History of mediæval art . twerp, continued in common use in the Neth-erlands. A further difference appears in Belgium in the terminationof the choir. The surrounding passage and radial chapels are sim-plified in a most rational manner: the vault of each chapel beingunited with that of the corresponding part of the surrounding pas- 590 THE EXTENSION OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. sage,—a great improvement upon the complicated French innovation, which may have been based upon the arrangementof the choir at Soissons, is first noticeable in the choir of Holland and Belgium it w
History of mediæval art . twerp, continued in common use in the Neth-erlands. A further difference appears in Belgium in the terminationof the choir. The surrounding passage and radial chapels are sim-plified in a most rational manner: the vault of each chapel beingunited with that of the corresponding part of the surrounding pas- 590 THE EXTENSION OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. sage,—a great improvement upon the complicated French innovation, which may have been based upon the arrangementof the choir at Soissons, is first noticeable in the choir of Holland and Belgium it was only adopted in the districtsof the Baltic, whither it had doubtless been introduced from theNetherlands. The somewhat heavy character peculiar to the exte-rior of the Belgian cathedrals is particularly noticeable in the fa-gades. These rarely have two towers, those of the cathedrals ofBrussels and Antwerp being exceptional; the aim was rather direct-ed towards an imposing height of the single tower placed either be-. Fig. 376.—Plan of the Cathedral of Antwerp. fore or above the western fagade. The proposed height of the tow-ers of the Cathedral of Mechlin and the Church of Wandru at Monswas the greatest ever attempted, being respectively 170 m. and180 m. One of the towers of the Cathedral of Antwerp was com-pleted at a subsequent period, but those of Mechlin and Mons havenot reached the height originally intended. In conformity with the municipal character of the communitiesof the Netherlands, similar in this respect to the towns of UpperItaly, much attention was devoted to the erection of civic town-halls and the edifices for commercial purposes, both pro-vided with towers, became of great importance, especially in the THE NETHERLANDS. 591 Western Netherlands. The Guildhall at Ypres, completed in 1304,and that of Bruges are the oldest, but those of Louvain, Mechlin,and Ghent are not much later. Town-halls were not built beforethe second half of the fourt
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