One of the great things about medieval art and architecture is that people just went in and did things. They didn’t build models and scale them up, building great cathedrals and abbeys was a learning process as much as anything else. This means many of these apparently perfect aspirations to the Heavenly Jerusalem have some often quite comical mistakes, corrections and bodge-jobs that once you see, you can’t unnotice. There do seem to be a few more of them in English architecture than anywhere else, that makes it all the more fun to study…
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Selby Abbey, nave, north arcade, early twelfth century
Ok even I know arches don’t look like that
Just a bit of settlement abbot, nothing to worry about
I don’t know why we even bother sometimes
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Canterbury Cathedral, north-east transept, west wall, triforium, early 1180s
Uhh, master William, we’ve had a small problem in the…
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