remain and still to support the pillars of the choir, which were thus,
no doubt to William's disgust, unequally placed so that here the
arches are pointed but there round. In many ways William must have
considered his employers barbarians, and in the true sense of that
much abused term, he was right. No man brought up in the Greek and
Latin traditions would have hesitated to destroy in order to build
anew. The English cannot do that; they patch and make do, and what
must be new they cannot love until it is old; their buildings are not
so much works of art as growths, and there is much to be said for
them. Only here at Canterbury their prejudice has been a misfortune.
Not even the most convinced Englishman can look upon the twisted and
constricted choir of Canterbury and rejoice.

William of Sens, however, hampered though he was, is responsible for
the work we see. It is true he died after some four years of work at
Canterbury, falling one day from a scaffold, but William the
Englishman who followed him only completed what was really already
finished. The design, the idea, and the genius of Canterbury choir are

French, spoiled by English prejudice, but undoubtedly French for all
that.

As it appeared when that great Transitional choir was finished,
Canterbury Cathedral remained till 1379. It is true that the north
wall of the cloister and the lovely doorway in the north-east corner
were built in the Early English time. It is equally true that the
lower part of the Chapter House and the screens north and south of the
choir and a glorious window in St Anselm's Chapel are Decorated work,
but the Cathedral itself knows nothing of the Early English or of the
Decorated styles. It stood till 1379 with a low and short Norman nave