The dating found here is based on the work of John James, and is meant on this site to serve as a starting point. James' dating is derived from a system that uses his interpretation of the development of capitals over time as the basis for chronology, among other factors. His goal is to refine the dating to within years rather than decades. I have not fully embraced James' methodology, and will be developing this page from its current state to one which is admittedly more conservative. The relative expenditure values found in the Timeline are also based on James' work, and I believe these to be reasonably reliable. They are intended only to give a sense of the amount of work involved in each decade.

I have added the idea of the "project" as a way of separating work in buildings. In my mind, a "project" is a discrete section of work in a building that resulted from the one-time acquisition of funding. "Projects" are generally separated by at least a decade where no work was being done. It is my view that it would have been unwise to start a "project" that could not be finished and protected from the elements, and as such a "project" usually involved a wing or multiple wings of a building, from floor to roof. Rural churches, which could only secure small amounts of funding at irregular intervals, often were the result of many small projects, while the great churches, which benefitted from relatively consistent funding, may have involved only a few large projects.

360

460

45

1060s

1070s

1080s

1090s

1100s

1110s

1120s

1130s

1140s

1150s

1160s

1170s

1180s

1190s

1200s

1210s

1220s

1230s

1240s

1250s

All wall footings, especially on axial chapel in a complex and very slow construction sequence analysed in Master Carvers Series #09 on The Duke.

Few courses in external walls, small program inside earlier church with piers bases A.

Pier bases B with additional work on external walls

Pier bases C, window sill and string

Pier bases E and possibly pauses in the external walls while the rest of the pier bases were laid with minimal expenditure; there are ten different designs for these piers, and they are individual enough to ascribe to different teams and there being no coordination between them one presumes some considerable time between each one.

Pier bases F

Pier bases H

Pier bases I

Pier bases J

Aisle wall cornice, impost 2, upper vault 2 and doubeau 2

Chapel vault 1 begun with ribs 1 and doubleau 4

Axial chapel (a+), mid arch 3, ribs 2, noting that the clergy could have moved into the middle portionat this time.

Ambulatory roof, ribs 3, arches 5

Clerestory window sills and ribs 5

Clerestory cornice, probably around 1138.

Towers 1