ructure and thus relieve the greater
columns or piers of some portion of the superincumbent weight; the
aisles help to support the nave; the walls of the side chapels act
as abutments against the walls of the aisles, while the towers are
generally placed so as to resist the accumulated thrust of all the
arches along the sides of the nave.

[Illustration: An Early English Doorway. Huntingdon.]

The enrichments and little ornaments attached to mouldings, and
particularly those placed in the hollows, are most characteristic of the
various styles of Gothic architecture. The zig-zag is peculiar to the
Norman, the nail head to the Transitional or semi-Norman, and the dog
tooth to the Early English.

[Side note: Early English Ornament.]

This last ornament represents a flower, looking like four sweet almonds
arranged pyramidically, and there is no other ornament so distinctive of
this period. Early English foliage is known by reason of the stalks
always being shown as growing upwards from the lower ring of the
capital, called the astrigal. These stalks are generally grouped
together and curve forward in a very graceful manner. The plants mostly
represented are the wild parsley, seakale and celery, and this foliage,
called stiff-leaved foliage, is found at no other period than the end of
the 12th century.

[Side note: Early English Mouldings.]

Early English mouldings are very complicated and yet very beautiful, and
consist of beads, keel and scroll patterns, separated by deep hollows
giving a rich effect of light and shade round the arch. These deeply-cut
hollows are also a distinctive mark of the style.

[Side note: Early English Windows.]

The earliest windows of this period are long and narrow, with acutely
pointed heads, the exterior angle being merely chamfered and the
interior widely splayed. Somewhat later the introduction of tracery gave
a highly beautiful appearance to the windows and from the character of
this feature the date of the window can be fairly accurately determined.
Where the tracery is formed by ornamental apertures pierced through a
plate of stone, it is called plate tracery, and is certain to be of not
later date than the earlier part of the 13th century. If it is bar
tracery, with the bars forming plain circles, the work is also Early
English, but if, on the other hand, the bars form other shapes filled in
with patterns, or consisting of a single trefoil or quatrefoil, they are
of later d