Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/218

202 ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTLAND. Part II. literal copies of French designs. But, in addition to these, an Irish element is strongly felt : at lona and throughout the West, extending in exceptional cases to the East, as at Brechin and Abernethy. It can also be traced in the Lothians in the chapels and smaller edifices of the 11th and 12th centuries, and seems to be the ingredient which distinguishes the early Round-arched Gothic of Scotland from the Norman of England. Besides these three, a Scandinavian element makes itself felt in the Orkneys, and as far south as Morayshire ; and even Spain is said to have contributed the design to Roslyn Chapel, and made her influence felt elsewhere. All these foreign elements, imported into a country where a great mass of the people belonged to an art-hating race, tended to produce an entanglement of history very difficult to unravel. With leisure and space, however, it might be accomplished ; and, if properly completed, would form a singularly interesting illustration, not only of the ethno- graphy of Scotland, but of art in general. The buildings of David I. (1124-1165) gave an immense impulse to the round-arched style, which continued for nearly a century after his time, and long after the pointed arch had been currently used in the South. It is true Ave find pointed arches mixed up with it, as at Jedburgli, but the pillars and capitals are those of the earlier orders ; and the circular arch continued to be used from predilection wherever the constructive necessities of the building did not suggest the employ- ment of the pointed form. The feature of English art which the Scotch seem to have best appreciated was the lancet window, which suited their simple style so completely that they clung to it long after its use had been abandoned in England. This circumstance has given rise to much confusion in the dates of Scottish buildings, antiquaries being unwilling to believe that the lancet windows of Elgin and other churches really belong to the middle of the 14th century, after England had passed through the phases of circle and flowing tracery, and was settling down to the sober constructiveness of the perpendicular. Circle tracery is, in fact, very little known in the North, and Eng- lish flowing tracery hardly to be found in all Scotland. It is true that a class of flowing tracery occurs everywhere in Scotland, but it is, both in form and age much more closely allied to French Flamboyant than to anything English. It was used currently during the whole period between the 2d and 3d Richards, and even during the Tudor period of England. The one great exception to Avhat has been said is the east window of the border monastery of Melrose ; but even liere it is not English perpendicular, but an original mode of treating an English idea, found only in this one instance, and mixed up with the flowing tracery of the period.