THE TERMINOLOGY OF GOTHIC

ARCHITECTURE
an English to Portuguese glossary for translators
2022

Professor David Hardisty | Informática para a Tradução | Turma B | João Santos

Introduction
How easy is translating art history books and documents on the gothic style for
translators? To try to answer that and find a solution, I’ll analyse a few glossaries containing
terminology on Gothic Architecture and try to make my own glossary from them.

To begin with, I’ll do a brief introduction on the history and development of the Gothic
style and how it was applied in buildings. The reason I chose this subject is because I’m
particularly fond of architecture and art history in general. Nonetheless, I believe that, for
translators, the more knowledge and interest you have on what you are translating, the
better results you’ll get. That’s why I think it’s essential to include this approach and
explanation on what the Gothic Architecture was about and how it evolved throughout the
centuries.

Then, I’ll proceed to gather a few glossaries in English and Portuguese on this
subject and evaluate them according to their size, content quality, formatting and reliability,
leaving tips on what they could improve (or not, if that’s the case).

Having done that, I’ll present my own suggestion for a bilingual glossary on Gothic
Architecture, since I didn’t find a pre-existing one from English (UK) to Portuguese (PT).

And lastly, in the conclusion I’ll emphasize my general opinions on the good and bad
aspects of all the glossaries analysed, including my own, and ways these could be
improved, as well as reflections on some difficulties I had to find and organise the
information on this subject.
Table of Contents

1. What is the Gothic style?...............................................................................3

2. Some Gothic architecture characteristics......................................................4

3. Glossaries evaluation.....................................................................................6

English glossary Nº1.........................................................................................6

Portuguese glossary Nº1...................................................................................8

English glossary Nº2.........................................................................................8

Portuguese glossary Nº2...................................................................................9

English glossary Nº3.......................................................................................10

Portuguese glossary Nº3.................................................................................12

4. Elaborating my own glossary.......................................................................13

5. Conclusion...................................................................................................18

6. Sources........................................................................................................19

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 1. What is the Gothic style?

Gothic art was developed in Northern France during the 12th century and
lasted until the late 16th century. The term Gothic was named after the Goths,
the tribes which, according to Italian writers of the Renaissance, were
responsible for the creation of ‘’a style typical of its ugliness’’ and dissonance
from the Classical Antiquity standards. It maintained a derogatory tone until the
19th century, as it was found out later that Gothic art has nothing to do with the
Goths.

Before the Gothic, the most prevalent architectural style in Europe was the
Romanesque, a style that combined various elements from ancient Rome and
Byzantine buildings such as the semi-circular arches and the thick walls while
adding new features as well like the large, symmetrical towers and the
decorative arcading.

Figure 1 Maria Laach Abey, in Germany Figure 2 Murbach in Alsace, France

The reason why Gothic appeared right after the Romanesque, which was a
relatively humble style, was due to France’s political and socioeconomic
conditions at the time. Firstly, France’s monarch and royalty strengthened their
influence and might by withdrawing a few of feudal landowners’ privileges, as
they retained most of the country’s economic and military power since the 9th
century. Cultural changes such as the early formations of universities and the

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emergence of Catholic orders also played an important role on the expansion of
the Gothic style.

Additionally, there were some overall improvements in agriculture

techniques throughout North Europe in the late 11th century which contributed
to the increase of Europe’s population and consequently, the proliferation of
cities and trade.

And this is exactly where it all began, in the cities, homes of cathedrals, the
most iconic buildings of Gothic architecture.

Noble patronage began to play a primary role in building and financing

projects inside their own feuds. They wanted to make religious buildings the
most grandiose, great and ornamented as possible, since they believed that
those same buildings represented their connection to God and their nobility.

2. Some Gothic architecture characteristics

The Gothic architecture is known for various reasons. The first one is their
religious atmosphere. This is complemented by the churches’ plant themselves
for example, which were built in the shape of a Latin cross.

Figure 1- Cathedral Schematic plan

The stained glasses, the sculptures, the luminosity achieved from the
exaggerated number of doors and windows projected, the height of the ceiling,
everything was carefully thought out to resemble and convey the overwhelming
presence of the divine to anyone as soon as they stepped inside the cathedral.

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 Gothic architects planned the towers in a way that they could reach
incredible heights to represent their proximity to God. The higher a cathedral
was, the more prestige it’s city and nobles had. The idea of symmetry and ratios
became essential to French Gothic cathedrals because it was believed that they
expressed the perfection of the universe created by God.

Other architectonic elements were added, such as the pointed arches,

which replaced the semi-circular arches from the Romanesque, and the ribbed
vaults, structures that were used as alternatives to the large piers/columns that
were used to support the ceiling and reduce its weight, turning it possible to
have less thick walls on the building base.

Figure 3 Pointed arch Figure 2 Four types of vaults

At some point in the 13th century, Gothic architects, having solved most of
the problems they had to achieve great heights, became more concerned
towards the decoration and ornamentation of their buildings, thus creating more
detailed pinnacles, sculptures, mouldings and window tracery (take the rose
window as an example),

Figure 4 Gothic
Figuresculptures on the in
5 Rose Window exterior of Strasbourg
the Cathedral
Cathedral of
Portal
Reims

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 Eventually, the bases of the Gothic style spread throughout Europe and
many countries had their own take on it, implementing new features and
characteristics to their architecture. During the Late Gothic of the 16 th century
Portugal for example, turned the French Gothic into what we know nowadays as
the ‘’Manuelino’’, typical for its symbolism revolving around Portuguese
discoveries and newly founded empire.

3. Glossaries evaluation

For this part, I’ll analyse 6 glossaries, three in English and three in
Portuguese. They will be evaluated from 1 to 10 in terms of content, display,
length and reliability.

By content, I mean the quality and quantity of information the glossary has,
including pictures and definitions. The display refers to the way the text is
formatted and how easy it is to read, as well as how intuitive it is to travel
through the glossary and find the term you want. Having a shortcut list or sorting
the terms by their initial letter are good ways to do that, yet some glossaries
don’t do any of them. Regarding length, since the largest glossary I found had
about 128 terms, I’ll consider anything between 10~49 small, 50~99 average
and 100~120 large. Finally, reliability has to do with the quality of the sources
that were used and how they are listed, if there’s any.

English glossary Nº1

Cathedrals and churches - an illustrated glossary
Source https://www.abelard.org/france/cathedral_glossary.php

Language English

An encyclopedic glossary from a French website containing many

Description
terms from A to V with descriptions and a few images.

This glossary is very good. Some explanations are detailed while

others are kept brief. The author managed to pick images to
Evaluation
portray the architectonic elements that could be more confusing to
imagine. The glossary’s number of terms is large as well, so no

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 complaints on that. A very positive thing to note is that at the end
of the page, all the sources and bibliography used, including the
IBSNs are shown and listed, so it’s safe to assume that the
information there is legit.

On the other hand, the website is completely a mess. There are

way too many things going on the screen and if you aren’t using
an ad blocker, it becomes even harder to make good use of the
glossary. For some reason, the terms and texts aren’t always
aligned in the same way. Sometimes they are aligned to the left,
and then to the right, which disturbs the reading a little bit.
Moreover, the alphabet shortcuts list isn’t always on the screen,
so you never get to use it efficiently unless you already know the
term you want to search for.

In short, all my complaints about this glossary are it’s

questionable and weird web-design choices. At first, I thought that
was because it was a very old website which wasn’t touched in
years but, it’s still active. Their owners could’ve updated and
organized it a bit.

Content Display Length Reliability

Rating ~110 terms

8 4 8
Large

Portuguese glossary Nº1

Pequeno glossário de termos usados – Mosteiro da Batalha

Source https://tinyurl.com/govglossariopt

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 Language Portuguese

A simple encyclopaedic glossary from the Portuguese

government regarding the most iconic gothic/Manueline
Description
monastery in Portugal, the Mosteiro da Batalha or the Mosteiro da
Santa Maria da Vitória

This glossary is good. All the explanations are brief and simple
to understand. Unlike the other glossaries, there aren’t any
pictures to look to but if you plan to visit Mosteiro da Batalha in
person it’s a very handy pdf to have on your phone. The
glossary’s number of terms is relatively small compared to others,
but there’s a reason for that, and that reason is because the
glossary only explores the ‘’basic’’ terms of the gothic style and

Evaluation the terms that are specific to the Manuelino style. Considering
that, it’s consistent glossary.

If I were to improve anything, it would be by adding a few

pictures and drawings of the Monastery, increase the font size
and change the term’s formatting to bold.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any indication on the pdf about the

author who did this or the bibliography that was used but since it’s
a document published by a governmental institution, it’s safe to
assume that its content is correct.

Content Display Length Reliability

Rating ~47 terms

7 6 7
Average

English glossary Nº2

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 Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture
Source http://www.medart.pitt.edu/_medart/menuglossary/index.htm

Language English

An encyclopaedic glossary available on a Medieval Art website

Description
created and maintained alone by a person named Alison Stones.

This glossary is bad, which is unfortunate because unlike others,

it’s very easy and intuitive to find the term you want by using the
shortcuts it has. That’s a feature I wished all the other glossaries
had.

Apart from that, although the first few dozens of definitions seem
okay, as you proceed scrolling, you’ll find out that most of the
definitions weren’t finished or clearly explained. Some even have
a few interrogations marks (???????) on them which I believe that
Evaluation
represent the author’s existential crisis.

There are also a few more things that bothered me, such as the
fact that every single term was related to another entry (when in
reality, most of them weren’t related at all) and the text formatting
wasn’t consistent throughout the whole website. The sources
used to make this aren’t listed as well.

But then again, this was last updated in the 20th May of 1997
and probably left as a work in progress

Content Display Length Reliability

Rating ~128 terms

4 6 0
Large

Portuguese glossary Nº2

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 Glossário de Elementos de Arquitectura Eclesiástica
Source https://tinyurl.com/glossarioeclesiastico

Language Portuguese

An encyclopaedic glossary made by a civil engineering student to

Description be annexed on his master’s thesis about the Mosteiro de Santa
Maria de Alcobaça. The author is Júlio Fernando David Antunes.

This glossary is good, even better if you’re already familiarized

with a few terms. The definitions are well-written, organised and
explained and the formatting used is consistent and easy to read.
There are a few pictures but honestly, the author should’ve saved
that to more complicated terms and structures instead of the
simple ones. There is a fairly good number of terms on it, so I
Evaluation considered it average-sized.

If I were to improve anything, it would be by adding more images

and schemes to some specific definitions that are harder to
picture.

Considering this is part of a master thesis, all the bibliography

used was properly listed and therefore, this material is reliable.

Content Display Length Reliability

Rating ~70 terms

7 6.5 8
Average

English glossary Nº3

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 Athena Review - Glossary: Gothic Art and Architecture
Source http://www.athenapub.com/AR/14glossary.htm

Language English

An illustrated glossary made and published by an old online

Description
archaeology magazine.

This glossary is very good. It does not have as much terms as

others, but there is a visual representation to almost every term It
has.

The definitions are well done and explained, since the author
went through the effort to add some real-life examples in them as
well as develop the gothic history while writing the definitions.

Evaluation The font size is good to read, and all the sources used are listed
so it’s safe to assume its content is reliable.

Considering this is an old website, If I were to upgrade anything,

it would be by making the pictures bigger and make better use of
the site’s canvas, since it has so much empty space and it’s
annoying to have to scroll all the way up or down to find the
figures/pictures you want.

Content Display Length Reliability

Rating ~69 terms

8.5 7.5 7
Average

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Portuguese glossary Nº3

Glossário de Termos de Arquitetura

Source http://www.consciencia.org/glossario-de-termos-de-arquitetura

Language Portuguese

Description A glossary made for a website about Philosophy and Human Arts
and Sciences by a professor of Art History

Evaluation

This glossary is very bad. It does have an average number of

terms, but the definitions are lacking and sometimes they even
refer to pictures that aren’t even there.

The dots after each entry are awkward and never in the same
number, which bothered me a lot. There are a few spelling errors
as well and the Portuguese used is before the New Orthographic
Agreement.

The webpage design isn’t appealing at all, there isn’t any tab
about the author and the work that he’s used to do. Moreover, the
sources that he listed seemed very lacking as well, so it’s hard to
trust on this glossary.

To improve this, I would rewrite a few definitions and get rid of all
the dots to replace them with hyphens, for example. Also, I’d need
to add a few pictures as well, at least the ones that he mentions in
some definitions.

Rating Content Display Length Reliability

~63 terms
5 5 4
Average

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 4. Elaborating my own glossary

Having analysed these six glossaries, I’ll proceed to create my own bilingual
glossary. Since this is simply a sample of what the glossary should be like and I
don’t have enough knowledge or an expert to aid me with this task, I will only
put 1 to 4 terms for each initial letter. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find entries for the
letters H, U, W, X, Y and Z.

Nothing that I’ll do will be created from scratch. I’ll gather the terms and
definitions from Athena’s Review and Abelard’s glossaries that are already well
done and written and simply associate them with their matching expression in
European Portuguese. Eventually I’ll try to tweak some definitions a little bit to
make them shorter or clearer.

Portuguese
Letter Term/definition
equivalent

Aisle – the space that is separated by piers and columns

from the nave and extends diagonally in a church between Nave lateral
the main entrance and the apse
Altar - an elevated structure located in the choir at the
east end of the church, where religious rites are performed Altar

A Ambulatory – the walking area of gallery that involves the

main chapel and is surrounded most of the times by other Deambulatório
chapels. It also serves as an extension of the side aisles

Arcade - 1. an arch-shaped opening in a wall or 2. a

Arcada
series of arches that support a ceiling or a dome

Balustrade - a row of small columns (banisters) topped by

Balaustrada
a rail
Buttress - A projecting or free-standing support built into
B
or against the exterior wall of a cathedral, which steadies
Contraforte
the structure by opposing the lateral thrusts from the
vaults
Canopy - a decorated roof like projection or a richly
C Altar do Dossel

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 decorated baldachin over a statue that is commonly seen ou Dossel
in churches
Capital – superior part of the column or pier that supports Capitel
an architrave, dome or arch.
Choir - part of the church east of the crossing, usually
Coro
occupied by the priests and singers of the choir
Diaphragm arch - a transverse wall-bearing arch forming
Arco de
a partial wall dividing a vault or a ceiling into
diafragma
compartments
D Dome – hemispherical covering or roof over a large
space, in cathedrals and churches. Generally, a dome is Abóbada
placed at the crossing of the nave and transepts

Embrasure - an opening for a portal or window built into a

thick wall. An embrasure often has angled sides, so that Embrasura
the opening is larger on the inside than the outside
E
Effigy - a sculptured representation of a figure such as in
Efígie
the recumbent effigies of dead kings

Flying buttress – arch-shaped structure with it’s interior Arcobotante

F soffit curved and its exterior soffit flat to support the domes

Façade - the front of the cathedral Fachada

Gallery – a covered corridor in an upper story overlooking
the nave. A traverse gallery crosses both sides of the
church and a tribune gallery is the elevated part of a Galeria
gallery which contains seats
G
Gargoyle - a water sprout terminating in a grotesquely
carved figure of a human or animal, and projecting from
Gárgola
the gutter of a cathedral

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H

I Intrados - inner curve of an arch.

Intradorso

Jesse tree - a tradition in stained glass windows, giving a

Árvore de Jessé
visual representation of the genealogy of Jesus
J Jamb - a pair of vertical posts or pieces that together form
Jamba
the sides of a portal, which often contains sculptures
Keystone - stone in the form of wedge forming the central
K element of a lintel, vault, or arch Pedra angular

Labyrinth - intricate combination of paths and

passageways, often located in the nave of a cathedral,
painted or marked by floor tiles in which pilgrims had to
Labirinto
walk on his knees and find the entrance by following a
L certain set of rules.

Lancet window - a narrow window with sharp pointed

arches Janela lanceta

Martyrium - an edifice built over the site of a tomb of a

martyr frequently became the site of cathedrals. Martírio

Moldings - long narrow, often decorated bands found on

M other architectural features such as cornices or bases
Moldura de
gesso

Mullion - the vertical dividing bar of a rose or lancet

Mainel
window
Narthex - the gallery, vestibule, or porch located in the
Nartéx
main (west) entrance of the church

N Nave – the main body of a church or cathedral that

Nave
extends diagonally between the main entrance and the
apse

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 Oculus - a small circular opening, which was a precursor
O of the Gothic rose window Óculo

Parvis - the area in front of a cathedral Parvise

Pinnacle - small narrow pointed tower capping buttresses
P and openwork gablets or portals and galleries
Pináculo

Portal - the door or entrance of a cathedral

Portal

Quadripartite vault - a vaulted ceiling with four ribs

Abóbada
Q quadripartida

Reliquary - a container, often richly ornamented, holding

the remains of a saint which can be displayed to the
Reliquiário
faithful

R Rose window - a large round window on the west façade

or transept, containing tracery that became more
Rosácea
elaborate as the Gothic era progressed

Ribs - part of the structure of the vault framework. Arestas

Sexpartite – a vault with six ribs Sexpartite ou

abóbada
sexpartida
Spandrel – an area between two adjoining arches, often
decorated. Enjunta
S
Stained glass - coloured windows of Gothic cathedrals
made from a combination of many pieces of coloured and
semi-transparent white glass joined together with lead Vitral
strips

Tabernacle - a canopied niche holding a sculpted figure Sacrário

T
Tracery - geometrically constructed building ornament Traceria

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 such as a foil found in the upper part of Gothic rose
windows
Transept - area of the church body that extends in an
orthogonal position to either side of the nave, forming a Transepto
cross.

U
Vaulting – another name for dome Abóbada
Voussoirs - any of the pieces, in the shape of a truncated
Aduelas
wedge, that make up an arch or vault
V
Volute - a spiral scroll, usually part of the decoration on a
capital column Voluta

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 5. Conclusion

Having done this short research, how can we come up with a response to
the question that was presented in the beginning? The conclusion I came up
with is that it’s hard indeed for translators to find materials about this kind of
terminology, and it’s even harder for Portuguese or other non-central European
translators to find these in their own language.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t good and reliable glossaries or other
sources about Gothic architecture. There are, but most of them are incomplete
somehow and sometimes there isn’t even a consensus on the terminology that
is being used. This happens because unlike European Legislation or Medicine
for example, there isn’t any kind of international research institution to establish
the terminology that should be used when referring to Art and Architecture in
general.

From the glossaries analysed, we can figure out that one of the problems
some of them had was related to their content. Even the larger glossaries are
lacking a lot of terms that I found in others, and in that way, they complete each
other’s. Another problem was the lack of illustrated glossaries available to
portray the concepts that were being conveyed, which are completely
necessary in an area like architecture where you must be able to visualize and
know what the terms you are writing about are like.

Even the glossary I proposed, unfortunately, has those same problems. But
why is that? Why is it so hard to find a complete material about Gothic
Architecture, which is a subject that has been explored, researched and
documented for centuries?

I believe that the reason for this, at least in the glossaries presented here, is
because of the lack of cooperation between historians, illustrators and
terminologists. It’s not like there isn’t enough documented information, terms,
photos or illustrations about Gothic architecture online, there are, but a person
can’t work out and filter alone all the information gathered without the help of a
specialist and a person who has knowledge on that subject.

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 On the other hand, illustrators are extremely valuable to this kind of works
because otherwise either the style of the pictures used in the glossary are
inconsistent and unharmonized or there aren’t images available to all the terms
you have. And that’s a problem because it’s weird to propose to do an
illustrated glossary and then only have pictures for a few of concepts and not all
of them.

In conclusion, if I had to pick one of the glossaries evaluated as the best, it

would probably be Athena’s Review one, since it’s the one that has the best
terms-pictures ratio, well written definitions and sources listed. But then again,
that glossary alone wasn’t enough to do this research as I found a lot of terms
missing there compared to other glossaries like the one from Abelard or the one
elaborated by the Portuguese civil engineering student.

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 6. Sources

https://www.britannica.com/art/Gothic-art

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/introduction-to-
gothic-art/

https://www.todamateria.com.br/arquitetura-gotica/

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/gothic-art-and-architecture/history-and-
concepts/

http://www.consciencia.org/glossario-de-termos-de-arquitetura

https://www.abelard.org/france/cathedral_glossary.php

https://tinyurl.com/govglossariopt

https://www.medart.pitt.edu/_medart/menuglossary/index.htm

https://tinyurl.com/glossarioeclesiastico

http://www.athenapub.com/AR/14glossary.htm

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