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448
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
tion that Durham is one ofthe most precocious and one ofthe
most completely assured designs ofthe early middle ages. It was
designed from the beginning in the lopo's to be covered with
stone vaults, not only in its aisles but also in its main span, and
these vaults were no longer ofthe concrete groined type such as
are found in the great eleventlvcentury churches of Germany,
or in the crypt ofthe other eleventlvcentury buildings in Eng'
land, but were from the beginning ribbed vaults, anticipating
by several years the development ofsuch vaults in the Paris area,
where the great steps in the development of the ribbed vault
which led to the early Gothic structural system were to be ac'
complished (Fig. 102). In addition to this structural precocity,
the design of Durham is also precocious in that it abandons the
simple exploitation of plain wall surfaces in favour ofa system
whereby the main parts of the structure are outlined by com'
plicated mouldings, so that the structural forms ofthe building
are clearly differentiated one from another. This new develop'
ment is clear enough in the eastern parts of the church which
were first undertaken, but is carried much farther and with in'
creased richness of moulding in the western parts. In addition
to this use of mouldings to define, by clearlymarked lines, the
fundamental structural divisions of the building, Durham also
shows a tendency to break up any broad, plain stone surfaces
with a
purely decorative system oflinear
patterns. The church
is built on a scheme of double bays, consisting of complex
rectangular piers alternatingwith cylindrical ones (PL 78). The
plain surfaces ofthe cylinders are enriched with a variety ofin'
cised lines, spirals, zigzags, or lozenges, or in some places with
shallow ribs in relief, and the aisle walls below the windows,
even in the earlier parts of the church, are adorned with inter'
secting arcading so as to present an interesting continuous linear
pattern. The newly invented ribs of the great vaults suggest
equally a desire to carry this linear definition ofthe parts ofthe
building not only over the wall spaces but over the vaults also,
and thereby give a consistent linear quality to the whole in'
terior of the building. It has been suggested that the whole of
developed
medieval architecture took its character from the