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Fig. 9.—Loches, Saint Ours.

Although not vaulted with domes, the church of Saint Ours at Loches in France (Indre-et-Loire) (Figs. 9 and 10) has a close connection with such churches as those of Perigord and Notre Dame-du-Puy. This collegiate church was probably constructed a little before 1168, and originally consisted of a nave divided into square bays by transverse arches of pointed

Fig. 10.—Loches, Saint Ours.

elevation and side aisles which have now disappeared. Each nave bay is converted from a square into an octagon by flat triangular pendentives on very small trumpet arches. But instead of domes, the builders of Saint Ours substituted a hollow octagonal pyramid of stone over each bay. Such a system, while presenting the same aesthetic objection as that of Le Puy, had greater structural advantages. The pyramids could be built entirely without centering, and exerted almost no outward thrust, while the stones of which they were constructed could be faced on the exterior (Fig. 9) as well as the interior, and the steep roof thus formed provided adequate drainage for the rain and snow of the region.[34]