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Gothic
The Gothic style, though also used in secular buildings, is most associated with the great cathedrals of Europe. There are certain immediately recognizable characteristics in any Gothic cathedral. The interior gives an impression of lightness and height, with slender columns framing large tall windows and reaching up to support a delicately ribbed stone roof. The exterior is encrusted with a filigree of delicate ornament, again essentially slender and vertical, made up of a blend of elegant statues, bobbly pinnacles, the skeletal patterns of the stone ...
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Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle
Five years after the coronation in Rome, Leo III is again with Charlemagne at a religious ceremony. But this time it is in Germany. He is consecrating Charlemagne's spectacular new church in Aachen, begun just nine years previously in 796. The French name of Aachen, Aix-la-Chapelle, specifically features this famous building - a small but richly decorated octagonal chapel which Charlemagne has consciously modelled on another famous imperial church, Justinian's San Vitale in Ravenna.
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Chronometer
The terms are demanding. To win the prize a chronometer (a solemnly scientific term for a clock, first used in a document of this year) must be sufficiently accurate to calculate longitude within thirty nautical miles at the end of a journey to the West Indies. This means that in rough seas, damp salty conditions and sudden changes of temperature the instrument must lose or gain not more than three seconds a day - a level of accuracy unmatched at this time by the best ...
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Henry II
In the centre, at court, the royal administration is strengthened by several significant innovations - among them the development of the exchequer. This is a regular meeting of the nation's finance committee, held round a table with a chequered pattern of squares. The squares are used as an abacus for instant calculations of revenue. Often chaired by the king himself, and attended by the great officers of state, this committee is a more professional and centralized method of government than the relatively impromptu arrangements of ...
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Sack of Constantinople
The crusaders camp outside Constantinople while Alexius, as emperor, tries to raise his debt to the Venetians by taxing the citizens and confiscating church property. For nine months growing resentment within the city is matched by increasing impatience outside. In April the Venetians persuade the crusaders to storm Constantinople and place a Latin emperor on the throne. For the second time they succeed in breaching the walls. The doge of Venice and the leading crusaders instal themselves in the royal palace. The army is granted ...
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The Pala d'Oro
In addition to its Byzantine mosaics, St Mark's contains in the Pala d'Oro the most spectacular surviving altarpiece of a kind familiar in imperial Byzantine churches. Small scenes in cloisonné enamel of Jesus, the Virgin and saints are set in a gold background encrusted with jewels. Commissioned from the workshops of Constantinople by a doge of the 10th century, the original Pala d'Oro is dismantled and extended several times to incorporate new panels. It acquires its present form in 1345. Some of the added panels ...
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Straight walls with windows
One of the best preserved neolithic towns is Catal Huyuk, covering some 32 acres in southern Turkey. Here the houses are rectangular, with windows but no doors. They adjoin each other, like cells in a honeycomb, and the entrance to each is through the roof. The windows are a happy accident, made possible by the sloping site. Each house projects a little above its neighbour, providing space for the window. Not surprisingly, an idea as excellent as this catches on elsewhere and brings with it ...
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Two Anglo-Afghan Wars
In January 1842 the British garrison of some 4500 troops withdraws from Kabul, leaving Shah Shuja to his fate (he is soon assassinated). Most of the retreating British and Indian soldiers are also killed during their attempt to regain the safety of India. A British army recaptures Kabul during the summer of 1842, more as a gesture of defiance than as a matter of practical policy - for the decision is subsequently taken to restore Dost Mohammed to his throne. He returns from India in ...
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Minoans
Defensive walls are notably absent in Minoan Crete, as also are paintings of warfare. This seems to have been a peaceful as well as a prosperous society. But its end is violent. In about 1425 BC all the towns and palaces of Crete, except Knossos itself, are destroyed by fire. It is not known whether this is a natural disaster, which gives Greeks from the mainland their chance, or whether Greek invaders destroy Minoan Crete - keeping only the main palace for their own use. ...
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Italian Gothic
Italy comes late to the Gothic style but makes of it something very much its own. To move from the west façade of Chartres cathedral to the equivalent in Siena or Orvieto, dating from two centuries later, is like seeing a play which has been adapted to the extragant demands of opera. These two Italian façades of the early 14th-century, encrusted with ornament and bright with pictorial panels, glow in the warm Italian sun like enormous trinkets. When Italian builders follow the northern Gothic style ...
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Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta
Ajanta is entirely Buddhist. The great columned cave temple of Elephanta, on an island near Bombay and dating from the 5th to 8th century AD, is exclusively Hindu - devoted to Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu. But the many cave temples of Ellora, spanning a longer period (from the 4th to 13th century), include shrines sacred to Buddhists, to Hindus and to Jains. Ellora is a sloping site, which offers the opportunity for another architectural element. Open forecourts are carved here from the rock, with gateways ...
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Victoria, Albert and the Great Exhi....
An architectural competition is launched, resulting in the submission of 245 designs. From these proposals the members of the building committee, in somewhat high-handed fashion, produce a composite design of their own. It is extraordinarily dull (a long low brick building, like farm outhouses, capped by an incongruous dome), and it suggests to Londoners that Albert's exhibition is going to be equally dreary.In June 1850 tenders are about to come in for the construction of this building when Joseph Paxton, superintendent of the gardens at ...
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The first dynasty
In the early centuries, and again in the closing stages of ancient Egypt, the capital is at Memphis, near modern-day Cairo. But at the peak of Egyptian power, during the period from about 2000 to 1200 BC, the city of Thebes - several hundred kilometres up the Nile - is a place of greater importance. The pyramids remain today to show the early greatness of Memphis, in the period known as the Old Kingdom. Similarly the temples of Karnak and Luxor are witness to the ...
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Pilgrims and relics
The pilgrims tramping round Europe have a good time in a good cause (as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales vividly suggests). They pray to the saints whose relics they visit, and the saints - they hope - put in a word for them above. The particular appeal of the Virgin Mary, in addition to her feminine and maternal qualities, is that she has special influence within the family circle. The indulgences available at each shrine provide an added inducement to set out on pilgrimage. Medieval christendom is ...
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Roman roads
The great network of Roman roads, the arterial system of the empire, is constructed largely by the soldiers of the legions, often with the assistance of prisoners of war or slave labour. The amount of labour involved is vast, for these highways are elaborate technological undertakings. The average width of a Roman road is about 10 yards. Below the paved surface the fabric extends to a depth of 4 or 5 feet in a succession of carefully constructed layers.
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Cave paintings
Prehistoric cave paintings have been discovered in many parts of the world, from Europe and Africa to Australia. Africa has some of the earliest paintings and rock engravings to have been securely dated. Nearly 30,000 years old, they are discovered in 1969 on the rock face in a cave near Twyfelfontein in Namibia. But the most numerous and the most sophisticated of prehistoric paintings are on the walls of caves in southwest France and northern Spain. About 150 painted caves have been discovered in this ...
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Pharos at Alexandria
The sun god Helios features also in the last of the seven wonders. This is the lighthouse put up on the island of Pharos at Alexandria (as a result pharos becomes the Greek word for any lighthouse). It consists of a three-tier stone tower, said to be more than 120 metres high, which has within it a broad spiral ramp leading up to a platform where fires burn at night. They are reflected out to sea by metal mirrors. Above the fires is a huge ...
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The Forty-Five
Charles Edward Stuart seems to be offered an unrepeatable opportunity when France declares war on Britain in 1744, during the War of the Austrian Succession. He participates in early French plans for invasion of Britain. These are soon abandoned, but events in 1745 - with Britain losing to France in the campaign on the continent - convince the young prince that he stands a chance of success in Scotland even without foreign support.Charles lands in the Hebrides early in August 1745. The Jacobite Highland clans ...
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Mongols
The aggressive energy of one man, Genghis Khan, lies behind the amazing eruption of the Mongols in the 13th century. In 1215 he reaches and captures Beijing. Samarkand and Bukhara are taken and sacked in 1220. The marauder then heads south and enters India, but he turns back from this rich prize when he reaches the Indus. By 1223 his armies have moved round the Caspian and up through the Caucasus mountains to plunder cities of the Crimea and southern Russia. This journey of conquest, ...
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British India
A year after the Crimean War, and at the same time as the second Opium War in China, an event occurs which transforms British involvement in India. This is the traumatic Indian Mutiny. It suggests that the East India Company's interests in the subcontinent have reached the point at which they should more properly be the concern of government. Until this time all the British in India, including even the soldiers, have been employees of the East India Company. The India Act of 1858, passed ...
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