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Sharpe, an architect and antiquarian who has studied the 
old Cistercian abbeys as no other living man has done, 
pointing out at Furness Abbey one special moulding — the 
plainest possible inverted volute — as really dating the capi- 
tals on which it appears to within about 20 years. It is 
seldom, of course, that any such exactness can be attained. 
The rate of progress was not equal everywhere, and in 
remote country places the old forms lingered after the great 
monastic builders had left them behind. 
As to the practical value of all this in the study of history, 
one or two illustrations will suffice. Often it happens that 
much of the history of a church or an abbey is contained in 
the silent testimony of the successive stages of its architec- 
ture, or in the remains of older work embedded in more 
recent masonry. 
For instance: you visit some little country church. Its 
general character is that of Henry VII. ’s time — you know 
it by the Perpendicular windows and the spandrelled door- 
ways. But look a little closer. In the chancel perhaps are 
a couple of simple Lancet windows, and above them are two 
or three quaint corbels, which never originally supported 
that late battlemented parapet ; and underneath the com- 
paratively recent porch is an old semicircular arch, and if 
you look carefully about the walls you will probably find 
here and there, built in, fragments of carved stone — perhaps 
pieces of old stone- coffin slabs with crosses visible upon 
them — which tell of a much earlier church ; and sometimes 
you find fragments of old interlacing scroll work, such as 
that upon the Bunic crosses of Ilkley, which carry back the 
interest still further, and tell of Saxon worshippers. 
And now if you have gone with me in this appreciation 
of the self-respect which in old times men shewed for the 
best art of their own day, and of the value of the trust- 
worthy indications of date, arising out of this orderly develop- 
ment, which everywhere present themselves, it will hardly 
