upwards.--An architectural
peculiarity deserving of notice in this front, lies in the triangular
mouldings, observable in the spandrils of the arches of the clerestory.
The same are occasionally, though rarely, found in other buildings of
unquestionably Norman origin, as in the church at Falaise, and in
Norwich Cathedral[58] in our own country. They are here more
particularly noticed, as serving to illustrate what has been considered
an anomaly in the architecture of some of the round-towered churches in
Norfolk and Suffolk,[59] where the windows are formed with heads of this
shape. Antiquaries, unwilling to admit that the _flat-sided arch_, as it
has been called by a perversion of terms, was introduced into England
prior to the fourteenth century, have labored to prove that such windows
were alterations of that period, contrary to the evidence of every part
of the building.

[Illustration: Plate 25. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, CAEN.
_East End._]

The east-end of the choir (_plate twenty-five_) presents a bold
termination, pierced with ten spacious windows, that give light to the
choir, each of them encircled with a broad band, composed of the same
ornaments as are found in the rest of the exterior of the edifice. This
part of the church is divided in its elevation into three compartments,
the lower containing a row of small blank arches, while in each of the
upper two is a window of an unusual size for a Norman building, but
still without mullions or tracery. The windows ore separated by thick
cylindrical pillars, which rise from immediately above a row of windows
that give light to the crypt. The heads of these windows are level with
the surface of the ground; and the wall, in this subterranean part of
the building, is considerably thicker than it is above. The balustrade
of quatrefoils above appears coeval with the rest, and may be regarded
as tending to establish the originality of that in the nave of the abbey
church of St. Stephen.[60]

[Illustration: Plate 26. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_East end, interior._]

[Illustration: Plate 27. ABBEY CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AT CAEN.
_North side of the Choir, upper compartment._]

The _twenty-sixth_ and _twenty-seventh plates_ shew the interior of the
choir, as the _thirty-third_ does the most remarkable of its capitals.
This part of the church, in its general arrangement, very much resembles
the same portion in St. Georges and in N