Decorated Style

Refers to the style that marks the traditioinal beginning of Gothic style in England around 1290, when Edward I erected a number of crosses, with distinctive ornamentation and architectural elements, to commemorate the queen, Eleanor of Castille. The term was coined in the early 19th century and then referred primarily to window tracery, but is now understood to apply to the style more broadly. The style has its roots in the royal London style and French Rayonnant Gothic, and is characterized by immense glazed surfaces, rectilinear apses, thick walls instead of the Continental buttressing system, and intricate decoration composed of lively geometric and organic forms.