A B C of Gothic Architecture

04 THE EAELY ENGLISH STYLE.
The architecture in the north of Lincolnshire,and
the south of Yorkshire, appears to have been a little
in advance of any other in Europe at that period.
St. Hugh's choir at Lincoln is the earliest building
of the pure
Gothic style,free from
any mixture of
the Romanesque, that has been hitherto found in Europe
or in the world. The Oriental styles are not
Gothic, though they helped to lead to it. The French
Gothic has a strong mixture of the Eomanesque with
it down to a later period than the choir of Lincoln.
St. Hugh of Lincoln certainlydid not bring the Gothic
style with him from his own country, Dauphiny, or
from the Grande Chartreuse where he was educated,
for nothing of the kind existed there at that period.
Grenoble (theplacefrom which St. Hugh was brought
to England) and its neighbourhood was quite half-acentury
behind England
in the character of its buildings,
in the time of Henry II. of England and of Anjou,
in whose time this stylewas developed.
JSTothingcan well exceed the freedom, delicacy,and
beauty of this work ; the originalarcade, of the time
of St. Hugh, is of the same free and beautiful style as
the additions of his successors. The foliageof the capitals
is exquisitely beautiful,and
though distinguished
technicallyby the name of stiff-leaffoliage,because
there are stiffstalks to the leaves,risingfrom the ring