Note 349 — Chapter VIII · FRANKISH ARCHITECTURE.

It is in the vaulting of the choir aisle of St. Denis that we find the earliest example of the new value of the pointed arch rib: four independent ribs rise to the centre of the aisle, it being no longer necessary to place the opposite ribs in the same plane. M. Louis Gonse in his ‘L’Art Gothique,’ however, points out one or two earlier examples such as the churches of Morienval and Bellefontaine, both in the Oise Department; the latter only is dated—1125; but no illustrations of the vault are given. The former is so crude in its design that it is probably earlier, and it is in fact evident from the perfection shown in St. Denis that many previous experiments must have been made, examples of which it would be interesting to trace.—Ed.