Beyond Antiquity: Medieval Architecture 400-1400

Aisle

The space between columns of the nave and the side wall.

Altar

Elevated table-like structure located in the choir at the east end of the church, where religious rites are performed.

Ambulatory

Passageways surrounding the central part of the choir, which is often a continuation of the side aisles. The most common design of the Gothic era was the double ambulatory surrounded by semi-circular radiating chapels such as at the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis.

Apse

Semi-circular vaulted structure at the east end of the church at the termination of the choir.

Arcade

An arch or a series of arches supported by piers or columns.

Arch

Curved masonry construction that spans an opening such as a portal or window. Pointed arches were a feature of the Gothic era, which evolved from the round Romanesque arches.

Architrave

the lowest division of an entablature resting in classical architecture immediately on the capital of the column.

Archivolt

A series of decorated, recessed arches spanning an opening such as a portal.

Baldachin

ornamental canopy covering statues.

Balustrade

A railing with symmetrical supports.

Base

The blocks between a shaft of a column and its plinth.

Bay

A major vertical division of a large, interior wall. There is usually more than one, such as a nave that is divided into seven bays.

Buttress/Abutment System

A projecting or free-standing support built into or against the exterior wall of a cathedral, which steadies the structure by opposing the lateral thrusts from the vaults. The appearance of double span flying buttresses first occurred at Saint-Denis.

Canopy

A decorated rooflike projection or a richly decorated baldachin over a statue.

Capital

Architectural element that surmounts a column or any other vertical support.

Chancel

Space around the altar of a church that is usually intended for the clergy. From the Latin cancellus for ‘railing’

Chevet

Apse built as radiating chapels outside of the choir aisle, and the resulting, more complicated structure became known as the chevet at the beginning of the thirteenth century.

Choir

Part of the church east of the crossing, usually occupied by the priests and singers of the choir. From the Latin chorus for ‘a group of singers’.

Classical order

The Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite architectural order.

Clerestory

Windowed area of the church above the side aisles and above the wall of the central part of the nave.

Colonnade

A series of columns supporting either arches or an entablature, and usually one side of a roof. These were common architectural features of Early Roman churches.

Colonette

Small, thin column, often used for decoration or to support an arcade.

Column

Slender vertical support having either a cylindrical or polygonal shaft, and always having (a base) and a capital.

Corbel

A load-bearing projection or cantilever projecting from the wall, usually serving as a supporting element on which other components are placed.

Cornice

The moulded and projecting horizontal member that crowns an architectural composition

Crossing

Space where the transept intersects with the nave along the main axis of the church.

Crypt

Low room underneath the choir of the church used as a sepulchral vault. From the Greek kryptós meaning ‘hidden’.

Dome

An evenly curved vault.

Embrasure

An opening in a thick wall for a portal or window, especially one with angled sides, so that the opening is larger on the inside than the outside. From the Old French embraser for ‘to cut at a slant’.

Entablature

a horizontal part in classical architecture that rests on the columns and consists of architrave, frieze, and cornice.

Entasis

A surfaces' convex curve that speaks to aesthetic considerations (as e.g. applied to columns).

Façade

The front of the cathedral. During the Gothic era, the west façade at the entranceway was noted for its three sculptured portals, and crowning rose window flanked by two towers. Starting with Saint-Denis, this became a feature of Gothic cathedrals.

Finial

Small ornament located on top of a pinnacle or gable.

Foil

Circular segments combined concentrically with other foils to form the tracery used in rose windows. The foil is usually used in groups such as trefoil or quatrefoil.

Foliated frieze

A panel decorated with carved foliage or leaves, found below the upper moulding or cornice of a wall, and sometimes spanning the whole interior of the church.

Gable

Triangular portion of a wall fronting the enclosing lines of a sloping roof, which often contains sculptures.

Gablet

Gable-shaped motif above portals and windows, often containing tracery decorations and usually provided with pinnacles and finials.

Gallery

Covered corridor in an upper story overlooking the nave of chancel.

Gallery of Kings

Statues of kings in sequence, located either under baldachins (ornamental canopies) or encircling the base of the towers of the west façade of Gothic cathedrals.

Gargoyles

A water sprout terminating in a grotesquely carved figure of a human or animal, and projecting from the gutter of a church or secular building.

Iconographic scheme/program

The specific arrangement of images in any medium (sculptures, painting, stained glass) which symbolically represent a religious event or saint's life on the sculptured portals of Gothic cathedrals.

Impost

Slab above a column capital at the point of the spring of an arch.

Jamb

One of a pair of vertical posts or pieces that together form the sides of a portal, which often contains sculptures. The individual columns can also be referred to as jambshafts, which often support an arch or vault. From the Old French jambe for ‘pier’ or ‘sidepost of a door’.

Keystone

Stone in the form of wedge forming the central element of a lintel, vault, or arch. Pendant keystones are found at the intersection of ribbed vaults. Originally from the Latin clavis for ‘key’.

Lancet window

A narrow window with sharp pointed arches. Starting with Amiens, lancets were often subdivided into two and topped by a smaller rose window. Prior to this, lancets were typically surmounted by an oculus or round opening.

Lintel

Horizontal architectural member in wood or stone that supports the weight above an opening.

Martyrium

An edifice built over the site of a tomb of a martyr frequently became the site of cathedrals.

Moulding

Long narrow, often decorated band found on architectural features such as cornices or bases.

Mullion

The vertical dividing bar of a rose or lancet window.

Narthex

eginning with Early Christian architecture, this was the gallery, vestibule, or porch located in the main (west) entrance of the church.

Nave

The middle aisle or multiple main aisled part of a church extending from the narthex or main entrance to the choir. The congregation usually sits here.

Oculus

A small circular opening, and which was a precursor of the Gothic rose window.

Pendentive

A curving surface that links a dome to the supporting square space.

Pediment

Triangular gable above the entablature.

Pier

A masonry support between openings such as arcades. Typically slender, the pier has a rectangular, polygonal, or round cross-section, but does not taper and often has no capital. The pier may also have a base as well as an impost. A compound pier is a pier with two or more members or support elements.

Pillar

A support which does not taper, has an impost, and does not need to be cylindrical as is the case with a column. The shaft consists of either rectangular, octagonal, circular, or cruciform blocks and may have a capital.

Pinnacle

Small narrow pointed tower capping buttresses and openwork gablets or portals and galleries.

Pointed arch

Arches with two curved sides that meet to form a point in the apex.

Portal

The door or entrance of a cathedral.

Portico

A gallery which opens onto the exterior of the church and is supported by columns. From the Latin porticus for ‘arcade’ or ‘gallery’.

Post-and-lintel construction

Horizontal beams (lintel) supported by posts.

Quatrefoil

Decorative framework consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four interconnected circle segments of the same diameter. The term quatrefoil means ‘four leaves’, from Latin quattuor, four, plus folium, ‘leaf’.

Quincunx

A geometric pattern consisting of five points arranged in a cross shape, which is an important ground plan for Byzantine churches as a quincunx plan.

Radiating (Apsidal) chapels

Series of chapels arranged around an ambulatory in the apse of a cathedral.

Rib vault

A web of arch like structures supporting a ceiling/roof.

Rood loft/Jubé

A stone or wooden partition with a platform on top, which separates the choir of the church where the clergy sits from the nave where the congregation is.

Rood screen

Occasionally a stone but usually a transparent wooden screen separating the choir from the nave.

Rose window

A large round window on the west façade or transept, containing tracery that became more elaborate as the Gothic era progressed. Beautiful examples occur at Notre-Dame in Paris and Chartres.

Socle

Architectural term referring to the lower panels of a portal, often located under the jamb figures. The reliefs were often quatrefoil, and typically portrayed such pagan themes as the Signs of the Zodiac and the Virtues and Vices.

Span

The distance bridged between to supports such as columns or walls.

Spire

A sharply pointed pyramidal structure surmounting a tower.

Spandrel

An area between two adjoining arches, often decorated.

Squinche

An angular niche-shaped vault spandrel with downward opening, which transitions a building form with a square ground plan into an octagonal and ultimately circular one.

Stained glass

coloured glass used for e.g. windows.

Tabernacle

A canopied niche holding a sculpted figure, such as the rendering of saints and angels on the façade and transept of Reims cathedral.

Tracery

Geometrically constructed building ornament such as a foil found in the upper part of Gothic rose windows. This type of stonework decoration became more complex during the High Gothic and Flamboyant phase.

Transept

Any major transverse part of the church, usually crossing the nave and at right angles with the entrance of the choir. The transept may be divided into areas of different height.

Triforium

Space or passage above the nave arcade, below the clerestory, and extending over the ceiling or vaults of the side aisle. A blind triforium does not contain a passageway and blind arches are placed in front of the wall such as at Amiens. A false triforium has arcades which open to the roof. A pierced triforium contains windows in the outer walls of the passageway.

Trumeau

Stone pillar or column supporting the tympanum of a portal at its centre.

Tympanum

A triangular space between an arch and the horizontal bar of a portal or window (lintel), often decorated with sculpture.

Vaulting

A curved, self-supporting wall or ceiling that covers a space between two walls and rests on pillars. Romanesque antecedents of the Gothic ribbed vault are the barrel vault and the groined vault. The ribbed vault is composed of diagonally arched ribs and can be classified as tri-partite, quatri- partite (fig.5, D), or sexpartite. Sexpartite vaults have an additional transversal rib in the centre of the bay.

Voussoir

Any of the pieces, in the shape of a truncated wedge, that make up an arch or a vault.

Wimperg

A gable-like crowning over portals and windows.

Fieldstone

Rough building stone gathered from river beds and fields.

Ashlar

Carefully cut and regularly shaped blocks of stone used in construction, fitted together without mortar.

Brickwork

Brick construction, esp. The art of bonding bricks effectively.

Clinker brick

Bricks adjacent to the fire - changes colour because of heat.

Plaster

Paste that hardens to a smooth solid and is used for coating walls.

Axonometry

Using or designating an orthographic projection of an object, such as a building, on a plane inclined to each of the three principal axes of the object; three-dimensional but without perspective.

Floorplan

The diagram showing the placement of the scenery as viewed from above.

Alternation of supports

A system of supports for an arcade or colonnade in which there are two different types of support. The alternation may be quite obvious, between one pier (strong support) and one column (weak support), or it may exist only in slight differences, such as in the shafting on each pier.

Compound pier

A pier with a group, or cluster, of attached shafts, or responds, especially characteristic of Gothic architecture.

Basilica

In Roman architecture, a civic building for legal and other civic proceedings, rectangular in plan with an entrance usually on a long side. In Christian architecture, a church somewhat resembling the Roman basilica, usually entered from one end and with an apse at the other.

Hal church

A hall church is a church with nave and side aisles of approximately equal height, often united under a single immense roof.

Aisleless church

An aisleless church is a single-nave church building that consists of a single hall-like room. While similar to the hall church, the aisleless church lacks aisles or passageways on either side of the nave and separated from the nave by colonnades or arcades, a row of pillars or columns.

Elevation

An elevation is a view of a building seen from one side, a flat representation of one façade. This is the most common view used to describe the external appearance of a building

Lantern

A small structure with openings for light that crowns a dome.

Squinch

The polygonal base of a dome makes a transition from the round dome to a flat wall.

Barell vault

Also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are typically circular in shape, lending a semi-cylindrical appearance to the total design.

Groin vault

Formed at the point at which 2 barrel vaults intersect at right angles