Irregular Four-Part Vaulting of Durham Cathedral

Fig. 32.—Beauvais, Saint Étienne.

The first of these is the English cathedral of Durham. The date of its vaults is still the subject of a decided controversy, but whether they were built between 1093 and 1133 as Bond,[207]Rivoira,[208]and Moore[209]believe, or are later than those of Saint Denis, which is the claim of Lasteyrie,[210]they are of sufficiently early date to be important in a

Fig. 33.—Durham, Cathedral.

discussion of rectangular four-part vaulting. Those over the nave(Fig. 33)are especially interesting and furnish a unique variant of the standard type. It was the apparent intention of the builders to roof the nave with wood and for this purpose heavy transverse arches were constructed between the alternate piers. When vaulting was determined upon, the nave was therefore already divided into square bays each containing two clerestory windows on a side. To vault these bays the builders might naturally have been expected to adopt the Lombard system of simple four-part vaults, but here in Durham, as in Saint Étienne at Caen, the impost level of the transverse arches was so low that a four-part vault would have made impossible the retention of the windows already in position above each nave arch. As these were absolutely essential in the north of England for lighting purposes, and also most important in preserving the symmetry of the bays, a change either in their size or position would have proved impractical. The six-part vault was the Norman method of solving a similar problem. But the builders of Durham invented a new system, made up of two rectangular cross-ribbed vaults in each bay, their intermediate supports afforded by corbels, and their alternate transverse arches omitted (Plate I-i.). This omission of the intermediate rib gives avery unusual character to the vault but it preserves the alternate system with square nave bays so popular in Norman work, and at the same time has a great advantage over the six-part vault in that the transverse crown line of the window cells is perpendicular to the outer wall. The panels are therefore more symmetrical in elevation and the thrusts are more evenly distributed from pier to pier. The large central severy, however, afforded a difficult surface both for construction and support, and it is not surprising that the system was not repeated. As in the early ribbed vaults at Caen, wall ribs were not employed at Durham, and the abutment was provided only by flat pilasters and concealed flying buttresses, some of full and some of half arched form.[211]

That the rectangular four-part system of vaulting was developed in Normandy, as well as in England and the Ile-de-France, and very possibly independently of both, is proved by the early twelfth century abbey church of Lessay (Manche) (cir. 1130).[212]If the vaults of Lessay are an independent development it is hardly possible to see in them anything else than another effort to vault a church with square nave bays and yet provide the best possible vaulting to fit above the windows. A glance at the choir[213]will show that the alternate system was here employed just as in Saint Étienne at Caen, yet the builders introduced two four-part vaults instead of one of six-part type in each bay.[214]The transverse arches are still semicircular and the vault is somewhat rudimentary. The system as a whole may be considered as a fourth method[215]of the Norman builders to preserve their clerestory intact and still vault their churches. A slight advance is shown in the vaults at Pontorson (Manche) (middle of twelfth century). This is, however, a small church without side aisles and its vaults are in almost square bays with pointed transverse arches and considerably domed up at the crown. Wall ribs are still lacking as at Durham and Lessay.

The abbey church of Saint Germer-de-Fly (Oise) (cir. 1140), which still retains its original vaults in the choir and two eastern bays of the nave, presents another and perhaps more important example of rectangular four-part cross-ribbed vaulting. Its structural arches are of pointed section, and the piers and walls are strengthened by concealed flying-buttresses beneath the wooden roof of the triforium.[216]These are similar to those which have already been noted in La Trinité at Caen and in the nave of Durham,[217]but the vaults are superior in construction to those at Durham and are also provided with transverse arches between each rectangular bay. With the aid of this concealed buttress and the retention of the heavy Romanesque walls and small openings the vaults of Saint Germer were kept from falling, and it was doubtless this fact which led to the extension of the four-part system until it rivaled and at length became more popular than the six-part vaulting imported from Normandy and used at exactly the same period in the church of Saint Denis. A number of elementary features still remained at St. Germer, however. The transverse arches are but slightly pointed in section, the ribs are unusually heavy, and the diagonals of the choir bay are supported upon corbels[218]showing that the shaft arrangement was not yet in accord with the ribs to be carried.

A gradual development of the flying-buttress, and of the compound pier, a reduction in the size of the ribs,[219]and many other structural refinements rapidly followed one another in the period subsequent to the construction of Saint Germer and led to the perfection of rectangular four-part vaulting. The cathedral of Soissons (Aisne) (cir. 1212 on)(Fig. 67), for example, shows a considerable structural advance over SaintGermer. Its ribs are more decidedly pointed though still somewhat heavy and there is no hesitation in raising the impost of the vault far above the clerestory string-course, since its thrusts are easily met by exterior flying-buttresses.

It is in the cathedral of Amiens (beg. 1218)(Fig. 69), however, that the four-part vault reaches its most daring if not its most perfect form. Here the builders constructed a vault similar to that of Soissons, but rising over one hundred and forty feet from the pavement. Its ribs are perfectly proportioned and finely moulded and the buttress system is completely developed. One awkward feature does, however, appear in the fact that the builders, perhaps, in order to concentrate the thrusts of the vaults upon the narrowest possible strip of outer wall, have made the wall intersection of the window severies follow an irregular curve which does not correspond to that of the wall rib in the portion from the impost to a point near the haunch. In spite of this defect, the cathedral of Amiens may well be considered as marking the highest development of rectangular ribbed vaulting. A study of other Gothic churches will disclose few, if any, improvements, either in appearance or construction, and many of the finest closely resemble this masterpiece.

Such a study will, however, show a decided difference in the elevation of the transverse ribs and consequent shape of the vaults, which is worthy of some notice. If, for example, a triangle be inscribed beneath a number of these transverse arches, it will be found that the angles inside its base vary from about fifty degrees in Saint Germer-de-Fly, Rouen cathedral and Beverley Minster;[220]to fifty-five degrees in Soissons, Amiens, Salisbury, and Milan cathedrals, and Westminster Abbey; and even to sixty degrees in the cathedrals of Cologne and Reims. Moreover there is a great difference in the curve of these same transverse ribs. Those in Saint Germer, Beverley, and Rouen closely approach a semicircle, those in Amiens and Salisbury are much more pointed, but made up of two arcswithout, however, a long radius with the resulting flattened appearance to be noted at Cologne and Reims and more decidedly at Milan. All this would seem to indicate that the elevation of these ribbed vaults,—and this is true of six-part and complex vaults as well,—was largely a matter of individual taste with a tendency to favor the form used at Amiens. The reason for the employment of very sharp curves like those of Reims, Cologne and Milan, was doubtless due to the appreciation on the part of the builders of the fact that such curves greatly reduced the outward thrusts, rather than to any idea of beauty of appearance to be gained, for in this they are perhaps inferior to the less pointed examples.

Fig. 34.—Albi, Cathedral.

The use of rectangular four-part ribbed vaulting was not confined to churches with side aisles, but appears also in those with a single broad nave. It is the method employed in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris (fin. 1248), where there are simple salient buttresses, and there is a splendid example in the Cathedral of Albi (Tarn) (begun 1282)(Fig. 34), where the nave has a very wide span and is flanked by chapels in two stories between heavy pier buttresses which are thus enclosed in the church in atruly Byzantine manner. In the smaller church of Saint Nicholas at Toulouse these buttress chapels are in but one story and the bays are more nearly square in plan, a compromise between the square and rectangular systems which appears on an even larger scale in the cathedral of Saint Bertrand-des-Comminges (Haute-Garonne) (cir. 1304). As far as construction is concerned these vaults over a single broad nave offer no advance over those in churches with side aisles, not even requiring a scientific system of flying buttresses to offset their outward thrust. Their only importance lies in the very broad space sometimes covered by them.[221]

The simple forms of ribbed vaulting just discussed were the ones most frequently in use during the best Gothic period. But among certain builders, there was a tendency even in the thirteenth century to introduce additional ribs into the vaults, a custom which later gave rise to a vast number of complicated vaulting systems especially in England, Spain and Germany. Even to enumerate these would be almost impossible and a description of each is out of the question, hence only those combinations which were frequently employed, or which gave rise to new types, will be discussed.

Naturally enough the ridge rib was the first to be added to those already constituting the four-part vault (Plate I-j.). But the vaults thus formed should be divided into two groups. The first most frequently found in France and already discussed in connection with the churches of Anjou,[222]is that in which the surface of each severy has a curved crown and the rib follows this curve, with the object, probably, both of subdividing the large rectangular bays, of marking with absolute exactness the crown line, and of aiding in rigidly fixing the central keystone, or even in the case of a six-part vault, of giving the same apparent division to the transverse severies as is found in those running longitudinally.

Though very similar to this first type, the second, which was developed and most used in England, is different, in that the ridge line is here

Fig. 35.—Lincoln, Cathedral.

perfectly horizontal, and the main purpose of the rib is to mark this horizontal line with absolute exactness and to give, what Bond terms a spine,[223]to the vault skeleton. In the earliest example in England, the transept aisle of Ripon cathedral (cir. 1170),[224]the ribs are so small as to be purely decorative. This leaves the choir of Lincoln cathedral (begun 1192)(Fig. 35)as the first English example of importance in which a true ridge rib appears. It is not yet absolutely horizontal since there is a slight curve to each severy. Its presence would seem to be due to the peculiar form of the vault, in which the ribs enclosing the window cells do not meet at a common point of intersection but at two points somewhat distant from each other along the ridge line where each pair is abutted by a single rib running to the nearest impost on the opposite wall (Plate I-l.). This arrangement, which was probably planned to increase the amount ofcentering in the large transverse panels and thus render their construction easier,[225]gives an extra keystone in each bay and it is quite possible that the ridge rib was introduced in order to unite these intersections and fix them in a straight line. It does not appear in the window cells where it would of course have been at an awkward angle with the outer walls.

Once introduced into English architecture the ridge rib was destined to play a most important part in its development. In the first place, it provided an easy method of assuring an absolutely level and straight ridge line and was thus especially welcome to English builders, who had been trained in the construction of vaults which were never more than slightly and often not at all domed up, and who were, besides, rather inferior masons, and not particularly skillful in making their masonry courses intersect in a perfect manner. In the second place, it furnished admirable abutment for tiercerons or intermediate ribs,[226]which were perhaps suggested by such a vault as Lincoln choir as being valuable additions to the rib skeleton and were thereafter very generally used to provide more permanent centering and to further reduce the size of the vault panels.

It is, however, notable that a longitudinal ridge rib appears added to simple four-part vaults without the introduction of tiercerons or transverse ridge ribs at a comparatively early date in Worcester cathedral choir (after 1224),[227]Westminster Abbey choir (1245-1260), and Gloucester cathedral nave (1245), and that it is used in France in a number of churches where there are no tiercerons.[228]In such cases it serves the primary purpose of clearly marking the ridge line, which is especially difficult to adjust in vaults with level crowns. That it was the longitudinal effect thus produced which was desired is evidenced by the fact that except when there were tiercerons in the longitudinal cells, the transverse ridge rib was rarely added to such vaults (Plate I-k.). Among the very few examples are the cathedral of Tulle (Corrèze) (twelfth century) and the fifteenth century chapel of the château at Blois, both of them in France.[229]

The introduction of a ridge rib was only the first step in the development of multiple rib vaulting. It was not long before the builders, especially in England, began to add intermediate ribs or tiercerons between the transverse arches and the diagonals. These may possibly have been inspired by the extra ribs in the choir of Lincoln cathedral (Fig. 35 and Plate I-l), but whatever their origin they became a common feature of later Gothic and gave rise to what may be termed tierceron vaulting. In the transverse vault severies, which in England were really sections of a tunnel vault because of the level crown line, these ribs acted largely as added centering and as decorative features. But when used in the window cells they served another purpose as well for they enabled the builders to convert the ordinary “ploughshare” curve of the vaulting conoid into a series of flat panels which could be constructed with much less difficulty as far as the laying of the masonry courses was concerned.

Sometimes the tiercerons are used in both the transverse and the longitudinal severies and sometimes only in one of them. Their number also varies greatly, though of course they are always in pairs. Lincoln cathedral presbytery (cir. 1266-1280)(Fig. 36)affords an example of a single pair in each of the large transverse severies with none in the window cells (Plate I-m.), while Chester cathedral chapter-house (first half of the thirteenth century), and Worcester cathedral nave (cir. 1350-1377)(Fig. 89)are rare examples of the opposite arrangement (Plate I-n.).[230]To support such tiercerons as these at their crown, a transverse ridge rib was added to the construction, sometimes as in Chester chapter-house (Plate I-n.), Lincoln nave (before 1233),[231]and Ely presbytery (1235-1252),[232]running out only to the new keystone (Plate I-o.) and thus playing a purely structural rôle, but often extending to the window head (Plate I-p.) as in Lichfield cathedral south transept (cir. 1220) and choir (fourteenth century). These portions of Lichfield, together with the nave of Lincoln and the presbytery of Ely cathedral, are also important as showing the employment of a single pair of tiercerons in each of the four panels of the vaulting bays (Plate I-p.). This system is slightly varied in the naves of Lichfield and Hereford (Plate I-q-r), where the true transverse arch is omitted between the bays, but these vaults like those of Durham are merely variants of the more standard types.[233]

Fig. 36.—Lincoln, Cathedral.

The introduction of a single pair of tiercerons in each major panel was soon followed, especially in the window cells where the surface was warped, by the use of two (Plate I-s.) and even of three such pairs (Plate I-t.). Two are found in Hereford cathedral south transept (cir. 1400),[234]and in the choir of Saint Mary Redcliffe at Bristol (fifteenth century),[235]while three appear at Exeter (between 1280-1350)(Fig. 37). This lastmay well be said to mark the highest point in tierceron vaulting,[236]and it must be acknowledged that the decorative effect produced is most pleasing. Placed as they are over comparatively low naves, these vaults harmonize in an admirable manner with the clustered piers, moulded archivolts, and substantial walls provided for their support, and carry to the crown of the vault that wealth of moulding which lends so much of grace and charm to the English Gothic of the Decorated period. Were such vaults used above the lofty naves of Amiens or Beauvais, they would doubtless appear oppressively heavy but the lowness and solidity of English construction entirely dispels such a feeling. Of course, tiercerons are not essential members of the vaulting system and perhaps they were better omitted altogether, but that their usage can be vindicated from an aesthetic standpoint is proved by such vaults as those at Exeter.

Fig. 37.—Exeter, Cathedral.

Tierceron vaulting did not, however, mark the limit to which the English Gothic builders were to carry their passion for added ribs and complex design, and it was not long before short connecting ribs known as liernes were added to the tierceron vaults. These may have been introduced by the builders from a feeling that the tiercerons did not have sufficient abutment, as Bond suggests,[237]but it is more reasonable to suppose that they are the result of a striving for still more complex vaulting forms and still more decorative patterns in vault construction.

The combinations in lierne vaulting are of course without number and only a few can be discussed. The simplest is that known as the star vault (Plate I-u.) in which there is a single pair of tiercerons in each of the four main vault panels with short liernes connecting the points of their intersection with the ridge ribs, with a point in the same plane on each of the diagonals. A simple example occurs at Oxford in the Proscholium[238]and one of the same general type but much elaborated, in the choir of Oxford cathedral.[239]

It is almost impossible to classify the remaining lierne vaults under separate heads, though there are certain characteristics which belong to one group and not to another. For example, some, like those of the nave of Saint Mary Redcliffe at Bristol[240]have no ridge rib, others have a single rib like that found in tierceron vaulting. These last might again be classified according to the number and arrangement of their liernes. Thus in Ely cathedral choir[241](beg. 1322) and Norwich nave (vaults cir. 1470)[242]there are but few liernes, while in Winchester cathedral nave (cir. 1394-1460) there is a much larger number. Still other lierne vaults have more than one ridge rib. Of these, the choir (1337-1357), and Lady chapel of Gloucester cathedral (cir. 1457-1489), and the nave of Tewkesbury Abbey(Fig. 38)[243]are representative and varied examples. All have three ridge ribs which is the standard number.

In these last three churches, however, as well as in Winchester nave and in numerous other examples not cited, there is a still more decided change in the form of the vault than that brought about by the use of liernes or added ridge ribs. This lies in the fact that the window cells no longer rise to the full height of the vault, so that the entire system is practically a reversion to the Romanesque tunnel vault pierced on either side with lunettes, in other words, to the interpenetrating vault. The ribs merely form a permanent centering, and generally no attempt is made to concentrate the pressure on a narrow strip of wall,[244]or to make use of flying-buttresses.[245]Except for the decoration which they afford, the ribs have little structural value though they do make possible lighter masonry in the web than would be possible in a continuous tunnel vault.

Fig. 38.—Tewkesbury, Abbey Church.

The height of the window cells in such vaults was not at all fixed though it was quite frequently determined by the intersection of two ribs running diagonally from each side of the window to the second imposton the opposite wall of the church.[246]Such window cells as these naturally left a large central space along the crown of the vault, which was usually decorated by extra lierne and ridge ribs.

Not content with the liernes as a decoration, an innovation appears in Tewkesbury choir,[247]Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor[248]and elsewhere, which consists in the application of raised mouldings forming tracery patterns on the few open spaces left between the ribs of complex lierne vaults. It is as if the tracery of a window were applied to a background of stone, with ribs taking the place of mullions. The patterns are usually trefoils or quatrefoils, but other forms, as, for example, the cross shaped flowers in the fan vaults at Peterborough(Fig. 39)also occur.

The natural consequence of such added mouldings and ribs as those just described was to bring about the total sacrifice of the structural principles of ribbed vaulting to those which were purely decorative, and it is not surprising that such a vault as that of the choir of Wells cathedral (1329-1363),[249]in which the ribs have but the slightest claim to structural purpose should be found even at its early date as an example of this decadent stage in English vaulting.

But the addition of multiple ribs lead not only to such debased vaulting as that at Wells. It must have played a large part in the creation of the distinctly novel construction known as fan vaulting. For in a vault with many tiercerons, as for example, that at Exeter(Fig. 37), or Hereford south transept,[250]the combined surfaces between the ribs is a cross between half of a hollow sided pyramid and a cone. This is true because, like most of the English churches, the wall rib is not highly stilted to concentrate pressures on a narrow strip of outer wall, or to leave a more pointed window head as in France, but it and the tiercerons and diagonals have much the same curvature. It was natural, therefore, that the English

Fig. 39.—Peterborough, Cathedral.

builders should have conceived the idea of making all the ribs of just the same curvature but of different length according to their several positions. This they did in Sherborne Abbey nave (vaulted 1475-1504).[251]Here the builders very logically used the shortest rib as a measure and connected the points at corresponding distances from the imposts on each rib with liernes. A central space was thus left, which at Sherborne was covered by prolonging a number of the radiants and adding a tracery of liernes and mouldings. The vault as thus constituted is not yet of pure fan type. It was first necessary to replace the ring of straight liernes by those of curved plan and to add one ring above another at the various points of intersection of the tiercerons and transverse ridge ribs, until practically the entire space to the vault crown was filled. Thus, in certain of thefan vaults of Peterborough (second half of the fifteenth century)(Fig. 39), there are three such rings leaving but a small diamond shaped central space which is largely filled by the keystone of the bay.[252]Others down the side aisles where the bays are smaller have but a single ring and a much larger central space. In vaults of the Peterborough type, the radiants are continued through this central panel in a decorative way, but in the cloister at Gloucester (before 1412)(Fig. 40), this portion of the vault is left entirely flat and decorated with tracery patterns in raised mouldings such as are usually found in window heads. The conoids, also, are covered with tracery rather than continuous ribs and the term “Fan-Tracery Vaults” might properly be used to distinguish them from the more common type.[253]

Fig. 40.—Gloucester, Cathedral, Cloister.

In the matter of construction, fan vaulting differs from any precedingmethod. Its ribs are all of precisely the same curvature, their length being determined by the position which they occupy, and they are no longer supporting but rather decorative members. The lower portions of some of the vaults still resemble true ribbed vaulting in that the tas-de-charge is used, and also in the fact that the ribs still rise in a single long voussoir from their imposts to the first horizontal ring. But from this point to the crown, the ribs and mouldings are merely carved in relief upon the jointed masonry, which they therefore in no way support. In some fan vaults, as, for example, in Islip’s chapel in Westminster Abbey,[254]and in Gloucester cathedral cloister(Fig. 40), the rib is even carved upon the vault masonry for its entire length.

The one structural advantage which the fan vault afforded lay in the fact that it could be built up of practically horizontal courses in a manner to exert very little outward thrust; while the substitution of curved, for straight liernes did away with the awkward angular intersections characteristic of lierne vaulting. Altogether, it is both a clever and beautiful type of vaulting well suited to the builders of the Perpendicular Gothic period, with their fondness for intricate decorative rather than structural problems.

Because of its late development, fan vaulting was not extensively used to cover an entire church. Nevertheless, King’s College Chapel at Cambridge (vaulted between 1512 and 1515),[255]and Bath Abbey (cir. 1500-1540),[256]furnish two excellent examples, to which might be added Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster (cir. 1500-1520).[257]The latter is essentially of fan type, though the fans are in combination with a system of transverse arches and pendants best understood from the photograph and drawing just cited. The vaults in the foregoing churches, do however exhibit minor differences. For example, the transverse arches are practically concealed in the vaults of the naves at Sherborne, and Bath and in the east aisle of Peterborough, while they are prominent in Henry VII’s and King’s College chapels. Moreover, in a number of fan vaults as wellas in others of different type, pendant voussoirs or keystones are employed. These are supported by some clever building trick and beautifully carved either as lanterns or reliquaries,—like those of Oxford cathedral choir,[258]—or decorated with rich floral, heraldic, or other designs. Thus they play a rôle which is largely decorative, though one which also marks a very clever building technique.[259]

The vaults thus far discussed have been largely those of England, but some of the types with added ribs, most highly developed in that country were not without Continental examples. In France, for instance, ridge ribs, besides being used in vaults of the domed up Anjou type already described, are also found marking level ridges like those of the standard English vaults. The nave of the abbey church of Souvigny (Allier) (late fifteenth century), the north transept of the cathedral of LeMans (before 1430), and the chapel of the Maison de Jacques Coeur at Bourges (middle of fifteenth century) afford excellent examples of the use of the longitudinal without the transverse ridge rib, while the chapel of the château of Blois, and the cathedral of Tulle (Corrèze), have already been cited as rare instances in which both were employed in vaults with level crowns. That the French builders were even more impressed with the decorative possibilities which these ribs afforded than were those of England is perhaps shown by the fact that, whereas in England this rib has carved decoration[260]only rarely as in the nave of Lichfield cathedral it is carved in no less than three of the French examples cited, the chief among these being Souvigny, in which a deeply cut foliate design decorates both sides of the rib throughout its entire length. In Spain also there is a notable example of the decoration of both a longitudinal and transverse ridge rib in the form of a knotted rope or scourge in the cathedral of Vizeu.[261]

Tiercerons as well as ridge ribs were freely used on the continentthough usually not at a very early date. Fine examples are to be seen in France in such churches as those of Brou (Ain) (1506-1536), and Saint Nicolas-du-Port (Meurthe-et-Moselle) (cir. 1505).[262]Both of these are also of interest because their vaults still retain the domed up crown characteristic of French construction, and because of this the builders, to avoid the awkward rise and fall of continuous ridge ribs, have brought these out only far enough to meet the pair of tiercerons in each severy. Many other examples of tierceron vaulting could be cited both in France and elsewhere, but they would add nothing of importance from a structural standpoint.

As for lierne vaults, they, too, appear on the Continent especially in Germany and Spain. The choir of Freiburg cathedral (second half of fifteenth century)(Fig. 72), and the church of the Holy Cross at Gmund,[263]show two German types, both of which resemble English vaults which have already been discussed. In Spain, the new cathedral at Salamanca[264](begun 1513), the cathedral at Segovia (begun 1525),[265]and many other churches might be cited, while in France the church of Mézières (begun 1499),[266]and Switzerland the cathedral of Bern (cir. 1421-1598)[267]show the extent of the style, sometimes with sharply defined domed up bays as in Mézières and sometimes a continuous vault like that of Bern. Finally in some instances, as, for example, the Stadkirche of Wimpfen[268]the liernes are curved giving a still more complicated character to the vault.

Fan vaulting was unused[269]outside of Great Britain, but there are many instances of the employment of extensively decorated vaults, including those with pendants of somewhat English character. Among the latter are Saint Pierre at Caen and Saint Eustache at Paris (1532-1637),[270]while pendants of especially exaggerated type are to be seen in the vault of one of the chapels off the south side aisle of Noyon

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