ver spaces of any form or plan, being carried to
the same height at the ridge. This requirement led to the introduction
of the pointed arch in the vaulting, and from that departure it soon
spread to all the other arched features of the architecture."[17]
Architecture, which had hitherto been confined to the monasteries, was
now undertaken by laymen, and while the great monasteries were either
rebuilt or founded, the cathedrals mostly belong to this period. To
these attention was chiefly devoted, and the number of parish churches
constructed was comparatively small. This partly arose from the large
number of parish churches built during the Norman period. In Scotland
the cathedrals of St. Andrews, Dunblane, Glasgow (the choir and crypt),
Elgin, Brechin, Dunkeld, Caithness, the choir of St. Magnus in Orkney
and Galloway belong in whole or in part to this epoch.[18]

4. SCOTTISH MIDDLE POINTED OR DECORATED PERIOD

The period from 1214 to 1286 comprised the first pointed work in
Scotland. The country was during the time prosperous, and is believed to
have been more wealthy than at any time till after the Union with
England.[19] The disputed succession after the death of Alexander III.
gave Edward I. the opportunity of asserting his claims to the Scottish
throne; war followed, and with it poverty and barbarism. "The first note
of contest," says Dr. Joseph Robertson, "banished every English priest,
monk, and friar from the northern realm. Its termination was followed by
the departure of those great Anglo-Norman lords--the flower of the
Scottish baronage--who, holding vast possessions in both countries, had
so long maintained among the rude Scottish hills the generous example of
English wealth and refinement. Then it was that De la Zouche and De
Quincy, Ferrars and Talbot, Beaumont and Umfraville, Percy and Wake,
Moubray and Fitz-Warine, Balliol and Cumyn, Hastings and De Coursi,
ceased to be significant names beyond the Tweed--either perishing in
that terrible revolution or withdrawing to their English domains, there
to perpetuate in scutcheon and pedigree the memory of their rightful
claims to many of the fairest lordships of Albany, and to much of the
reddest blood of the north."[20] This had a twofold consequence to
architecture. Comparatively few buildings arose in the north, and these
were in a smaller scale. And England now becoming an hereditary enemy,
no longer supplied models for the churches north of the Tweed, wh