DIAPER

In church architecture, a decoration of large surfaces with a constantly recurring pattern, either carved or painted. Norman diapers are usually either fretted or zigzag lines, or imbrications of the masonry; and not only plain surfaces, but pillars, and small shafts, and even mouldings, are diapered, as the cable moulding surrounding the nave at Rochester. In the succeeding styles, flowers and leaves are the most frequent patterns, which, in the Geometrical style, are often of extreme beauty and delicacy. After the fourteenth century, diapers are painted only, and now even the hollows of mouldings are thus treated.