In England, the characteristics of what came to be known as English Gothic architecture and design is best illustrated by the Cathedral of Salisbury, built between 1220 and 1260 a.D. In order for this building to appeal to the citizens, the architects decided to construct it in a park, surrounded by verdant lawns and great stately trees. Unlike cathedrals and churches in France, this building does not reach high into the sky and makes little use of what are called flying buttresses or "inclined supports set in a series of arches which help to maintain the stability of the outer walls" (Saalman, 176). Certainly, the Lady Chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary is composed of unattached shafts of Purbeck marble which "seem to tether the billowing Gothic vaults high overhead rather than support them" (Saalman, 177). Not to far from this enormous chapel, one can find a single, huge window divided into horizontal tiers of transom windows which help to illuminate the whole interior.
Overall, this beautiful building must have been a very popular gathering place for worshippers from all levels of English society, even the English peasantry who usually lived in mud huts or cheaply-constructed wooden houses and could find some form of sanctuary within the walls of Salisbury away from all the poverty and starvation that characterized the typical Medieval village or town.
In Germany, the Church of St. Elizabeth at Marburg, built between...
Another building known as the Cathedral at Naumberg, constructed between circa 1250 and 1260 a.D., contains statues of two nobles (a husband and wife) who in earlier times served as patrons of the church. As Charles McClendon so astutely reminds us, these two figures, the male being "blunt and teutonic" and the female being "graceful, soft and delicate," serve as an "arresting image of Medieval people -- a feudal baron and his handsome wife -- as they may have well appeared in real life" (213). Thus, the presence of these figures made it clear to all worshippers that even the nobility were under the domination of God and the church and that despite their high social standing, they too must deal with God's commands and be confronted with physical as well as spiritual suffering.
Bibliography
Borg, Victor P. "Architecture." Internet. 2001. Retrieved at http://www.victorborg.com / html/architecture_essay.html.
McClendon, Charles. The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, AD 600-900.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
Saalman, Howard. Medieval Architecture. New York: George Braziller, 1986.
