Trail:

Glossary

Retable
Painted or carved panel standing on or at the back of an altar, usually attached to it.
Reticulated tracery
A form of bar tracery used in the early 14th century, with net-like patterns of ogee- (double-curved) ended lozenges.
Retrochoir
In a major church, the area behind the high altar and east chapel.
Return
Part of a wall or moulding that continues at a different angle, usually a right-angle.
Reveal
The plane of a jamb, between the wall and the frame of a door or window.
Rhone
(Scots): Gutter along the eaves for rainwater.
Rib-vault
A vault with a masonry framework of intersecting arches (ribs) supporting cells, used in Gothic and late Norman architecture. A wall rib or wall arch spans between wall and cell vault. A transverse rib spans between two walls to divide a vault into bays. In a quadripartite rib-vault, each bay has two pairs of diagonal ribs dividing the vault into four triangular cells. A sexpartite rib-vault, usually set over paired bays, has an extra pair of ribs springing from between the bays. More elaborate vaults may include ridge-ribs along the crown of a vault or bisecting the bays; tiercerons, extra decorative ribs springing from the corners of a bay; and liernes, short decorative ribs in the crown of a vault, not linked to any springing point. A stellar or star-vault has liernes in star formation. A fan-vault is a form of vault used after c. 1350, made up of halved concave masonry cones decorated with blind tracery.
Ribbon pointing
Mortar joints formed with a trowel so that they stand out.
Ribbonwork
Ornament in the form of long trailing ribbons, common in Elizabethan and Jacobean times.
Ridge or ridge-piece
Horizontal longitudinal timber at the apex of a roof, supporting the ends of the rafters.