GABLE, the triangular part of an exterior wall of a between the top of the side-walls and the slopes of the roof. The whole wall of which the G. forms the top is called a gable-end; party-walls, or the walls which separate two contiguous houses, and which belong equally to both houses, are called in Scotland " mutual gables." The G. is one of the most common and characteristic features of Gothic architecture. The end walls of classic buildings had pediments (q.v.), which followed the slope of the roofs, but these were always low in pitch. In mediaeval architecture, gables of every angle are used with the utmost freedom, and when covered with the molded and crock eted copes of the richer periods of the style, give great variety and beauty of outline.
Galas, or small gables, are used in great profusion in the more decorative parts of Gothic architecture, such as canopies, pinnacles, etc., where they are introduced in end less varietralong with tracery, crockets, and other enrichments. •
The towns of the middle ages had almost all the gables of the houses towards the streets, producino. great diversity and picturesqueness of effect, -as may still •be seen in many towns which have been little modernized. The towns of Belgium and Germany especially still retain this mediaeval arrangement. In the later Gothic and the renais sance periods, the simple outline of the G. became stepped and broken in the most fan tastic manner. See C ORME STEPS.
In Scottish law, a mutual G. or party-wall, though partly built on the adjoining property, belongs to the builder, and he can prevent his neighbor from availing him self of it for the support of his house, until he has paid half the expense of building it. For the law of England on this subject, see PARTY-WALL. ,