320 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 



GOTHS 



more important of these will he treated separately 

 (see EARLY ENGLISH, DECORATED STYLE, PER- 

 PENDICULAR, FLAMBOYANT). 



We may, however, state generally that both in 

 France and England the style had a complete exist- 

 ence it was horn, arrived at maturity, and died. 

 When the spirit of the early architects had pushed 

 the design to its utmost limits they rested from 

 their labours, well satisfied with their splendid 

 achievements. Their successors occupied them- 

 selves with forms and details, and with the perfect- 

 ing of every minute part. The art finally passed 

 away, and left architecture in the hands of trade 

 corporations masons, carpenters, plumbers, &c. 

 who monopolised the whole work, and acted inde- 

 pendently, to the exclusion of one directing mind. 

 The result was as we have seen : architecture be- 

 came masonic skill, and Gothic was finally super- 

 seded by the revival of classic architecture in the 

 16th century. The Renaissance of the arts of Greece 

 and Rome during the last two or three centuries 

 has in the 19th century been followed by a 

 revival of Gothic architecture. Even during the 

 17th and 18th centuries a few attempts were made 

 to resuscitate the old style in churches, and in 

 the 18th century a bold effort in the direction 

 of introducing it into domestic architecture was 

 undertaken by Horace Walpole, Batty Langley, 

 and others. But the present revival may be 

 said to have fairly commenced in 1819, when 

 Rick man published his Attempt to discriminate the 

 Styles of English Architecture, a very careful and 

 complete work, the conclusions of which have been 

 generally adopted and adhered to. Other works 

 by Pugin, Cotman, Britton, and others soon 

 followed, illustrative of Gothic architecture both 

 at home and abroad. One of the most prominent 

 supporters of the revival was Augustus W. Pugin 

 (1812-52), who both by his writings and in his 

 practice brought the Gothic style practically before 

 the public in the first half of the 19th century. 

 Since that time it has been greatly used, almost 

 all our modern churches and many other public 

 buildings being designed in the Gothic style. The 

 names of Edward Barry, George Gilbert Scott, E. 

 Street, and Burgess are well known in connection 

 with the Houses of Parliament, the Law Courts 

 in London, and numerous churches and cathedrals 

 both in England and abroad. A reaction has 

 within recent years taken place, especially in 

 secular structures, but Gothic is still regarded as 

 the most suitable style for ecclesiastical edifices. 



In the United States classical models were 

 generally followed, even in ecclesiastical archi- 

 tecture, till the building of Trinity Church, New 

 York, in 1840, by Richard Upjohn the first in- 

 stance in which the Gothic style ( English Gothic ) 

 was used with skill. Since then Gothic has been 

 the prevalent style for churches ; and a modified 

 Gothic, mainly North Italian, has also been much 

 used for civil builcimgs in the United States. 



In France, the laud of its birth, Gothic archi- 

 tecture has been very thoroughly studied, and its 

 principles and beauties have been admirably 

 Analysed and illustrated, notably in the splendid 

 work by the late Viollet-le-Duc, Le Dictionnaire 

 raisonne de I 'Architecture frangaise. 



The beauties of Italian Gothic have also had 

 their admirers, and have been charmingly described 

 and illustrated by Ruskin. But this style has not 

 been much adopted in northern countries. 



In the changes of fashion with regard to archi- 

 tecture Gothic may at present appear to be reced- 

 ing, but the study and elucidation of its principles 

 have done much to modify men's views with regard 

 to the elements of the art, and will doubtless con- 

 tinue to influence the principles and practice of the 

 Architecture of the future. 



See Bloxam's Principles of Gothic Architecture ( 1829 ; 

 llth ed. 3 vols. 1882) ; Rickman's Gothic Architecture by 

 Parker (1848); Britton's Antiquities of Great Britain 

 ( 1835 ) ; Fugm's works, such as the Examples of Gothic 

 Architecture (1835) and the Specimens, c. (1823); 

 E. Sharpe's Architectural Parallels ( 1848 ) ; Viollet-le-Duc, 

 Dictionnaire (1854^69); Street's Brick and Marble of 

 Middle Ages (1874) and Gothic Architecture in Spain 

 1 1869) ; Euskin's Stones of Venice ( 1851-53) ; Fergusson's 

 History of Architecture (1865-76). 



Gothland (Swed. Gotaland and Gotarike), the 

 southernmost of the three old provinces of Sweden, 

 with an area of 35,800 sq. m. and a population of 

 over two and a half millions. (2) A Swedish island 

 (Swed. Gottland) in the Baltic, 44 miles E. from 

 the mainland, constitutes with Faro, Gotska, 

 Sando, and other smaller islands the province of 

 Gottland orWisby. Area, 1217 sq. m. The island 

 consists mainly of terrace-like slopes of limestone, 

 which are encircled by cliffs broken by numerous 

 deep fiords, more especially on the west coast ; the 

 eastern parts are flat. The climate is rnild. Next 

 to agriculture, the chief occupations of the inhabit- 

 ants (a little over 50,000) are shipping, fishing, seal- 

 fishing, fowling, and lime-burning. In the middle 

 ages the island belonged to the German Hanseatic 

 League, but was restored to Sweden in 1645. The 

 capital is Wisby (q. v. ). 



Got Its. The native name of the Teutonic 

 people known as Goths (in Lat. Gothi, Gotthi) 

 had the two forms Gutans ( sing. Guta ) and Gutus 

 ( sing. Gilts ) ; from the latter was formed the 

 compound Gut-thiitda, 'people of the Goths.' 

 Their earliest known abode was on the southern 

 coasts and the islands of the Baltic. The island 

 Gothland derives its name from them. The 

 Scandinavian traditions, reduced to writing in the 

 12th century, speak of a country on the Baltic- 

 called Hreidhgotaland, which must have owed its 

 name to the branch of the Goths called in Anglo- 

 Saxon poetry Hraede, and (perhaps with etymolo- 

 gising corruption) Hrethgotan and Hrethas. The 

 Hrgede are stated in an Anglo-Saxon poem ( Wid- 

 sith) to have had their home on the Vistula. 

 Whether Goths ever inhabited the Scandinavian 

 peninsula is doubtful ; the ' Gothland ' of Sweden 

 is etyrnologically not 'the land of the Goths,' but 

 'the land of the Gauts'(in A.S. Geatas), a dis- 

 tinct, though doubtless a kindred people. 



The native tradition of the Goths, according to 

 their historian Jordanis ( 6th century ), represented 

 them as having originated from Scandinavia. This 

 tradition, however, is probably a mere develop- 

 ment of the common Teutonic myth which placed 

 the creation of mankind in an unknown region 

 beyond the northern sea, and has therefore no 

 historical value. 



The elder Pliny (died 79 A.D.) mentions the 

 Goths (Guttones) in two passages of his Natural 

 History, once in a mere enumeration of the Ger- 

 manic peoples, and once in what purports to be a 

 quotation from the Greek traveller Pytheas (4th 

 century B.C.). If Pliny's citation be accurate, 

 Pytheas referred to the Guttones as dwelling on 

 tlie shores of an estuary called Mentonomon, and 

 as trading in amber, gathered by the inhabitants 

 of an island distant from them a day's sail. It has, 

 however, been suggested that the people mentioned 

 by Pytheas were the Teutones living near the mouth 

 of the Elbe. In a Greek MS. it would be easy to 

 misread Teutones as Guttones, and the former name 

 actually occurs in the context. But even if this be 

 so, we may perhaps infer that in Pliny's time the 

 'Guttones' were a maritime people, as he quotes 

 the supposed statements of Pytheas without any 

 remark. A generation later the Goths (Gotones, 

 Gothones) are spoken of by Tacitus, who says that 

 among them the kingly power was greater than 



