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Its presence here, and at this level, shows that this was the original level of the sills of all the old Norman windows on the outside walls until about the close of the twelfth century. On the east side of this part of the transept, at the clerestory level, are two round-headed windows. Both originally were all of twelfth-century workmanship.
The interior is remarkable for the difference in the width of the aisles, which are separated from the nave by an E.E. arcade, above which there is a clerestory. The chancel originally had a lateral chapel on the S., of which traces are visible both within and without. On the W. buttress of the S. transept there are still marks where Monmouth's rustics sharpened their scythes and axes.
Between them runs up a solid cylindrical pier, which has its capital at the level of the spring of the main arches of the triforium. The arches of the main arcade spring from corbels on the sides of these great pillars, so that it seems as if the triforium gallery were hanging beneath the arches which spring below the clerestory.
The ground-tier of the baptistery is round-arched, and has no pinnacles; but look at its first story. The clerestory of the Duomo of Pisa has no traceries, but look at the cloister of its Campo Santo. I pause at the words; for they introduce a new group of thoughts, which presently we must trace farther. The Holy Field; field of burial. The "cave of Machpelah which is before Mamre," of the Pisans.
If the transepts had had a vault originally, this arrangement would have been plainly impossible, as a vault would have covered up a great part of the east and west arches. But, though the shape of the clerestory makes it plain that a vault was never even intended, it seems very unlikely that the north and south arches were originally loftier than those east and west.
By an extraordinary and daring feat of engineering skill, they were able to do so without disturbing the triforium and clerestory above them. This was effected in the following manner: The pier in the middle of the new aisle was removed, together with the whole of the narrow arch which it supported on the one side and the wider arch which it supported on the other.
Notice the great height of the Nave, and the unusual extent to which the triforium and clerestory project above the noble vaulting of the aisles. Sit awhile in this light and lofty Nave, in order to take in the beautiful view up the church toward the choir and chevet.
He wouldn't let me at first, and afterwards it got complicated. It was this way. That morning when Mr. Brake was found dead I had occasion to go up into that gallery under the clerestory. I suddenly came on him face to face. He recognized me. And I'm telling you the solemn, absolute truth, gentlemen! he'd no sooner recognized me than he attacked me, seizing me by the arm.
The architect has then no choice but to arrange his work in successive stories; either frankly completing the arch work and cornice of each, and beginning a new story above it, which is the honester and nobler way, or else tying the stories together by supplementary shafts from floor to roof, the general practice of the Northern Gothic, and one which, unless most gracefully managed, gives the look of a scaffolding, with cross-poles tied to its uprights, to the whole clerestory wall.
The effect from the outside is not good. The mullions break the surface into too many vertical lines, and, with the transom, take away from the dignity and purity of outline of the exterior. Inside, whether by a lucky chance or not, this screen, by darkening the clerestory windows, has greatly added to the effect of the wall of glass at the east end.
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