| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Gothic Architecture |
 | | the expedient was adopted of constructing half-barrel vaults springing from the aisle walls and abutting against the vaults of the nave beneath the lean-to roof. |
| | During the second phase (1140-80) the problem of vaulting great naves was attacked; the evolution centres in the peculiar development which the genius of the French builders gave to the concealed flying buttress and to the sexpartite vault, both borrowed from Normandy (Porter, op. |
| | Barrel vaults were occasionally used, groin vaults in innumerable cases; the groin vault with ribs first occurs in Durham in 1093, an astonishing date, since the earliest ribbed vault claimed for France is in the diminutive church of Rhuis, a structure the date of which is unknown, but is placed at about 1100. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/06665b.htm (9954 words) |
