Romanesque Europe

The word Romanesque takes its name from an artistic style and not from politics or a location. It is the first style since Archaic and Classical Greece to do this.

• Carolingian and Ottonian art were named for emperors
• Hiberno-Saxon art is named for Ireland and Great Britain
• Romanesque is a title art historians used to describe art that is “Roman-like.”
• Used barrel and groin vaults that looked like earlier Roman architecture.

“Romanesque” is the history and culture of western Europe between 1050 and 1200.

In the early Middle Ages

• Focus was on the estate of a landholding lord
• might grant rights to a portion of his land to vassals (land owner).
• Vassals swore allegiance to their lord
• Gave him military service in return for use of the land and the promise of protection.

Feudalism was the social system in medieval Europe

• Nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service
• Vassals were tenants of the nobles
• Peasants (villeins or serfs) lived on their lord’s land and give him honor, labor, and a share of the produce in exchange for protection.

Feudal lords granted independence to new towns in the form of charters.

• A sharp increase in trade would later encourage growth in towns and cities, gradually displacing feudalism.

Located on rivers, cities became networks of marine and land commerce.

Christians traveled to sacred shrines

• Believed to hold body parts or objects of Christ, Mary or the saints.
• Believed that bones, clothing, or the things they were killed with had the power to heal the body and their soul.
• Worshiping relics reached a high point in the 11th and 12th centuries.
• Christian pilgrimages were a sign of devotion
• Christians held tremendous faith in the power of saints.

The major shrines included:

• Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s in Rome
• Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem

In order to get to these shrines, Christians had to travel on rough roads and through the woods

• Many robberies and murders along the way
• Journeys could take more than a year to complete — if the Christians made it at all.
• Chrostians believed that these journeys were a way repent for their sins or be cured.
• The harder or longer the journey, the better chance at salvation or being cured

Other holy places were built that were closer to home. Each of these shrines was an important stop on the way to one of the most important Christian shrines in western Europe, the tomb of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.

• In France, the church at Vézelay held the bones of Mary Magdalene and served as a resting point along the way to St. James.

Large pilgrimage crowds led to changes in church design;

• longer and wider churches with extra chapels
• second-story galleries (viewing areas).

Pilgrim traffic became a major source of commerce, communication and money.

• Created travel guides like modern guidebooks.
• Provided information about saints and shrines and also about roads, places to stay, food, and drink.

Saint James

• Famous for his Christian resistance to Muslim expansion
• Relics drew people from all over

Saint Saturninus of Toulouse

• Died at the hands of pagans when he was tied to  wild bulls and then drug from the height of the citadel. . . . “His head crushed, his brains knocked out, his whole body torn to pieces.”
• Buried next to the city of Toulouse
• A large basilica was built in his honor.

Pilgrim’s Guide also included comments on authenticity. 

A comment included in a guide book about imitations of Saint James’ tomb:

“May therefore the imitators from beyond the mountains blush who claim to possess some portion of him or even his entire relic. In fact, the body of the Apostle is here in its entirety.”

Monasteries and churches were separate from secular life

During the 11th and 12th centuries

• Population exploded
• Lots of new construction
• Christians believed the world was going to end in the year 1,000
• It didn’t.
• Construction of new churches became an obsession.

Investment in church buildings and furnishings also created an increase in pilgrimage traffic.

• Pilgrims and wealthy landowners were the major source of funding for monasteries that possessed the relics of Saints.
• Built beautiful churches for their relics
• Justified their expenses with the Bible; Psalm 26:8, “Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house, and the place where your glory dwells.”
• Had a major economic impact

Architecture and Architectural Sculpture

• The regional diversity between France and Northern Spain is very evident in architecture.
• Some Romanesque churches, especially in Italy, had wooden roofs similar to their Early Christian predecessors.

Even in France and northern Spain, home of many of the most innovative uses of stone vaulting, some Romanesque architects still built wood-roofed churches.

Most Romanesque churches (the primary type of Romanesque architecture) have the following characteristics:

• harmonious proportions
• stone barrel vault or groin vault
• thick and heavy walls
• thick and heavy pillars
• small windows
• round arches supporting the roof
• round “blind arches” used extensively for decoration inside and out (especially out)
• nave with side aisles (though some modest churches are aisleless)
• galleries above the side aisles, separated from the nave by a triforium
• a transept (section crossing the nave at a right angle, giving the church a cross shape)
• an apse (semicircular niche, usually in the east end)
• an ambulatory (often with radiating chapels) around the apse
• multiple towers, usually at the west end and over the transept crossing
• sculptured decoration on portals, capitals and other surfaces (except in Cistercian monasteries)
• painted decoration throughout the interior (little of which survives today)

Gothic architecture adopted many of these characteristics, but the major development that marked the beginning of the Gothic style was the ability to support heavy stone vaults on much thinner walls. This provided the opportunity for large glass windows, thinner walls and pillars, and generally more delicate and more vertical architecture.

SAINT-ÉTIENNE, VIGNORY 

Looks similar to the three-story wooden-roofed churches of the Ottonian era.

Second story is not a true tribune (upper gallery over the aisle opening onto the nave)

The east end of the church

• Includes an ambulatory around the apse
• Three semicircular chapels opening onto it.
• These chapels probably housed the church’s relics
• Worshippers could view them without having to enter the choir area where the main altar was.

Saint-Étienne is also an early example of the introduction of stone sculpture.

• Important to the Romanesque style.
• The only sculpture is the relief decoration of the capitals
• Used abstract patterns and plant life, lions, and other animals.

Timber Roofs and Stone Vaults

Churches burned often in the course of a single century and often had to be extensively repaired or completely rebuilt .In September 1174, for example, Canterbury Cathedral, which had been dedicated only 44 years earlier, was accidentally set on fire and destroyed. Gervase of Canterbury provided an eyewitness account of the fire in his Chronica:

“[D]uring an extraordinarily violent south wind, a fire broke out before the gate of the church, and outside the walls of the monastery, by which three cottages were half destroyed. From thence, while the citizens were assembling and subduing the fire, cinders and sparks carried aloft by the high wind, were deposited upon the church, and being driven by the fury of the wind between the joints of the lead, remained there amongst the half-rotten planks, and shortly glowing with increased heat, set fire to the rotten rafters; from these the fire was communicated to the larger beams and their braces, no one yet perceiving or helping…”

After the fire, the monks asked a master builder from Sens, a French city 75 miles southeast of Paris, to supervise the construction of their new church.

William of Sens was tasked with “procuring stone from beyond the sea.”

Did not want stones just to avoid fires.

Clergy also wanted to provide a majestic setting for the display of relics.

“[He] took down the timber beams of the nave of the church, threatening to fall from sheer old age, and began to build stone vaults of wondrous effect.”

SAINT-SERNIN, TOULOUSE 

Earliest Romanesque example of stone vaulting.

• Construction began around 1070 to honor the city’s first bishop.
• Toulouse was an important stop on the pilgrimage road through southwestern France to Santiago de Compostela.
• Large congregations were common.
• Exemplifies the building type that became known as the “pilgrimage church” (bigger churches to hold more people)

At Toulouse, the designer increased the length of the nave, doubled the side aisles, and added a transept, ambulatory, and radiating chapels to provide additional space for pilgrims and the clergy. 

Geometrically precise

• Each nave bay measures one-half of the crossing square
• Each aisle bay measures exactly one-quarter of the crossing square
• Basically…everything is in proportion to everything else
• This type of precision was seen in the Saint Gall monastery plan 300 years earlier.

Extra space on the sides for more people (Christmas, Easter)

Groin vaults (the X’s on the plan) helped distribute some of the weight.

Piers / posts with columns attached are called compound piers.

Columns appear repeated.

Saint-Sernin

• Has one of the earliest large Romanesque figure reliefs (carving of a figure on the wall)
• Group of seven marble slabs representing angels, apostles, and Christ.
• Made in 1096
• Artist was Bernardus Gelduinus.

Today the plaques are attached to the church’s ambulatory (near the apse) wall.

• Not sure where they were installed originally

Depicts Christ in Majesty in a mandorla (oval shape; here a throne)

• Right hand raised in blessing
• Left hand resting on an open book with the words Pax vobis (“peace be unto you”).
• The signs of the four evangelists are in the corners.

Influenced by earlier Carolingian or Ottonian work, may be a book cover.

Stone sculpture had almost disappeared during the early Middle Ages.

• Stone-carving shows up again in the Romanesque age.

Influence may have came from the remains of ancient statues and reliefs found in Rome.

• Not sure why they started or who did them first.
• More money in the churches meant more sculpture/decoration

The role of the church was changing

• Most churches served small monastic communities
• Worshipers were mostly the members of the church.

With an increase in population during the Romanesque period

• Churches started serving everyone.
• Sculptures on the inside and outside of Romanesque churches were meant to impress and educate.

The Romanesque Church Portal

Late 11th and early 12th centuries, figural reliefs began to appear again, most often in the doorways through which Christians had to pass every morning on their way into church.

In the Romanesque era (and the Gothic period that will come later), sculpture usually appeared in the area surrounding the doors, not on them.

*Tympanum – the semi-circular area above the doorway, similar to a pediment in a Greco-Roman temple.

*Voussoirs – the wedge-shaped blocks that together form the archivolts of the arch.

*Lintel – the horizontal beam above the doorway.

*Trumeau – the center post supporting the lintel in the middle of the doorway.

*Jambs – the side posts of the doorway.

Saint-Pierre at Moissac, France 

• Important stop along the pilgrimage route to Saint James’s tomb at Santiago de Compostela
• Largest group of sculptures from the Romanesque period

SOUTH PORTAL, MOISSAC

Most influential theologian of the Romanesque period was Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153).

• A Cistercian monk and abbot.
• European celebrity.
• Intervened in religious and secular matters
• defended and sheltered popes, counseled kings, denounced heretics, and preached Crusades against the Muslims.

The Church declared Bernard a saint in 1174

• only 20 years after his death.
• Bernard did not like sculpture if it distracted monks from their meditations.

Tympanum 

Second Coming of Christ as King and Judge of the world.

• Christ is at the center.
• Signs of the four evangelists on the sides of him.
• Angel holding scrolls to record human deeds for judgment.
• Musicians are the 24 elders who are the kings of this world
• Make music to praise Christ
• Pair of wavy lines symbolizing the clouds of Heaven
• divide the groups into three tiers
• For some much larger images, click here.

Christ was seen as the door to salvation

Decorated trumeau and elaborate door jambs.

• On the trumeau’s right face is a prophet identified as Jeremiah or Isaiah
• Holds a scroll wit his writing.
• Pairing of Old and New Testament themes.
• Very tall and thin

Six lions on the trumeau’s outer face.

Richard the Lionhearted, Henry the Lion, and Henry the Bear.

• Lions were the church’s protectors.
• People believed lions slept with their eyes open.

In its garden, monks could read their devotions, pray, and meditate.

“Cloister” (from the Latin claustrum, “enclosed place”)

• Were meant as a way to shut yourself off from the world.
• Seclusion for the spiritual life.
• Paradise to the monks and nuns
• The physical silence matches the monks spiritual silence

76 capitals

• On top of single and double columns.
• Some with abstract patterns
• Many with biblical scenes or the lives of saints
• Others with monsters like griffins, lizards, and gargoyles.

Bestiaries

• Illustrations of real and imaginary animals
• became very popular in the Romanesque age.
• The monsters were reminders of the chaos and deformity of a world without God.
• Not everyone liked the stone sculpture.

One group of Benedictine monks founded a new order at Cîteaux in eastern France in 1098.

The Cistercians split from the Cluniac order

• Pronounced sis-ter-shun
• monk or nun of an order founded in 1098
• stricter branch of the Benedictines.
• Wanted to return to the strict Rules of Saint Benedict
• Changed the color of their habits from black to unbleached white.

White Monks emphasized productive manual labor

• Came up with farming techniques that changed all of Europe.
• In less than 50 years, more than 500 Cistercian monasteries had been established.
• Rejected figural sculpture as a distraction from their devotions.

The most outspoken Cistercian critic of church sculpture was Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux on Cloister Sculpture

“But so be it, let these things be made for the honor of God . . . . [But] in the cloisters, before the eyes of the brothers while they read—what . . . are the filthy apes doing there? The fierce lions? The monstrous centaurs? The creatures, part man and part beast? . . . Good God! If one is not ashamed of the absurdity, why is one not at least troubled at the expense?”

The pier reliefs illustrate the 12 apostles and the first abbot of Moissac, Durandus, who was buried in the cloister.

Writing these things takes a lot of work.  It’s late and that was funny.  If you didn’t find that funny you probably don’t like kittens either.  However, not George Clooney the man but Cluny, the Third, the church.

CLUNY III 

The primary patrons of Romanesque sculpture were the monks of the Cluniac order.

William the Pious

• In 909, donated land to a community of Benedictine monks under the leadership of Berno of Baume.

Because William waived his feudal rights to the land

• the abbot of Cluny was subject only to the pope in Rome
• a unique privilege. 
• Berno founded a new order at Cluny according to the rules of Saint Benedict.
• Monks became famous for their education, music, and art.

Built a series of elaborate monastic churches at Cluny.

Abbot Hugh of Semur began construction of the third church at Cluny in 1088.

• Called Cluny III
• building is mostly destroyed.
• At the time it was built, Cluny III was the largest church in Europe
• Bold and influential design.
• Nave more than 500 feet long and more than 100 feet high

SAINT-LAZARE, AUTUN 

For its tympanum, Bishop Étienne de Bage commissioned the sculptor Gislebertus to carve the Last Judgment

• Four trumpet-blowing angels.
• In the tympanum’s center is Christ, within a mandorla.

Two of the men near the center of the lintel carry bags with a cross and a shell.

• These are the symbols of pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela. 
• Those who had made the journey would be judged favorably.

On the left side are those who will be condemned to Hell.

• Giant hands pluck one poor soul from the earth.

To their right, three small figures beg an angel to intercede on their behalf.

• The angel responds by pointing to the Judge above.

Separation of the Blessed from the Damned.

• An angel lifts one of the Blessed into the heavenly city.
• Below, the souls of the dead line up to await their fate.

Directly above, in the tympanum – the weighing of souls.

Angels and devils compete at the scales

• Each are trying to manipulate the balance for or against a soul.
• Demons laugh

A devil, leaning from the dragon mouth of Hell, drags souls in

• Above him a howling demon crams souls headfirst into a furnace. 
• Created terror in the Christians who passed beneath it as they entered the cathedral.

For the people who could read, the clergy made explicit written warnings to reinforce the pictorial message and had the words engraved in Latin on the tympanum.

Beneath the weighing of souls, the inscription reads, “May this terror terrify those whom earthly error binds, for the horror of these images here in this manner truly depicts what will be.”

LA MADELEINE, VÉZELAY 

Associated with the Crusades more than any other church in Europe.

Pope Urban II intended to preach the launching of the First Crusade at Vézelay in 1095

• Delivered the sermon at Clermont.

In 1147, Bernard of Clairvaux called for the Second Crusade at Vézelay,

The Third Crusade in 1190.

Tympanum depicts the Pentecost and the Mission of the Apostles.

• 12 apostles would receive the power of the Holy Spirit and become witnesses.

The light rays coming from Christ’s hands

• Putting the Holy Spirit in the apostles at the Pentecost (the seventh Sunday after Easter).
• The apostles, holding Bibles, are getting ready to preach Christianity to all nations.

The heathens are on the lintel below and in eight compartments around the tympanum. 

Giant-eared Panotii of India (mythical race), Pygmies (who needed ladders to mount horses), and other races, some with a dog’s head, others with a pig’s snout, and others by flaming hair. 

Hunchbacks, mutes, blind men, and lame men.

Humanity waits for salvation.

The Crusades

In 1095, Pope Urban II (r. 1088–1099) called for an assault on the Holy Land:

“[Y]our brethren who live in the East are in urgent need of your help . . . [because] the Turks and Arabs have attacked them . . . They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches . . . I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds . . . to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. . . . All who die by the way . . . shall have immediate remission of sins. . . . Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses . . . [and] eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide.”

Between 1095 and 1190

• Christians launched three great Crusades from France. 
• The Crusades (“taking of the Cross”) were large armed pilgrimages
• Purpose was to get back the Christian shrines they lost to Muslims.
• Wanted to glorify God and extend the power of the Christian Church.

Strong Christian ties between land owners and the Church.

• Start to see the development of Christian knights
• Fought for the honor of God.

The first of these knights were the Knights Templar.

• Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099
• Stationed themselves next to the Dome of the Rock.
• Mission was to protect pilgrims visiting Christian shrines.

Founded in 1118

• Received the blessing of Bernard of Clairvaux.
• Justified their militancy by declaring that “the knight of Christ” is “glorified in slaying the infidel . . . because thereby Christ is glorified,”
• The Christian knight then wins salvation. 
• Bernard saw the Crusades as part of the reform of the Church or the supremacy of Christendom.
• The first crusade was launched by Pope Urban II

He called for the Second Crusade in 1147. 

• For the Muslims, the Crusaders were violent invaders who slaughtered the population of Jerusalem (Jewish as well as Muslim).
• In the end, the Muslims expelled the Christian armies.

The Crusaders failed miserably in their attempt to regain the Holy Land. 

Crusades did however increase the power and prestige of the towns.

Italian cities such as Pisa (which was on the ocean) thrived on the commercial opportunities presented by the transportation of Crusaders overseas.

Many communities purchased their charters from the barons who owned their land

• Barons needed to finance their campaigns in the Holy Land
• Middle class of merchants and artisans arose
• Rivaled the power of the feudal lords and the great monasteries.

NOTRE-DAME, FONTENAY

Notre-Dame is a Cistercian church which were the largest built in Romanesque Europe.

• Plain buildings
• Cistercians rejected extravagance
• Emphasis on poverty, labor, and prayer.

The church has a square east end without an ambulatory or chapels.

• No sculpture
• Column capitals are plain.
• Single-story with no clerestory nor gallery.
• Used pointed arches in the nave and in the barrel vaults.
• Pointed arches transfer the weight better
• Require less buttressing.
• Gothic churches later on to be much taller.

Painting and Other Arts

Monasteries created a tremendous amount of illuminated manuscripts in the early Middle Ages

MORALIA IN JOB 

One of the major Romanesque scriptoria was at the abbey of Cîteaux

• Major church of the Cistercian order.

The page with the initial R may be a picture of a baron’s costume.

We will see more of these later in this section and even more in the Gothic Europe section.

SAINT-SAVIN-SUR-GARTEMPE 

Saint-Savin is a hall church

• Church where the aisles are approximately the same height as the nave.
• The tall windows provided lots of light.
• Ceiling is decorated with paintings
• Also painted the piers to look like marble.

Painting is of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy)

• New Testament themes appear in the transept, ambulatory, and chapels, where the painters also depicted the lives of Saint Savin and another local saint.

Click the image above for a much larger image.

SANTA MARÍA DE MUR 

Northern Spain

• Major pilgrimage church

Catalonia (region in northeastern Spain) has more Romanesque mural paintings than anywhere else. 

Fresco, now in Boston, once filled the apse of Santa María de Mur.

• Looks Byzantine.
• Spanish artist rejected Byzantine mosaic for painting on plaster walls.
• The signs of the four evangelists surround Christ in a mandorla
• Had to do with the Apocalypse.

Stars

• Seven lamps symbolize the seven Christian communities where Saint John addressed his revelation (the Apocalypse) at the beginning of his book (Rev. 1:4, 12, 20).

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

• Salians come after the Ottonians
• Ruled an empire about the size of Germany and northern Italy.
• Salian emperors were important patrons of art and architecture
• Monasteries remained great centers of artistic production.

The Architecture

• Churches were relatively fireproof
• Had horrible lighting
• Clerestories were difficult to construct.
• The goal of northern Romanesque architects was to create a stone system that worked well and let in light.
• Combination of stone and concrete

MORGAN MADONNA 

Resisted creating statues in the round.

• Avoided creating anything that might be thought of as an idol.
• Freestanding statues of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints were quite rare.
• Big demand for small-scale images of the holy family and saints. 
• Artists began producing reliquaries in the form of saints (or parts of saints), tabletop crucifixes, and small wooden devotional images in great numbers.

Wooden statue of the Virgin Mary with Christ in her lap.

• The Morgan Madonna, once belonged to J. Pierpont Morgan.

Christ holds a Bible in his left hand and raises his right arm in blessing (both hands are broken off). 

• Symbolizes divine wisdom contained in the Holy Scriptures.

SPEYER CATHEDRAL

Construction began in 1030

• Was located far from the pilgrimage routes of southern France and northern Spain.

Church was the burial place of the Holy Roman emperors until the beginning of the 12th century

• Funding for the church came from political patrons, not traveling pilgrims and local landowners.

When it was first built, it had a wooden roof.

• Rebuilt between 1082 and 1105 with stone groin vaults.
• The nave is 45 feet wide, and the crowns of the vaults are 107 feet above the floor.
• Used compound piers all the way to the ceiling.

Sant’Ambrogio, Milan

Charlemagne defeated the Lombards in 773

• German kings held control over Lombardy (northern Italy)
• Rhineland (western Germany) and northern Italy influenced each other artistically.

Sant’Ambrogio was erected in honor of Saint Ambrose, Milan’s first bishop

Two bell towers (campaniles) join the building on the west. 

• The shorter one dates to the 10th century
• The taller north campanile is a 12th-century addition.

Has a nave and two aisles but no transept.

• Main vaults are slightly domed
• Rise higher than the arches.
• Windows provide lighting
• One of the first instances of rib vaulting (the brick edge)

Italian architects didn’t like the height found in other churches

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN 

Scivias is an illustrated work by Hildegard of Bingen, completed in 1151 or 52

• The original was lost in 1945 and this is only a copy.
• Record of Hildegard’s vision of the divine order of the heavens and our place in the world.
• Describes 26 visions she had
• The vision came to her as a fiery light that poured into her brain.
• The title, Scivias, comes from the Latin phrase “Scito vias Domini” (“Know the Ways of the Lord”)
• 150,000 words or about 600 pages of printed text
• Contains 35 illustrations.

On the opening page,  Hildegard sits within the monastery walls, her feet resting on a foot-stool.

• Five long tongues of fire come from above and enter her brain.
• Writes on a wax tablet
• The monk Volmar copies into a book all she has written.

RAINER OF HUY

• Bronze worker from Belgium
• Huy was an area known for its metalwork.
• 1118 bronze baptismal fountain
• Rests on a dozen oxen.

The oxen refer to the “molten sea . . . on twelve oxen” cast in bronze for King Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 7:23–25). 

The Old Testament story told of Christ’s baptism (medieval scholars said the oxen were the 12 apostles).

• One figure is shown in a three-quarter view from the rear,
• Some of Rainer’s figures, including Christ, are naked.

Nudity is very rare in the art of the Middle Ages. 

• Adam and Eve are usually exceptions
• Medieval artists showed Adam and Eve as embarrassed by their nudity.

RELIQUARY OF SAINT ALEXANDER 

Church officials competed with one another in the display of relics

• Spent large amounts of money on elaborate containers.

This religaury was made in 1145 for Abbot Wibald in Belgium

• Made to hold the pope’s relics.
• Almost life-size head
• Made in repoussé (hammered) silver with bronze gilding for the hair.

Resembles portraits of young Roman emperors such as Augustus and Constantine.

• Wears a collar of jewels and enamel plaques around his neck.
• Rests on four bronze dragons.

Bernard of Clairvaux was critical of lavish church furnishings like the Alexander reliquary:

“[Men’s] eyes are fixed on relics covered with gold and purses are opened. The thoroughly beautiful image of some male or female saint is exhibited and that saint is believed to be the more holy the more highly colored the image is. People rush to kiss it, they are invited to donate, and they admire the beautiful more than they venerate the sacred. . . . O vanity of vanities, but no more vain than insane! The Church . . . dresses its stones in gold and it abandons its children naked. It serves the eyes of the rich at the expense of the poor.”

The central plaque on the front depicts Pope Alexander II (r. 1061–1073).

• Saints Eventius and Theodolus are on either side.

The nine plaques on the other three sides represent female figures such as Wisdom, Piety, and Humility.

• Models for these paintings were Byzantine.
• Artists were traveling now more than they ever have and saw works of art from all over

Italy south of Milan was distinct artistically

• Buildings were less experimental than those made in Germany and Lombardy (Northern Italy).
• Based designs off of Early Christian basilican type of church.

PISA CATHEDRAL COMPLEX 

Represents the intense cultural trade happening in this area.

• Naval victory over the Muslims in Sicily in 1062 provided the money for the Pisa.

The cathedral, its bell tower, and the baptistery are all Romanesque buildings.

• The top of the baptistery is a remodeled Gothic exterior.

Construction of Pisa Cathedral began first in 1063

• Large
• nave and four aisles
• the Pisans wanted their bishop’s church to be a monument to the glory of God
• Resembles an Early Christian basilica with a timber roof, columned arcade, and clerestory.

What makes this Romanesque?

• Large transept with apses
• the crossing dome
• multiple arcaded galleries. 
• Rich marble

The cathedral’s campanile (bell tower)

• detached
• Pisa’s famous Leaning Tower.
• Arcaded galleries; arcaded means covered and gallery means hallway

The tilt is from the foundation settling.

• Began to “lean” even while under construction
• By the 1900’s had leaned almost 15 feet out of plumb at the top.
• There are no plans to restore the campanile to its original upright position

This image shows all three structures together.  Most images on the internet and even in the book only show them as separate buildings, but they are actually grouped together.

Baptistery, Florence 

Florence was an important independent city-state in the Romanesque period.

Baptistery of San Giovanni (Saint John), the city’s patron saint.

• Pope Nicholas II dedicated the building in 1059.
• Predates Pisa’s baptistery
• Both baptisteries face their city’s cathedral.
• Freestanding Italian baptisteries were unusual
• Baptisms were very important in the lives of Florentines and Pisans

New children were baptized as part of a huge community event

• Some of the best known artists of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance made baptisteries with pulpits, bronze doors, and mosaics.
• Looks like ancient Roman architecture similar to the Pantheon, Santa Costanza, San Vitale.
• Tuscan Romanesque marble incrustation (marble facing)
• Roman wall design.

Panels emphasize the building’s structural lines and its different levels.

• San Giovanni baptistery is a domed octagon.
• It has three entrances, one each on the north, south, and east sides. 
• The dome vault is almost 90 feet in diameter.

SAN MINIATO AL MONTE (Mountain)

Benedictine abbey church

• Elaborate marble incrustation (facing)
• Sits on a hillside overlooking the Arno River and in the center of Florence.

Builders completed the body of the church by 1090

• Facade was not finished until the 1200’s.
• Looks like an early Christian basilica
• Arches and high thin walls

MODENA CATHEDRAL 

Italian churches used sculptors to decorate the outsides of their buildings.

• Marble frieze on the facade of Modena Cathedral in northern Italy.
• Carved around 1110
• Scenes from Genesis
• Looks like a Roman and Early Christian sarcophagi.
• Creation and temptation of Adam and Eve.

Christians were reminded of Adam and Eve’s sin as soon as they entered church

• The only path to salvation is through the Church.

Christ is at the far left

• framed by a mandorla
• held up by angels.

The creation of Adam, then Eve and the snake are to the right.

• The relief carving is high, and some parts are almost entirely in the round.
• Artist carved his name into another relief
• Said “Among sculptors, your work shines forth, Wiligelmo.”

BENEDETTO ANTELAMI 

Had an Interest in sculpture that was in the round

• Antelami was active in the last part of the 12th century.
• Created large marble statues of two Old Testament figures.
• King David seems confined to his niche
• Holds his elbows close to his body.
• Reminiscent of Greco-Roman art.

NORMANDY AND ENGLAND

Vikings converted to Christianity in the early 10th century

• Settled on the northern coast of France in Normandy.
• Were skilled administrators and builders
• Active in Sicily as well as in northern Europe.
• Developed a distinctive Romanesque architectural style
• Became the major source of French Gothic architecture.

SAINT-ÉTIENNE, CAEN

Started by William of Normandy (William the Conqueror) in 1067

• Was buried there in 1087.

Four large buttresses divide the facade into three bays that correspond to the nave and aisles. 

• Towers display a triple division
• The niches get deeper the higher you go
• Spires were added later

The original design called for a wooden roof.

• Used compound piers with engaged half-columns.
• Builders installed groin vaults around 1115.
• The ribs divide the square-vault compartments into six sections, making a sexpartite vault.

Three-stories tall

• large arched openings
• Lets lots of light in. 
• Makes the nave appear even taller than it is.
• Appears light and airy
• unusual in the Romanesque period.

DURHAM CATHEDRAL 

William of Normandy’s

• conquered England in 1066
• turning point in English history.
• Imported Norman Romanesque building designs

Durham Cathedral sits on a cliff overlooking the Wear River in northern England

• Monastery, cathedral, and castle complex on the Scottish frontier.
• Started in 1093
• Vaulted structure from the beginning.

The pattern of the ribs of the nave’s groin vaults corresponds perfectly to the design of the arcade below.

• Each seven-part nave vault covers two bays.
• Large, simple pillars
• Ornamented with abstract designs (diamond, chevron, and cable patterns, all originally painted)

The building’s structural ratios are easily seen.

• Bold surface patterning.
• Expert masons carved stone blocks into precise shapes for the church.
• Thousands of simple quadrangular blocks used to make the great walls.

Builders also needed blocks in more complex shapes.

In the Nave and aisles.

• Stonecutters had to carve blocks with concave faces to conform to the curve of the vault.

Also needed were blocks with projecting moldings for the ribs.

• Blocks with convex surfaces for the pillars.

Immense undertaking, building campaigns often lasted for decades.

Earliest known example of a ribbed groin vault placed over a three-story nave.

• In the nave’s western parts the rib vaults have slightly pointed arches.
• Bringing together for the first time two of the key elements of Gothic architecture.
• Descendants of these arches are flying buttresses that epitomize Gothic construction.

Embroidery and Tapestry

Tapestry designs are woven on a loom as part of the fabric.Embroidery patterns are sewn onto fabric with threads.

Made by either Norman or English women.

• Eight colors of dyed wool.
• Two varieties of blue, three shades of green, yellow, buff, and terra-cotta red.

Two kinds of stitches.

Stem stitching.

• Short overlapping strands of thread form jagged lines.

Laid-and-couched.

• Creates solid blocks of color.
• Needleworker first lays down a series of parallel and then a series of cross stitches.
• Finally, the stitcher tacks down the cross-hatched threads using couching (knotting).

Bayeux Tapestry

• Embroiderers left the natural linen color exposed for the background, human flesh, building walls, and other “colorless” design elements.

 

Click the image above or this text to view it much larger.

Stem stitches create the:

• Contours of figures.
• Buildings.
• Interior details.
• Facial features.
• Body armor.
• Roof tiles.

The clothing, animal bodies, and other solid areas are laid and couched work.

• Unique in medieval art.
• Borders contain real and imaginary animals.
• Latin text sewn in thread accompanies many of the pictures.

20 inches high and about 230 feet long.

• 230 feet!!!
• Continuous, frieze like, pictorial narrative of historical event.

Depicts the Norman defeat of the Anglo-Saxons at Hastings in 1066.

• Normans controlled all of England and much of France.
• The dukes of Normandy became the kings of England.
• In 1066, Edward the Confessor, the Anglo-Saxon king of England, died.
• Normans believed Edward had recognized William of Normandy as his rightful heir.

But the crown went to Harold.

• The king’s Anglo-Saxon brother-in-law.
• Sworn allegiance to William.

The betrayed Normans, boarded their ships, crossed the English Channel, and crushed Harold’s forces.

• Two episodes of the epic tale are represented in the Bayeux Tapestry.
• First detail depicts King Edward’s funeral procession.
• Hand of God points to the church in London where he was buried—Westminster Abbey.
• Consecrated just a few days before Edward’s death.

William was crowned king of England here on Christmas Day, 1066.

BURY BIBLE 

Produced at the Bury Saint Edmunds abbey in England in 1135

Illustration common to the large Bibles produced in wealthy Romanesque abbeys.

• Cistercians banned luxurious illuminated manuscripts.
• Lent prestige to monasteries that could afford them.

Artist of Bury Bible was Master Hugo.

• Also a sculptor and metalworker.
• Romanesque artist who signed their works or whose name was recorded.

In the 12th century, artists, illuminators and sculptors began to identify themselves.

• Hugo seems to have been a secular artist.
• Emerging class of professional artists who depended on commissions from wealthy monasteries.
• These artists resided in towns rather than within abbey walls.
• Traveled frequently to find work.
• They were the exception.
• Typical scribes and illuminators were monks and nuns working anonymously in the service of God.

The Benedictine Rule.

• Specified that “artisans in the monastery . . . are to practice their craft with all humility, but only with the abbot’s permission.”

Shows two scenes from Deuteronomy.

• Framed by leaf motifs in colors that work together.
• Top depicts Moses and Aaron proclaiming the Law to the Israelites.
• Master Hugo represented Moses with horns.
• Consistent with Saint Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew word that also means “rays”.
• According to the Bible, Satan masqueraded as an angel of light; Hebrew word for rays of light also meant horns; Our modern version of Satan is usually depicted with horns.  Pretty interesting how word translations impact visual representations.

Lower panel portrays Moses pointing out the clean and unclean beasts.

Movements of the figures appear more integrated and smooth.

EADWINE PSALTER 

Masterpiece of an English monk known as Eadwine the Scribe.

• Contains 166 illustrations.
• Many were variations of those in the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter.
• Last page is a rare picture of a Romanesque artist at work.
• Style of the Eadwine portrait resembles that of the Bury Bible.

Eadwine exaggerated his importance.

• Made himself look like an evangelist writing his gospel.
• Includes an inscription that identifies him and proclaims himself a “prince among scribes.”

These artists, whether monks or laity, were not yet aware of the concepts of fine art and fine artist.  Their work existed for the sake of God.