Early English Style. 131 Church of London, examples of Early English vaulting may also be seen. Windows are the features in which the gradual progress of the Gothic style may always most readily be studied. In the Early English they are long, narrow, and lancet- headed (*. e. with an acute angle at the head). Sometimes one window like this is seen alone, but more usually three, five, or seven are grouped together. The necessity for filling up the vacant spaces between the heads of the several windows so grouped led to their perforation with ornamental forms. This was the origin of the tracery and foliation so largely employed in later styles. The smaller windows, when thus combined, are called licjhts. The great window at Lincoln Cathedral, consisting of eight windows or lights combined together, is a good example. The ca- thedrals of Salisbury, Chichester, Lincoln, York, Beverley, and Westminster, contain specimens of Early English windows. York Minster possesses an Early English win- dow, called the Five Sisters, which, although it consists merely of long, simple, undivided openings, is almost un- rivalled for effect and dignity. The walls of Early English buildings are often less massive than the Norman, and are strengthened with external buttresses, which at this period were always set square to the line of the walls. The larger west fronts generally include a pointed central gable, with a tower on each side rising above the gable ; and were enriched by one to four rows of niches, windows, and arches over the doorways. The west front of Lincoln Cathedral contains a good deal of Early English work grouped round a Norman doorway ; that of Peter- borough consists of three large arches, adorned with clus- tered piers, architraves, and a large number of mouldings. k 2
