not vertical and
met by a vertical support, wall, or column, and no support that was
not vastly in excess of the dimensions actually required to do the
work.

A great Gothic building attains stability through the balanced
counterpoise of a vast series of pressures, oblique, perpendicular, or
horizontal, so arranged as to counteract each other. The vault was
kept from spreading by the flying buttress, the thrust of the arcade
was resisted by massive walls, and so on throughout.

The equilibrium thus obtained was sometimes so ticklish that a storm
of wind, a trifling settlement, or a slight concussion sufficed to
occasion a disaster; and many of the daring feats of the masons of the
Middle Ages are lost to us, because they dared a little too much and
the entire structure collapsed. This happened more often in the middle
period of the style than in the earliest, but during the whole Gothic
period there is a constant uniform tendency in one direction: thinner
walls, wider arches, loftier vaults, slenderer buttresses, slighter
piers, confront us at every step, and we need only compare some Norman
structure (such as Durham), with a perpendicular (such as Henry VII.'s
Chapel), to see how vast a change took place in this respect.

_The Principles of Gothic Design._

All the germs of Gothic architecture exist in the Romanesque of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, and became developed as the passion
for more slender proportions, greater lightness, and loftiness of
effect, and more delicate enrichment became marked. It is quite true
that the pointed arch is universally recognised as, so to speak, the
badge of Gothic, even to the extent of having suggested the title of
Christian pointed architecture, by which it is often called. But the
pointed arch must be regarded rather as a token that the series of
changes, which, starting from the heavy if majestic Romanesque of such
a cathedral as Peterborough, culminated in the gracefulness of
Salisbury or Lincoln, was far advanced towards completion, than as
really essential to their perfection. Many of the examples of the
transition period exhibit the round arch blended with the pointed
(_e.g._ the nave of St. David's Cathedral or the Choir of Canterbury),
and when we come to consider German architecture we shall find that
the adoption of the pointed arch was postponed till long after the
development of all, or almost all, the other features of the Gothic
style; so as to place be