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Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of
English Gothic architecture English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed a ...
developed in the
Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. On ...
during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-centred arches, straight vertical and horizontal lines in the tracery, and regular arch-topped rectangular panelling. Perpendicular was the prevailing style of Late Gothic architecture in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
from the 14th century to the 17th century. Perpendicular was unique to the country: no equivalent arose in Continental Europe or elsewhere in the
British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (O ...
. Of all the Gothic architectural styles, Perpendicular was the first to experience a second wave of popularity from the 18th century on in
Gothic Revival architecture Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
. The pointed arches used in Perpendicular were often four-centred arches, allowing them to be rather wider and flatter than in other Gothic styles. Perpendicular tracery is characterized by mullions that rise vertically as far as the soffit of the window, with horizontal transoms frequently decorated with miniature crenellations. Blind panels covering the walls continued the strong straight lines of verticals and horizontals established by the tracery. Together with flattened arches and roofs, crenellations,
hood mouldings In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin ''labia'', lip), drip mould or dripstone, is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a ''pediment''. This mouldin ...
, lierne vaulting, and fan vaulting were the typical stylistic features. The first Perpendicular style building was designed in by William de Ramsey: a
chapter house A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole commu ...
for
Old St Paul's Cathedral Old St Paul's Cathedral was the cathedral of the City of London that, until the Great Fire of London, Great Fire of 1666, stood on the site of the present St Paul's Cathedral. Built from 1087 to 1314 and dedicated to Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, ...
, the
cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...
of the
bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or offic ...
. The
chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...
of Gloucester Cathedral () and its latter 14th-century cloisters are early examples. Four-centred arches were often used, and lierne vaults seen in early buildings were developed into fan vaults, first at the latter 14th-century chapter house of
Hereford Cathedral Hereford Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Hereford in Hereford, England. A place of worship has existed on the site of the present building since the 8th century or earlier. The present building was begun in 1079. S ...
(demolished 1769) and cloisters at Gloucester, and then at
Reginald Ely Reginald Ely or Reynold of Ely ( fl. 1438–1471) was an English master mason and architect working in Gothic architecture in the Kingdom of England in the 15th century.
's King's College Chapel, Cambridge (1446–1461) and the brothers William and Robert Vertue's Henry VII Chapel () at Westminster Abbey. The architect and art historian Thomas Rickman's ''Attempt to Discriminate the Style of Architecture in England'', first published in 1812, divided Gothic architecture in the British Isles into three stylistic periods. The third and final style – ''Perpendicular'' – Rickman characterised as mostly belonging to buildings built from the reign of
Richard II Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died ...
() to that of
Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
(). From the 15th century, under the
House of Tudor The House of Tudor was a royal house of largely Welsh and English origin that held the English throne from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd and Catherine of France. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and it ...
, the prevailing Perpendicular style is commonly known as Tudor architecture, being ultimately succeeded by Elizabethan architecture and Renaissance architecture under
Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Eli ...
(). Rickman had excluded from his scheme most new buildings after Henry VIII's reign, calling the style of "additions and rebuilding" in the later 16th and earlier 17th centuries "often much debased". Perpendicular followed the Decorated Gothic (or Second Pointed) style and preceded the arrival of
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...
elements in Tudor and Elizabethan architecture. As a
Late Gothic International Gothic is a period of Gothic art which began in Burgundy, France, and northern Italy in the late 14th and early 15th century. It then spread very widely across Western Europe, hence the name for the period, which was introduced by t ...
style contemporary with Flamboyant in
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
and elsewhere in Europe, the heyday of Perpendicular is traditionally dated from 1377 until 1547, or from the beginning of the reign of
Richard II Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died ...
to the beginning the reign of Edward VI. Though the style rarely appeared on the European continent, it was dominant in England until the mid-16th century.


History

In 1906 William Lethaby, Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey, proposed that the origin of the Perpendicular style was to be found not in 14th-century Gloucester, as was traditionally argued, but in London, where the court of the
House of Plantagenet The House of Plantagenet () was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in ba ...
was based at
Westminster Palace The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...
beside Westminster Abbey. The cathedral of London, the episcopal see of the third-most senior bishop in the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
, was then
Old St Paul's Cathedral Old St Paul's Cathedral was the cathedral of the City of London that, until the Great Fire of London, Great Fire of 1666, stood on the site of the present St Paul's Cathedral. Built from 1087 to 1314 and dedicated to Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, ...
. According to the architectural historian John Harvey, the octagonal chapter house of St Paul's, built about 1332 by William Ramsey for the cathedral canons, was the earliest example of Perpendicular Gothic.
Alec Clifton-Taylor Alec Clifton-Taylor (2 August 1907 – 1 April 1985) was an English architectural historian, writer and TV broadcaster. Biography and works Born Alec Clifton Taylor (no hyphen), the son of Stanley Edgar Taylor, corn-merchant, and Ethel Elizab ...
agreed that St Paul's chapter house and St Stephen's Chapel at Westminster Palace predate the early Perpendicular work at Gloucester. In the early 21st century the outline of the foundations of the chapter house was made visible in the redeveloped south churchyard of the present 17th-century cathedral. The chapter house at St Paul's was built under the direction of William de Ramsey, who had worked on earlier phases of the still-unfinished St Stephens's Chapel. Ramsey extended the stone mullions of the windows downwards on the walls. At the top of each window he made a four-centred arch which became a distinctive feature of Perpendicular. Along with rest of Old St Paul's, the chapter house was destroyed by the
Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
in 1666. Elements of early Perpendicular are also known from
St Stephen's Chapel St Stephen's Chapel, sometimes called the Royal Chapel of St Stephen, was a chapel completed around 1297 in the old Palace of Westminster which served as the chamber of the House of Commons of England and that of Great Britain from 1547 to 1834. ...
at Westminster Palace, a palatine chapel built by King Edward I following the model of Sainte-Chapelle at the Palais de la Cité in medieval Paris. It was built in phases over a long period, from 1292 until 1348, though today only the crypt still exists. The architect of the early building was Michael of Canterbury, followed in 1323 by his son Thomas. One of the original decorative features was a kind of blind tracery; blank vertical panels with cusped, or angular tops in the interior; and, on the exterior, thin stone mullions or ribs extending downward below the windows creating perpendicular spaces. These became the most characteristic feature of the style. The earliest Perpendicular in a major church is the choir of Gloucester Cathedral (1337–50) constructed when the south transept and choir of the then Benedictine abbey church (Gloucester was not a bishopric until after the Dissolution of the Monasteries) were rebuilt in 1331–1350. It was likely the work of one of the royal architects, either William de Ramsey, who had worked on the London cathedral chapter house, or Thomas of Canterbury, who was architect to the king when the transept of Gloucester Cathedral was begun. The architect preserved the original 11th-century walls, covering them with Flamboyant mullions and panels. The east window of Gloucester choir has a Tudor arch, filling the wall with glass. The window tracery matches the tracery on the walls. The Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey is a major example of the late Perpendicular style, with its walls of glass and elaborate fan vaults. Another important example is
St George's Chapel St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in England is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style. It is both a Royal Peculiar (a church under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch) and the Chapel of the Order of the Gart ...
at Windsor Castle, begun in 1475. The vault of the chapel was contracted to the master-mason John Aylmer in 1506.


Characteristics

* Towers were exceptionally tall, and frequently had battlements. Spires were less frequent than in earlier periods. Buttresses were often placed at the corners of the tower, the best position for providing maximum support. Notable Perpendicular towers include those of York Minster and Gloucester Cathedral, and the churches of Boston, Warwickshire and Wrexham, Taunton. * Stained glass windows were so large that the walls between were reduced to little more than piers. Horizontal mullions, called "transoms", often had to be added to the windows to give them greater stability. * Tracery was a major feature of decoration. In the larger churches, the entire surface from ground to summit, including the battlements, was covered with panels of tracery composed of thin stone mullions. It also appeared frequently in the interior, and often carried the designs in the window tracery down to the floor. * Roofs were frequently made of lead, and usually had a gentle slope, to make them easier for walking. The roof timbers on the interior were often exposed to view from below, and had ornamental supports. * Vaults of stone were frequently elaborate and highly decorative such as fan vaulting. The increased weight of the vaults caused by the ornament was countered by larger buttresses on the exterior. * Columns were generally circular in section, with octagonal bases and capitals. The capitals were usually decorated with moulded or carved oak leaves, or with corbels of shields or armorial symbols, or with the Tudor rose. * Fourth-centred arches or Tudor arches were commonly used in windows and tracery and for vaults and doorways. * The interiors had very rich carved woodwork, particularly in the choir stalls, which often featured carved grotesque figures on the bench ends called "poppy heads", from .


Gallery

File:WinchesterCathedral-west-wyrdlight.jpg, Winchester Cathedral west front File:St. Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle (2).jpg, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle (1475–) File:Sherborne abbey.jpg, Sherborne Abbey File:MK17792 Eton College Chapel.jpg, Eton College Chapel File:Henry VII Chapel Westminster Abbey (5133296937).jpg, Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey (1503–), with Perpendicular tracery and blind panels. File:New College, Oxford (3915150445).jpg,
New College Chapel, Oxford New College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New Colle ...
File:Collegiate Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Katherine & All Saints, Edington (14642630549).jpg, Edington Priory west front: Decorated and Perpendicular File:Warwick, St Mary's church, Beauchamp chapel (36583800662).jpg, Beauchamp Chapel, Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick File:Manchester Cathedral Choir.jpg,
Manchester Cathedral Manchester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George, in Manchester, England, is the mother church Mother church or matrice is a term depicting the Christian Church as a mother ...
chancel File:1 christ church hall 2012.jpg, Hall of Christ Church, Oxford File:HullMinster43.jpg, Hull Minster nave File:St. Giles church, Wrexham.jpg, St Giles' Church, Wrexham File:Merton College Chapel from just north of the Meadow.jpg,
Merton College Chapel Merton College Chapel is the church of Merton College, Oxford, England. Dedicated to St Mary and St John the Baptist, the chapel was largely completed in its present form by the end of the 13th century. The building retains a number of original ...
tower File:Gloucester Cathedral Choir.jpg, Gloucester Cathedral, choir and chancel File:Bath Abbey Eastern Stained Glass, Somerset, UK - Diliff.jpg, Bath Abbey chancel File:York Minster, York (13451378175).jpg, York Minster chancel, looking west File:Canterbury Cathedral Nave 1, Kent, UK - Diliff.jpg, Canterbury Cathedral nave File:Winchester Cathedral Nave 2, Hampshire, UK - Diliff.jpg, Winchester Cathedral nave File:Canaletto - The Interior of Henry VII's Chapel in Westminster Abbey.JPG, The Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey (1503–) painted by
Canaletto Giovanni Antonio Canal (18 October 1697 – 19 April 1768), commonly known as Canaletto (), was an Italian painter from the Republic of Venice, considered an important member of the 18th-century Venetian school. Painter of city views or ...
File:Magdalen College Tower.jpg, Magdalen Tower File:York Minster (8406).jpg, York Minster crossing tower File:St Mary Magdalene Taunton.jpg,
St Mary Magdalene, Taunton Taunton Minster (St Mary Magdalene church) is a Church of England parish minster church in Taunton, Somerset, England, dedicated to Jesus' companion Mary Magdalene. It was completed in 1508 and is in the Early Tudor Perpendicular Gothic style. I ...
File:Evesham Abbey Bell Tower.jpg, Evesham Abbey bell tower File:BridlingtonPriory.JPG,
Bridlington Priory Priory Church of St Mary, Bridlington, , commonly known as Bridlington Priory Church is a parish church in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, in the Diocese of York. It is on the site of an Augustinian priory founded in 1113 wh ...
west front File:Gloucester Cathedral Front.jpg, Gloucester Cathedral east end (1331–1350), with a four-centred arch window File:Canterbury Cathedral 10.JPG, Canterbury Cathedral crossing tower and transepts File:Crossing Tower, Wells Cathedral.jpg, Wells Cathedral crossing tower File:Beverley Minster (49792708446).jpg, Beverley Minster west front File:Norwich Cathedral (geograph 3639003).jpg, Norwich Cathedral spire and west window File:Chichester Cathedral (16074455605).jpg, Chichester Cathedral spire


References


Bibliography

* * Ducher, Robert, ''Caractéristique des Styles'', (1988), Flammarion, Paris (in French); * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Perpendicular Gothic Architecture English Gothic architecture Gothic architecture in England Gothic architecture in the United Kingdom 14th-century architecture 15th-century architecture 16th-century architecture England in the High Middle Ages Architecture in England Gothic architecture