Introduction

King's College Chapel was begun in 1448 in the dying fall of an era. Europe was still inward-looking, still obsessed with its own increasingly anachronistic struggles. The ideals and aspirations of the High Middle Ages were decaying. The romantic and chivalrous notions of kings and princes fell short of the realities of a new, hard-faced age. King's College Chapel was one of the last great buildings of the Perpendicular age, the style of architecture current in most of England from about 1330 to the end of the Middle Ages. Norwich provides another vital link in the architectural background of King's College Chapel as well as being a textbook illustration of the shift from southern to northern influence during the early part of the fifteenth century. The link with King's is direct - Reginald Ely, the first master mason, came from Coltishall just outside the city.