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For nearly four hundred years style dominated the architecture of Western Europe. It originated in northern France in the twelfth century, and spread rapidly across England and the Continent, invading the old Viking empire of Scandinavia. It confronted the Byzan ....

Middle of Essay
.... restricted area, in the series of cathedrals built in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries, the major innovations of Gothic architecture took place.2 The supernatural character of medieval religious architecture was given a special form in the Gothic church. "Medieval man considered himself but an imperfect refraction of Divine Light of God, Whose Temple stood on earth, according to the text of the dedication ritual, stood for the Heavenly City of Jerusalem."3 The Gothic interpretation of this point of view was a cathedral so grand that seems to belittle the man who enters it, for space, light, structure and the plastic effects of the sto ....