§ 7a. INVENTION OP THE ARCH. 29o 



as if it had always been thought, when first adopted, to be 

 incapable of the same expansion as the round arch. 



I have said that the pointed arch is supposed to have been 

 employed in France in 1047, and some think before that time; 

 but it was not the general style of building till long after. 

 And as its early adoption may be easily explained by an inter- 

 course with the East, so its general introduction may be 

 ascribed to the Crusades. Nothing could be more natural 

 than that the Crusaders should copy it from a people more 

 civilised than themselves, or that they should adopt what was 

 a prevalent style in Syria ; and no one is surprised to find a 

 church (now a mosk) built by them at Beiroot with the 

 pointed arch surrounded by the Norman zigzag, or chevron, 

 moulding. Its invention cannot certainly be claimed by 

 Europe, when it had long before been the ordinary style of 

 building among the Arabs ; and this we know of its history, that 

 it first came to France, and thence passed to England, where, 

 though it appears to have been employed with Norman round 

 arches as early as 1135, it did not come into general use till 

 about 1200. In France too the tracery of windows was first 

 developed ; and, again, the ^Renaissance style found favour in 

 England through our intercourse with that country, to which 

 we have alwa}^s been so much indebted for the arts of luxe 

 and the advancement of decorative taste. 



It is singular that though the Normans in Sicily soon 

 adopted the pointed arch from the Saracens, it was not intro- 

 duced into the buildings of Normandy itself till long after it 

 had been used in other parts of France. In Italy and Ger- 

 many too it was of later date than in that country. Of this, 

 however, we may be certain, that the pointed style did not 

 grow out of the Norman and the Lombard ; it was engrafted 

 on them ; it was an exotic plant derived from the East ; and 

 there is no connecting link between it and its predecessors. 

 It came as the pointed arch did to the Normans in Sicily, by 



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