Yorkshire at least, the perfect type is nowhere to be found. We know the idea, and can everywhere trace its influence, but where is its full embodiment? "Perhaps," as Plato would say, "it is stored up in heaven." Wherever it may be, we can assert with confidence that it is in the form of a Latin cross, severe in detail and sparing of ornament, with a short and aisleless presbytery, and at most a humble and unobtrusive central tower, rising just one square above the crossing of the nave and transept. It is, in fact, just such an abbey as we are all familiar with, and yet most likely have never seen. For it is not at Rievaulx, where the eastern arm is long; it is not at Byland, where it is aisled; it is not at Roche, where there are such scanty remains of the church; it is not at Jervaulx, where there are practically none; it is not even at Kirkstall, where a normal church is surmounted by the ruins of a lofty tower; and least of all is it at Fountains. The world, "lest one good custom should corrupt" it, made haste to corrupt the good custom of Cistercian Puritanism-and it must be confessed that the "nine altars" and the great tower of Fountains are but the glorious disguises of decay.

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1 At Roche, however, and, but for the tower, at Kirkstall, the Cistercian type must once have been practically exemplified.

It is pretty certain that building operations were not begun at Fountains till very near the middle of the twelfth century. The outlines of the modest presbytery which was then erected are still preserved, in instructive contrast with the work of John of Kent, and the nave and transept are mainly of the same early date. At the west end, however, the original Norman lights, surmounted, perhaps, by a circle, have been replaced, late in the fifteenth century, by a large perpendicular window, while the attempt of Abbot Huby-or perhaps his predecessor John Darnton-some hundred years later, to prop the central tower is attested by the unsightly presence of a huge internal buttress against the south-east pier of the transept.

The distinctive national variety of Romanesque architecture which we owe to the Normans passed gradually, as did the early styles of continental countries, into the first pure Gothic. From the nave of Durham or the transepts of Winchester to Salisbury is a transition which was not effected at a bound. To illustrate the intermediate steps Sir Gilbert Scott has chosen three examples. They are

1 So say Sir Gilbert Scott and Mr. Walbran, but others have thought the early part was built before the fire of 1140. Vide Parker's Introduction to Gothic Architecture.

the Abbeys of Fountains and Kirkstall and the "galilee" of Durham itself. The first of these represents a style essentially Romanesque, but adopting to a considerable extent the pointed arch. The second, still Romanesque, is perceptibly more advanced; while the third, in spite of its simple semicircular arches, is of the very latest character that can be called Norman. It would be easy to accumulate examples and illustrations, but one in particular will suggest itself to those who have read the previous chapters of this book. Byland is very nearly contemporary with the Durham "galilee," but the two are strikingly unlike. The lower windows, for example, of the former are roundheaded, but the upper are pointed, as are the arches ; while the mouldings are Early English rather than Norman.

We have thus the round-arched work at Durham going on side by side with the partially pointed at Byland, and distinctly later than that at Fountains. In fact, the pointed arch often occurs in transition work, and is, of course, invariably found in even the earliest pure Gothic, but it is by no means rare in the most undisputed Norman, and does not spread in proportion to the development of the transition.

The particular combination of the two construc

tions at Fountains is worth noticing. The eleven, or rather twenty-two, pointed arches of the nave rest on columns 23 feet high and 16 feet in circumference, and the transverse vaulting of the aisles is pointed; but the bays are divided by semicircular arches, and the windows are round-headed and without shafts or mouldings.

The absence of a triforium seems in character with the solemn simplicity of this part of the church, while the warm colour of the stone and the soft turf under foot redeem its chill unroofed severity. But the fine unbroken vista which we now admire had no existence for those who kept the sacred hours day and night within these walls.

"The whole church," says Mr. Micklethwaite, "was divided into parts in a manner which is, I believe, quite peculiar to the Cistercians. The aisles were cut off from the nave by solid stone walls, built flush with the pillars on the nave side. The transepts and choir aisles, where there were any, were also cut off by stone screens; but they were lower and not so thick as those to the nave, and may possibly have been pierced. The transverse divisions seem to have resembled those of Benedictine and collegiate churches, but I have found full evidence of them only at Fountains. There was a pulpitum' of stone taking up the space of one bay at the entrance of the choir; a bay west of it was the rood screen, with its central altar and two doors; and one bay west again was a wood screen forming the fence of the rood altar. All these screens were continued

across the aisles, and accommodation for minor altars seems to have been found against them. At Fountains, also, two bays of the south aisle were screened off to form a chapel. Here and elsewhere the pulpitum was placed considerably to the west of the eastern arm and transept." 1

The inmates of the infirmary, including old and feeble monks as well as the sick, had a special place allotted to them, called the retro-chorus, between the pulpitum and the rood screen. Another part of the

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church was assigned to the conversi, or lay brothers; a third to the familiares, or honorary associates; a fourth to the mercenarii, or hired servants; and yet another to guests from the hospitium. All these subdivisions necessitated numerous entrances, as each was accessible from the outside.

Fountains Abbey, like Durham Cathedral, had both an eastern and a western annex. Not long, it would seem, after the completion of the west front, a narthex or galilee, 15 feet wide, was added. This was in effect a porch, with open arcade extending the whole width of the western front, and used, though with what restrictions is not clear, as a burial

1 See a paper, Of the Cistercian Plan, by J. T. Micklethwaite, F.S.A. Reprinted from the Yorkshire Archæological Journal.

2 Mr. W. H. S. John Hope has now satisfied himself that the part so used was the nave; and that its appropriation as the choir of the conversi accounts for its being cut off from the aisles in the manner described by Mr Micklethwaite.