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it, determined to treat it like a vault. They covered it with a network
of ribs, and where these ribs met they placed bosses. They also caused
these ribs, as far as possible, to take the same direction that the
structure of a real vault would give to them. No doubt the ribs serve
some useful purpose as a support to the roof, especially as that roof is
slightly pointed and not circular, like the barrel roof proper; but the
whole effect is unfortunate. The artistic merits of the real vault are
evident. It is logical, capable of much structural decoration, and it
determines and explains the whole plan of the bays both inside and out.
The merits of the barrel roof are also evident. It also is logical,
though in a less degree than the vault. It does not determine or explain
the plan of the building below it, but it is easily adaptable, and it
has a simplicity and a marked grandeur of its own. The roof at York has
none of this simplicity. To the most casual visitor it is puzzling and
complicated. To the eye which looks farther, which seeks for the logic
of its construction, it is still more puzzling. It may deceive the
careless observer with the idea that it is a vault, but it will not
convince him that it is a good one. It is a work of great ingenuity, but
not of great art. It is impossible to say what was there before it. If
we knew, we might be able to understand why the builders of the
fifteenth century hit upon such a form; and it may be that they were
forced by structural necessities to do so. Some space may perhaps be
allowed to a conjecture on the subject. It will be remembered that when
the present transept was built no part of the present nave or choir was
existing; and only the core of the piers supporting the present tower.
The tower itself as we see it, the arches over the pier, and the casing
of those piers, all date from a period later than the transepts. The
Norman nave and choir, existing when these transepts were begun, were,
of course, much less lofty than the present nave and choir. If,
therefore, the roof of the transept was of its present height, it must
also have been far higher than the roof of the then existing nave; and,
consequently, of the four arches supporting the central tower, those to
the north and south must have been very much higher than those to the
east and west. If the transepts had had a vault originally, this
arrangement would have been plainly impossible, as a vault would have
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