ater or Curvilinear form to near the end
of that century. Perhaps the most perfect example of the Geometric style
in the world is the cathedral church at Amiens, which is usually called
the _mother church_ of this style, and although she has many daughters,
none of them can be said to equal their parent in beauty.

In England the most perfect examples are not to be looked for in
cathedrals and large churches, but in their chapels, and the most superb
specimen we possessed, S. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, has been
destroyed within comparatively recent years. Those left to us include
the chapel of the palace of the bishops of Ely, in Ely Place, Holborn,
now the Roman Catholic Church of S. Etheldreda, a building almost
identical in plan with the vanished chapel of S. Stephen. Trinity
Church, Ely, once Our Lady's Chapel, and Prior Crawden's Chapel,
in the same city, are lovely examples of the latest development of
the Curvilinear style, while the former is considered the most
highly-wrought building in England. Belonging to this period, also,
is the choir of Merton College Chapel, Oxford, and Luton Church.

The Decorated style may be divided as regards its windows into two
classes--Geometric and Curvilinear. The first has tracery evolved
entirely from the circle. The Curvilinear style is distinguished by
traceries formed by curved and flowing lines. _See pages 15 and 59._

[Side note: Decorated Windows.]

Decorated windows are usually large and contain from two to seven
lights, although one sometimes finds a window with a single light, but
of less elongated form than those of the Early English period.

As we have seen in a previous chapter, tracery originated from the
necessity of piercing that portion of the wall which was left vacant
when two lights were gathered under a single arched dripstone, and
therefore elementary tracery consisted merely of apertures in a flat
surface. As the possibilities of this ornamental feature became better
understood, the mullions were recessed from the face of the wall and the
fine effect thus produced was, as the art progressed, much enhanced by
the introduction of various orders of mullions, and by recessing certain
portions of the tracery from the face of the mullions and their
corresponding bars. The geometrical tracery, as we have seen, consists
of various combinations of the circle, as the trefoil, based on the
triangle, the quatrefoil on the square, the cinquefoil on the penta