The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed

Mattthew Holbeche Bloxam
The Principles of Gothic
Ecclesiastical
by Question and
Answer, 4th ed., by Mattthew
Holbeche Bloxam

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Ecclesiastical
Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed., by Mattthew
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Title: The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated
by Question and Answer, 4th ed.
Author: Mattthew Holbeche Bloxam
Release Date: November 8, 2006 [EBook #19737]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE ***

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Transcriber's Note
A number of typographical errors found in the original text have been
maintained in this version. They are marked in the text with a [TN-#].
A description of each error is found in the complete list at the end of
the text.
The oe ligatures used in the original text have been expanded to "oe" in
this version.
The following codes are used for characters which cannot be
represented in the character set used for this version of the book.
[=mn] mn with a macron over the two letters [=om] om with a macron
over the two letters [=on] on with a macron over the two letters [=re] re
with a macron over the two letters
Some footnotes in the original were marked with a dagger. The dagger
is represented by a + in this version of the text.

"Whereby may be discerned that so fervent was the zeal of those elder
times to God's service and honour, that they freely endowed the church
with some part of their possessions; and that in those good works even
the meaner sort of men, as well as the pious founders, were not
backwards."
Dugdale's Antiq. Warwickshire.
[Illustration]

THE

PRINCIPLES
OF
GOTHIC
ECCLESIASTICAL
ARCHITECTURE,
ELUCIDATED BY QUESTION AND ANSWER.
BY MATTHEW HOLBECHE BLOXAM.
FOURTH EDITION.
OXFORD: JOHN HENRY PARKER.

PREFACE.
In revising this Work for a Fourth Edition several alterations have been
made, especially in the Concluding Chapter; and the whole has been
considerably enlarged.
M. H. B.
Rugby, April 1841.

CONTENTS.
Page CHAP. I. Definition of Gothic Architecture; its Origin, and
Division of it into Styles 17
CHAP. II. Of the different Kinds of Arches 22
CHAP. III. Of the Anglo-Saxon Style 30

CHAP. IV. Of the Norman or Anglo-Norman Style 51
CHAP. V. Of the Semi-Norman Style 74
CHAP. VI. Of the Early English Style 86
CHAP. VII. Of the Decorated English Style 102
CHAP. VIII. Of the Florid or Perpendicular English Style 120
CHAP. IX. Of the Debased English Style 145
CONCLUDING CHAPTER. Of the Internal Arrangement and
Decorations of a Church 153

CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS.
Page 41, line 9, for Cambridge, read Lincoln.
Page 49. In addition to the list of churches containing presumed
vestiges of Anglo-Saxon architecture, Woodstone Church,
Huntingdonshire, and Miserden Church, Gloucestershire, may be
enumerated.
Page 71. The double ogee moulding is here inserted by mistake: it is
not Norman, but of the fifteenth century.
Page 137. In some copies the wood-cut in this page has been reversed
in its position.

[Illustration: Two Arches of Roman Masonry, Leicester.]
INTRODUCTION.
ON THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND DECLINE OF GOTHIC OR
ENGLISH ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE.

Amongst the vestiges of antiquity which abound in this country, are the
visible memorials of those nations which have succeeded one another
in the occupancy of this island. To the age of our Celtic ancestors, the
earliest possessors of its soil, is ascribed the erection of those altars and
temples of all but primeval antiquity, the Cromlechs and Stone Circles
which lie scattered over the land; and these are conceived to have been
derived from the Phoenicians, whose merchants first introduced
amongst the aboriginal Britons the arts of incipient civilization. Of
these most ancient relics the prototypes appear, as described in Holy
Writ, in the pillar raised at Bethel by Jacob, in the altars erected by the
Patriarchs, and in the circles of stone set up by Moses at the foot of
Mount Sinai, and by Joshua at Gilgal. Many of these structures,
perhaps from their very rudeness, have survived the vicissitudes of time,
whilst there scarce remains a vestige of the temples erected in this
island by the Romans; yet it is from Roman edifices that we derive, and
can trace by a gradual transition, the progress of that peculiar kind of
architecture called GOTHIC, which presents in its later stages the most
striking contrast that can be imagined to its original precursor.
The Romans having conquered almost the whole of Britain
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