Gothic form by spreading to receive, upon an ample abacus surface, the threefold load of transverse, longitudinal, and diagonal ribs. It is to be regretted that we have now no means of ascertaining what were the forms of the choir vaults and what was their system of supports. The bases of the piers of the sanctuary are all that remain of this system, which was, however, there can be little doubt, substantially like that of the nearly contemporaneous structures presently to be noticed.
In Morienval and St. Denis we have, then, the Gothic principle of vaulting in its inception and in its earliest complete character, as displayed in ground -story vaults of small dimensions. The next examples show the nature of the early vaults and vaulting systems on a larger scale.
It is impossible to be precise in chronological sequence, but the Cathedrals of Senlis and of Noyon must, it would seem, have followed very soon after Suger's work at St. Denis. They are beyond doubt nearly contemporaneous buildings, and M. Vitet has shown [1] that the early portions of the existing Cathedral of Noyon must have been begun as early as 1150. The eastern portions only of these buildings belong to this early date; the naves were not completed till later in the century. In Senlis all to the east of the transept, and in Noyon both choir and transept, illustrate the progress that had been made by the middle of the twelfth century. Both of these churches have apsidal aisles, apsidal chapels, and vaulted triforium galleries. The choir of Senlis is of the unchanged primitive construction, with a few minor exceptions, up to the level of the clerestory string; but its present high vaults and clerestory are the incongruous and ill-proportioned work of a much later epoch. The arrangement and the forms of the piers indicate that the original vaults were sexpartite, and, after those of St. Denis, they must have been among ~the very earliest vaults of considerable scale constructed on Gothic principles. Hardly any vaults of this form remain in the Ile-de-France of a date earlier than those of the choir of the Cathedral of Paris, which were completed about 1180. The earliest progress of sexpartite vaulting, in France proper, cannot therefore now be studied; but there are sexpartite vaults in the Norman churches of
- ↑ Notre-Dame de Noyon. Par I. Vitet. Paris, 1845.
