of the springer than it supports; it is sometimes decorated with simple mouldings and ornaments, particularly during the 12th century, on Isle-de-France, Normandy, the Champagne, Burgundy and the méridionales provinces (2). Its plan remains square during first half of the 13th century, but then it is more decorated only by profiles of a cut very-male (3), always overflowing the foliages and ornaments of the capital. The example that we give here is drawn from the chorus of the church of Vézelay, circa 1200 to 1210.
About the middle of the 13th century, when the arches are overhanging with accentuated mouldings presenting out of cut projections included/understood in polygons, the abacuses register these new forms (4). Then the foliages of the capitals overflow the projection of the abacus. (Church of Semur in Auxois and cathedral of Nevers.)
One often meets circular abacuses in the buildings of the province of Normandy, with the cathedral of Coutances, in Bayeux, in Have, the Mount-Saint-Michel; the circular abacuses appear about the middle of the 13th century: the profiles high, are deeply overhanging it, like those of the English capitals of the same time. Sometimes in the chapitaux ones of the mullions of windows (as in the Ste Chapelle of the Palate, as with the cathedral of Amiens, as in the windows of the
