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Lincoln
In 1185, when an earthquake struck the city of Lincoln, the cathedral's late 11th-century west front was undamaged. Built with positively military solidity, and even military technique -- it contains slits through which boiling oil could be poured over attackers -- it still stands today. The rest of the Romanesque cathedral was shattered; and in 1192 Bishop Hugh of Avalon began rebuilding it in the new elegant Gothic style. Only the choir and eastern transepts were built when he died eight years later, but the western transepts and nave soon followed in the early 13th century. In the 1250s Hugh's apse was destroyed, ironically to make way for the present angel choir, which was built to provide a more spacious setting for his relics. He had been canonized in 1220, and from the start his shrine had attracted a substantial pilgrimage.
The interior of Lincoln, with soft gold limestone offset by dark polished Purbeck 'marble' shafts, has a remarkable coherence, and is even richer
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than Canterbury. Rib and arch mouldings are more elaborate; capitals have lusher, windswept foliage and shafts spring from the heads of kings and queens instead of from leafy corbels or capitals, as at Canterbury. This lively, decorative approach to architectural form reached its peak in Lincoln's famous 'crazy vaults', where the vaulting is a continuous pattern of ribs, zigzagging along the full length of the choir, rather than a series of independent bays. The new opulance of Lincoln Cathedral, rather than Canterbury's severe, structural style, inspired English architectural development during the following centuries.
Below Lincoln's unusual valuting. Bishop
Hugh of Avalon expended every effort to
create a cathedral to reflect the greater
glory of God, and Lincoln remains a
remarkable testament to the inventiveness
of medieval craftsmen.
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