This book explains and celebrates the richness of English churches and cathedrals, which have a major place in medieval architecture. The English Gothic style developed somewhat later than in France, but rapidly established its own architectural and ornamental codes. The author, John Shannon Hendrix, classifies English Gothic architecture in four principal stages: the Early English Gothic, the Decorated, the Curvilinear, and the Perpendicular Gothic. Several photographs of these architectural testimonies allow us to understand the whole originality of Britain during the Gothic era, in Canterbury, Wells, Lincoln, York, and Salisbury. English Gothic architecture is a poetic one, speaking both to the senses and to the spirit.