Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/67

Bk. IV. Ch. IV. DWELLING-HOUSES, 51 window tracery, in the sense in which it was afterwards understood, nor to divide their windows into compartments by mullions. I do not even know of an instance in anv cluirch of the windows beinsf so grouped together as to suggest such an expedient. All their older windows, on the con- trary, are simple round- headed openings, with the jambs more or less ornamented by nook- shafts and other such expedients. At the end of the 12th and be- ginning of the 13th century they seem to have desired to render the openings more orna- mental, ])robably be- cause tracery had to a certain extent been adopted in France and the Netherlands at that period. They did this first by foiling circles and semi-circles ; the former a j^les^sing, the latter a very unpleasing, form of window, Init not so bad as the three- quarter windows — if I may so call them — used in the church of Sion at Cologne (Woodcut No. 503) and elsewliere : these, liowever, are hardly so objectionable as the fantastic shapes they sometimes assumed, .., vU>^;^-v' 502. Back Windows iii Dwelling-house, Cologne. 503. Windows from Sion Church, Cologne. (From Boisseree.) 504. Windows from St. Guerin at Neuss. (From Boisseree.) as in the examples (Woodcut No. 504), taken from St. Guerin at Neuss, Many others might be quoted, the forms of which are constructively bad without being redeemed by an elegance of outline that sometimes enables us to overlook their other faults. The more fantastic of these, it is true, were seldom glazed, but were mere openings in towers or