ndows
are broken up into panel-like compartments, very different from the
beautiful curves of the Decorated style. Simple pointed arches are still
in use, but gradually they become flattened; and the arch, commonly
known as the Tudor arch, is a peculiar feature of this style. In village
churches the mouldings of the arch are often continued down the piers
without any capital or shaft.

[Illustration: MERTON COLLEGE CHAPEL, OXFORD]

Piers are commonly formed from a square or parallelogram with the angles
fluted, having on the flat face of each side a semicyclindrical shaft.
The base mouldings are polygonal. The most common doorway is the Tudor
arch having a square head over it. The doors are often richly
ornamented. There are a large number of square-headed windows, and so
proud were these builders of their new style of window that they
frequently inserted Perpendicular windows in walls of a much earlier
date. Hence it is not always safe to determine the age of a church by an
examination of the windows alone. Panel-work tracery on the upper part
of the interior walls is a distinctive feature of this style.

[Illustration: VESTRY DOOR, ADDERBURY CHURCH, OXON]

[Illustration: ST. ERASMUS' CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER ABBEY]

The slope of the roof is much lower than before, and often the former
high-pitched roofs were at this period replaced by the almost flat roofs
prevalent in the fifteenth century. The parapets are often embattled.

The rose, the badge of the houses of York and Lancaster, is often used
as an ornamental detail, and also rows of the Tudor flower, composed of
four petals, frequently occur. One of the most distinctive mouldings is
the _cavetto_, a wide shallow hollow in the centre of a group of
mouldings. Also we find a peculiar wave, and a kind of double ogee
moulding which are characteristic of the style.

[Illustration: WINDOW, CHRISTCHURCH, OXFORD]

Spires of this period are not very common, and usually spring from
within the parapet. The interiors of our churches were enriched at this
time with much elaborate decoration. Richly carved woodwork in screens,
rood-lofts, pulpits, and pews, sculptured sedilia and a noble reredos,
and much exuberance of decorative imagery and panel-work, adorned our
churches at this time, much of which was obliterated or destroyed by
spoliators of the Reformation period, the iconoclastic Puritans of the
seventeenth century, or the "restorers" of the nineteenth. However, we
ma