Ribbed vault

The intersection of two to three barrel vaults produces a rib vault or ribbed vault when they are edged with an armature of piped masonry often carved in decorative patterns; compare groin vault, an older form of vault construction. While the mechanics of the weight of a groin vault and its transmission outwards to the supporting pillars remained as it had been, the new use of rib vaults demonstrates the skill of the masons and the grandeur of the new ideas circulating at the introduction of Gothic architecture in the end of the eleventh century. This technique was new in the late eleventh century, for example in the roofs of the choir side-aisles at Durham Cathedral. Romanesque ancestors of the Gothic rib vault in the can be found in early Gothic constructions at Cefalù, Caen, Durham, and elsewhere.

Some ribbed vaults even have six sections in each bay (for example, the sexpartite vault, formed by the intersection of three half "barrels").

These advances in vaulting allowed for the addition of windows higher up in the building's walls, in the clerestory and the triforium.

Early Gothic buildings commonly display ribbed vaulting made of stone for the support of the weight of a wooden ceiling. Stone ceilings are stronger; for example, the chapter house at Southwell Minster has stone vaulting and no central pillar.

Examples of cathedrals in England that incorporate early Gothic style features can be found in Salisbury, Lincoln, Southwell in Nottinghamshire, Wells, Bristol, Norwich and Worcester. Gothic style was widely used by cathedral builders and two continental examples are the cathedral at Reims (northern France) and the Sint Niklaaskerk in Ghent (Belgium).

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