U. GLOSSARY OF ARCHITECTURAL TERMS (ESPECIALLY CLASSICAL AND MEDIAEVAL)
Q - Z
QUARREL, QUARRY (from the French carre, square), any square-shaped opening;
applied in the Beauchamp Roll to the quatrefoils in Perpendicular windows, sometimes to squares of paving, but most commonly to the lozenge-shaped pieces of glass in lead casements.
QUARTERS, the main upright posts in framing, sometimes called studs; the filling in quarters were formerly named prick posts.
QUATREFOIL, any small anel or perforation in the form of a fourleaved flower. They are sometimes used alone, sometimes in circles, and over the aisle windows, but more frequently they are in square panels. They are generally cusped, and the cusps are often feathered. (See CINQUEFOIL).
QUIONS, large squared stones at the angles of buildings, buttresses, &c., generally used to stop the rubble or rough stone work, and that the angles might be true and stronger. Saxon quoin stones are said to have been composed of one long and one short stone alternately. Early quoins are generally roughly axed; in later times they had a draft tooled by the chisel round the outside edges, and later still were worked fine from the saw.
RAG-STONE, a name given by some writers to work done with stones which are quarried in this pieces, such as the Horsham sandstone, Yorkshire stone, the slate stones, &c., but this is more properly flag or slab work. By rag-stone, near London, is meant an excellent material from the neighborhood of Maidstone. It is a very hard limestone of bluish-grey colour, and peculiarly suited for mediaeval work. It is often laid an uncoursed work, or random work, sometimes as random coursed work, and sometimes as regular ashlar. The first method, however, is the more picturesque.
RANDOM WORK, a term used by the rag-stone masons for stones fitted together at random without any attempt at laying them in courses. Random Coursed Work is a like term applied to work coursed in horizontal beds, but the stones are of any height, and fitted to one another.
REAR VAULT, a name sometimes applied to the inner hood-mould of a window or doorway, but no ancient authority for the use of such a term has been cited.
REFECTORY, the hall of a monastery, convent, &c., where the religious took their chief meals together. It much resembled the great halls of mansions, castles &c., except that there frequently was a sort of ambo, approached by steps, from which to read the legenda sanctorum, &c., during meals.(See PULPIT.)
REGULYA (Lat.), a rule or square, the short fillet or rectangular block, under the taenia, on the architrave of the Doric entablature.
REREDOS, DORSAL, OR DOSSEL (Fr., retable), the screen or other ornamental work at the back of an altar. In some large cathedrals, as Winchester, Durham, St Albans, &c., this is a mass of splendid tabernacle work, reaching nearly to the groining. In smaller churches there are sometimes ranges of arcades or panellings behind the altars; but, in general, the walls at the back and sides of them were of plain masonry, and adorned with hangings or paraments. In large churches abroad, the high altar usually stands under a sort of canopy or ciborium, and the sacrarium is hung round at the back sides with curtain on movable rods. (See CIBORIUM.) In private houses the iron plates behind the fire, where there are andirons, are sometimes called reredoses.
RESPOND, the half pier or pillar at the end of a range of piers and arches, or others arcades; they are generally exactly half the other piers, with a short piece of wall finishing at right angles to the end or cross wall.
RESSAUNT, a sort of flat ogee. A ressaunt lorymer (or larmier) is supposed to be an ogee with a drip.
RETRO CHOIR (See BACK CHOIR, PRESBYTERY.)
RIB (Fr. Berf darete, nervure, Ital. costola, Ger. Rippe). (See GROIN RIB, and also GROINED VAULTING.) The earliest groining had no ribs. In early Norman times plain flat arches crossed each other, forming Ogive Ribs. These by degrees became narrower, had greater projection, and were chamfered. In later Norman work the ribs were often formed of a large roll placed upon the flat band, and then of two rolls side by side, with a smaller roll or a fillet between them, much like the lower member. Sometimes they are enriched with zigzags and other Norman decorations, and about this time bosses became of very general use. (See BOSS). As styles progressed, the mouldings were more undercut, richer and more elaborate, and had the dog tooth or ball-flower or other characteristic ornament in the follows. In all instances the mouldings are of similar contours to those of arches, &c., of the respective periods. (See MOULDINGS.) In Perpendicular work the ribs are broader and shallower, and almost always have two great hollows of elliptic shape, one on each side. In those churches of the Early English and Decorated periods where there is a groining of wooden ribs filled in between the spandrels with their narrow oak boards, these ribs resemble those of stone, but are slighter, and the mouldings not so bold. (See CEILING.) Later, wooden roofs are often formed into cants or polygonal barrel vaults, and in these the ribs are generally a cluster of rounds, and form square or stellar panels, with carved bosses or shields at the intersections.
RIDGE (Fr. Faite, fatiage, Ital comignolo, Ger. Rucken), a flat piece of board running from the apex of principal to principal, to which the heads of the common rafters are nailed; also the lead or tile covering to the same. (For ornamental ridges, see CRESTING.)
ROLL MOULDING OR SCROLL MOULDING, a moulding so called because it resembles the section of half a scroll or flexible book rolled up so that the edge projects over the other part. (See LABEL.)
ROOD, a name applied to a crucifix, particularly to those which were placed in the rood-loft or chancel screens. These generally had not only the image of the crucified Saviour, but also those of St John and the Virgin Mary, standing one on each side. Sometimes other saints and angels are by them, and the top of the screen is set with candlesticks or other decoratios.
ROOD-LOFT, ROOD-SCREEN, ROOD-BEAM, JUBE GALERY, &c., the arrangement to carry the crucifix or rood, and to screen off the chancel from the rest of the church during the breviary services, and as a place whence to read certain parts of those services.. (See JUBE.) Sometimes the crucifix is carried simply on a strong transverse beam, with or without a low screen, with folding doors below but forming no part of such support. The general construction of wooden screens is closed paneling beneath, about 3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches high, on which stands screen work composed of sleuder turned balusters or regular wooden mullions, supporting tracery more or less rich with cornices, cresting, &c., and often painted in brilliant colours, and gilded. These not only enclose the chancels, but also chapels, chantries, and sometimes even tombs. In mansions, and some private houses, the great halls were screened off by a low passage at the end opposite to the dais, over which was a gallery for the use of minstrels or spectators. These screens were sometimes close and sometimes glazed. There are many of these in England, generally more or less mutilated: one of the most perfect galleries is that at Charlton-Otmoor, in Oxfordshire.
ROOD-STAIR, a small winding stair or vice leading to the gallery. (See ROOD-LOFT.) In England they generally run up in a small turret in the wall at the west end of the chancel. This also often leads out on the roof. On the Continent these stairs often lead out of the interior of churches, and are enclosed with exquisitely perforated tracery, as at Rouen, Strasbourg, &c.,
ROOD-TOWER, a name given by some writers to the central tower, or that over the intersection of the nave and chancel with the transepts.
ROSE WINDOW (Fr. Rosace), a name given to a circular window with radiating tracery, called also wheel window.
ROUGHT CAST, a sort of external plastering in which small sharp stones are mixed, and which, when wet is forcibly thrown or cast from a trowel against the wall, to which it forms a coating of pleasing appearance. Some of the rough cast at St Albans is supposed tobe coeval with the building itself. This material was also much used in timber houses, and when well executed the work is sound and durable.
ROVING, anything following the line of a curve; thus the bowtell or torus going up the side of a bench end and round a finial is called a roving bowtell. (See BOWTELL).
RUBBLE WORK, a name applied to several species of masonry. One kind, where the stones are loosely thrown together in a wall between boards, and grouted with mortar almost like concrete, is called in Italian muraglia di getto, and in French blocage. Work executed with large stones put together without any attempt at courses, or random work, is also called rubble.
SACRISTY (Lat. Sacrarium, Dr. sacristie, Ital, sagrestia), a small chamber attached to churchec, where the chalices, vestments, books, &c., were kept by the officer called the sacristan. In the early Christian basilicas there were two semicircular recesses or apsides, one on each side of the altar. One of these served as a sacristy, and the other as the bibliotheca or library. Some have supposed the sacristy to have been the place where the vestments were kept, and the vestry that where the priests put them on; but we find from Durandus that the sacrarium was used for both these purposes. Sometimes the place where the altar stands enclosed by the rails has been called sacrarium.
SADDLE BARS (Fr, traverses), narrow horizontal iron bars passing from mullion to mullion, and often through the whole window from side to side, to steady the stone work, and to form stays, to which the lead work is secured. When the bays of the windows are wide, the lead lights are further strengthened by upright bars, passing through eyes forged on the saddle bars, and called stanchions (See STANCHION AND ARMATURE). When saddle bars pass right through the mullions in one piece, and are secured to the jambs, they have sometimes been called stay bars.
SANCTUS BELL-COT OR TURRET, a turret or enclosure to hold the small bell sounded at various parts of the service, particularly where the words :Santus," &c., are read. This differs but little from the common bell-cot, except that it is generally on the top of the arch dividing the nave from the chancel. At Cleeve, however, the bell seems to have been placed in a cot outside the wall. Sanctus bells have also been placed over the gables of porches. On the Continent they run up into a sort of small slender spire, called fleche in France, and guglio in Italy. (See BELL-COT.)
SCAPPLING, reducing a stone to a rough square by the axe or hammer; in Kent, the rag- stone masons call this nobbling.
SCOTIA (Gr. Shadow or darkness), a concave moulding most commonly used in bases, which projects a deep shadow on itself, and is thereby a most effective moulding under the eye, as in a base. It is like a reversed ovolo, or rather what the mould of an ovolo would present.
SCREEN, any construction subdividing one part of a building from another as a choir, chantry, chapel, &c. The earliest screens are the low marble podia, shutting off the chorus cantantium in the Roman basilicas, and the perforated cancelli enclosing the bema, altar, and seats of the bishops and presbyters. The chief screens in a church are those which enclosed the choir or the place where the breviary services are recited. This is done on the Continent, not only by doors and screen work, but also, when these are of openwork, by curtains, the laity having no part in these services. In England screens were of two kinds, one of open wood work, generally called rood-screens or jubes (which see), and which the French call grilles, cloture du choeur; the other, massive enclosures of stone work enriched with niches, tabernacles canopies, pinnacles, crestings, &c., as at Canterbury, York, Glourcester, and many other places both in England and abroad.
SCROLL, synonymous with VOLUTE, q.v. but commonly applied to ordinary purposes, whilst volute is generally restricted to the scrolls of the Ionic capital.
SCUTCHEON. (See ESCUTCHEON.)
SECTION, a drawing showing the internal heights of the various parts of a building. It supposes the building to be cut through entirely, so as to exhibit the walls, the heights of the internal doors and other apertures, the heights of the stories, thicknesses of the floors, &c. It is one of the species of drawing necessary to the exhibition of design, Q.V.
SEDILIA, seats used by the celebrants during the pauses in the mass. They are generally three in number, for the priest, deacon, and sub-deacon, and are in England almost always a species of niches cut into the south walls of churches, separated by shafts or by species of mullions, and ccrowned with canopies, pinnacles, and other enrichments more or less elaborate. The piscina and aumbry sometimes are attached to them. abroad, the sedilia are often movable seats: a single stone seat has rarely been found as at Lenham; but some have considered this to be a confessional chair, And others a frith-stole, or place to which criminals fled for sanctuary.
SEPULCHRE, EASTER, a recess in the wall of a church, generally in the north side, often ornamented with a canopy, finials, &c., for the crucifix to stand in during certain rites from Good Friday to Easter Day.
SET-OFF, the horizontal line shown where a wall is reduced in thickness, and consequently the part of the thicker portion appears projecting before the thinner. In plinths this is generally simply chamfered. In other parts of work the set-off is generally concealed by a projecting string. Where, as in parapets, the upper part projects before the lower, the break is generally hid by a crobek table. The portions of buttress caps which recede one behind another are also called sets-off.
SEVERE (Probably connected with the English word sever), anymain compartment or division of a building. (See BAY). The word has been supposed to be a corruption of Ciborium, as Gervase of Canterbury uses the word in this sense; but he probably alludes to the vaulted form of the upper part of groining of each severy. (See CIBORIUM).
SHAFT (Fr. Colonnette, Ital. colonnetto, Ger. Schaft,) in classical architecture that part of a column between the necking and the apophyge top of the base. In later times the term is applied to slender columns either standing alone or in connection with pillars, buttress, jambs, vaulting, &c.
SHED ROOF OR LEAN-TO, a roof with only one set of rafters, falling from a higher to a lower wall, like an aisle roof.
SHINGLE (Med. Lat. Scandula, scindula, Fr. Bardeau, essente, Ital. scandola, Ger. Schindel), a sort of wooden tile, generally of oak, used in places where timber is plentiful, for covering roofs, spires, &c. In England they are generally plain, but on the Continent the ends are sometimes rounded, pointed, or cut into ornamental form.
SHRINE (Med. Lat. Feretorium, scrinium, Fr. Chasse, ecrin, Ital. scrigno), a sort of ark or chest to hold relics. Sometimes they are merely small boxes, generally with raised tops like roofs; sometimes actual models of churches; sometimes large constructions like that at St Albans, that of Edward the Confessor at Wsetminster, of St Genevieve at Paris, &c. Many are covered with jewels in the richest way; that of San Carlo Borromeo, at Milan, is of beaten silver.
SILL OR SOLE (Lat. Solum, a threshold, whence the Fr. Seuil), the horizontal base of a door or window-frame. A technical distinction is made between the inner or wooden base of the window-frame and the stone base on which it rests, - the latter being called the sill of the window, and the former that of its frame. This term is not restricted to the bases of apertures; the lower horizontal part of a framed partition is called its sill. The term is sometimes incorrectly written cill.
SLEEPER (Fr. Dormant), a piece of timber laid on low cross walls as a plate to receive ground joists.
SLYPE, a name for the covered passage usually found in monasteries between the end of the transept and the chapter-house.
SOFFIT (Ital. soffita, a ceiling), the inverted horizontal face of anything, as, for example, of an entablature resting on and lying open between the columns or the underface of an arch where its thickness is seen.
SOLAR, SOLLER (Med. Lat. Solarium, Fr. Galetas, Ital. solaio) a room in some high situation, a loft or garret, also an elevated chamber in a church from which to watch the lamps burning before the altars.
SOLE. See SILL.
SOMMER (Fr. Sommier), a girder or main-beam of a floor; if supported on two story posts and open below, it is called a brace-summer.
SOUND BOARD (Fr. Abat-voix), the covering a pulpit to deflect the sound into a church. (See TESTER.)
SPAN, the width or opening of an arch between the walls, &c., from which it springs, also the width of a roof between the plates.
SPAN ROOF, a roof having two sides inclining to a center or ridge, in contradistinction to a SHED ROOF (which see).
SPANDRIL OR SPANDREL, the space between any arch or curved brace and the level label, beams, &c., over the same. The spandrels over doorways in Perpendicular works are generally richly decorated. At Magdalene College, Oxford, is one which is perforated , and has a most beautiful effect. The spandril of doors is sometimes ornamented in the Decorated period, but seldom forms part of the composition of the doorway itself, being generally over the label.
SPIRE (Fr. Aiguille, fleche, Ital. guglio, Ger. Spitze), a sharply-pointed pyramid or large pinnacle, generally octagonal in England, and forming a finish to the tops of towers. In this country, in Norman times, the only attempt at anything like a spire consisted in the termination of some turrets, as those at Rochester, at St Peters Oxford, &c.; but these are rather PINNACLES (which see) than spires. Later Norman spires are supposed to have been merely low pyramidal roofs. In the early English period they appear at first to have been low, as the remains of the one at Christ Church, Oxford, show; but afterwards they become much more lofty and sharply pointed. The probability is that the sight of the high domes and aspiring minarets of the Holy land had suggested the erection of these lofty monuments to the Crusaders. At this period the spires generally covered the whole tower top, and had haunchings where the square broke into the octagon. In the Decorated period the spires became still slendered and sharper;the broach spire gradually gave place to those rising at once in octagon form from the flat of the towers surrounded with parapets, often richly perforated, and with pinnacles at the angles. The spires themselves often are decorated with ball-flowers and crockets, and sometimes have broad horizontal bands of tracery at intervals. In both these styles spirelights or lucarnes are common. Perpendicular spires partake also of most these characteristics, except that they scarcely furnish an example of a broach spire. It is remarkable with how little material some of the loftiest spires have been erected, that at Salisbury being barely 9 inches thick for a great part of its height. On the Continent the spire seems to have been used earlier than with us. That at Brantome is amere low pyramid. At Saintes it is a low carved cone, with something of domical character. At Roullet it is a sharp ciorculators with four open pinnacles at the base. At Isomes it is octagonal, and as sharp asmany of our Early English spires. In all these examples the windows below are semicircular. Timber spires are very common in England. Some are covered with lead in flat sheets, others with the same metal in narrow stripes laid diagonally. Very many are covered with shingles. Abroad there are some elegant examples of spires of open timber work covered with lead.
SPIRE-LIGHTS, See LUCARNE.
SPRINGER, the stone from which an arch springs; in some cases this is a capital, or impost, in other cases the moulding continue down the pier. The lowest stone of the gable is sometimes called a springer.
SPUR, SPERVER. The word spur is often applied to the carved wooden brackets or hanses which support the penthouse of a door, the level lpart being called a sperver.
SQUINCHES, small arches or corbelled sets-off running diagonally, and, as it were, cutting off the corners of the interior of towers, to bring them from the square to the octagon, &c., to carry a spire. (See PENDENTIVE.)
SQUINT, an oblique opening, often a mere narrow, square-headed slit, piercing the walls of the chancel arch, and evidently intended to afford a view of the high altar. Squints are often without any ornament, but are sometimes arched and occasionally enriched with open tracery. Sometimes they look from the rooms over porches, sometimes from side chapels, but in every instance are so situated that the altar may be seen. The most probable use of them was to let the acolyte appointed to ring the sanctus bell see the performance of mass, and enable him to sound the bell at the roper time.
STAGE, an elevated floor, particularly the various stories of a bell-tower, &c. The term is also applied to the plain parts of buttresses between cap and cap where they set back, or where they are divided by horizontal strings and paneling. It is used, too, by William of Worcester to describe the compartments of windows between transom and transom, in contradistinction to the word bay, which signifies a division between mullion and mullion. (See STORY.)
STALL, a fixed seat in the choir for the one of the clergy. In early Christian times the thronus, cathedra, or seat of the bishop, was in the center of the apsis or bema behind the altar, and against the wall; those of the presbyters also were against the wall, branching off from side to side round the semicircle. In later times the stalls occupied both sides of the choir, return seats being placed at the ends for the prior, dean, precentor, chancellor, or other officers. The seats are very peculiar. (See MISERERE.) In general, in cathedrals, each stall is surmounted by tabernacle work, and rich canopies generally of oak, of which those at Winchester, Henry VII.s Chapel, and Machester, may be quoted as fine instances. (See TABERNACCLE, CANOPY). The word is sometimes used to express any chief sets, as in a dining hall.
STANGHION, a word derived from the French etancon, a wooden post, and applied to the upright iron bars which pass through the eyes of the saddlebars or horizontal irons to steady the lead lights. The French call the latter traverses, the stanchions montans, and the whole arrangement armature. Stanchions montans, and the whole arrangement armature. Stanchions frequently finish with ornamental heads forged out of the iron
STAY BARS, saddle bars passing through the mullions in one length across the whole window, and secured to the jambs on each side. (See SADDLE BAR.)
STEEPLE (Fr. Clocher, Ital. campanile, Ger. Glockenthurm), a general name for the whole arrangement of TOWER, BELFRY, SPIRE, &c. (See under those headings.)
STELE (Gr. Lat. Cippus, a small monument), the ornament on the ridge of a Greek temple, answering to he antefixae on the summit of the flank entablatures.
STEREOBATE (Gr. Solid, and a base), a basement, distinguished from the nearly equivalent term STYLOBATE, q.v. by the absence of columns.
STILTED, anything raised above its usual level.
STAO (Gr., a portico), the Greek equivalent for the Latin PORTICUS, and the Italo-English PORTICO, q.v.
STORY (Lat. Tabulatum, Fr. Etage, Ital. piano, Ger. Geschoss). When a house has rooms one over the other, each set of chambers divided horizontally by the floors is called a story. they are thus named in the different languages:-
== TABLE ==
STOUP (Fr. Benitier), a vessel placed close to the entrance of a church to contain the holy water. they are generally small bowls fixed against a column, or on a stem. In the north of Italy they are larger, and often carried on the back of a lion, and sometimes they are elegant tazze of exquisite workmanship.
STRIG OR STRING-COURSE, a narrow, vertically-faced, and slightly projecting course in an elevation. If window-sills are made continuous they form a string course; but if this course is made thicker or deeper than ordinary window-sills, or covers asset-off in the wall, it becomes blocking-course.
STRING-COURSES, horizontal mouldings running under windows, separating the walls from the plain part of the parapets, dividing towers into stories or stages, &c. Their section is much the same as the labels of the respective periods; in fact, these last, after passing round the windows, frequently run on horizontally and form strings. Like labels they are often decorated with foliages, ball-flowers, &c.
STRIP PILASTER, a very narrow pilaster.
STUDS, an old name for upright quarters or posts; thus door-studs are door-posts or jambs.
STYLE (Gr. A column). The term style in architecture has obtained a conventional meaning beyond its simpler one, which applies only to columns and columnar arrangements. It is now used to signify the differences in the mouldings, general outlines, ornaments, and other details which exist between the works of various nations, and also those differences which are found to exist between the works of any one nation at different times.
STYLOBATE (Gr. A column, and a base), a basement to columns (See STEREOBATE.)
Stylobate is synonymous with pedestal, but is applied to a continued and unbroken substructure or basement to columns, while the latter term is confined to insulated supports.
SURBASE (Lat. Super, whence the Fr. Sur, above or upon, and BASE, (q.v.), an upper base is the term applied to what, in the fittings of a room, is familiarly called the chair-rail. It is also used to distinguish the cornice of a pedestal or stereobate, and is separated from the base by the dado or die.
SYSTYLE (Gr. Together with, and a column), having columns rather thickly set,-an intercolumniation to which two diameters are assigned. (See EUSTYLE.)
TABERNACLE, a species of niche or recess in which an image may be placed. In Norman work there are but few remains, and these generally over doorways. They are shallow and comparatively plain, and the figures are often only in low relief, and not detached statues. In early English work they are deeper, ad instead of simple arches there is often a canopy over the figure, which was placed on a small low pedestal. Later in the style the heads of the tabernacles became cusped, either as trefoils or cinquefoils, and they are often placed in pairs, side by side, or in ranges, as at Wells Cathedral. Decorated tabernacles are still deeper and more ornamented, the headsaresometimes richly cusped and surmounted with crocketed gables, as at York, or with projecting moiunted with crocketed gables, as at York, or with projecting canopies, very much like the arcade at Lichfield. In this case the under side of the canopy is carved to imitate groin ribs, and the figures stand either on high pedestals, or on corbels. Perpendicular tabernacles posses much the same features, but the work is generally more elaborate; the figures generally stand on rich pedestals, but sometimes on corbels, and the canopies generally project, sometimes in a triangular form, and sometimes with a sort of domical top. (See CORBEL, CANOPY, NICHE, &C.) The word tabernacle is also often used for the receptacle for relics, which was often made in the form of a small house or church. (See SHRINE)
TABERNACLE-WORK. The rich ornamental tracery forming the canopy, &c., to a tabernacle is called tabernacle-work; it is common in the stalls and screens of cathedrals, and in them is generally open or pierced through.
TABLE, TABLET, a name for various mouldings as string-courses, cornices, &c.
TERMINAL, figures of which the upper parts only, or perhaps the head an shoulders alone, are carved, the rest running into a parallelopiped, and sometimes into a diminishing pedestal with feet indicated below, or even without them, are called terminal figures.
TESSELLATED PAVEMENT, those formed of tesseroe, or small cubes from half an inch to an inch square like dice, of potterly, stone marble, enamel &c. (See MOSAIC.)
TESER, anything placed horizontally over the head, as the soundboard of a pulpit, the flat boards over an old-fashioned bed, &c.
TETRASTOON (Gr. Four, and a portico). An atrium or rectangular court-yard, having a colonnade or projected orthostyle on every side is called a tetrastoon.
TETRASTYLE (Gr. Four, and a column), a portico of four columns in front.
THOLOBATE (Gr. A dome or cupola,m and a base or substructure), that on which a dome or cupola rests. This is a term not in general use, but it is not the less of useful application. What is generally termed the attic above the peristyle and under the cupola of St Pauls would be correctly designated the tholobate. A tholobate of a different description, and one to which no other name can well be applied, is the circular substructure to the cupola of the University College, London.
THROUGH CARVING, a term supposed to signify such as is much undercut, as the Tendrils, stalks, &c., in Decorated and the vignettes in Perpendicular work. In the Durham roll it clearly means perforated work, as it is "to giue ayre."
TILES ROOF (Lat. Tegula, imbrex, Fr. Tuile, Ital. tegola), flat pieces of clay burned in Kilns, to cover roofs in place of slates or lead. In England, in mediaeval times the flat or plane tile seems only to have been used, judging from what we find now left. From MS. and remains abroad, a kind of plane tile, with ornamented ends, forming a sort of scale covering, seems to have been ion vogue.
TORUS (Lat.), a protuberance or swelling, a molding whose form is convex, and generally nearly approaches semicircles. It is most frequently used in bases, and is generally the lowest molding in a base.
TOWER (Gr. Lat. Turnis, Fr. Tour, clocher, Ital. torre, Ger. Thurm), an elevated building originally designed for purpose of defense. Those buildings are of the remotest antiquity, and are, indeed, mentioned the earliest Scriptures. In mediaeval times they are generally attached to churches, to cemeteries, to castles, or are used as bell-towers in public places of large cities. In churches, the towers of the Saxon period are generally square, the only round example being supposed to be that of Tasburgh. They are not very lofty, and are of strong, rude workmanship. Two only, Brigstock and Brixworth, have staircases supposed to be original; both these are on the west front of the tower. The masonry partakes of the usual character attributed to Saxon work, as strip pilasters, long and short work, &c. The upper windows are generally circular-headed in two lights, separated by a shaft much resembling a turned baluster sometimes with heavy projecting caps. Norman towers are also generally square. Many are entirely without buttresses; others have broad, flat, shallow projections, which serve for this purpose. The lower windows are very narrow, with extremely wide splays inside, probably intended to be defended by archers. The upper windows, like those of the preceding style, are generally separated into two lights, but by a shaft or short column, and not by a baluster. Sometimes these towers have arcades round them, and are ornamented, as at St Albans, in some cases very richly, as At Norwich, Winchester, Twekesbury, Southwell, Sandwich, &c. They frequently have stone staircases at one of the angles. In many of our churches the Norman tower is placed between the chancel and nave, and is of the full width of the latter. For the covering of these towers abroad, see
SPIRE, PINNACLE, and PARAPET. A few round towers of this period (and also of the next) are found on the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk as these mostly have no external doors, and are accessible only from the church, and as some have chimneys, they are supposed to have been built as places of refuge in case of invasion. Early English towers are generally taller, and of more elegant proportions. They almost always have large projecting buttresses and frequently stone staircases. The lower windows, as in the former style, are frequently mere arrow-slits; the upper are in couplets or triplets, and sometimes the tower top has an arcade all round, as at Middleton Stoney. The spires are generally BROPACH
SPIRES (which see); but sometimes the tower tops finish with corbel courses and plain parapets, and (rarely) with pinnacles. Some of the towers and spires, particularly in the midland counties, are richly ornamented; a very good specimen is at Raunds. A few Early English towers break into the octagon form the square towards the top, and still fewer finish with two gables, as at Brookthorpe and Ickford. Both these methods of termination, however, are common on the Continent. At Vendome, Chartres, and Senlis, the towers have octagonal upper stages surrounded with pinnacles, from which elegant spires arise. Decorated towers differ but little from these last, except that they are often lighter in effect; \ the buttresses, too, are set angularly ; the parapets are also fre-quently embattled, or perforated in elegant designs, and these generally have pinnacles. The spires, also, now generally arise at onee from the octagon, and are not broach spires ; those that are of this latter character have the haunchings much smaller. There is a fine example of a Decorated tower and spire at Ellington, in Huntingdonshire. Most Perpendicular towers are very fine, particularly the great central towers, as at Canterbury and Gloucester. They are generally richly panelled throughout; the buttresses project boldly, and are sometimes set anglewise, and sometimes square, not close to each other, but showing a small portion of the angle of the tower where they otherwise would have intersected. The pinnacles are often richly canopied and the battlements panelled, and often perforated ; sometimes a pinnacle, and sometimes a oanopied niche, is placed in the middle of the parapet. At Boston, and in several other places, there are fine lanterns at the tops of the towers. Taunton, Evesham, Louth, Magdalene College, Oxford, and very many other places, have very fine Perpendicular towers. In the north of Italy, and in Home, they are generally tall, square shafts in four to six stages, without buttresses, with couplets or triplets of semicircular windows in each stage, generally crenellated at top, and covered with a low pyramidal roof. The well-known hanging tower at Pisa is cylindrical, in five stories of arcaded colonnades. In Ireland there are in some of the churchyards very curious round towers.
TRACERY, the ornamental filling in of the heads of windows, panels, circular windows, &c, which has given such characteristic beauty to the architecture of the 14th century. like almost everything connected with medieval architecture, this elegant and some-times fairy-like decoration seems to have sprung from the smallest beginnings. The circular-headed window of the Normans gradually gave way to the narrow-pointed lancets of the Early English period, and as less light was afforded by the latter system than by the former, it was necessary to have a greater number of windows ; and it was found convenient to group them together in couplets, triplets, &c. When these couplets were assembled under one label, a sort of vacant space or spandril was formed over the lancets and under the label. To relieve this, the first attempts were simply to perforate this flat spandril, first by a simple lozenge-shaped or circular opening, and afterwards by a quatrefoil. By piercing the whole of the vacant spaces in the window head, carrying mouldings round the tracery, and adding cusps to it, the formation of tracery was complete, and its earliest result was the beautiful geometrical work such as is found at West-minster Abbey. When this style had reached perfection the usual decline followed; and the architects of the Decorated period designed tracery, beautiful in itself, but which want* the vigour of the geometrical, and appears more as if the stonework had been twisted than if it had been cut out of the solid. Nevertheless, however fanciful the design may be, the whole element is really geometricalthat is, it is formed of portions of circles, the centres of which fall on the intersections of certain geometrical figures. The great east window at Carlisle is composed of 86 distinct pieces of stone, and is struck from 263 centres ; and the glorious west window at York is probably produced from a still greater number. Probably as a reaction against the weakness of the Decorated, the flowing tracery gradually admitted upright straight lines into its element. This change was perhaps made to afford, as it were, rectilineal frames to suit the glass painter, the foliages and medallions of the preceding styles having given way to single figures, standing on pedestals under rich canopies. Be this as it may, these have given a name to the style of the 15th and 16th centuries. The mullions then, as at King's College Chapel, at St John's, Oxford, and in several other examples, had more flow, and fewer perpendicular lines, till at last plain, upright, and transverse bars took their place, and held casement lights, which were at last superseded by our modern sash windows. On the Continent, the windows of the first period, or ogivale primitive, were very much like our own Early English. So in like manner those of the early part of the ogivale secondaire were very much like our own Geometrical Decorated. Later, however, in France and Germany, two styles prevaued, the Rayonnant and Flamboyant, the one having tracery assuming the character of stars or rays, and after this another coeval with our Perpendicular, resembling flames of fire.
TRACHELIUM (Gr. Tpdxn\os, the neck). In Doric and Ionic columns there is generally a short space intervening between the hypotra-chelium and the mass of the capital, which may be called the trachelium or neck.
TRANSEPT (Med. Lat. crux, Fr. transept, ltal. crociata, Ger. Kreuz-gang), that portion of a church which passes transversely between the nave and. choir at right angles, and so forms a cross on plan.
TRANSOM (Fr. traverse, ltal. traversa, Ger. Querballcen), the horizontal construction which divides a window into heights or stages. Transoms are sometimes simple pieces of mullions placed transversely as cross-bars, and in later times are richly decorated with cuspings, &c.
TRAYLE. See VIGNETTE.
TREFOIL (Lat. trifolium), a cusping, the outline of which is derived from a three-leaved flower or leaf, as the quatrefoil and cinque/oil are from those with four and five.
TRIEORITJM, the arcaded story between the lower range of piers and arches and the clerestory. The name has been supposed to be derived from tres and foresthree doors or openingsthat being a frequent number of arches in each bay. Professor Willis, however, believed that the word is to be traced to a monkish latinisation of "thoroughfare."
TRIGLYPH (Gr. rpets, three, and ykv<fyfi, an incision or carving). The vertically channelled tablets of the Doric frieze are called triglyphs, because of the three angular channels in them, two perfect and one divided,the two chamfered angles or hemi-glyphs being reckoned as one. The square sunk spaces between the triglyphs on a frieze are called metopes.
TUDOR FLOWER, or CRESTING, an ornament much used in the Tudor period on the tops of the cornices of screen work, &c, instead of battlements. It is a sort of stiff, flat, upright leaf standing on stems.
TURRET (Fr. tourelle), a small tower, especially at the angles of larger buildings, sometimes overhanging and built on corbels, and sometimes rising from the ground.
TYMPANUM (Gr. TVynravov), the triangular recessed space enclosed by the cornice which bounds a pediment. The Greeks often placed sculptures representing subjects connected with the pur-poses of the edifice in the tympana of temples, as at the Parthenon and Aegina.
UNDER-CROFT, a vaulted chamber under ground.
VALURE, VAMURE. See ALURE.
VANE (Fr. girouette, ltal. banderuola, Ger. Wetterfahnt), the weathercock on a steeple. They seem in early times to have been of various forms, as dragons, &c. ; but in the Tudor period, the favourite design was a beast or bird sitting on a slender pedestal, and carrying an upright rod, on which a thin plate of metal is hung like a flag, ornamented in various ways.
VAULT (from ltal. voltato, turned over), an arched ceiling or roof. A vault is, indeed, a laterally conjoined series of arches. The arch of a bridge is, strictly speaking, a vault. Intersecting vaults are said to be groined. (See GROINED VAULTING.)
VAULTING SHAFT, a small column or series of clustered shafts, rising from above the capitals of the pillars of an arcade, and generally supported on a corbel, and thence rising and finishing with a capital, from which the various groin ribs spring.
VERGE, the edge of the tiling projecting over the gable of a roof; that on the horizontal portion being called eaves.
VERGE BOARD, often corrupted into Barge Board, the board under the verge of gables, sometimes moulded, and often very richly carved, perforated, and cusped, and frequently having pendents and sometimes finials at the apex.
VESICA PISOIS (Fr. amande mystique), panels, windows, and other ornaments of the form of a species of oval with pointed end, but in reality struck from two centres, and forming part of two circles cutting each other.
VESTRY. See SACRISTY.
VIGNETTE, a running ornament, representing, as its name imports, a little vine, with branches, leaves, and grapes. It is common in the Tudor period, and runs or roves in a large hollow or case-ment. It is also called Trayle.
VOLUTE (Lat. volutum, from volvo, to roll up or over), the convolved or spiral ornament which forms the characteristic of the Ionic capital. The common English term is SCROLL, q.v. Volute, scroll, helix, and cauliculus, are used indifferently for the angular horns of the Corinthian capital.
VOUSSOIR, a name in common use for the various wedge-shaped stones of an arch.
WAGGON-CEILING, a boarded roof of the Tudor time, either of semicircular or polygonal section. It is boarded with thin oak, and ornamented with mouldings forming panels, and with loops at the intersections. (See PANEL.)
WARD, a name for the inner courts of a fortified place. At Windsor Castle they are called the upper and lower wards. (See BAILEY, BASE COURT, ENCEINTE, &C.)
WEATHERING, a slight fall on the top of cornices, window sills, &c, to throw off the rain.
WICKET (Fr. guichet, ltal. portello), a small door opening in a larger. They are common in medieval doors, and were intended to admit single persons, and guard against sudden surprises.
WIND BRACES, diagonal braces to tie the rafters of a roof together and prevent racking. In the better sort of medieval roofs they are arched, and run from the principal rafters to catch the purlins.
ZOOPHORUS (Gr. (uov, an animal, and <pepa, to bear). This term is used in the same sense as frieze, and is so called because that part of the entablature frequently bore sculptures representing various animals.
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