does the Semi or Mixed Norman style appear to have prevailed?

[Illustration: Semi-Norman Arch, St. Cross Church, Winchester.]

A. Though we can neither trace satisfactorily the exact period of its
introduction, or even that of its final extinction, (for it appears to
have merged gradually into the pure and unmixed pointed style of the
thirteenth century,) we have perhaps no remains of this kind to which we
can attribute an earlier date than that included between the years 1130
and 1140, unless we except the intersecting arches at St. Botulph's,
Priory Church, Colchester, which may be a few years earlier; and it
appears to have prevailed, in conjunction or intermixed with the Norman
style, from thence to the close of the twelfth century, and probably to a
somewhat later period.

[Illustration: Arcade, Christ Church, Oxford.]

FOOTNOTES:

[76-*] The figure of a fish, whence the form _vesica piscis_ originated,
was one of the most ancient of the Christian symbols, emblematically
significant of the word ichthys, which contained the initial letters of
the name and titles of our Saviour. The symbolic representation of a fish
we find sculptured on some of the sarcophagi of the early Christians
discovered in the catacombs at Rome; but the actual figure of a fish
afterwards gave place to an oval-shaped compartment, pointed at both
extremities, bearing the same mystical signification as the fish itself,
and formed by two circles intersecting each other in the centre. This was
the most common symbol used in the middle ages, and thus delineated it
abounds in Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts. Every where we meet with
it during the middle ages, in religious sculptures, in painted glass, on
encaustic tiles, and on seals; and in the latter, that is, in those of
many of the ecclesiastical courts, the form is yet retained. Even with
respect to the origin of the pointed arch, that _vexata quaestio_ of
antiquaries, with what degree of probability may it not be attributed to
this mystical form? It is indeed in this symbolical figure that we see the
outline of the pointed arch plainly developed at least a century and half
before the appearance of it in architectonic form. And in that age full of
mystical significations, the twelfth century, when every part of a church
was symbolized, it appears nothing strange if this typical form should
have had its weight towards originating and determining the adoption of
the pointed arch.--Int