The earliest specimens of this style, in common with the Norman, had no mullions or divisions in the windows, which were generally extremely narrow, on account, probably, of the scarcity of glass. But when glass became more common, and the art of staining it was brought to great perfection, then the architects enlarged their windows and divided them into a number of graceful compartments; and hence, gradually were developed those later styles which are called the Decorated and the Perpendicular.
It is the easiest and most obvious plan thus to designate the various styles by the various forms of the windows. They are the parts which first meet the eye. But all the portions of the building—the shafts, the capitals, the mouldings, the buttresses, the towers and other parts, underwent simultaneous changes corresponding with the character of the varying styles. On these details, however, it is not my intention to enter; my object being principally to remark that all these different styles, or the greater part of them, are often to be found in the same edifice. In the old churches, for instance, of St. Chad's and St. Michael's, as well as in our Cathedral, every form of Gothic window may be observed. The western window of St. Chad's, is a very good specimen of the Decorated; and the east window at St. Michael's of the Perpendicular.
These styles then, the Norman, and three sorts of Gothic, bring us down to the time of the Reformation. If architecture has not advanced since that period still we are not without many reminiscences in our parish churches, both of the Reformation, and of the subsequent times. The King's arms emblazoned, as they frequently are, on the chancel arch, in the place where once the rood-loft stood, remind us of the substitution of the King's supremacy for that of the Pope. While the mutilated tombs, and statues, and battered windows, tell us fearful tales of the violence with which the Reformation was accompanied. However, it is unjust to accuse our Reformers of all the mutilation and violence which has taken place in our old churches. The deadliest enemies of Architectural ornaments, and the principal destructives of our churches, were the rebel Puritans, who put to death their king, and archbishop, and drove eight thousand of the clergy from their homes. It is to the same generation of men that we are indebted for other peculiarities which meet the eye in many of our parish churches, especially the enormous rostrum, called the Pulpit, which not unfrequently occupies the very centre of the church, to the exclusion from view of the chancel and altar.
