VAULT, VAULTING. 



VAVASSOR. 



674 



left bank of the Police within certain fixed boundaries, and to have the 

 exercise of their religion, but at the same time it was agreed that the 

 Boman Catholic worship should be performed in the same villages, 

 and Catholic missionaries be sent to preach there, but no Vaudois 

 should be constrained to become a Koman Catholic, and no girl under 

 U'li, and no boy under twelve years of age, should be taken from their 

 parents. This convention was signed by Jean Leger and other Vaudois 

 ; s. But after some years new complaints and disputes broke out, 

 which Count Bagnolo, the governor of the province, wanted to settle in 

 an arbitrary manner. Fresh resistance and a new persecution took 

 place in 1663 and 1661, followed by a new edict of the duke, by which 

 the Vaudois were forbidden to perform their worship in the village of 

 S. Giovanni. Jean Leger emigrated, and visited various countries, 

 urging the claims of the Vaudois and collecting subscriptions for them. 

 He wa at last appointed minister of the Walloon Church at Leyden, 

 where he died. (Botta, b. xxv.) 



Victor Amadous IL succeeded Charles Emmanuel, and took the 

 reins of goverment at the end of 1684, being then eighteen years of 

 age. Piedmont was then the humble ally of the imperious Louis XIV., 

 who about this time resolved to abolish Protestantism in France by 

 the revocation of the Edit de Nantes, and he ordered Victor Amadeus 

 to do the same with regard to the Vaudois. After some demur the 

 duke was induced to submit, and in January, 1636, he issued an edict 

 ordering the Vaudois either to abjure their tenets within fifteen days, 

 or leave their country. Driven to despair, the Vaudois determined to 

 resist. They were attacked on one side by the ducal troops, and on 

 the other by those of Louis XIV., commanded by Catinat. After a 

 gallant struggle the Vaudois were overpowered, and the survivors were 

 obliged to submit unconditionally. Their whole property was con- 

 fiscated, and given to Koman Catholic colonist*, the old inhabitants 

 with their families taking their departure for Switzerland. Those who 

 had been taken prisoners were distributed in various prisons, in which 

 a number of them died. At the expiration of three years, a band of 

 800 of these emigrant*, under the command of one of their pastors, 

 Henry Arnaud, undertook one of the most daring and romantic expe- 

 ditions ever attempted by men. [ARNAUD, HENRI, in Bioo. Drv.J 



This was the last persecution against the Vaudois; who however 

 ncd subject to various disabilities and exposed to several vexa- 

 tions, which are detailed by GUly in his first excursion, p. 116 ; and in 

 the second, p. 546, and fol. 



In the wars of the French revolution the Vaudois remained loyal to 

 their sovereign, and bravely defended for years the mountain-panel 

 through which the French threatened to invade the valley of the Po, 

 which ultimately they reached, but not on this side. In June, 1794, 

 King Victor Amadeus III. published an ordinance, in which, after 

 acknowledging the constant and distinguished proofs of their attach- 

 ment and fidelity, he promised to redress several grievances, among 

 others, that of taking away of children of the Vaudois, with the view 

 of obliging them to embrace the Roman Catholic religion. He forbade 

 the practice, and ordered those who had been so taken away to be 

 restored. " Those who at the prescribed age, girls at ten and boys at 

 twelve, voluntarily enter the hospital of Pinerola, must be under the 

 direction of ecclesiastical judges; but no difficulty will be made in 

 permitting the parents to see their children under proper precautions." 



When Bonaparte annexed Piedmont to France, he placed the Vaudois 

 on a footing of equality with their Unman Catholic countrymen, and 

 assigned funds for the support of their clergy. At the restoration in 

 1814 the Vaudoia were ngain placed under their former disabilities, 

 and those who had purchased land beyond the limits of their valleys 

 wore obliged to sell it to Koman Catholics. King Charles Felix, who 

 succeeded to the throne in 1821, showed some more indulgence towards 

 the Vaudois. Under the present king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, they 

 have been admitted to an equality of rights with their fellow subject*. 



VAULT, VAULTING. The continuation of an arched covering 

 over a considerable surface is commonly spoken of in the Arts under 

 the name of .ml occasionally the word vault is applied to the 



actual assemblage of the voussoirs of an arch, in contradistinction 

 to the haunches, spandrils, or other supplementary parts. Both of 

 these significations may be retained without inconvenience, because 

 they express conditions it may often be necessary to refer to in practice, 

 and for which it is desirable to possess names. 



There is little to be added to what has been already said under ARCH 

 and BuinoE, with respect to the mechanical principles of vaulting, 

 excepting that in the case of intersecting arches it may be desirable 

 occasionally to form the lines of intersection by arched ribs, springing 

 from the respective abutments, but even in this case the resolution of 

 the thrust must ultimately be the same, in principle, as in any ordinary 

 arch. It is customary in practical works on architecture and engineer- 

 ing, to class the various descriptions of vaults as follows : 1 , Waggon- 

 headed and semicircular vaults ; 2, Domical vaults ; 3, Pointed arched 

 vaults ; 4, Groined arches, which in their turn may be made to pass 

 through numberless modifications, according to the positions assigned 

 to the various ribs, pillars, or points of support. It is in the latter 

 form of vaulting that the fan tracery no much admired in Gothic archi- 

 tecture occurs ; and the skill with which the mediicval architects con- 

 centrated the strength of the vaulting in the ribs, whilst they reduced 

 the thickness of the ipairiril filling, enabled them to secure effects of 

 the most elaborate and pictorial character. In tha simple square 



groin the ribs near the wall, aud those at the intersection of the arches, 

 perform the office of supporting the vaulting ; in the more ornate fan 

 tracery, other ribs are introduced, eo as to form, on plan, a star of four 

 points, or the primitive arches may rise to different heights, either 

 ultimately meeting by intersection, or truncated in the middle of the 

 space. Polygonal spaces were covered in the medieval period either 

 by means of a series of fan-shaped ribs, starting from arches applied 

 against the external wall, and from a central column, as in the cases of 

 many of our chapter-houses, or by groined arches spanning the whole 

 space between the walls ; or by pendentive roofs, when the internal 

 dimensions are not very great. Excellent examples of the first of 

 these systems of vaulting over polygonal buildings are to be found at 

 Winchester, Salisbury, Wells, Lincoln, &c. ; of the second, at Durham, 

 York, &c.^ and of the third at Caudebec. In many of Sir C. Wren's 

 churches, the system of groined vaulting has been applied with as much 

 boldness and artistic success as in the buildings of the medieval archi- 

 tects ; but the compulsory use of the semicircular arch in the Italian 

 architecture, rendered the intersections of the side vaults with the 

 principal ones less susceptible of ornamental decoration than is the case 

 with the diagonal ribs of the preceding style. The vaulting of St. 

 Paul's, and of St. Peter's at Rome, may be referred to as illustrations 

 of the most effective specimens of this mode of construction as applied 

 to modern cathedrals. It must not be forgotten, however, that the 

 ancient Komans had proved themselves to be perfectly able to overcome 

 all the practical difficulties of vaulting ; and the ruins of the palaces of 

 Nero and of Diocletian, the reservoirs of Possilippo aud of Constantinople, 

 and the great church of Sta. Sophia may be cited as illustrations of the 

 various solutions they had discovered of the problem of vaulting largo 

 areas. 



It may be advisable to call attention to the mode of vaulting adopted 

 in some parts of the London Docks, in which the space covered ia 

 vaulted by means of groined arches of brickwork, of elliptical form, 



: springing from granite pillars. In cases where the vaults are intended 

 to store combustible goods of great value, there are such manifest 

 advantages in the use of the granite pillars, instead of cast-iron ones, 



I that, writing under the impressions produced by the fearful misfortune 

 of June 22nd, 1861, the author may be pardoned for dwelling on this 

 detail of fire-proof construction. 



(Ware, Tractt on Vaults and Bridyet ; Willis, Architecture of the 

 Hit/die Aga ; Gwilt's Encychpiedia of Architecture; Kondelet, L'Art 

 de Hdtir, &c., *c.) 



VAVA8SOK, VALVASSOR, a term applied in the ancient records 

 of England, Scotland, France, Lombardy, and Arngon, to persons 

 holding fiefs not immediately under the king or other persona 

 poneasing jura regalia (as the duke of Normandy, the earl of Chester, 

 or the bishop of Durham), but under some intermediate lord. It 

 appears also, that to constitute a vavassory, it was necessary that the 

 party should have subordinate freeholders, as vassals holding of hia 

 vavassory. (Wilkins, 'Leges Angl.', 247; Bracton, 5 b, 6, 83 b ; 

 Ducange.) In England vavassories were generally held by knights' 

 service ; but in Normandy, besides the frauches vavassoriea or vavas- 

 sories nobles, there were socage vavassories held by the rent of a rose, 

 a spur, or a glove, and also ravassories vilainei. The possessors of 

 the.-e inferior vavassories were sometimea called " valvassins." 



Vavassors are twice mentioned in Domesday, pp. 53 aud 1469 ; and 

 in the laws of William the Conqueror, the relief due from a vavassor 

 to his liege lord is described. (Kelham, 40.) A charter of Henry I. 

 directs that pleas of the division of laud between the vavassors of two 

 different lords be determined in the county court. In the great Roll 

 of the Pipe of 31 Henry I., mention is made of the vavassors belonging 

 to the barony of the archbishop of York. In the laws of Henry II. 

 the jurisdiction of vavassors is specified. Madox (' Baronia Anglican^,' 

 note, p. 135), sets out a writ in which that prince requires the resi- 

 dence or constant attendance of all barons and vavassors, who owe 

 service of castle-guard at Rockingham castle. Francis de Bohun, in 



, the time of Kichard I., was seised of two honours, one that of Bohun 

 in Normandy, which he held of the king, as duke per baruniim, the 



j other in England, consisting of the manor of Fordes, &c., in Sussex, 

 which he held in varasscrid. (' Abbrev. I'lac., in Domo Cap. Westni.' 88.) 

 In the next reign Alice Briewiere claimed Plimtree in Devon, and 



I Depeworth in Somerset and Dorset, assigned to her by her late 



1 husband Roger de Pole, on the day he set out for Jerusalem, for the 

 full third part of three vavassories, namely, for the vavassories of the 

 earl of Salisbury, the earl of Vernon, and of the vavassory of Earl 

 William de Bohun (' Ib.', 61 b). In the close rolls of 4 H. III. is a 



j writ to the sheriff of Wiltshire, directing him to give seisin to W. 

 Mandevill, R. llaudut, W. Comyn, and W. de Fontibus of three 

 vavassories of the fee of the Earl of Clare, belonging to the barony of 

 Funtell (Fonthill), which barony Andrew Giffard had, with the assent 

 of King John, resigned to those persons as the right heirs (presump- 

 tive) of the barony, reserving the vavassories, which vavassories would 

 appear to have been seized into the king's lands upon the death of 

 Uitl'ard under the advice of the crown lawyers, the council of the 

 minor king being afterwards of opinion that such seizure ought not 

 to have been made. Here, vavassories held of the honour of Clare 

 appear to have become in some way annexed to a barony held of the 

 crown. In the record and process of the renunciation of Richard II., 

 that prince absolves all dukes, marquesses, earls, barons, knights, 



