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FLYING BUTTRESS

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 585 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FLYING See also:

BUTTRESS , in See also:architecture, the See also:term given to a structural feature employed to transmit the thrust of a vault across an intervening space, such as an See also:aisle, See also:chapel or See also:cloister, to a buttress built outside the latter. This was done by throwing a semi-See also:arch across to the See also:vertical buttress. Though employed by the See also:Romans and in See also:early Romanesque See also:work, it was generally masked by other constructions or hidden under a roof, but in the I2th See also:century it was recognized as rational construction and emphasized by the decorative accentuation of its features, as in the cathedrals of See also:Chartres, Le Mans, See also:Paris, See also:Beauvais, See also:Reims, &c. Sometimes, owing to the See also:great height of the vaults, two semi-See also:arches were thrown one above the other, and there are cases where the thrust was transmitted to two or even three buttresses across intervening spaces. As a vertical buttress, placed at a distance, possesses greater See also:power of resistance to thrust than if attached to the See also:wall carrying the vault, verticalbuttresses as at See also:Lincoln and See also:Westminster See also:Abbey were built outside the chapterhouse to receive the thrust. All vertical buttresses are, as a See also:rule, in addition weighted with pinnacles to give them greater power of resistance.

End of Article: FLYING BUTTRESS

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