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ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE 473
remarkable examples of this new fashion are, however, to be
found in the smaller objects, such as tomb canopies and church
furniture, the sedilia at Bristol cathedral and the tomb of
Edward II (PL 85) being amongst the most striking. The
Bristol sedilia have a series of tall finials alternating with free-'
standing figures surmounting the canopies and, set well
behind them, a row of niches which provides a shadowed
background to the figures rather than an enclosing frame. The
tomb canopy of Edward II at Gloucester is so contrived that
the miniature buttresses are set at an angle to the tomb chest and
attached to the inner canopies by a series of miniature flying
buttresses. Owing to the angle at which the vertical buttresses
are set these are
flyers
seen on a diagonal view and so lead the
and its
eye inwards towards the upper stages of the canopy
pinnacles, a curious example of diagonal composition rather
than the more normal series of parallel planes one behind
another.
The generation that saw the development ofthese new archi/
tectural tendencies is also that ofthe most remarkable spires and
towers the middle ages have left to us. Outstanding among
these are those of Salisbury and later those of Wells and
Gloucester, and, latest ofall, the great central tower ofCanter/
bury. At Salisbury the spire was raised on a thirteenth/century
lantern tower which had presumably originally been sur/
mounted by a wooden pyramidal roof. It is interesting to note
that, both at Salisbury and at Wells, the increased height ofthe
central feature ofthe church was apparently undertaken entirely
for external appearance and that the original function ofa central
tower as a lantern over the crossing/space was abandoned and
the lantern itself ceiled off internally with a vault. The most
remarkable example of this process, however, was at Glou/
cester, where the rebuilding of the eastern limb of the church
included a vault at a much higher level than the original roof,
and this vault was carried westwards, uninterrupted by the
eastern arch of the crossing, to cover the entire space of the
monastic choir which in the normal way occupied the crossing/
space as well as part of the western limb (PL 86). A similar