THE LATE GOTHIC STYLE IN FRANCE

which they would otherwise lack. However even they, looked at in
detail, appear with their hard lines of rafters, purlins and braces
sinewy, sharp and angular—as English in fact as the ribs of
Gloucester choir and the decoration of Earl's Barton tower—directly ,
one compares them with contemporary work in France, Germany
or Spain and Portugal.

For even in France the I5th century had brought a belated accep-
tance of the principles which in England had been incorporated in
the Decorated style. Flamboyant is the French term for their Late

40. ROUEN: ST. WCACLOU, BEGUN 1434.

Gothic, and some of the most enchanting examples of it are to be
found in Normandy, for instance the main portal, the library court
and the Tour de Beurre of Rouen Cathedral, and—in a spatially
more interesting way—the church of St. Maclou at Rouen, begun
in 1434 (fig. 4o)T.
As for Spain, the briefest comparison between an English parish
church or even King's College Chapel and, say, the decoration of the
front of the church of St. Paul's at VaUadolid (begun shortly after
1486, probably by Simon of Cologne; pl.XLni) is sufficient to realise
the contrast between English restraint and Spanish extremism. Substi-
tute the St. Lawrence portal of Strassburg Cathedral (pi. XLV) for
VaUadolid, and you would see Anglo-German contrasts as glaringly.
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