ively short, and all of equal length; and the plan of
the buildings is generally square, or nearly so, in outline. Circular
and polygonal buildings sometimes occur.

[Illustration: FIG. 179.--SPIRE OF SPIRES CATHEDRAL.]

Few traces of the arrangement of military, secular, or domestic
buildings earlier than the twelfth century remain, but some examples
of a cloister at the side of the nave (generally the south side) of a
church, giving or intended to give access to monastic buildings, still
exist.

_The Walls_ of such buildings as have come down to us are, it may be
well understood, strong, since the most recent of this round-arched
series of buildings must be about seven hundred years old. Fine
masonry was not much employed till the time of the Normans, but the
Roman plan of building with bricks or rubble and casing the face of
the walls with marble or mosaic, or at least plaster, was generally
followed. The walls are carried up as gables and towers to a
considerable extent (Fig. 179), especially in Western countries.

_The Roof._--In a basilica this was of timber, in a Byzantine church
it consisted of a series of domes; in a Romanesque church it was
sometimes of timber as in the basilica, but not unfrequently vaulted.
As a general rule the vault prevailed in the West and the dome in the
East; and such examples of either sort of roof as occur in those
provinces where the other was usual, like the domed churches in parts
of France, must be looked upon as exceptional.

_The Openings_ are almost invariably arched, and seldom, if ever,
covered by a lintel. It is hardly necessary to add that the arches are
always round. Almost always they are semicircular, but instances of
the employment of a segmental arch, or of one the outline of which is
a little more than half a circle, may be occasionally met with.

Door openings are often made important both by size and decoration.
Window openings are usually small; and the grouping of two or more
lights under one head, which was so conspicuous a feature in Gothic
architecture, first appears in Byzantine buildings, and is met with
also in Romanesque ones. The mode of introducing light is to a certain
extent characteristic. The basilican churches always possess a
clerestory, and usually side windows in the aisles; and this
arrangement is generally followed in Romanesque buildings, though
sometimes, in Germany, the clerestory is omitted. The gable ends of
the nave and transepts