tracery

In architecture, a type of ornamental stonework applied to windows during the Gothic period.

At first it took the form of ‘plate’ tracery, in which a thin panel of stone or wood was inserted into the window frame, and this was pierced by circular and lancet-shaped openings. Later, only the upper part of the window above the lancets was made from a single pierced plate. The next stage, first taken at Reims and then in England about 1240, was to reduce the masonry between the various openings to narrow, vertical moulded bars of stone and to continue these moulded bars around the tops of the lancets and around the circular window, thus forming ‘geometrical tracery’, so called because it consisted of regular geometrical shapes; it is characteristic of the period about 1250–1300 in England.

In the third stage, masons introduced flowing curvilinear designs instead of regular geometric forms; these were introduced at the beginning of the 14th century in England and later became popular in France. Finally, the flowing designs gave way to nearly rectilinear ‘lights’ and, as the size of windows increased, both in width and height, horizontal transoms were introduced to strengthen the mullions. This ‘rectilinear’ or ‘perpendicular’ tracery, largely restricted to England, prevailed until the end of the true Gothic style in the middle of the 16th century.