Chapter 1 – Scope and approach
The intention is to illustrate every remaining foliate capital in the Paris Basin carved before 1130, and to use the completeness of that data to demonstrate there is a way to date these works. Past investigations of dating have been based on wide-ranging comparisons of style and motifs. Here, James has used an aspect that has not been investigated before: the growing skill in setting-out, and the concomitant passion to make designs as coherent as possible, a great Quest for Order.

  Chapter 2 – Dates and documents
In the Paris Basin there are imprecise dates for only four buildings, and in other parts of Europe a mere 18 more. These few are the foundation for any architectural chronology. [Chris Henige]

  Chapter 3 – Scholarship
Scholars acknowledge that the accepted chronology for the period is pretty shaky. This analyses present scholarship to show its reliance on unwarranted assumptions, and on comparative method that is limited to only a few selected monuments, manuscripts and other artefacts. [Sarah Dillane]

  Chapter 4 – Unlocking assumptions
In addition, all previous chronologies have been constrained by the century-old belief in two seminal moments: That neither the first pointed arch nor the first rib vault were admitted into the Paris Basin much before 1120. These three chapters unhitch sculpture from these constraints so that buildings that have been frozen into later
time-slots are free to settle into their natural places in a chronology.

  Chapter 5 – Techniques of Perfection
Describes the skills needed to achieve a perfect layout on curved and irregular surfaces, especially in dealing with the natural dyslexia that distorts true mirror-symmetry. It includes a discussion of how ideas may have been transmitted and copied, and the allied matter of restorations.

  Chapter 6 – Methods
The first stage in creating a chronology is to distinguish the five stages in the development of skills in twenty-two dated monuments, and to apply these methods to each of the capitals of the Paris Basin. The work of each decade between the 1070s and the 1130s is illustrated and discussed.

  Chapter 7 – Clusters
The second stage separates the spread of methods in each individual church into clusters, and devises a consistent way to arrange the clusters decade by decade in alignment with the dated buildings. The hoped-for outcome has been to establish a consistent chronology for these buildings within ±5 years. The analysis indicates that the first pointed arches were built in the 1080s, and the first rib vaults only a few years later. This coincides with a noticeable boom in construction that trailed off in the second half of this period.

  Chapter 8 – Transition of the 1120s
When building activity declined after the boom, the Quest for Order came to dominate the work of every mason so that by the time of the Chartres and Saint-Denis narthexes there is not one archaic capital. All have become formal. The decade of the ‘20s is, like that of the ‘70s discussed in volume 1, a key moment that marks
the demise of one manner of carving and the total acceptance of another.

  Chapter 9 – Analysis of the capitals
A long and copiously illustrated analysis of the evolution of foliage and some seventeen distinctive designs. There are enough examples of two of them to identify the carvers, and this has helped firm up the chronology. There is a discussion on the popularity of towers, especially during the 1080s.

  Chapter 10 – The thesaurus
Illustrations of some 2,700 capitals remaining in the 147 buildings carved before 1130. Many are halfpage so that all the details may be seen. The documentary evidence is provided for the twenty-two dated buildings, with discussions of how this evidence affects the dating of, among others, the choirs of Jouy-le-Moutier and Morienval, the naves of Bury, Etampes, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Remi and Villers-Saint-Paul, and the portals of Ivry-la-Bataille and Saint-Loup-de-Naud.

  Chapter 11 – Addendum 1170-1250
Twenty-five campaigns from this later period, mainly very small ones, that were omitted from Part A.

  Bibliography, Index