Decorated Style.—The next phase of Gothic work, which be gan about 1300, is known in England as the Decorated style. It lasted for the comparatively short time of 70 years, before it gave place to another type. Even during these 7o years carving had more than one character. At first there was a tendency to follow more closely naturalistic forms, though treating them con ventionally, but this is rather more apparent in the stone-carver's work than in the wood-carver's. This faithful portraying of natu ral forms does not appear to have lasted for more than io to 20 years. What succeeded was a very conventional and exaggerated treatment of the surface of foliage applied indiscriminately to leaves of every description. It consisted of a large bump in the middle of the leaf, a smaller one in the centre of each lobe and a still smaller one on every serration. The effect of this arrange ment was a deep hollow round each protuberance in the centre of the leaf, partly broken by the lip or raised edge to the circular eyes which divide the main lobes of the leaf.
The Fifteenth Century.—The century was produc tive of the finest quality and of the largest amount of decorative Gothic woodwork that the world has even seen. Although there was a distinct style pervading the whole period, there was more variety in expressing it than had been the case in any of the previous developments in architecture. This period of work which is known as the Perpendicular style began about the year 1390 and continued until about 155o; after that date it was practised in a debased form for another ioo years.
It was a time of prosperity. Spacious and noble churches were built and sumptuously furnished and decorated. Not only did one parish vie with another in erecting churches with costly and elabo rate fittings richly painted and gilded, but the merchants also built noble houses for themselves. There was no difference in the style of building between domestic and ecclesiastical edifices, save that many houses were constructed of timber. Screens, pulpits and font covers were invariably prepared with gesso and sometimes minute decoration added to the faces of the buttresses, as at Southwold, and then gilded, and sprays of flowers painted on the broad hollows. The headings were picked out with a chevron, or a twist of two or more colours like a barber's pole. The corner posts generally received a greater or less degree of carved ornamentation such as is here shown from a house in Suffolk (Pl. V., fig. 4).
The most noticeable features of the work of this period are that carving became flatter, tracery was built up of several boards as one order was superimposed upon another and not cut out of one thick piece of oak as had formerly been done. It will
be seen that in the emblems of S.S. John and Matthew (P1. V., fig. 3), the work is applied and that a broad simple treatment is the outstanding characteristic of these vigorous carvings. Whereas in Decorated carving the prominent projections on the surface of leaves were made into round bumps, in Perpendicular carving these projections were made to take a rectangular form. Above all the carver worked in a manner that suited his tools and material. In the latter half of the i 5th century some of the carved foliage is composed almost entirely of hollows divided by a V cut to represent the stem of the leaf, or by a softly carved raised stem. The edges of the leaves are kept up and the serra tions are produced by a vertical cut with a gouge at right angles to the edge of the leaf and a hollow cut with the same tool on the edge of the leaf, getting deeper until the chip falls out as the cut meets the first incision. The inner edge of these gouge cuts form the centre stems of the serrations. The Poppy-head from Walpole St. Peter (Pl. V., fig. 5) partly illustrates this. It will be seen from this how very different is the carver's expression to what it was when every serration was elaborately carved with a swelling in the middle and a hollow round it. One type of leaf which was invented, for there is nothing in nature like it, was that in which the corners of the leaf ended in a tightly rolled ball, as may be seen in the left hand leaf on the miserere seat from Ripon cathe dral, on which Samson is shown carrying away the gates of Gaza (P1. V., fig. 6).
The wealth of pattern and fanciful design in crestings, strings, bosses, tracery, poppy-heads, bench ends, etc., is wonderful, and the rendering of fables and biblical stories in the miserere seats inimitable. The repeating patterns in carved tracery and crest ing, etc., are always interesting, because although there is a sameness, there is never an exactitude. The curves of tracery are never mechanical but are drawn freely, and great care was taken to get a breadth of effect. The hollows of the tracery are very flat, and not like the cast iron effect produced by some revivalists who make the section of the hollow almost a quarter of a circle. In a few of the East Anglican churches an effect of great richness is produced by carving the back of the top rail of each bench with a simple band of ornament, as in Dennington church, Suf folk (Pl. V., fig. 8). As band beyond band is seen when viewed from the west end the impression it gives is quite startling.