File:The imperial island; England's chronicle in stone; (1886) (14767988595).jpg

Identifier: imperialislanden00hunn (find matches)
Title: The imperial island; England's chronicle in stone;
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Hunnewell, James Frothingham, 1832-1910
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, Ticknor
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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thosegenerally found on the Continent. Towards the north are seenthe Five Sisters, as they call the lancets there, — lofty, grace-ful, and radiant with glass lightly colored. Towards the southanother peculiar feature of the Early English is, perhaps, tooevident; the piers and the sides of the arches are striped bynumerous polished Purbeck shafts, the dark lines of which arestrongly marked against the pale-brown walls. Except in nar-row lancets in the clerestory, the windows throughout the tran-sept contain colored glass. At the south end the vaulting is ofnew dark oak, with grayish ribs darker than the grounds, andfoliated bosses gilt upon vermilion. A few years ago the clere-story was rebuilt, for it had become badly cracked; the wallshad spread so that the roof was off of them in places, and theywere unsafe. The great weight of the central tower has pushedthe tops of the arcades towards the south, as they are now seen,but they are secure. Elsewhere throughout the church, it should
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Ib-tttiiTu Xittmrj he. rf Tir* Ciakr+rvU-. (CATIHLIEIOIEAIL ©fflinBCIHU CHOU, LOOKING EAST. YORK. 209 be added, the lines are plumb, or true. Beneath the tower andacross the end of the vast choir is a magnificent stone screen,said to hare been built between 1475 and 1505. It is a solidwall pierced in the centre by one large portal, and elsewherecovered with profuse and exquisitely carved architectural work,and the statues of fifteen kings of England, down to Henry VI.,placed in niches of as many compartments, into which thescreen is divided. In the canopies above them are more thanfifty smaller statues, and still higher are half-length figuresof over forty angels. It would be difficult to find an ancientrood-screen, or jube*, that is superior. The choir, majestic and immense, is one of the great monu-ments of English mediaeval genius, piety, and art. It datesfrom 1380 to 1405, but there is much new work that reproducesthe antique designs, and that was rendered necessary by thewell kn

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