TECTURE.) During the 13th and 14th centuries the piers of French Gothic churches were kept comparatively simple in plan, with great importance given to the capital at the level of the spring of the pier arch. Often it took the shape of a circular column with a few, large, simple attached vaulting shafts, as in Rheims cathe dral (c. 1240). Toward the end of the 14th century, perhaps due to English influence, the column idea disappeared and was replaced by the more logical plan in which the pier was elaborately mem bered, not only by the additional development of vaulting shafts, but by breaking up the edges with projecting mouldings under the mouldings of the arches. Capitals became of less importance and vaulting shafts were carried unbroken through from floor to vault spring, capitals being placed merely on the separate mould ings of each arch or rib.
During the Flamboyant period this development was carried to its logical extreme; capitals were omitted entirely, and the pier plan became the combination of the various arch and vault rib mouldings continued down to the floor. Against this complexity a teaction was inevitable, and the other type of French Flam boyant pier developed, with smooth surface, either circular or wavy in plan, with the various vault rib and arch mouldings car , ried by the pier merely dying into it at their intersections. In England, during the Early English period, although circular piers are occasionally found, they were more frequently surrounded by entirely independent colonnettes, often of black Purbeck marble, which act as vaulting shafts and are tied to the body of the pier only at intervals by horizontal through stones with moulded edges.
During the Decorated period attached shafts continued in use but the surfaces of the central core appearing between them were often richly moulded, and, in some cases, detached shafts disappeared entirely and the pier became a solid mass with sur faces lavishly moulded with strong projecting high lights and deeply cut shadows.
In the late Decorated period mouldings of the pier were some times the same as those of the arch above and capitals were omitted. This arrangement became much more frequent during the Perpendicular period. Pier-moulding profiles were softened and flattened like other mouldings of the period. (See GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.) With the coming of the Renaissance pier de sign was much simplified, returning to the generally cross-shaped or twelve-cornered systems found in late Roman work, with all the projecting members treated either as classic imposts, engaged columns or pilasters.
Technically, the word pier is also applied to the solid portions of a wall between windows or other openings; and to the vertical posts at gateways, to which the gates are hung. The word pier is used of structures of timber or masonry projecting from a quay or sea wall and used either for loading and unloading ships, or in the case of summer resorts, for furnishing promenade space into the water. In America the word is loosely used synonymously with dock or landing stage.