Flamboyant (from French
flamboyant, "flaming") is the name given to a florid style of late
Gothic architecture in vogue in
France from about 1350 until it was superseded by
Renaissance architecture during the early 16th century, and mainly used in describing French buildings. The term is sometimes used of the early period of
English Gothic architecture usually called the
Decorated Style; the historian
Edward Augustus Freeman proposed this in a work of 1851. A version of the style spread to
Spain and
Portugal during the 15th century. It evolved from the
Rayonnant style and the English Decorated Style and was marked by even greater attention to decoration and the use of double curved tracery. The term was first used by
Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois (1777–1837), and like all the terms mentioned in this paragraph except "Sondergotik" describes the style of window
tracery, which is much the easiest way of distinguishing within the overall Gothic period, but ignores other aspects of style. In England the later part of the period is known as
Perpendicular architecture. In Germany
Sondergotik ("Special Gothic") is the more usual term.