded Gothic, the reader is referred to the companion volume in this series. Here it will be only necessary briefly to review the circumstances which went before the appearance of the pointed styles.

The Roman empire had introduced into Europe some thing like a universal architecture, so that the buildings of any Roman colony bore a strong resemblance to those of every other colony and of the metropolis; varying, of course, in extent and magnificence, but not much in design. The architecture of the Dark Ages in Western Europe exhibited, so far as is known, the same general similarity. Down to the eleventh century the buildings erected (almost exclusively churches and monastic buildings) were not large or rich, and were heavy in appearance and simple in construction. Their arches were all semicircular.

The first rays of light across the gloom of the Dark Ages seem to have come from the energy and ability of Charlemagne in the eighth century.

In the succeeding century, this activity received a check; an idea became generally prevalent that the year one thousand was to see the end of the world; men’s minds were overshadowed with apprehension; and buildings, in common with other undertakings of a permanent nature, were but little attempted.

When the millennium came and passed, and left all as it had been, a kind of revulsion of feeling was experienced; many important undertakings were set on foot, such as during the preceding years it had not been thought worth while to prosecute. The eleventh century thus became a time of great religious activity; and if the First Crusade, which took place 1095, may be taken as one outcome of that pious zeal, another can certainly be found in the large and often costly churches and monasteries which rose in every part of England, France, Germany, Lombardy, and South Italy. Keen rivalry raged among the builders of these churches; each one was built larger and finer than the previous examples, and the details began to grow elaborate. Construction and ornament were in fact advancing and improving, if not from year to year, at any rate from decade to decade, so that by the commencement of the twelfth century a remarkable development had taken place. The ideas of the dimensions of churches then entertained were really almost as liberal as during the best period of Gothic architecture.

An illustration of this fact is furnished by the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey under Edward the Confessor. He pulled down a small church which he found standing on the site, in order to erect one suitable in size and style to the ideas of the day. The style of his cathedral (but not its dimensions) soon became so much out of date that Henry III. pulled the buildings down in order to re-erect them of the lofty proportions and with the pointed arches which we now see in the choir and transepts of the Abbey; but the size remained nearly the same, for there is evidence to show that the Confessor’s buildings must have occupied very nearly, if not quite, as much ground as those which succeeded them.

At the beginning of the twelfth century many local peculiarities, some of them due to accident, some to the nature and quality of the building materials obtainable, some to differences of race, climate, and habits, and some to other causes, had begun to make their appearance in the buildings of various parts of Europe; and through the whole Gothic period such peculiarities were to be met with. Still the points of similarity were greater and more numerous than the differences; so much so, that by going through the course which Gothic architecture ran in one of the countries in which it flourished, it will readily be possible to furnish a general outline of the subject as a whole; it will then only be requisite to point out the principal variations in the practice of other countries. On some grounds France would be the most suitable country to select for this purpose, for Gothic appeared earlier and flourished more brilliantly in that country than in any other; the balance of advantage lies however, when writing for English students, in the selection of Great Britain. The various phases through which the art passed are well marked in this country, they have been fully studied and described, and, what is of the greatest importance, English examples are easily accessible to the majority of students, while those which cannot be visited may be very readily studied from engravings and photographs. English Gothic will therefore be first considered; but as a preliminary a few words remain to be said describing generally the buildings which have come down to us from the Gothic period.

The word Gothic, which was in use in the eighteenth century, and probably earlier, was invented at a time when a Goth was synonymous with everything that was barbarous; and its use then implied a reproach. It denotes, according to Mr. Fergusson, “all the styles invented and used by the Western barbarians who overthrew the Roman empire, and settled within its limits.”

Fig 1.—West Entrance, Lichfield Cathedral, (1275.) (See Chapter V.)