m at the top of
these steps and by the side steps that lead to Becket's chapel. This looks
like an evidence of a change of plan, and induces me to believe that the
lofty crypt below may be considered as the unfettered composition of the
English architect.... The Trinity Chapel of the Englishman is under the
influence of the French work of which it is a continuation, and
accordingly the same mouldings are employed throughout, and the triforium
and clerestory are continued at the same level; but the greater level of
the pavement wholly alters the proportion of the piers to their arches,
and gives a new and original, and at the same time a very elegant
character to this part of the church compared with the work of the
Frenchman, of which, at first sight, it seems to be a mere continuation.
The triforium also of this Trinity Chapel differs from that of the choir,
in that its four pointed arches instead of being, like them, included
under two circular ones, are set in the form of an arcade of four arches,
of two orders of mouldings each. The mouldings are the same as in the
choir, but the effect of their arrangement is richer. Also in the
clerestory two windows are placed over each pier-arch, instead of the
single window of the choir. The mixture of the two forms of arches is
still carried on, for although the semicircular arch is banished from
the triforium, it is adopted for the pier-arches.

"However, in the side-aisles of the Trinity chapel, and in the corona,
our English William appears to have freed himself almost as completely
from the shackles of imitation, as was possible. In the side-aisles the
mouldings of the ribs still remain the same, but their management in
connection with the side walls, and the combination of their slender
shafts with those of the twin lancet windows, here for the first time
introduced into the building, is very happy. Slender shafts of marble are
employed in profusion by William of Sens, and Gervase expressly includes
them in his list of characteristic novelties. But here we find them either
detached from the piers, or combined with them in such a manner as to
give a much greater lightness and elegance of effect than in the work of
the previous architect. This lightness of style is carried still farther
in the corona, where the slender shafts are carried round the walls, and
made principal supports to the pier-arches, over which is placed a light
triforium and a clerestory; and it must be re