SPIRE, a sharply-pointed, tapering roof, most commogly the roof of a tower, though a light structure often set at the crossing of the roof in a cruciform church is also called a spire (French, !lecke), the term covering the lantern with upright sides from which the pointed roof swings. The term is hardly ap plied to a roof of which the slope is less than an angle of with the horizon and even a slope of that acuteness makes a blunt spire.
Spires may be formed of wood and covered with wood or metal or even tiles, exactly like an ordinary roof of lower pitch, but the aim has always been to build the whole of stone and top it with a cross or a final of leafage or both.
The spire is associated with mediaeval build ing in the west of Europe, and its greatest de velopment is of the years 1180 to 1500 A.D. In later Gothic art the spire loses its character of roof in that its surfaces are occupied with open or pierced tracery, as in the German churches of Freiburg in Baden and Thann in Alsatia (Alsace), and the cathedral of Burgos in Spain. In the granite-building country of Brittany this decoration is common, though the openings are smaller and the spires look more massive. The
latest development is that seen in Antwerp Ca thedral and in Strassburg Cathedral. At Strass burg the roof lines have disappeared and the spire is a cage of sloping bars of stone which carry an indefinitely great number of pinnacles; and in Antwerp a series, of vertically-walled lanterns are surrounded by bold pinnacles which are themselves spit-dos of considerable size, the whole tapering to the cross. Other spires of the same 15th century and 16th century Gothic have pierced galleries or open stories of arched work alternating with the solid and roof-like slope of the spire. Such a one is the famous north tower of the Cathedral of Chartres.
The highest spires existing are those of Co logne Cathedral (modern from ancient design), 511 feet from pavement to top of cross; the Church of Saint Nicholas at Hamburg, 475• feet six inches; Strassburg Cathedral, 465 feet; Church of Saint Martin at Landshut in Lower Bavaria, 462 feet ; the Church of Saint Stephen, Vienna, 450 feet ; Antwerp Cathedral, 407 feet six inches; Salisbury Cathedral, 400 feet. Struc tures in metal are not considered here.