times adopted. The small Church of Vaux-sous-Laon (Fig. 57) has a façade of this form. The whole structural character of the building is perhaps as fully expressed in this façade[1] as it could be; and where there is, as in this case, a transept and a central tower, the whole together makes a charming and impressive composition.
FIG. 57.
The practice of terminating the western extremities of the aisles of large churches by towers was established in the Romanesque period; and an instance of the simple character of the resulting façade is afforded by the Abbaye-aux-Hommes (Fig. 58). These towers are flanked by plain pilaster buttresses of two orders, which rise without set-offs to nearly the level where the towers disengage themselves from the central compartment of the façade. At this level they are banded by a string-course which continues across the entire front, and above it they are carried up three stories higher.[2] The façade is divided into three stories
