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fourteenth century. It has five aisles, and the two inner aisles, as in the
chancel of Le Mans cathedral, are higher than the outer ones. This tends,
of course, to break up the spatial unity of the interior, but it does not fully
express the essential spirit of the Gothic system. This system must now be

briefly described, so that it may be seen how the Gothic style, evolved in
France, was adopted in the rest of Europe.
Gothic Building & Construction

Something of the old Romanesque plan, survives in the plan of a sim-
ple Gothic church; in the classical cathedral it is elaborated and refined to
the last degree. Constructional needs brought about the change. The Ro-
manesque round arch required very massive piers to support the weight of

the walls, but even so the thrust of the heavy cross-vaulting constantly
threatened to push the walls out of plumb. The attempt to relieve them of
their load led inevitably to the pointed arch, which made the lines of pres-

sure more nearly vertical. More important was the possibility, given by the
pointed arch, of covering spans of unequal size by arches of the same
height. This restored the freedom which was lost in the Romanesque 'en-

gaged' system. Now the tyrannical quadrate of the central nave could be
divided into two rectangles, each of which harmonized with a square bay
of the transept. The difference between the pillars of the arcades and the

pillar of the bays was abolished; the rhythm was less insistent, but the or-
chestration was far richer. The heavy vaulting, which dictated the whole
structural system of the Romanesque church, was replaced by light fillings
which were spread as panels between the intersecting ribs. The ribs alone,

instead of the whole of the heavy vault, carried the load.
In order to prevent the walls from being thrust out of plumb, the
Gothic building had strong counter-pillars on its outer walls, from which

flying buttresses, like supporting arms, reached over the side aisles. The
structure was put on the outside of the building, so that the nave could rise
freely upwards. In Romanesque churches the ratio of height to width was
2:1, it now became 3:1 and even more, so that the eye could no longer take

it in. The nave had three or five aisles, while the transept usually had three.
The side-aisles continued round the polygonal chancel, the elaborate plan
of which now offered no difficulty, since the most complicated areas could

be covered with vaulting. Pillars take the form of clusters of half- and
three-quarter-columns (the so-called vaulting-shafts), so that the cylindri-
cal nucleus almost disappears. The ascending portions of this cluster,

which support the longitudinal and transversal ribs, are stronger than the
others, while the slighter shafts join the diagonal ribs. From these cluster-

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