THE EARLY AND CLASSIC GOTHIC STYLE C. 115O-C. I25O
from the end of the I2th century onwards. Early Gothic changed into
High Gothic. Chartres was rebuilt after a fire in 1194 (fig. 29). The new
choir and nave at last do away with the sex-partite vault and return
to vaults with only diagonal ribs. But whereas the Romanesque rib-
vaults were placed over square or squarish bays, the bays now are
roughly half that depth. The speed of the eastward drive is thereby
at once doubled. The piers remain circular, but they have on each
side a circular attached shaft. Towards the nave this shaft reaches
right up to where the vault starts (as the shafts of Winchester and
Normandy had already done). So the isolation of the circular column
is overcome. Nothing at arcade level stops the vertical push. And
the wide and tall gallery has disappeared. There is now only a low
triforium, dividing the tall arcades from the tall clerestory windows.
These innovations constitute the High Gothic style. The plan is less
radical than that of Paris, but has the transept also mid-way between
the west front and the choir end.
Once Chartres had introduced the new type of piers, the three-
storied elevation and the simplified vaulting, Rheims, Amiens and
Beauvais did nothing more than perfect it and carry it to the boldest
and most thrilling extremes (figs. 30 and 31). As in the plans so in the
interiors a balance is achieved no doubt but not the happy, seemingly
effortless and indestructible balance of the Greeks. High Gothic
balance is a balance of two equally vehement drives towards two
opposite directions. One's first impression is of breathtaking height.
In Durham the relation between width and height of nave had been
i: 2-3, in Chartres 1:2-6, in Paris 1: 2*75. In Amiens it has become
1:3, and in Beauvais 1: 3*4. The absolute height in Durham had been
approximately 80 feet. In Paris it is 115 feet, in Rheims 125, in Amiens
140 and in Beauvais 157. The drive upward is just as forcible as, or,
owing to the slenderness of all members, even more forcible than was
the drive eastward in Early Christian churches. And the eastward drive
has not by any means slackened either. The narrowness of the arcades
and the uniform shape of the piers do not seem to call for even a
momentary change of direction. They accompany one on one's way,
as closely set and as rapidly appearing and disappearing as telegraph
poles along a railway line. There is not time at first to stop and ad-
mire them. Yet in pressing forward, the transept halts us and diverts
our eyes to the right and left. Here we stop, here we endeavour for
the first time .to take in the whole. In an Early Christian church
nothing of this kind was provided, in a Romanesque church so
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