Chapter VI: MIDDLE GEOMETRICAL.—About 1260 more drastic measures were taken with

the Norman north transept. It was pulled down bodily, and rebuilt on a design which is perhaps the most original, as it certainly is one of the most beautiful, in the history of English Gothic architecture. To the north and west were built enormous windows, with tracery of cusped circles, quite exceptional in their elongation, more like late German than English work. On the east side was built an aisle of exquisite beauty. Its arches, almost straight-sided—its triforium windows, a ring of cusped circles set under a semicircular arch—its clerestory windows, spherical triangles enclosing a cusped circular window—the composition of the triforium—the north and west windows—are quite unique, except so far as they were copied in later work in the city and neighbourhood. At the south end of the aisle is the exquisite tomb of Bishop Peter Aquablanca (_d._ 1268); no doubt built in his lifetime. The tomb is as unique as the transept, and closely resembles it in design. The inference is that Bishop Aquablanca built the transept. The credit of it, however, is constantly given to his successors, apparently on account of his private vices. But sinners as well as saints have liked to leave memorials behind them in stone; and, moreover, Aquablanca had his good points. To this day four thousand loaves are distributed every year out of funds which he bequeathed. It is recorded, too, that, of a fine which was imposed on the citizens for encroachments on his episcopal rights, he remitted one half, and handed over the other for works on the cathedral. Moreover, he was a foreigner, from Chambery; and has probably received no more favourable judgment from the English chroniclers than they were wont to give to foreign favourites of the king who swallowed up the best things in the English Church.