Durham Cathedral

Assembled from 19 blocks · 2 evidence · 21 related

1. Story
2. A Norman cathedral begun in 1093 on a rock peninsula above the River Wear. Its high vaults, built in stages between the 1090s and about 1133, are the earliest surviving large-scale ribbed vaults over a major church nave, and they are the reason Durham appears in every account of Gothic origins despite being resolutely Romanesque in everything else - massive drum piers, round-headed arcades, thick walls. The choir aisles carry rib vaults from the 1090s and the nave high vault, with its pointed transverse arches, follows in the 1120s and 1130s. Durham also has early quadrant arches concealed in the triforium above the aisles that do the work a flying buttress does, without being visible from outside. It is inscribed with Durham Castle as a UNESCO World Heritage property.
3. Knowledge
4. The Gothic rib vault
5. Durham Cathedral
6. Connections
7. The Gothic rib vault
8. Durham roofs a great nave with ribbed vaults
9. The voussoir arch
10. The flying buttress
11. Durham Cathedral
12. Chartres Cathedral
13. Durham roofs a great nave with ribbed vaults
14. Suger's choir at Saint-Denis is consecrated
15. The high vaults of Chartres close at about 36-37 m
16. Fire destroys the roof and spire of Notre-Dame de Paris
17. Evidence
18. Comparative structural analysis of large pre-industrial buildings, treating span, thrust and material strength as the variables that determine what each period could build. Supports the load-path framing used throughout this pack and the structural contrasts drawn between post-and-lintel, corbelling, the voussoir arch, the dome and the rib vault. V55 verification basis: this volume is a real and standard reference named in the Journey declaration, but it was NOT consulted in this session - WebFetch is refused by the environment egress proxy for all research domains and the session WebSearch budget was exhausted before production began.
19. Reconstructs how Gothic vaults were actually erected, with centring, falsework and sequence as the central problem, and treats the economy of timber formwork as a driver of the rib vault. Supports the STRUCTURE_GOTHIC_VAULT and Gothic site records. V55 verification basis: real and standard, not consulted in this session.