same character, had before been erected in England. Its novelty struck the minds of all who beheld it with wonder and admiration.[1]
It was natural that such a building should excite emulation, and the lesson which it taught bore fruit in some of the important erections which quickly followed it. Among the earliest of these were the more easterly portions of the same cathedral, the east end of Chichester, and the choir and east transept of Lincoln. After the completion, by William of Sens, of the choir and a portion of the east transept of Canterbury, the master, having received injuries in a fall from the scaffolding, relinquished the work and returned to France. He was succeeded by another William, said to have been an Englishman.
It is difficult to distinguish with precision the beginning of the work of the second William. His whole work was, for the most part, a mere carrying-out of the original design of William of Sens. A few round abaci occur in the crypt and on the east side of the transept, which are probably the work of the second William; everywhere else the square abaci and the mouldings of the original design are retained, as well as the French forms of pointed arches.
The Cathedral of Chichester was, like Canterbury, originally a Norman structure of the end of the eleventh century. It was extensively damaged by fire in the year 1186, and immediately thereafter repairs were begun which involved the entire rebuilding of the two easternmost bays (Fig. 72).[2] At the same time the whole church, including these two bays, was vaulted with quadripartite vaults having transverse and diagonal ribs, but no longitudinal ribs, which last are usually wanting in the early pointed vaults of England. These ribs interpenetrate at their springing, and thus are gathered upon a single round abacus which covers a triple group of capitals. They receive no support from the lower piers, but their triple vaulting shafts, which are slender and closely grouped, are sustained by corbels placed just above the capitals of the lower piers. The lower pier (section, Fig. 73) consists of a
- ↑ See the account of the rebuilding of this choir by the Monk Gervase in Willis's Monograph on Canterbury Cathedral. London, 1845.
- ↑ I copy this and the following figure from Willis's Architectural History of Chichester Cathedral. Chichester, 1861.
