The date of the building establishes the fact of the pointed arch being in use, not only as an occasional variation, but in the entire construction of churches upon a grand scale, as early as the eleventh century.—­Sammarthanus tells us that Bishop Herbert, who died in 1049, began to build this church, but did not live to see it completed; and Ordericus Vitalis expressly adds, that Hugh, the successor to Herbert, upon his death-bed, in 1077, while retracing his past life, made use of these words:—­“Ecclesiam Sancti Petri, principis apostolorum, quam venerabilis Herbertus, praedecessor meus, coepit, perfeci, studiose adornavi, honorifice dedicavi, et cultoribus necessariisque divino servitio vasis aliisque apparatibus copiose ditavi.”—­Language of this kind appears too explicit to leave room for ambiguity, but an opinion has still prevailed, founded probably upon the style of the architecture, that the cathedral was not finished till near the expiration of the thirteenth century.  Admitting, however, such to be the fact, I do not see how it will materially help those who favor the opinion; for the building is far from being, as commonly happens in great churches, a medley of incongruous parts; but it is upon one fixed plan; and, as it was begun, so it was ended.—­The exterior of the extremity of the south transept is a still more complete example of the early pointed style than the west front:  this style, which was the most chaste, and, if I may be allowed to use the expression, the most severe of all, scarcely any where displays itself to greater advantage.  The central window is composed of five lancet divisions, supported upon slender pillars:  massy buttresses of several splays bound it on either side.

The same character of uniformity extends over the interior of the building.  On each side of the nave is a side-aisle; and, beyond the aisles, chapels.  The pillars of the nave are cylindrical, solid, and plain.  Their bases end with foliage at each corner, and foliage is also sculptured upon the capitals.  The arches which they support are acute.—­The triforium is similar in plan to the part below; but the capitals of the columns are considerably more enriched, with an obvious imitation of the antique model, and every arch encircles two smaller ones.  In the clerestory the windows are modern.—­The transepts appear the oldest parts of the cathedral, as is not unfrequently the case; whether they were really built before the rest, or that, from being less used in the services of the church, they were less commonly the objects of subsequent alterations.  They are large; and each of them has an aisle on the eastern side.  The architecture of the choir resembles that of the nave, except that the five pillars, which form the apsis, are slender and the intervening arches more narrow and more acute.—­The Lady-Chapel, which is long and narrow, was built towards the middle of the fifteenth century, by Peter Cauchon, thirty-sixth bishop of Lisieux, who, for his steady attachment