istol,
Gloucester, York and Durham Cathedrals, in addition to the fine
bell-tower of Evesham Abbey.

[Side note: Perpendicular Spires.]

The spire, although less commonly used than formerly, was by no means
abandoned, and beautiful examples of Perpendicular spires are those at
S. Michael's, Coventry, and Rotherham Church, Yorkshire. Although
nearly all our cathedrals have some portion of their fabric in the
Perpendicular style, chantries, chapels, cloisters, vaulting, screens,
etc., it was in our parochial churches that Perpendicular architecture
reached its highest and finest development. Just as the XIIIth century
was the great age for cathedral building, so the latter end of the XIVth
and earlier half of the XVth centuries was the period to which we owe
some of the most beautiful of our parish churches, as S. Michael's,
Coventry (fin. 1395); S. Nicholas, Lynn (fin. 1400); Manchester
Cathedral (formerly a collegiate church), (1422); Fotheringay Church,
Northants (fin. 1435); Southwold Church, Suffolk (1440), and S. Mary
Redcliffe, Bristol (about 1442). A little later came, among others,
Wakefield Church, Yorkshire (1470), S. Stephen's, Bristol (1470), S.
Mary's, Oxford, and its namesake at Cambridge (both in 1478) and Long
Melford Church, Suffolk (1481).

Apart from the actual buildings the Perpendicular architects, masons and
sculptors have left us some beautiful work in the form of timber roofs,
screens, stalls and seats. Among the more notable roofs of this period
are those at S. Peter's, S. Andrew's and S. Mary's, Norwich, the one at
Morton Church in Somerset, those at Saffron Walden and Thaxted, Essex,
and a particularly fine one at S. David's Cathedral in Wales. Among the
remarkable domestic roofs in this style are those at Westminster Hall
and Eltham Palace.

CHAPTER VII.

THE RENAISSANCE AND LATER.

So far we have been considering Gothic churches, but we now come to the
time when, from a variety of causes, the Italian architects, among them
Palladio and Vitruvius, began to revive classical architecture, a
movement which gradually spread over other parts of Europe.

[Side note: The Classic Revival.]

The various causes which led to this apparently retrograde movement are
still involved in considerable obscurity. The commercial prosperity of
the age produced a class who travelled abroad and cultivated the fine
arts, with the result that they desired to see erected in England
buildings such a