download

452 MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
mouldings which were introduced into architecture in the first
third ofthe twelfth century were exploited largely to increase the
effect ofall over linear surface pattern. This taste for linear pattern
spread over broad surfaces is extremely marked in certain build'
ings ofthe midxtwelfth century, notably in the additions made
to the upper parts ofthe earlier west front at Lincoln and in the
treatment of the broad gable^ends of the transepts at the great
church at Southwell It is
extremely difficult to determine any
regional distribution of these habits of design, except that we
can say that the nave of Gloucester cathedral seems to be a ver/
sion ofthe Tewkesbury nave design, but carried out with a use
ofthe new variety of mouldings to emphasize its various parts,
and that the most completely developed examples of the taste
for
breaking up the main masses of the
building, notably the
great piers of the interior, by minute subdivisions seems more
common in the east ofEngland than in the west. Such interiors
as that of Southwell nave, which show an awareness of the
new taste for enriched
mouldings, seem, however, to have
deliberately rejected the vertical division into bays and to have
held fast to the tradition ofthe unbroken wall surface which at
and elsewhere seems to be a survival of an earlier
Tewkesbury
architectural tradition.
One structural device of great importance to the future of
English medieval architecture was certainly imported from
Normandy, most likely from the Caen area, and appears in the
transept of Winchester in the late eleventh century. This is a
method of giving strength to the clerestory wall by making the
upper walls ofthe building specially thick. So much so that in
many cases the wall above the main piers exceeds the thickness
ofthe
piers themselves and over^sails on to the haunches ofthe
vaults of the side aisles. The middle storeys of the bays are
occupied at tribune level by arches and at clerestory level by an
arcaded gallery, thus leaving the thickened wall as a sort of en^
larged pier between each bay.
This device makes it unneces'
sary to provide a special abutment in between each bay on the
exterior ofthe building and in some cases the whole line ofthe
clerestory wall was treated externally with a pattern
of blind