ally after the Scandinavian incursions into France and England,
ecclesiastical architecture, though always far more advanced than any
other art, bespoke the rudeness and poverty of the times. It began
towards the latter part of the eleventh century, when tranquillity, at
least as to former enemies, was restored, and some degree of learning
reappeared, to assume a more noble appearance. The Anglo-Norman
cathedrals were perhaps as much distinguished above other works of man
in their own age, as the more splendid edifices of a later period. The
science manifested in them is not, however, very great; and their style,
though by no means destitute of lesser beauties, is upon the whole an
awkward imitation of Roman architecture, or perhaps more immediately of
the Saracenic buildings in Spain and those of the lower Greek
empire.[687] But about the middle of the twelfth century, this manner
began to give place to what is improperly denominated the Gothic
architecture;[688] of which the pointed arch, formed by the segments of
two intersecting semicircles of equal radius and described about a
common diameter, has generally been deemed the essential characteristic.
We are not concerned at present to inquire whether this style originated
in France or Germany, Italy or England, since it was certainly almost
simultaneous in all these countries;[689] nor from what source it was
derived--a question of no small difficulty. I would only venture to
remark, that whatever may be thought of the origin of the pointed arch,
for which there is more than one mode of accounting, we must perceive a
very oriental character in the vast profusion of ornament, especially on
the exterior surface, which is as distinguishing a mark of Gothic
buildings as their arches, and contributes in an eminent degree both to
their beauties and to their defects. This indeed is rather applicable to
the later than the earlier stage of architecture, and rather to
continental than English churches. Amiens is in a far more florid style
than Salisbury, though a contemporary structure. The Gothic species of
architecture is thought by most to have reached its perfection,
considered as an object of taste, by the middle or perhaps the close of
the fourteenth century, or at least to have lost something of its
excellence by the corresponding part of the next age; an effect of its
early and rapid cultivation, since arts appear to have, like
individuals, their natural progress and dec