title: Heather Mills

text: During an appearance on the chat show "Parkinson", on 22 February 2003, host Michael Parkinson asked if it was because of McCartney that Mills did not give any interviews, and she replied that she wanted to protect McCartney, his children, and their privacy. At the same time, she said that her previous ectopic pregnancies had damaged her fertility, and that her chances of getting pregnant were small, although the couple announced in May that they were expecting their first child. Mills gave birth to Beatrice Milly McCartney on 28 October 2003 at Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth in St John's Wood, who was named after Mills's mother and McCartney's aunt. It was later revealed that Mills had suffered a miscarriage in the first year of their marriage. Mills was invited by Larry King to interview Paul Newman, which was broadcast by CNN on 17 April 2004. McCartney had arranged for Newman to be interviewed by Mills, but critical reactions were mixed. Mills appeared on other television programmes, such as BBC One's "Question Time" and ITV's GMTV, and persuaded McCartney to join her on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"


title: Heather Mills

text: After some time apart, Mills and McCartney separated on 17 May 2006. In November 2007, Mills gave a number of interviews, saying that the breakdown of the marriage was caused by her husband's daughter, Stella, whom she described as "jealous" and "evil". Mills had previously talked with "New York" magazine, saying Stella had once issued a press release confirming how much she liked her new stepmother, although Stella's publicist denied that such a statement had ever been issued.


title: Heather Mills

text: After dismissing Anthony Julius, a Mishcon de Reya lawyer, Mills stated she would represent herself in the upcoming divorce hearing, with help from her sister Fiona, David Rosen, a solicitor-advocate, and Michael Shilub, an American attorney. In leaked documents, Mills complained that McCartney was often drunk, smoked cannabis, stabbed her with a broken wine glass, pushed her over a table, and pushed her into a bathtub when she was pregnant. Referring to her part in the marriage, Mills said that she had been a full-time wife, mother, lover, confidante, business partner, and psychologist to McCartney. McCartney's lawyers studied Mills's book: "Life Balance: The Essential Keys to a Lifetime of Wellbeing" (2006), as it contradicted many of her claims, such as when she praised McCartney for "Bringing me breakfast in bed every morning, no matter how he feels, and I do the dinner, so we've got that agreement. It's thoughtfulness." Mills's father reconciled with her, after meeting her and McCartney when they introduced him to his granddaughter, Beatrice. After their separation, he said that it "took guts to represent yourself at the High Court", and that he was proud of his daughter, even though he thought she would be "torn to shreds" by McCartney's lawyers.


title: Heather Mills

text: The case was heard in court 34 at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. At the start of the proceedings Mills asked for £125 million, but McCartney offered £15.8 million. Before the court case, Mills had employed the accountancy firm Lee and Allen to examine McCartney's publishing company, business assets, and properties, claiming that she had a tape recording of McCartney admitting his true worth, but the presiding judge, Mr Justice Bennett, based his decision on a forensic valuation of McCartney's finances completed by accounting firm Ernst & Young.


title: Heather Mills

text: The hearing took six days, finishing on 18 February 2008, with the judgement being made public on 17 March that year. Mills was eventually awarded a lump sum of £16.5m (), together with assets of £7.8m, which included the properties she owned at the time. The total was £24.3 million plus payments of £35,000 per annum, for a nanny and school costs for their child. In his judgement, Mr Justice Bennett stated:


title: Heather Mills

text: Mr Justice Bennett said in his ruling that there was no evidence of Mills's "charitable giving" in her tax returns, ridiculed her claim to have been McCartney's business partner as "make believe" and said she was a "volatile and explosive" personality who could be her "own worst enemy". He also rejected her argument that she had rekindled McCartney's "professional flame" after he had lost his first wife, Linda, to cancer.


title: Heather Mills

text: In anger at the judgement, Mills poured a jug of water on the head of Fiona Shackleton, McCartney's solicitor, in the courtroom.


title: Heather Mills

text: During their marriage, Mills was known as Heather Mills McCartney, but after her divorce, she reverted to Heather Mills, although as the former wife of a knight she is entitled to the title "Lady McCartney" unless she remarries. In 2012, she was called "Heather Mills" and "Ms Mills" in her testimony to the Leveson Inquiry and its subsequent report, though Lord Justice Leveson had referred to "Lady McCartney" earlier in the proceedings.


title: Heather Mills

text: Following her divorce from Paul McCartney, Mills bought a house in Robertsbridge, East Sussex, in 2007.


title: Heather Mills

text: Mills's relationship with McCartney triggered considerable media interest. After her divorce, the attitude of the British media was hostile. Mills frequently accused the press of misquoting her and of using material out of context to give a negative impression of her, telling the "Evening Standard" that the claims that she had married McCartney for his money were more hurtful than losing her leg. Mills has been accused by several newspapers of having embellished her life story. A journalist with the same name, Heather Mills, at that time working for "The Observer", accused Mills of impersonating her for over a year in the late 1990s, showing people cuttings of articles the journalist had written, which helped Mills secure a job presenting "The General", a BBC television programme about Southampton General Hospital. It was reported that she had been nominated for the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize because the Heather Mills Health Trust had donated thousands of prosthetic limbs to landmine victims, but the nomination cannot be confirmed because the identities of nominees remain secret for 50 years.


title: Heather Mills

text: Mills's stepfather disputed her statement that her mother had nearly lost a leg in a car crash, after Mills said: "her leg was only hanging on by a tiny flap of skin and flesh...miraculously the surgeons managed to insert a metal plate and re-attach it". Stapley said that Mills's mother had suffered a leg injury after a car crash, but recovered and was "a keen tennis player" and that Mills "is simply a very confused woman for whom reality and fantasy have become blurred".


title: Heather Mills

text: Mills said that she had once been asked to stand for parliament by the three main political parties, and had been offered a peerage in 2001 (to become Baroness Mills) by the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and a certain 'Lord MacDonald'. An ITV documentary ("McCartney vs McCartney: The Ex Files") interviewed three men named Lord MacDonald, but not one of them could remember ever meeting Mills. British journalist Jasper Gerard, to whom Mills made the claims, also says she told him that she had cancelled a meeting with US president Bill Clinton in case her endorsement affected a US election outcome. Mills stated that she was once awarded the title of "Outstanding Young Person of the Year" by the British Chambers of Commerce, but did not challenge newspapers after they discovered there was no such award.


title: Heather Mills

text: In October 2006, Mills announced her intention to sue the "Daily Mail", "The Sun" and the "Evening Standard" newspapers. All the newspapers said that their stories "were obtained by proper methods and in accordance with good journalistic practice". "The Sun", which regularly refers to Mills as "Mucca" – a play on McCartney's nickname "Macca" – responded by asking her to "tick the boxes" on a series of allegations the newspaper had made, stating: "It is not clear what exactly she plans to sue us about". Underneath the questions, "The Sun" listed six allegations about her, with a blank box beside each of them. The words beside the boxes read: "Hooker, Liar, Porn Star, Fantasist, Trouble Maker, Shoplifter".


title: Heather Mills

text: Later that year, Mills told the BBC that she had received death threats, and on 17 December, police stated that a "non-specific threat" had been made to her safety. This led to more criticism that she was calling out the emergency services too often. Three months later, Chief Superintendent Kevin Moore of Sussex Police, said that Mills was running "the risk of being treated as the little boy who cried wolf", and added, "We do have to respond to a disproportionate high volume of calls from Heather Mills McCartney because of the situations she finds herself in, and this is regrettable as it takes officers away from other policing matters." Mills responded that the police had told her to contact them whenever she was being harassed.


title: Heather Mills

text: During a five-day trial in July 2007, it was revealed that Mills had been physically assaulted in Brighton, by Jay Kaycappa, a notorious paparazzo trying to photograph Mills while on shifts for a national newspaper and a regional press agency. Kaycappa, who had 132 previous criminal convictions (including perverting the course of justice, obtaining property by deception, driving offences and using ten aliases), was found guilty and sentenced to a 140-hour community order and ordered to pay Mills £100, plus £1,000 court costs.


title: Heather Mills

text: During several interviews in October that year, Mills accused the media of giving her "worse press than a paedophile or a murderer". She also criticised the media over the treatment of Diana, Princess of Wales – who, according to Mills, was "chased and killed" by paparazzi – and of Kate McCann. Immediately before her giving these interviews, Phil Hall (a former "News of the World" editor), quit as her PR adviser.


title: Heather Mills

text: In 2008, a survey commissioned by "Marketing" magazine showed Mills as one of the top five most hated celebrity women, along with Amy Winehouse, Victoria Beckham and Kerry Katona. In December of that year, the Channel 4 television comedy "Star Stories" broadcast a satirical mockumentary of Mills's life story from her point of view. In 2009, after petitioning the Press Complaints Commission in the UK about being lied about in the press, five British tabloids ("The Sun", "Daily Express", "News of the World", "Sunday Mirror" and "Daily Mirror") publicly apologised to Mills about printing false, hurtful or defamatory stories about her. Another tabloid ("Daily Mail"), sent a private letter of apology. Mills has complained that over 4,400 abusive articles about her have been published.


title: Heather Mills

text: In 2002, Mills accepted damages of £50,000 plus costs from the "Sunday Mirror", after a false report that the Charity Commission had investigated her about the money she raised for the Indian Earthquake Victims Appeal in 2001. The extent and nature of the British press coverage of Mills has been criticised, as in May 2003, when "The Guardian" columnist Matt Seaton wrote a piece declaring: "There is little that is edifying in the symbolic lynching of Heather. The poisonous judgmentalism that drives it, is in the worst tradition of small town gossip. It is prurient, spiteful, hypocritical, and we should cry 'shame' on it." Publicist Mark Borkowski wrote in "The Independent on Sunday", on 23 March 2008: "Not since the cult of Myra Hindley have we encountered so much vitriol aimed at one woman." Feminist writer Natasha Walter has compared the coverage to that of Britney Spears. Terence Blacker wrote that public figures who are young, female, pretty and fair-haired, are often subjected to public bullying, which is explained as "intense media interest", such as Diana, Princess of Wales, Paula Yates, Ulrika Jonsson and Mills.


title: Heather Mills

text: Kira Cochrane, in "The Guardian", wrote of "every misogynist epithet available" being used against Mills. "She has somehow become the vessel through which it is acceptable for both pundits and the public to express their very worst feelings about women." Joan Smith, writing in "The Independent", said that newspaper "bullies love a weakling", quoting the front-page headline of the British tabloid newspaper "Daily Mirror" which read "Lady Liar", and "The Sun" newspaper writing "Pornocchio" over Mills's face (in reference to Mills's past saucy photographs, and the nose of Pinocchio getting longer when he lied). Smith further said Mills had "dreamt of becoming the wife of a famous man, but did not realise that he had fantasies of his own, marrying an attractive younger woman when he hadn't got over the loss of his first wife. Mills behaved foolishly when the marriage failed, but she does not deserve the treatment she has had in the mass-market press. It is merciless bullying of an unstable, vulnerable woman." In 2009, Mills reported that a bogus charity had been set up to extract information about her marriage. News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is alleged to have set up the sting. The "Daily Mirror" ran the headline "Macca marriage to Heather was mistake of the decade", following an interview that McCartney gave to "Q magazine". McCartney immediately moved to deny this statement, and then went on to publicly print the original transcript on his official website to prove that the article in the "Daily Mirror" was false.


title: Heather Mills

text: Celia Larkin, writing on 12 February 2012 in the Irish "Sunday Independent", wrote: "There was something very satisfying about Heather Mills finally having her voice heard above the roar of the Red Tops. If you actually take the time to listen to Mills, I mean listen, not just read what's written about her, you'll see she is a strong, sincere, independent woman. She didn't lie down under the weight of McCartney's fame and wealth, she continued to plough her own furrow, campaigning for her charities, maintaining a strong individuality. And that, it seems, is the greatest sin of all. Is it any wonder she was reduced to tears in the October 2007 GMTV interview? Did we feel sympathy for her then? No. 'Heather Mills has Melt Down' screamed the headlines, so now she had lost her marbles to boot. And if that wasn't enough, Carole Malone of the "Sunday Mirror", one of the papers that was relentless in its attacks on Mills, accused her of staging an act on live television, in order to further her cause in the upcoming divorce hearing. How cruel can you get?"


title: Heather Mills

text: On 5 May 2011, "The Guardian" reported that Mills had met with officers from the London Metropolitan Police who showed her evidence, seized from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, which could form the basis of a claim against the "News of The World" for breach of privacy over alleged phone-hacking. Mills's name and private mobile phone number were listed in Mulcaire's notes, along with those of her friends and associates. Mills later alleged that a journalist working for the Mirror Group had admitted to her in 2001 that he had hacked her phone.


title: Heather Mills

text: Appearing as a witness at the Leveson Inquiry on 9 February 2012, Mills was asked under oath if she had ever made a recording of McCartney's phone calls or answerphone messages, and had ever played it to Piers Morgan or "anybody else"; she replied, "Never ever." Giving evidence in December 2011, Morgan - who bragged in a newspaper column for the "Daily Mail" in 2006 about hearing the message - refused to say who had played him the recorded message of the call, saying he was protecting a source. Mills told the inquiry that Morgan was "a man that has written nothing but awful things about me for years and would have relished telling the inquiry if I had played a personal voicemail message to him".


title: Heather Mills

text: In the official findings of his Inquiry, Lord Justice Leveson said Morgan's testimony under oath on phone-hacking was "utterly unpersuasive. This was not, in any sense at all, a convincing answer", adding "what it does, however, clearly prove is that he was aware that it was taking place in the press as a whole and that he was sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it".


title: Heather Mills

text: In 2005, Mills became a patron of the British animal rights organisation Viva!, and the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation, which are both run by Juliet Gellatley.


title: Heather Mills

text: In March 2006, McCartney and Mills travelled to Canada to bring attention to the country's annual seal hunt. Sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, they complained that the hunt was inhumane, and called on the Canadian government to put an end to it. Their arrival on the floes sparked much attention in Newfoundland and Labrador, where 90 per cent of the sealers live. McCartney and Mills protested against seals being clubbed to death, pierced with boat hooks and sometimes skinned alive. Newfoundland and Labrador's Premier, Danny Williams, debated the issue with them on "Larry King Live", the issue being that seals are no longer hunted that way, and have not been for a while. Mills joined a Viva! film team at a pig farm in Somerset, in February 2007, to publicise the use of restrictive farrowing crates, which are used for sows who are suckling piglets. A video of the investigation was made available on the Internet.


title: Heather Mills

text: Mills's relationship with PETA ended in 2007, when McCartney's daughter Mary was chosen in her place.


title: Heather Mills

text: In 2008, an old video surfaced of Mills wearing a mink coat that she had owned in 1989, but explained to reporters that she had bought it years before becoming involved in animal rights organisations or vegetarianism. Although she had separated from McCartney, Mills said: "It's only since I met Paul [McCartney] that I really got to understand how vegetarianism not only benefits your health massively but also makes a huge difference to the planet, to animals, and to feeding the world." In August 2008, she was honoured by the organisation Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), with the Celebrity Animal Activist Award, presented at the Animal Rights National Conference.


title: Heather Mills

text: After her divorce, Mills pledged to give a 'large portion' of her £24.3 million divorce settlement to Adopt-A-Minefield, but as of September 2008, the charity had not received any of this money.


title: Heather Mills

text: In June 2008, Mills was asked to talk at a New York party about the cruelty of puppy farms and to promote her book about animals, but was angry about the guests talking during her speech, saying: 'Listen up at the back. I haven't been up for 24 hours and flown here from London to be ignored.' Mills's publicist of four years, Michele Elyzabeth, stopped representing her on 25 July that year.


title: Heather Mills

text: On 4 July 2009, Mills opened a vegan restaurant called VBites at Hove Lagoon, East Sussex. Mills was quoted as saying that she intended it to be the first in a worldwide chain of vegan restaurants. While promoting the restaurant, Mills gave an interview to the BBC, stating that she had been very proactive in the building stages and that now it was open, would give as much time to it as she could – working it around her charity work. In May 2013, she sold the restaurant premises to local musician Norman Cook - known as Fatboy Slim - and opened a new, enlarged VBites in East Street in Brighton which closed in September 2017.


title: Heather Mills

text: Also in 2009, Mills bought the vegan food company Redwood Foods, which she would rename to VBites Foods. The company in Corby, Northamptonshire, sells 50 meat-free products under the brand names Cheatin', VegiDeli and Cheezly. In 2014, products sold under the brand 'Wot no Dairy' were recalled, because it was revealed that they contained traces of dairy products and consequently could possibly cause adverse effects for those with dairy product intolerance.


title: Heather Mills

text: In 2019, Mills launched a 55-acre site in Northumberland providing manufacturing, storage and business space exclusively to vegan enterprises. It has been referred to as a 'vegan Silicon Valley'. Also in 2019, she bought the 200,000 ft Walkers PepsiCo factory in Peterlee.


title: Heather Mills

text: Mills was one of the celebrity performers competing on the US television series "Dancing with the Stars" in 2007, with dancing partner Jonathan Roberts. On 21 December 2009, she was revealed as one of the contestants on the fifth series of "Dancing on Ice", being paired with Matt Evers.


title: Heather Mills

text: Mills was part of a series of body cast sculptures by the contemporary British sculptor Louise Giblin in 2012.


title: Heather Mills

text: In May 2011, "Hello!" magazine ran an article about Mills's ambitions for the 2014 Paralympic Games, as well as her efforts to stay fit and healthy with her vegan lifestyle following her accident.


title: Heather Mills

text: On 17 December 2013, it was announced that Mills would miss the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi, Russia. She barred from competition due to fallout and complaints about her behaviour towards officials.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The national flag of Spain (), as it is defined in the Constitution of 1978, consists of three horizontal stripes: red, yellow and red, the yellow stripe being twice the size of each red stripe. Traditionally, the middle stripe was defined by the more archaic term of , and hence the popular name (red-weld).


title: Flag of Spain

text: The origin of the current flag of Spain is the naval ensign of 1785, under Charles III of Spain. It was chosen by Charles III himself among 12 different flags designed by Antonio Valdés y Bazán (all proposed flags were presented in a drawing which is in the Naval Museum of Madrid). The flag remained marine-focused for much of the next 50 years, flying over coastal fortresses, marine barracks and other naval property. During the Peninsular War the flag could also be found on marine regiments fighting inland. Not until 1820 was the first Spanish land unit (The La Princesa Regiment) provided with one and it was not until 1843 that Queen Isabella II of Spain made the flag official.


title: Flag of Spain

text: Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the color scheme of the flag remained intact, with the exception of the Second Republic period (1931–1939); the only changes centered on the coat of arms.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The colours of the flag, as officially defined by the Spanish Royal Decree 441/1981 of 27 February, are:


title: Flag of Spain

text: The basic design of the current flag of Spain with the coat of arms is specified by rule 3 of the Royal Decree 1511/1977, that states the following:


title: Flag of Spain

text: The flag can only be flown horizontally from public buildings, private homes, businesses, ships, town squares, or during official ceremonies. While the flag should be flown from sunrise to sunset, government offices in Spain and abroad must fly the flag on a 24-hour basis (during the night, and in poor light, it must be properly lit). The flags must conform to the legal standards, and cannot be soiled or damaged in any way.


title: Flag of Spain

text: For mourning activities, the flag can be flown in either of the following ways. The first method, commonly known as half-masting, is performed when the flag is hoisted to the top of the flagpole, then lowered to the pole's one-third position. The other method is to attach a black ribbon to a flag that is permanently affixed to a staff. The ribbon itself is ten centimetres wide and it is attached to the mast so that the ends of the ribbon reach the bottom of the flag. During the funeral ceremony, the flag may be used to cover the coffins of government officials, soldiers and persons designated by an act of the President; these flags are later folded and presented to the next of kin before interment.


title: Flag of Spain

text: When flying the Spanish flag with other flags, the following is the correct order of precedence: the national flag, flags of foreign states, the flag of Europe, international NGOs, military and government standards, autonomous communities flags, city flags and any others. When foreign flags are used alongside the Spanish flag, the flags are sorted according to their countries' names alphabetically in the Spanish language. The only exception is when the congress or meeting held in Spain dictates a different language to be used for sorting. The flag of Europe has been hoisted since Spain became a member of the Union. While not mentioned by name in the law, the flag of NATO can be used in Spain, since it belongs to that organization as well.


title: Flag of Spain

text: When unfurled in the presence of other flags, the national flag must not have smaller dimensions and must be situated in a prominent, honorable place, according to the relevant protocol.


title: Flag of Spain

text: Some high-ranking officials of the Spanish state (i.e., the president, the vice-presidents and the ministers of the government, or the chairmen of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate) are entitled to display a flag representative of their status. It is a square flag of Spain with the Spanish coat of arms centered on the yellow stripe.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The Yacht ensign is the flag of Spain charged with the royal crown in blue in the center of the yellow stripe. This flag was first established in 1875 by Royal Decree (decreto real), which provided that the central stripe would display the royal crown (corona real); this flag apparently continued to be used following the creation of the Spanish Republic in 1931, but the royal crown was changed to a blue mural crown or a blue coronet; the current version—depicting the royal crown in blue—was introduced following the restoration of the monarchy.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The Spanish naval jack is only hoisted at the prow of all Navy ships when docked or anchored in foreign waters, from sunrise to sunset. In national waters it is hoisted on Sundays, festivities and in presence of a foreign warship as soon as it moors at the dock. The national flag is always hoisted at the stern, when sailing, and from sunrise to sunset, when docked. It is a square flag (ratio 1:1) composed of 4 quarters: The current version of the jack was adopted in the early 1980s.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The flag used by the Spanish Armed Forces is the same one that is used as the state flag and national ensign. Military units, however, use a less oblong, more square version (full size dimensions ) charged with the name of the unit.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The King of Spain uses a flag known as the Royal Standard. The Royal Standard of Spain consists of a crimson square with the Coat of arms of the King in the center. It is usually flown at the King's official residence, the Palacio de la Zarzuela, other Spanish royal sites, displayed on his official car as small flags. It is regulated by clause 2 of Royal Decree 527/2014, 20 June, an amendment to Title II of Spanish Royal Decree 1511/1977 adopting Flags, Standards, Guidons, Insignia and Emblems Regulation.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The Royal Guidon ("Guión"), the monarch's military personal ensign, is described by Rule 1 of Royal Decree 527/2014, an amendment to Title II, Rule 1 of Spanish Royal Decree 1511/1977. It is nearly identical to the Royal Standard except that the Royal Guidon has a Gold fringe. It is made of silk taffeta. The size of the guidon is . It is the personal command ensign or positional flag of the monarch, and is carried nearby him.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The heir to the crown, the Princess of Asturias, has her own standard and guidon. The Standard of the Princess of Asturias is regulated by Royal Decree 284/2001 that modified the Title II of Spanish Royal Decree 1511/1977. The Standard of the Princess of Asturias consists of a light blue (the colour of the flag of Asturias) square flag with the coat of arms of the Princess of Asturias in the center. The Guidon is identical to the Standard except that the Royal Guidon has a gold fringe. It is made of silk taffeta. The size of the guidon is . It has fallen into disuse because of the Princess's young age.


title: Flag of Spain

text: While the concept of a national flag did not exist in the Middle Ages, the symbol of Spain was the Royal Shield. It was frequently made up of other different flags, full of images and symbols that represented all the values that the troops or the King defended.


title: Flag of Spain

text: In Spain the medieval kingdoms which merged in the sixteenth century had their own heraldic symbols and their navies used to display their own flags and standards on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, where the Aragonese and Castilian Crowns had their respective areas of influence. The flag of the Crown of Aragon was a yellow flag with four red stripes (an element which is still common in the present flags of the territories that formed the Crown: Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands and Roussillon in France). The Crown of Castile, since the final union between the kingdoms of Castile and León in 1230, used a quartered flag alternating the Castilian (Gules, a tower Or, masoned sable and ajouré azure) and Leonese (Argent, a lion rampant purpure crowned or, langued and armed gules) emblems. Aragonese and Castilian flags and coats of arms merged when the Catholic monarchs created the new symbols of their personal union of the crowns in 1475.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The Cross of Burgundy was introduced to Spain after the marriage of Joanna of Castile to Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy in 1496. The flag was the primary symbol of Philip the Handsome. It introduced into Spanish vexillology a design that although of foreign origin, would become the primary symbol of Spain. The flag was usually embroidered on white or yellow cloth. The Cross of Burgundy is also known as "The Vane of Burgundy" or as it is derived from St. Andrew's Cross. Since the reign of Charles I of Spain (1516-1556), different Spanish armies have used flags with the Cross of Burgundy on different fields. It was also incorporated in the uniforms of Burgundian archers, and later in the uniforms of the rest of the army. It also appeared on Spanish regimental flags.


title: Flag of Spain

text: When the House of Habsburg took the Spanish throne by mid-16th century each military company had its own flag in which appeared usually the arms of its commander over the Cross of Burgundy. In order to represent the King, they used to have another one, the "Coronela", during the reign of Charles I (Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor) that was made of yellow silk (the imperial color) with the embroidered imperial shield.


title: Flag of Spain

text: When Philip II came to power, he ordered that, in addition to the flags of each company, each Tercio should have another one of yellow color with the Cross of Burgundy in red. The units of Cavalry took the same flags but of smaller size, called Banners.


title: Flag of Spain

text: However, at this time the concept of a national flag as understood nowadays did not exist, and so the true symbol of the nationality was represented by the Royal arms. The use of other flags besides the mentioned ones was frequent, with various images or symbols. Some examples are the flag of Santiago (Saint James the Great), the green one the Emperor took during the conquest of Tunisia or the crimson one used by Hernán Cortés in Mexico.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The arms of Bourbon-Anjou were added in 1700 when Philip V became king of Spain. He introduced several changes on the royal arms. The king's new arms were designed by the French heraldists Charles-René d'Hozier and Pierre Clairambault in November 1700. Philip V also changed the philosophy and the design of the flags of Spain. He was the first to give Spain a unified symbol of its own when putting on white fabric the Cross of Burgundy and the Royal coat of arms. It still was not a national flag, but a first "try", in line with similar attempts in other European nations.


title: Flag of Spain

text: In 1760 Charles III modified the shield of the Royal arms, suppressing the collar of the Holy Spirit, maintained the Golden Fleece and added two new quarters, corresponding to the House of Farnese (six blue lilies on gold) and Medici (five red discs and one blue disc with three lilies of gold, all on gold).


title: Flag of Spain

text: The military flag or "Coronela" of Spanish regiments was, during the Bourbon years, the Cross of Burgundy with different additions in each military unit depending on their territorial origin, commander, etc.


title: Flag of Spain

text: When Charles III became King of Spain, he observed that most of the countries in Europe used flags which were predominantly white and, since they were frequently at war with each other, lamentable confusions occurred at sea, as if was difficult to determine if a sighted ship were enemy until practically the last moment. For this reason, he ordered his Minister of the Navy to present several models of flags to him, needing to be visible from great distances. The Minister selected twelve sketches which were shown to the king. The flag that was chosen as war ensign is the direct ancestor of the current flag. It was a triband red-yellow-red, of which the yellow band was twice the width of the red bands, a unique feature that distinguished the Spanish tribanded flag from other tribanded European flags. The flag chosen as civil ensign or for Merchant Marine use, meanwhile, consisted of five stripes of yellow-red-yellow-red-yellow, in proportions 1:1:2:1:1. Despite popular belief that the colors which constitute the Spanish flag were derived from the standard of the Crown of Aragon, there is no written evidence to support this.


title: Flag of Spain

text: On 14 April 1931, the monarchy was overthrown and replaced by the Second Spanish Republic. The regime change was symbolized by a new tricolor flag, red, yellow and murrey (), instead of the previous red and yellow bicolor, considered, at the time, monarchist. The purported aim of the murrey strip was to represent Castile and León in the flag's colours, as the existing red and yellow represented the territories of the former Crown of Aragon.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The Republican flag was officially adopted on 27 April and officially given to the army on 6 May. Formed by three horizontal strips of the same width, red, yellow and , with the coat of arms of the Second Spanish Republic at the center (quarterly of Castile, Leon, Aragon and Navarre, Enté en point for Granada, stamped by a mural crown between the two Pillars of Hercules). Another novelty was the smaller dimensions of this flag in its military version, of 1 m by 1 m.


title: Flag of Spain

text: As for the addition of the murrey to represent Castile in the national flag, since the last quarter of the 20th century there are authors that contradict former historians maintaining that the Castilian banner was not murrey, but crimson.


title: Flag of Spain

text: The Spanish Civil War officially ended on 1 April 1939, when the last Spanish Republican outposts were overrun by the Nationalists. The Republican regime in Spain was destroyed and Francisco Franco became the of the country and remained in power until his death on 20 November 1975.


title: Flag of Spain

text: On 29 August 1936, the National Defense Junta issued Decree No. 77 that declared: "The red and gold/yellow bicolour flag is re-established as the flag of Spain", which served as the first flag of Nationalist Spain. This flag was replaced in 1938 by a flag bearing the Eagle of Saint John added to the shield. The new arms were allegedly inspired in the coat of arms the Catholic Monarchs adopted after the taking of Granada (represented using a , word that also means 'pomegranate' in Spanish) from the Moors, but replacing the arms of the Kingdom of Sicily for those of Navarre, and adding the Pillars of Hercules on each flank of the coat of arms. In 1938 the columns were placed outside the wings.


title: Flag of Spain

text: On 26 July 1945, the commander's ensigns were suppressed by decree, and on 11 October a detailed regulation of flags was published, that fixed the model of the bi-colour flag in use, with a new version of the Saint John eagle. The models established on that decree were in force until 1977.


title: Flag of Spain

text: During this period two more flags were usually displayed together with the national flag: the flag of Spanish Falange (three vertical strips, red, black, red, with the black stripe being wider than the red ones, and the "yoke and arrows" emblem in red placed on the centre of the black stripe) and the Carlist flag (the Saint Andrew saltire or Cross of Burgundy red on white) as representation of the National Movement.


title: Flag of Spain

text: From the death of Franco in 1975 to 1977, the national flag remained that of the 1945 regulation. On 21 January 1977 a new flag was approved that differed from the previous one in that the eagle's wings opened further (the "pasmada" eagle), the Pillars of Hercules were again placed within the wings, and the ribbon with the motto UNA, GRANDE Y LIBRE (ONE, GREAT and FREE) was moved from the eagle's neck to above the eagle's head. Not many flags with this coat of arms were made. Finally, and after the restoration of the House of Bourbon to the Spanish Throne in the person of King Juan Carlos I, the Spanish Constitution of 1978 was published, article 42 section 12 of which reads "The Flag of Spain is formed by three horizontal stripes, red, yellow and red, the yellow being double the width of each of the red ones."


title: Gothic architecture

text: Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture. It originated in the Île-de-France and Picardy regions of northern France. The style at the time was sometimes known as "opus Francigenum" (lit. French work); the term "Gothic" was first applied contemptuously during the later Renaissance, by those ambitious to revive the architecture of classical antiquity.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The defining design element of Gothic architecture is the pointed or ogival arch. The use of the pointed arch in turn led to the development of the pointed rib vault and flying buttresses, combined with elaborate tracery and stained glass windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: At the Abbey of Saint-Denis, near Paris, the choir was reconstructed between 1140 and 1144, drawing together for the first time the developing Gothic architectural features. In doing so, a new architectural style emerged that emphasized verticality and the effect created by the transmission of light through stained glass windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Common examples are found in Christian ecclesiastical architecture, and Gothic cathedrals and churches, as well as abbeys, and parish churches. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guildhalls, universities and, less prominently today, private dwellings. Many of the finest examples of medieval Gothic architecture are listed with UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.


title: Gothic architecture

text: With the development of Renaissance architecture in Italy during the mid 15th century, the Gothic style was supplanted by the new style, but in some regions, notably England and Belgium, Gothic continued to flourish and develop into the 16th century. A series of Gothic revivals began in mid-18th century England, spread through 19th-century Europe and continued, largely for churches and university buildings, into the 20th century.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Gothic architecture is also known as pointed architecture or ogival architecture. Medieval contemporaries described the style as , as , , or as .


title: Gothic architecture

text: The term "Gothic architecture" originated as a pejorative description. Giorgio Vasari used the term "barbarous German style" in his "Lives of the Artists" to describe what is now considered the Gothic style, and in the introduction to the "Lives" he attributes various architectural features to the Goths, whom he held responsible for destroying the ancient buildings after they conquered Rome, and erecting new ones in this style. When Vasari wrote, Italy had experienced a century of building in the Vitruvian architectural vocabulary of classical orders revived in the Renaissance and seen as evidence of a new Golden Age of learning and refinement. Thus the Gothic style, being in opposition to classical architecture, from that point of view was associated with the destruction of advancement and sophistication. The assumption that classical architecture was better than Gothic architecture was widespread and proved difficult to defeat. Vasari was echoed in the 16th century by François Rabelais, who referred to Goths and Ostrogoths ("Gotz" and "Ostrogotz").


title: Gothic architecture

text: The polymath architect Christopher Wren disapproved of the name Gothic for pointed architecture. He compared it to Islamic architecture, which he called the 'Saracen style', pointing out that the pointed arch's sophistication was not owed to the Goths but to the Islamic Golden Age. He wrote:


title: Gothic architecture

text: Wren was the first to popularize the belief that it was not the Europeans, but the Saracens that had created the Gothic style. The term ‘Saracen’ was still in use in the 18th century and it typically referred to all Muslims, including the Arabs and Berbers. Wren mentions Europe's architectural debt to the Saracens no fewer than twelve times in his writings. He also decidedly broke with tradition in his assumption that Gothic architecture did not merely represent a violent and bothersome mistake, as suggested by Vasari. Rather, he saw that the Gothic style had developed over time along the lines of a changing society, and that it was thus a legitimate architectural style in and of its own.


title: Gothic architecture

text: It was no secret that Wren strongly disliked the building practices of the Gothic style. When he was appointed Surveyor of the Fabric at Westminster Abbey in the year 1698, he expressed his distaste for the Gothic style in a letter to the bishop of Rochester:


title: Gothic architecture

text: The chaos of the Gothic left much to be desired in Wren's eyes. His aversion of the style was so strong that he refused to put a Gothic roof on the new St. Paul's, despite being pressured to do so. Wren much preferred symmetry and straight lines in architecture, which is why he constantly praised the classic architecture of ‘the Ancients’ in his writings.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Even though he openly expressed his distaste for the Gothic style, Wren did not blame the Saracens for the apparent lack of ingenuity. Quite the opposite: he praised the Saracens for their 'superior' vaulting techniques and their widespread use of the pointed arch. Wren claimed the inventors of the Gothic had seen the Saracen architecture during the Crusades, also called the Religious war or Holy War, organised by the Kingdom of France in the year 1095:


title: Gothic architecture

text: There are several chronological issues that arise with this statement, which is one of the reasons why Wren's theory is rejected by many. The earliest examples of the pointed arch in Europe date from before the Holy War in the year 1095; this is widely regarded as proof that the Gothic style could not have possibly been derived from Saracen architecture. Several authors have taken a stance against this allegation, claiming that the Gothic style had most likely filtered into Europe in other ways, for example through Spain or Sicily. The Spanish architecture from the Moors could have influenced the emergence Gothic style long before the Crusades took place. This could have happened gradually through merchants, travelers and pilgrims.


title: Gothic architecture

text: According to a 19th-century correspondent in the London journal "Notes and Queries", Gothic was a derisive misnomer; the pointed arcs and architecture of the later Middle Ages was quite different from the rounded arches prevalent in late antiquity and the period of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy:There can be no doubt that the term 'Gothic' as applied to pointed styles of ecclesiastical architecture was used at first contemptuously, and in derision, by those who were ambitious to imitate and revive the Grecian orders of architecture, after the revival of classical literature. But, without citing many authorities, such as Christopher Wren, and others, who lent their aid in depreciating the old mediaeval style, which they termed Gothic, as synonymous with every thing that was barbarous and rude, it may be sufficient to refer to the celebrated Treatise of Sir Henry Wotton, entitled "The Elements of Architecture", ... printed in London so early as 1624. ... But it was a strange misapplication of the term to use it for the pointed style, in contradistinction to the circular, formerly called Saxon, now Norman, Romanesque, &c. These latter styles, like Lombardic, Italian, and the Byzantine, of course belong more to the Gothic period than the light and elegant structures of the pointed order which succeeded them.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The Gothic style of architecture was strongly influenced by the Romanesque architecture which preceded it; by the growing population and wealth of European cities, and by the desire to express local grandeur. It was also influenced by theological doctrines which called for more light and by technical improvements in vaults and buttresses that allowed much greater height and larger windows. It was also influenced by the necessity of many churches, such as Chartres Cathedral and Canterbury Cathedral, to accommodate growing numbers of pilgrims. It also adapted features from earlier styles, such as Islamic architecture. According to Charles Texier (French historian, architect, and archaeologist) and Josef Strzygowski (Polish-Austrian art historian), after lengthy research and study of cathedrals in the medieval city of Ani, the capital of the medieval kingdom of Armenia concluded to have discovered the oldest Gothic arch. According to these historians, the architecture of the Saint Hripsime Church near the Armenian religious seat Etchmiadzin was built in the fourth century A.D. and was repaired in 618. The cathedral of Ani was built in 980-1012 A.D. However many of the elements of Islamic and Armenian architecture that have been cited as influences on Gothic architecture also appeared in Late Roman and Byzantine architecture, the most noticeable example being the pointed arch and flying buttress. Byzantine architecture was one of the most important influences on Gothic architecture. The greatest example being the capitals that broke away from the Classical conventions of ancient Greek and Rome with sinuous lines and naturalistic forms, which are precursors to the Gothic style.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Architecture "became a leading form of artistic expression during the late Middle Ages". Gothic architecture began in the earlier 12th century in northwest France and England and spread throughout Latin Europe in the 13th century; by 1300, a first "international style" of Gothic had developed, with common design features and formal language. A second "international style" emerged by 1400, alongside innovations in England and central Europe that produced both the perpendicular and flamboyant varieties. Typically, these typologies are identified as:


title: Gothic architecture

text: Norman architecture on either side of the English Channel developed in parallel towards "Early Gothic". Gothic features, such as the rib vault, had appeared in England and Normandy in the 11th century. Rib-vaults were employed in some parts of the cathedral at Durham (1093–) and in Lessay Abbey in Normandy (1098). However, the first buildings to be considered fully Gothic are the royal funerary abbey of the French kings, the Abbey of Saint-Denis (1134–44), and the archiepiscopal cathedral at Sens (1143–63) They were the first buildings to systematically combine rib vaulting, buttresses, and pointed arches. Most of the characteristics of later "Early English" were already present in the lower "chevet" of Saint-Denis.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The Duchy of Normandy, part of the Angevin Empire until the 13th century, developed its own version of Gothic. One of these was the Norman chevet, a small apse or chapel attached to the choir at the east end of the church, which typically had a half-dome. The lantern tower was another common feature in Norman Gothic. One example of early Norman Gothic is Bayeux Cathedral (1060–70) where the Romanesque cathedral nave and choir were rebuilt into the Gothic style. Lisieux Cathedral was begun in 1170. Rouen Cathedral (begun 1185) was rebuilt from Romanesque to Gothic with distinct Norman features, including a lantern tower, deeply moulded decoration, and high pointed arcades. Coutances Cathedral was remade into Gothic beginning about 1220. Its most distinctive feature is the octagonal lantern on the crossing of the transept, decorated with ornamental ribs, and surrounded by sixteen bays and sixteen lancet windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Saint-Denis was the work of the Abbot Suger, a close adviser of Kings Louis VI and Louis VII. Suger reconstructed portions of the old Romanesque church with the rib vault in order to remove walls and to make more space for windows. He described the new ambulatory as "a circular ring of chapels, by virtue of which the whole church would shine with the wonderful and uninterrupted light of most luminous windows, pervading the interior beauty." To support the vaults He also introduced columns with capitals of carved vegetal designs, modelled upon the classical columns he had seen in Rome. In addition, he installed a circular rose window over the portal on the façade. These also became a common feature of Gothic cathedrals.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Some elements of Gothic style appeared very early in England. Durham Cathedral was the first cathedral to employ a rib vault, built between 1093 and 1104. The first cathedral built entirely in the new style was Sens Cathedral, begun between 1135 and 1140 and consecrated in 1160. Sens Cathedral features a Gothic choir, and six-part rib vaults over the nave and collateral aisles, alternating pillars and doubled columns to support the vaults, and buttresses to offset the outward thrust from the vaults. One of the builders who is believed to have worked on Sens Cathedral, William of Sens, later travelled to England and became the architect who, between 1175 and 1180, reconstructed the choir of Canterbury Cathedral in the new Gothic style.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Sens Cathedral was influential in its strongly vertical appearance and in its three-part elevation, typical of subsequent Gothic buildings, with a clerestory at the top supported by a triforium, all carried on high arcades of pointed arches. In the following decades flying buttresses began to be used, allowing the construction of lighter, higher walls. French Gothic churches were heavily influenced both by the ambulatory and side-chapels around the choir at Saint-Denis, and by the paired towers and triple doors on the western façade.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Sens was quickly followed by Senlis Cathedral (begun 1160), and Notre-Dame de Paris (begun 1160). Their builders abandoned the traditional plans and introduced the new Gothic elements from Saint-Denis. The builders of Notre-Dame went further by introducing the flying buttress, heavy columns of support outside the walls connected by arches to the upper walls. The buttresses counterbalanced the outward thrust from the rib vaults. This allowed the builders to construct higher, thinner walls and larger windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Following the destruction by fire of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral in 1174, a group of master builders was invited to propose plans for the reconstruction. The master-builder William of Sens, who had worked on Sens Cathedral, won the competition. Work began that same year, but in 1178 William was badly injured by fall from the scaffolding, and returned to France, where he died. His work was continued by William the Englishman who replaced his French namesake in 1178. The resulting structure of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral is considered the first work of "Early English Gothic". The cathedral churches of Worcester (1175–), Wells ("c".1180–), Lincoln (1192–), and Salisbury (1220–) are all, with Canterbury, major examples. "Tiercerons" – decorative vaulting ribs – seem first to be have been used in vaulting at Lincoln Cathedral, installed "c".1200. Instead of a triforium, "Early English" churches usually retained a gallery.


title: Gothic architecture

text: High Gothic (c. 1194–1250) was a brief but very productive period, which produced some of the great landmarks of Gothic art. The first building in the High Gothic () was Chartres Cathedral, an important pilgrimage church south of Paris. The Romanesque cathedral was destroyed by fire in 1194, but was swiftly rebuilt in the new style, with contributions from King Philip II of France, Pope Celestine III, local gentry, merchants, craftsmen, and Richard the Lionheart, king of England. The builders simplified the elevation used at Notre Dame, eliminated the tribune galleries, and used flying buttresses to support the upper walls. The walls were filled with stained glass, mainly depicting the story of the Virgin Mary but also, in a small corner of each window, illustrating the crafts of the guilds who donated those windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The model of Chartres was followed by a series of new cathedrals of unprecedented height and size. These were Reims Cathedral (begun 1211), where coronations of the kings of France took place; Amiens Cathedral (1220–1226); Bourges Cathedral (1195–1230) (which, unlike the others, continued to use six-part rib vaults); and Beauvais Cathedral (1225–).


title: Gothic architecture

text: In central Europe, the High Gothic style appeared in the Holy Roman Empire, first at Toul (1220–), whose Romanesque cathedral was rebuilt in the style of Reims Cathedral; then Trier's Liebfrauenkirche parish church (1228–), and then throughout the "Reich", beginning with the Elisabethkirche at Marburg (1235–) and the cathedral at Metz ("c".1235–).


title: Gothic architecture

text: In High Gothic, the whole surface of the clerestory was given over to windows. At Chartres Cathedral, plate tracery was used for the rose window, but at Reims the bar-tracery was free-standing. Lancet windows were supplanted by multiple lights separated by "geometrical" bar-tracery. Tracery of this kind distinguishes "Middle Pointed" style from the simpler "First Pointed". Inside, the nave was divided into by regular bays, each covered by a quadripartite rib vaults.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Other characteristics of the High Gothic were the development of rose windows of greater size, using bar-tracery, higher and longer flying buttresses, which could reach up to the highest windows, and walls of sculpture illustrating biblical stories filling the façade and the fronts of the transept. Reims Cathedral had two thousand three hundred statues on the front and back side of the façade.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The new High Gothic churches competed to be the tallest, with increasingly ambitious structures lifting the vault yet higher. Chartres Cathedral's height of was exceeded by Beauvais Cathedral's , but on account of the latter's collapse in 1248, no further attempt was made to build higher. Attention turned from achieving greater height to creating more awe-inspiring decoration.


title: Gothic architecture

text: "Rayonnant Gothic" maximized the coverage of stained glass windows such that the walls are effectively entirely glazed; examples are the nave of Saint-Denis (1231–) and the royal chapel of Louis IX of France on the Île de la Cité in the Seine – the Sainte-Chapelle ("c".1241–8). The high and thin walls of French "Rayonnant Gothic" allowed by the flying buttresses enabled increasingly ambitious expanses of glass and decorated tracery, reinforced with ironwork. Shortly after Saint-Denis, in the 1250s, Louis IX commissioned the rebuilt transepts and enormous rose windows of Notre-Dame de Paris (1250s for the north transept, 1258 for the beginning of south transept). This first 'international style' was also used in the clerestory of Metz Cathedral ("c".1245–), then in the choir of Cologne's cathedral ("c".1250–), and again in the nave of the cathedral at Strasbourg ("c".1250–). Masons elaborated a series of tracery patterns for windows – from the basic "geometrical" to the "reticulated" and the "curvilinear –" which had superseded the lancet window. Bar-tracery of the "curvilinear, flowing", and "reticulated" types distinguish "Second Pointed" style.


title: Gothic architecture

text: "Decorated Gothic" similarly sought to emphasize the windows, but excelled in the ornamentation of their tracery. Churches with features of this style include Westminster Abbey (1245–), the cathedrals at Lichfield (after 1257–) and Exeter (1275–), Bath Abbey (1298–), and the retro choir at Wells Cathedral ("c".1320–).


title: Gothic architecture

text: The "Rayonnant" developed its second 'international style' with increasingly autonomous and sharp-edged tracery mouldings apparent in the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand (1248–), the papal collegiate church at Troyes, Saint-Urbain (1262–), and the west façade of Strasbourg Cathedral (1276–1439)). By 1300, there were examples influenced by Strasbourg in the cathedrals of Limoges (1273–), Regensburg ("c".1275–), and in the cathedral nave at York (1292–).


title: Gothic architecture

text: Central Europe began to lead the emergence of a new, international "flamboyant" style with the construction of a new cathedral at Prague (1344–) under the direction of Peter Parler. This model of rich and variegated tracery and intricate reticulated rib-vaulting was definitive in the "Late Gothic" of continental Europe, emulated not only by the collegiate churches and cathedrals, but by urban parish churches which rivalled them in size and magnificence. The minster at Ulm and other parish churches like the Heilig-Kreuz-Münster at Schwäbisch Gmünd ("c".1320–), St Barbara's Church at Kutná Hora (1389–), and the Heilig-Geist-Kirche (1407–) and St Martin's Church ("c".1385–) in Landshut are typical. Use of ogees was especially common.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The "flamboyant" style was characterised by the multiplication of the ribs of the vaults, with new purely decorative ribs, called tiercons and liernes, and additional diagonal ribs. One common ornament of "flamboyant" in France is the "arc-en-accolade", an arch over a window topped by a pinnacle, which was itself topped with fleuron, and flanked by other pinnacles. Examples of French "flamboyant" building include the west façade of Rouen Cathedral, and especially the façades of Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes (1370s) and choir Mont-Saint-Michel's abbey church (1448).


title: Gothic architecture

text: In England, ornamental rib-vaulting and tracery of "Decorated Gothic" co-existed with, and then gave way to, the "perpendicular" style from the 1320s, with straightened, orthogonal tracery topped with fan-vaulting. "Perpendicular" "Gothic" was unknown in continental Europe and unlike earlier styles had no equivalent in Scotland or Ireland. It first appeared in the cloisters and chapter-house (c. 1332) of Old St Paul's Cathedral in London by William de Ramsey. The chancel of Gloucester Cathedral (c. 133757) and its latter 14th century cloisters are early examples. Four-centred arches were often used, and lierne vaults seen in early buildings were developed into fan vaults, first at the latter 14th century chapter-house of Hereford Cathedral (demolished 1769) and cloisters at Gloucester, and then at Reginald Ely's King's College Chapel, Cambridge (14461461) and the brothers William and Robert Vertue's Henry VII Chapel (c. 150312) at Westminster Abbey. "Perpendicular" is sometimes called "Third Pointed" and was employed over three centuries; the fan-vaulted staircase at Christ Church, Oxford built around 1640.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Lacey patterns of tracery continued to characterize continental Gothic building, with very elaborate and articulated vaulting, as at St Barbara's, Kutná Hora (1512). In certain areas, Gothic architecture continued to be employed until the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in provincial and ecclesiastical contexts, notably at Oxford.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Beginning in the mid-15th century, the Gothic style gradually lost its dominance in Europe. It had never been popular in Italy, and in the mid-15th century the Italians, drawing upon ancient Roman ruins, returned to classical models. The dome of Florence Cathedral (1420–1436) by Filippo Brunelleschi, inspired by the Pantheon, Rome, was one of the first Renaissance landmarks, but it also employed Gothic technology; the outer skin of the dome was supported by a framework of twenty-four ribs.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The Kings of France had first-hand knowledge of the new Italian style, because of the military campaign of Charles VIII to Naples and Milan (1494), and especially the campaigns of Louis XII and Francis I (1500–1505) to restore French control over Milan and Genoa. They brought back Italian paintings, sculpture and building plans, and, more important, Italian craftsmen and artists. The Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, chief minister of Louis XII, built the Chateau of Gaillon near Rouen (1502–10) with the assistance of Italian craftsmen. The Château de Blois (1515–24) introduced the Renaissance loggia and open stairway. King Francois I installed Leonardo da Vinci at his Chateau of Chambord in 1516, and introduced a Renaissance long gallery at the Palace of Fontainebleau in 1528–1540. In 1546 Francois I began building the first example of French classicism, the square courtyard of the Louvre Palace designed by Pierre Lescot.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In Germany, some Italian elements were introduced at the Fugger Chapel of St Anne's Church, Augsburg, (1510–1512) combined with Gothic vaults; and others appeared in the Church of St. Michael in Munich, but in Germany Renaissance elements were used primarily for decoration. Some Renaissance elements also appeared in Spain, in the new palace begun by Emperor Charles V in Granada, within the Alhambra (1485–1550), inspired by Bramante and Raphael, but it was never completed. The first major Renaissance work in Spain was El Escorial, the monastery-palace built by Philip II of Spain.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, England was largely isolated from architectural developments on the continent. The first classical building in England was the Old Somerset House in London (1547–1552) (since demolished), built by Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, who was regent as Lord Protector for Edward VI until the young king came of age in 1547. Somerset's successor, John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, sent the architectural scholar John Shute to Italy to study the style. Shute published the first book in English on classical architecture in 1570. The first English houses in the new style were Burghley House (1550s–1580s) and Longleat, built by associates of Somerset. With those buildings, a new age of architecture began in England.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Gothic architecture survived the early modern period and flourished again in a revival from the late 18th century and throughout the 19th. "Perpendicular" was the first Gothic style revived in the 18th century.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The defining characteristic of the Gothic style is the pointed arch, which was widely used in both structure and decoration. The pointed arch did not originate in Gothic architecture; they had been employed for centuries in the Near East in pre-Islamic as well as Islamic architecture for arches, arcades, and ribbed vaults. In Gothic architecture, particularly in the later Gothic styles, they became the most visible and characteristic element, giving a sensation of verticality and pointing upward, like the spires. Gothic rib vaults covered the nave, and pointed arches were commonly used for the arcades, windows, doorways, in the tracery, and especially in the later Gothic styles decorating the façades. They were also sometimes used for more practical purposes, such as to bring transverse vaults to the same height as diagonal vaults, as in the nave and aisles of Durham Cathedral, built in 1093.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The earliest Gothic pointed arches were lancet lights or lancet windows, narrow windows terminating in a lancet arch, an arch with a radius longer than their breadth, (width), and resembling the blade of a lancet. In the 12th century "First Pointed" phase of Gothic architecture, also called the "Lancet style" and before the introduction of tracery in the windows in later styles, lancet windows predominated Gothic building.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The Flamboyant Gothic style was particularly known for such lavish pointed details as the "arc-en-accolade", where the pointed arch over a doorway was topped by a pointed sculptural ornament called a fleuron and by pointed pinnacles on either side. the arches of the doorway were further decorated with small cabbage-shaped sculptures called ""chou-frisés"".


title: Gothic architecture

text: The Gothic rib vault was one of the essential elements that made possible the great height and large windows of the Gothic style. Unlike the semi-circular barrel vault of Roman and Romanesque buildings, where the weight pressed directly downward, and required thick walls and small windows, the Gothic rib vault was made of diagonal crossing arched ribs. These ribs directed the thrust outwards to the corners of the vault, and downwards via slender colonettes and bundled columns, to the pillars and columns below. The space between the ribs was filled with thin panels of small pieces of stone, which were much lighter than earlier groin vaults. The outward thrust against the walls was countered by the weight of buttresses and later flying buttresses. As a result, the massive thick walls of Romanesque buildings were no longer needed; Since the vaults were supported by the columns and piers, the walls could be thinner and higher, and filled with windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The earlier Gothic rib vaults, used at Sens Cathedral (begun between 1135 and 1140) and Notre-Dame de Paris (begun 1163), were divided by the ribs into six compartments. They were very difficult to build, and could only cross a limited space. Since each vault covered two bays, they needed support on the ground floor from alternating columns and piers. In later construction, the design was simplified, and the rib vaults had only four compartments. The alternating rows of alternating columns and piers receiving the weight of the vaults was replaced by simple pillars, each receiving the same weight. A single vault could cross the nave. This method was used at Chartres Cathedral (1194–1220), Amiens Cathedral (begun 1220), and Reims Cathedral. The four-part vaults made it possible for the building to be even higher. Notre-Dame de Paris, begun in 1163 with six-part vaults, reached a height of . Amiens Cathedral, begun in 1220 with the newer four-part ribs, reached the height of at the transept.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In France, the four-part rib vault, with two diagonals crossing at the center of the traverse, was the type used almost exclusively until the end of the Gothic period. However, in England, several imaginative new vaults were invented which had more elaborate decorative features. They became a signature of the later English Gothic styles.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The first of these new vaults had an additional rib, called a tierceron, which ran down the median of the vault. It first appeared in the vaults of the choir of Lincoln Cathedral at the end of the 12th century, then at Worcester Cathedral in 1224, and then the south transept of Lichfield Cathedral.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The 14th century brought the invention of several new types of vaults which were more and more decorative. These vaults often copied the forms form of the elaborate tracery of the Late Gothic styles. These included the stellar vault, where a group of additional ribs between the principal ribs forms a star design. The oldest vaults of this kind were found in the crypt of Saint Stephen at Westminster Palace, built about 1320. A second type was called a reticulated vault, which had a network of additional decorative ribs, in triangles and other geometric forms, placed between or over the traverse ribs. These were first used in the choir of Bristol Cathedral in about 1311. Another late Gothic form, the fan vault, with ribs spreading upwards and outwards, appeared later in the 14th century. An example is the cloister of Gloucester Cathedral (c. 1370).


title: Gothic architecture

text: Another new form was the skeleton vault, which appeared in the English Decorated style. It has an additional network of ribs, like the ribs of an umbrella, which criss-cross the vault but are only directly attached to it at certain points. It appeared in a chapel of Lincoln Cathedral in 1300. and then several other English churches. This style of vault was adopted in the 14th century in particular by German architects, particularly Peter Parler, and in other parts of central Europe. Another exists in the south porch of the Prague Cathedral


title: Gothic architecture

text: Elaborate vaults also appeared in civic architecture. An example is the ceiling of the Vladislav Hall in Prague Castle in Bohemia designed by Benedikt Ried in 1493. The ribs twist and intertwine in fantasy patterns, which later critics called "Rococo Gothic".


title: Gothic architecture

text: In Early French Gothic architecture, the capitals of the columns were modeled after Roman columns of the Corinthian order, with finely-sculpted leaves. They were used in the ambulatory of the Abbey church of Saint-Denis. According to its builder, the Abbot Suger, they were inspired by the columns he had seen in the ancient baths in Rome. They were used later at Sens, at Notre-Dame de Paris and at Canterbury in England.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In early Gothic churches with six-part rib vaults, the columns in the nave alternated with more massive piers to provide support for the vaults. With the introduction of the four-part rib vault, all of the piers or columns in the nave could have the same design. In the High Gothic period, a new form was introduced, composed of a central core surrounded several attached slender columns, or colonettes, going up to the vaults. These clustered columns were used at Chartres, Amiens, Reims and Bourges, Westminster Abbey and Salisbury Cathedral. Another variation was a quadrilobe column, shaped like a clover, formed of four attached columns. In England, the clustered columns were often ornamented with stone rings, as well as columns with carved leaves.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Later styles added further variations. Sometimes the piers were rectangular and fluted, as at Seville Cathedral, In England, parts of columns sometimes had contrasting colours, using combining white stone with dark Purbeck marble. In place of the Corinthian capital, some columns used a stiff-leaf design. In later Gothic, the piers became much taller, reaching up more than half of the nave. Another variation, particularly popular in eastern France, was a column without a capital, which continued upward without capitals or other interruption, all the way to the vaults, giving a dramatic display of verticality.


title: Gothic architecture

text: An important feature of Gothic architecture was the flying buttress, a half-arch outside the building which carried the thrust of weight of the roof or vaults inside over a roof or an aisle to a heavy stone column. The buttresses were placed in rows on either side of the building, and were often topped by heavy stone pinnacles, both to give extra weight and for additional decoration.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Buttresses had existed since Roman times, usually set directly against the building, but the Gothic vaults were more sophisticated. In later structures, the buttresses often had several arches, each reaching in to a different level of the structure. The buttresses permitted the buildings to be both taller, and to have thinner walls, with greater space for windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Over time, the buttresses and pinnacles became more elaborate supporting statues and other decoration, as at Beauvais Cathedral and Reims Cathedral. The arches had an additional practical purpose; they contained lead channels which carried rainwater off the roof; it was expelled from the mouths of stone gargoyles placed in rows on the buttresses.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Flying buttresses were used less frequently in England, where the emphasis was more on length than height. One example of English buttresses was Canterbury Cathedral, whose choir and buttresses were rebuilt in Gothic style by William of Sens and William the Englishman. However, they were very popular in Germany: in Cologne Cathedral the buttresses were lavishly decorated with statuary and other ornament, and were a prominent feature of the exterior.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Towers, spires and flèches were an important feature of Gothic churches. They presented a dramatic spectacle of great height, helped make their churches the tallest and most visible buildings in their city, and symbolised the aspirations of their builders toward heaven. They also had a practical purpose; they often served as bell towers supporting belfries, whose bells told the time by announcing religious services, warned of fire or enemy attack, and celebrated special occasions like military victories and coronations. Sometimes the bell tower is built separate from a church; the best-known example of this is the Leaning Tower of Pisa.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The towers of cathedrals were usually the last part of the structure to be built. Since cathedral construction usually took many years, and was extremely expensive, by the time the tower were to be built public enthusiasm waned, and tastes changed. Many projected towers were never built, or were built in different styles than other parts of the cathedral, or with different styles on each level of the tower. At Chartres Cathedral, the south tower was built in the 12th century, in the simpler Early Gothic, while the north tower is the more highly decorated Flamboyant style. Chartres would have been even more exuberant if the second plan had been followed; it called for seven towers around the transept and sanctuary.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In the Île-de-France, cathedral towers followed the Romanesque tradition of two identical towers, one on either side of the portals. The west front of the Saint-Denis, became the model for the early Gothic cathedrals and High Gothic cathedrals in northern France, including Notre-Dame de Paris, Reims Cathedral, and Amiens Cathedral.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The early and High Gothic Laon Cathedral has a square lantern tower over the crossing of the transept; two towers on the western front; and two towers on the ends of the transepts. Laon's towers, with the exception of the central tower, are built with two stacked vaulted chambers pierced by lancet openings. The two western towers contain life-size stone statues of sixteen oxen in their upper arcades, said to honour the animals who hauled the stone during the cathedral's construction.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In Normandy, cathedrals and major churches often had multiple towers, built over the centuries; the Abbaye aux Hommes (begun 1066), Caen has nine towers and spires, placed on the façade, the transepts, and the centre. A lantern tower was often placed the centre of the nave, at the meeting point with the transept, to give light to the church below.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In later periods of Gothic, pointed needle-like spires were often added to the towers, giving them much greater height. A variation of the spire was the flèche, a slender, spear-like spire, which was usually placed on the transept where it crossed the nave. They were often made of wood covered with lead or other metal. They sometimes had open frames, and were decorated with sculpture. Amiens Cathedral has a flèche. The most famous example was that of Notre-Dame de Paris. The original flèche of Notre-Dame was built on the crossing of the transept in the middle of the 13th century, and housed five bells. It was removed in 1786 during a program to modernize the cathedral, but was put back in a new form designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. The new flèche, of wood covered with lead, was decorated with statues of the Apostles; the figure of St Thomas resembled Viollet-le-Duc. The flèche was destroyed in the 2019 fire, but is being restored in the same design.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In English Gothic, the major tower was often placed at the crossing of the transept and nave, and was much higher than the other. The most famous example is the tower of Salisbury Cathedral, completed in 1320 by William of Farleigh. It was a remarkable feat of construction, since it was built upon the pillars of the much earlier church. A crossing tower was constructed at Canterbury Cathedral in 1493–1501 by John Wastell, who had previously worked on King's College at Cambridge. It was finished by Henry Yevele, who also built the present nave of Canterbury. The new central tower at Wells Cathedral caused a problem; it was too heavy for the original structure. An unusual double arch had to be constructed in the centre of the crossing to give the tower the extra support it needed.


title: Gothic architecture

text: England's Gothic parish churches and collegiate churches generally have a single western tower. A number of the finest churches have masonry spires, with those of St James Church, Louth; St Wulfram's Church, Grantham; St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol; and Coventry Cathedral. These spires all exceed in height.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Westminster Abbey's crossing tower has for centuries remained unbuilt, and numerous architects have proposed various ways of completing it since the 1250s, when work began on the tower under Henry III. A century and half later, an octagonal roof lantern resembling that of Ely Cathedral was installed instead, which was then demolished in the 16th century. Construction began again in 1724 to the design of Nicholas Hawksmoor, after first Christopher Wren had proposed a design in 1710, but stopped again in 1727. The crossing remains covered by the stub of the lantern and a 'temporary' roof.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Later Gothic towers in Central Europe often followed the French model, but added even denser decorative tracery. Cologne Cathedral had been started in the 13th century, following the plan of Amiens Cathedral, but only the apse and the base of one tower were finished in the Gothic period. The original plans were conserved and rediscovered in 1817, and the building was completed in the 20th century following the origin design. It has two spectacularly ornamented towers, covered with arches, gables, pinnacles and openwork spires pointing upwards. The tower of Ulm Minster has a similar history, begun in 1377, stopped in 1543, and not completed until the 19th century.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Regional variants of Gothic towers appeared in Spain and Italy. Burgos Cathedral was inspired by Northern Europe. It has an exceptional cluster of openwork spires, towers, and pinnacles, drenched with ornament. It was begun in 1444 by a German architect, Juan de Colonia (John of Cologne) and eventually completed by a central tower (1540) built by his grandson.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In Italy the towers were sometimes separate from the cathedral; and the architects usually kept their distance from the Northern European style. the leaning tower of Pisa Cathedral, built between 1173 and 1372, is the best-known example. The Campanile of Florence Cathedral was built by Giotto in the Florentine Gothic style, decorated with encrustations of polychrome marble. It was originally designed to have a spire.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Tracery is an architectural solution by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone "bars" or "ribs" of moulding. Pointed arch windows of Gothic buildings were initially (late 12th–late 13th centuries) lancet windows, a solution typical of the "Early Gothic" or "First Pointed" style and of the "Early English" Gothic. Plate tracery was the first type of tracery to be developed, emerging in the later phase of "Early Gothic" or "First Pointed". "Second Pointed" is distinguished from "First" by the appearance of "bar–tracery", allowing the construction of much larger window openings, and the development of "Curvilinear", "Flowing", and "Reticulated" tracery, ultimately contributing to the "Flamboyant" style. "Late Gothic" in most of Europe saw tracery patterns resembling lace develop, while in England "Perpendicular Gothic" or "Third Pointed" preferred plainer vertical mullions and transoms. Tracery is practical as well as decorative, because the increasingly large windows of Gothic buildings needed maximum support against the wind.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Plate tracery, in which lights were pierced in a thin wall of ashlar, allowed a window arch to have more than one light – typically two side by side and separated by flat stone spandrels. The spandrels were then sculpted into figures like a roundel or a quatrefoil. Plate tracery reached the height of its sophistication with the 12th century windows of Chartres Cathedral and in the "Dean's Eye" rose window at Lincoln Cathedral.


title: Gothic architecture

text: At the beginning of the 13th century, plate tracery was superseded by bar-tracery. Bar-tracery divides the large lights from one another with moulded mullions. Stone bar-tracery, an important decorative element of Gothic styles, first was used at Reims Cathedral shortly after 1211, in the chevet built by Jean D'Orbais. It was employed in England around 1240. After 1220, master builders in England had begun to treat the window openings as a series of openings divided by thin stone bars, while before 1230 the apse chapels of Reims Cathedral were decorated with bar-tracery with cusped circles (with bars radiating from the centre). Bar-tracery became common after c.1240, with increasing complexity and decreasing weight. The lines of the mullions continued beyond the tops of the window lights and subdivided the open spandrels above the lights into a variety of decorative shapes. "Rayonnant" style (c.1230–c.1350) was enabled by the development of bar-tracery in Continental Europe and is named for the radiation of lights around a central point in circular rose windows. "Rayonnant" also deployed mouldings of two different types in tracery, where earlier styles had used moulding of a single size, with different sizes of mullions. The rose windows of Notre-Dame de Paris (c.1270) are typical.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The early phase of "Middle Pointed" style (late 13th century) is characterized by "Geometrical" tracery – simple bar-tracery forming patterns of foiled arches and circles interspersed with triangular lights. The mullions of "Geometrical" style typically had capitals with curved bars emerging from them. "Intersecting" bar-tracery (c.1300) deployed mullions without capitals which branched off equidistant to the window-head. The window-heads themselves were formed of equal curves forming a pointed arch and the tracery-bars were curved by drawing curves with differing radii from the same centres as the window-heads. The mullions were in consequence branched into Y-shaped designs further ornamented with cusps. The intersecting branches produced an array of lozenge-shaped lights in between numerous lancet arched lights."Y-tracery" was often employed in two-light windows c.1300.


title: Gothic architecture

text: "Second Pointed" (14th century) saw "Intersecting" tracery elaborated with ogees, creating a complex reticular (net-like) design known as "Reticulated" tracery. "Second Pointed" architecture deployed tracery in highly decorated fashion known as "Curvilinear" and "Flowing" ("Undulating"). These types of bar-tracery were developed further throughout Europe in the 15th century into the "Flamboyant" style, named for the characteristic flame-shaped spaces between the tracery-bars. These shapes are known as "daggers", "fish-bladders", or "mouchettes".


title: Gothic architecture

text: "Third Pointed" or "Perpendicular Gothic" developed in England from the later 14th century and is typified by "Rectilinear" tracery ("panel"-tracery). The mullions are often joined together by transoms and continue up their straight vertical lines to the top of the window's main arch, some branching off into lesser arches, and creating a series of panel-like lights. "Perpendicular" strove for verticality and dispensed with the "Curvilinear" style's sinuous lines in favour of unbroken straight mullions from top to bottom, transected by horizontal transoms and bars. Four-centred arches were used in the 15th and 16th centuries to create windows of increasing size with flatter window-heads, often filling the entire wall of the bay between each buttress. The windows were themselves divided into panels of lights topped by pointed arches struck from four centres. The transoms were often topped by miniature crenellations. The windows at Cambridge of King's College Chapel (1446–1515) represent the heights of "Perpendicular" tracery.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Tracery was used on both the interior and exterior of buildings. It frequently covered the façades, and the interior walls of the nave and choir were covered with blind arcades. It also often picked up and repeated the designs in the stained glass windows. Strasbourg Cathedral has a west front lavishly ornamented with bar tracery matching the windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The Gothic style of architecture was strongly influenced by the Romanesque architecture which preceded it; by the growing population and wealth of European cities, and by the desire to express national grandeur. It was also influenced by theological doctrines which called for more light, by technical improvements in vaulting and buttresses that allowed much greater height and larger windows, and by the necessity of many churches to accommodate large numbers of pilgrims.


title: Gothic architecture

text: The plan of Gothic cathedrals and churches was usually based on the Latin cross (or "cruciform") plan, taken from the ancient Roman Basilica.,and from the later Romanesque churches. They have a long nave making the body of the church, where the parishioners worshipped; a transverse arm called the transept and, beyond it to the east, the choir, also known as a chancel or presbytery, that was usually reserved for the clergy. The eastern end of the church was rounded in French churches, and was occupied by several radiating chapels, which allowed multiple ceremonies to go on simultaneously. In English churches the eastern end also had chapels, but was usually rectangular. A passage called the ambulatory circled the choir. This allowed parishioners, and especially pilgrims, to walk past the chapels to see the relics displayed there without disturbing other services going on.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Each vault of the nave formed a separate cell, with its own supporting piers or columns. The early cathedrals, like Notre-Dame, had six-part rib vaults, with alternating columns and piers, while later cathedrals had the simpler and stronger four-part vaults, with identical columns.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Following the model of Romanesque architecture and the Basilica of Saint Denis, cathedrals usual had two towers flanking the west façade. Towers over the crossing were common in England (Salisbury Cathedral), York Minister) but rarer in France.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Transepts were usually short in early French Gothic architecture, but became longer and were given large rose windows in the Rayonnant period. The choirs became more important. The choir was often flanked by a double disambulatory, which was crowned by a ring of small chapels. In England, transepts were more important, and the floor plans were usually much more complex than in French cathedrals, with the addition of attached Lady Chapels, an octagonal Chapter House, and other structures (See plans of Salisbury Cathedral and York Minster below). This reflected a tendency in France to carry out multiple functions in the same space, while English cathedrals compartmentalized them. This contrast is visible in the difference between Amiens Cathedral, with its minimal transepts and semicircular apse, filled with chapels, on the east end, compared with the double transepts, projecting north porch, and rectangular east end of Salisbury and York.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Gothic architecture was a continual search for greater height, thinner walls, and more light. This was clearly illustrated in the evolving elevations of the cathedrals.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In Early Gothic architecture, following the model of the Romanesque churches, the buildings had thick, solid walls with a minimum of windows in order to give enough support for the vaulted roofs. An elevation typically had four levels. On the ground floor was an arcade with massive piers alternating with thinner columns, which supported the six-part rib vaults. Above that was a gallery, called the tribune, which provided stability to the walls, and was sometimes used to provide seating for the nuns. Above that was a narrower gallery, called the triforium, which also helped provide additional thickness and support. At the top, just beneath the vaults, was the clerestory, where the high windows were placed. The upper level was supported from the outside by the flying buttresses. This system was used at Noyon Cathedral, Sens Cathedral, and other early structures.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In the High Gothic period, thanks to the introduction of the four part rib vault, a simplified elevation appeared at Chartres Cathedral and others. The alternating piers and columns on the ground floor were replaced by rows of identical circular piers wrapped in four engaged columns. The tribune disappeared, which meant that the arcades could be higher. This created more space at the top for the upper windows, which were expanded to include a smaller circular window above a group of lancet windows. The new walls gave a stronger sense of verticality and brought in more light. A similar arrangement was adapted in England, at Salisbury Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral, and Ely Cathedral.


title: Gothic architecture

text: An important characteristic of Gothic church architecture is its height, both absolute and in proportion to its width, the verticality suggesting an aspiration to Heaven. The increasing height of cathedrals over the Gothic period was accompanied by an increasing proportion of the wall devoted to windows, until, by the late Gothic, the interiors became like cages of glass. This was made possible by the development of the flying buttress, which transferred the thrust of the weight of the roof to the supports outside the walls. As a result, the walls gradually became thinner and higher, and masonry was replaced with glass. The four-part elevation of the naves of early Cathedrals such as Notre-Dame (arcade, tribune, triforium, clerestory) was transformed in the choir of Beauvais Cathedral to very tall arcades, a thin triforium, and soaring windows up to the roof.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Beauvais Cathedral reached the limit of what was possible with Gothic technology. A portion of the choir collapsed in 1284, causing alarm in all of the cities with very tall cathedrals. Panels of experts were created in Sienna and Chartres to study the stability of those structures. Only the transept and choir of Beauvais were completed, and in the 21st century, the transept walls were reinforced with cross-beams. No cathedral built since exceeded the height of the choir of Beauvais.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Churches traditionally face east, with the altar at the east, and the west front, or façade, was considered the most important entrance. Gothic façades were adapted from the model of the Romanesque façades. The façades usually had three portals, or doorways, leading into the nave. Over each doorway was a tympanum, a work of sculpture crowded with figures. The sculpture of the central tympanum was devoted to the Last Judgement, that to the left to the Virgin Mary, and that to the right to the Saints honoured at that particular cathedral. In the early Gothic, the columns of the doorways took the form of statues of saints, making them literally "pillars of the church".


title: Gothic architecture

text: In the early Gothic, the façades were characterized by height, elegance, harmony, unity, and a balance of proportions. They followed the doctrine expressed by Saint Thomas Aquinas that beauty was a "harmony of contrasts." Following the model of Saint-Denis and later Notre-Dame de Paris, the façade was flanked by two towers proportional to the rest of the façade, which balanced the horizontal and vertical elements. Early Gothic façades often had a small rose window placed above the central portal. In England the rose window was often replaced by several lancet windows.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In the High Gothic period, the façades grew higher, and had more dramatic architecture and sculpture. At Amiens Cathedral (c. 1220), the porches were deeper, the niches and pinnacles were more prominent. The portals were crowned with high arched gables, composed of concentric arches filled with sculpture. The rose windows became enormous, filling an entirely wall above the central portal, and they were themselves covered with a large pointed arch. The rose windows were pushed upwards by the growing profusion of decoration below. The towers were adorned with their own arches, often crowned with pinnacles. The towers themselves were crowned with spires, often of open-work sculpture. One of the finest examples of a Flamboyant façade is Notre-Dame de l'Épine (1405–1527).


title: Gothic architecture

text: While French cathedrals emphasized the height of the façade, English cathedrals, particularly in earlier Gothic, often emphasized the width. The west front of Wells Cathedral is 146 feet across, compared with 116 feet wide at the nearly contemporary Amiens Cathedral, though Amiens is twice as high. The west front of Wells was almost entirely covered with statuary, like Amiens, and was given even further emphasis by its colors; traces of blue, scarlet, and gold are found on the sculpture, as well as painted stars against the dark background on other sections.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Italian Gothic façades have the three traditional portals and rose windows, or sometimes simply a large circular window without tracery plus an abundance of flamboyant elements, including sculpture, pinnacles and spires. However, they added distinctive Italian elements. as seen in the façades of Siena Cathedral ) and of Orvieto Cathedral, The Orvieto façade was largely the work of a master mason, Lorenzo Maitani, who worked on the façade from 1308 until his death in 1330. He broke away from the French emphasis on height, and eliminated the column statutes and statuary in the arched entries, and covered the façade with colourful mosaics of biblical scenes (The current mosaics are of a later date). He also added sculpture in relief on the supporting contreforts.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Another important feature of the Italian Gothic portal was the sculpted bronze door. The sculptor Andrea Pisano made the celebrated bronze doors for Florence Baptistry (1330–1336). They were not the first; Abbot Suger had commissioned bronze doors for Saint-Denis in 1140, but they were replaced with wooden doors when the Abbey was enlarged. Pisano's work, with its realism and emotion, pointed toward the coming Renaissance.


title: Gothic architecture

text: Cathedrals and churches were traditionally constructed with the altar at the east end, so that the priest and congregation faced the rising sun during the morning liturgy. The sun was considered the symbol of Christ and the Second Coming, a major theme in Cathedral sculpture. The portion of the church east of altar is the choir, reserved for members of the clergy. There is usually a single or double ambulatory, or aisle, around the choir and east end, so parishioners and pilgrims could walk freely easily around east end.


title: Gothic architecture

text: In Romanesque churches, the east end was very dark, due to the thick walls and small windows. In the ambulatory the Basilica of Saint Denis. Abbot Suger first used the novel combination rib vaults and buttresses to replace the thick walls and replace them with stained glass, opening up that portion of the church to what he considered "divine light".


title: Gothic architecture

text: In French Gothic churches, the east end, or chevet, often had an apse, a semi-circular projection with a vaulted or domed roof. The chevet of large cathedrals frequently had a ring of radiating chapels, placed between the buttresses to get maximum light. There are three such chapels at Chartres Cathedral, seven at Notre Dame de Paris, Amiens Cathedral, Prague Cathedral and Cologne Cathedral, and nine at Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua in Italy. In England, the east end is more often rectangular, and gives access to a separate and large Lady Chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Lady Chapels were also common in Italy.