Romanesque architectural style

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this later date being the most commonly held. In the 12th century it developed into the Gothic style, marked by pointed arches. Examples of Romanesque architecture can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture. The Romanesque style in England and Sicily is traditionally referred to as Norman architecture.

Combining features of ancient Roman and Byzantine buildings and other local traditions, Romanesque architecture is known by its massive quality, thick walls, round arches, sturdy pillars, barrel vaults, large towers and decorative arcading. Each building has clearly defined forms, frequently of very regular, symmetrical plan; the overall appearance is one of simplicity when compared with the Gothic buildings that were to follow. The style can be identified right across Europe, despite regional characteristics and different materials.

Many castles were built during this period, but they are greatly outnumbered by churches. The most significant are the great abbey churches, many of which are still standing, more or less complete and frequently in use.Bannister Fletcher, ''A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method''. The enormous quantity of churches built in the Romanesque period was succeeded by the still busier period of Gothic architecture, which partly or entirely rebuilt most Romanesque churches in prosperous areas like England and Portugal. The largest groups of Romanesque survivors are in areas that were less prosperous in subsequent periods, including parts of southern France, rural Spain and rural Italy. Survivals of unfortified Romanesque secular houses and palaces, and the domestic quarters of monasteries are far rarer, but these used and adapted the features found in church buildings, on a domestic scale.

Definition

According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the word "Romanesque" means "descended from Roman" and was first used in English to designate what are now called Romance languages (first cited 1715). The French term "" was first used in the architectural sense by archaeologist Charles de Gerville in a letter of 18 December 1818 to Auguste Le Prévost to describe what Gerville sees as a ''debased Roman architecture''. (I have sometimes spoken to you about Romanesque architecture. It is a word of my own which I invented (I think successfully) to replace the insignificant words of Saxon and Norman. Everyone agrees that this architecture, heavy and rough, is the ''opus romanum'' successively denatured or degraded by our rude ancestors. So too, out of the crippled Latin language, was made this Romance language whose origin and degradation have so much analogy with the origin and progress of architecture. Tell me, please, that my name Roman (esque) was invented with success.), group=Notes In 1824 Gerville's friend Arcisse de Caumont adopted the label "" to describe the "degraded" European architecture from the 5th to the 13th centuries, in his ''Essai sur l'architecture religieuse du moyen-âge, particulièrement en Normandie'', at a time when the actual dates of many of the buildings so described had not been ascertained:Jean Hubert, ''Romanesque Art''.

The first use in a published work is in William Gunn's ''An Inquiry into the Origin and Influence of Gothic Architecture'' (London 1819). The word was used by Gunn to describe the style that was identifiably Medieval and prefigured the Gothic, yet maintained the rounded Roman arch and thus appeared to be a continuation of the Roman tradition of building.

The term is now used for the more restricted period from the late 10th to 12th centuries. The term "Pre-romanesque" is sometimes applied to architecture in Germany of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods and Visigothic, Mozarab and Asturian constructions between the 8th and the 10th centuries in the Iberian Peninsula while "First Romanesque" is applied to buildings in north of Italy and Spain and parts of France that have Romanesque features but pre-date the influence of the Abbey of Cluny.

File:Viu_de_Llevata,_Alta_Ribagorça._Església_de_Sta._Maria_(A-SiT_D9236).jpg, Portal, Church of Santa Maria, Viu de Llevata, Catalonia, Spain
File:Voûte_en_berceau_Conques.JPG, The vault at the Abbey Church of Saint Foy, Conques, France
File:Rooma 2006 047.jpg, Cloister of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome
File:Ang cath c1.JPG, Bell tower of Angoulême Cathedral, Charente, SW France
Tomè14.JPG, Window and Lombard band of the Rotunda of San Tomè, Almenno San Bartolomeo

Scope

Buildings of every type were constructed in the Romanesque style, with evidence remaining of simple domestic buildings, elegant town houses, grand palaces, commercial premises, civic buildings, castles, city walls, bridges, village churches, abbey churches, abbey complexes and large cathedrals.Rolf Toman, ''Romanesque: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting'' Of these types of buildings, domestic and commercial buildings are the most rare, with only a handful of survivors in the United Kingdom, several clusters in France, isolated buildings across Europe and by far the largest number, often unidentified and altered over the centuries, in Italy. Many castles exist, the foundations of which date from the Romanesque period. Most have been substantially altered, and many are in ruins.

By far the greatest number of surviving Romanesque buildings are churches. These range from tiny chapels to large cathedrals. Although many have been extended and altered in different styles, a large number remain either substantially intact or sympathetically restored, demonstrating the form, character and decoration of Romanesque church architecture.

File:Cieszyn 9891 crop.JPG, Saint Nicholas Rotunda in Cieszyn, Poland
File:Poreč064.jpg, alt=A small three-storey stone house with an exterior stone staircase to the first floor, and a wooden balcony around the upper floor, Romanesque house in Poreč, Croatia
File:Palazzo Comunale Massa Marittima crop.JPG, alt=An imposing four-storey stone building with battlements and rows of paired windows, facing onto a town square., The Civic Hall in Massa Marittima, Italy
File:Lebeny-churche1.jpg, alt=The facade of a tall grey church with paired towers and a single ornately carved doorway, Abbey Church of St James, Lébény, Hungary (1208)
File:Conisbrough Castle keep - geograph.org.uk - 922015 crop.JPG, alt=A circular castle tower with enormous jutting buttresses. There are few windows and entrance is on an upper floor, is reached by a modern staircase., The keep of Conisbrough Castle, England

History

Origins

Romanesque architecture was the first distinctive style to spread across Europe since the Roman Empire. With the decline of Rome, Roman building methods survived to an extent in Western Europe, where successive Merovingian, Carolingian and Ottonian architects continued to build large stone buildings such as monastery churches and palaces. In the more northern countries, Roman building styles and techniques had never been adopted except for official buildings, while in Scandinavia they were unknown. Although the round arch continued in use, the engineering skills required to vault large spaces and build large domes were lost. There was a loss of stylistic continuity, particularly apparent in the decline of the formal vocabulary of the Classical Orders. In Rome several great Constantinian basilicas continued in use as an inspiration to later builders. Some traditions of Roman architecture also survived in Byzantine architecture with the 6th-century octagonal Byzantine Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna being the inspiration for the greatest building of the Early Middle Ages in Europe, the Emperor Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel, Aachen, Germany, built around the year AD 800.Helen Gardner, ''Art through the Ages''.

Dating shortly after the Palatine Chapel is a remarkable 9th-century Swiss manuscript known as the Plan of Saint Gall and showing a very detailed plan of a monastic complex, with all its various monastic buildings and their functions labelled. The largest building is the church, the plan of which is distinctly Germanic, having an apse at both ends, an arrangement not generally seen elsewhere. Another feature of the church is its regular proportion, the square plan of the crossing tower providing a module for the rest of the plan. These features can both be seen at the Proto-Romanesque St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim, 1001–1030.

Architecture of a Romanesque style also developed simultaneously in the north of Italy, parts of France and in the Iberian Peninsula in the 10th century and prior to the later influence of the Abbey of Cluny. The style, sometimes called First Romanesque or Lombard Romanesque, is characterised by thick walls, lack of sculpture and the presence of rhythmic ornamental arches known as a Lombard band.

File:Santa Maria del Naranco 2 crop.JPG, Santa María del Naranco, Oviedo, Spain, AD 848. Built as a palace for Ramiro I of Asturias.
File:Santa Maria in Cosmedin-templom belso.jpg, alt=The interior of a narrow and rather dark church that has columns down each side supporting a plain wall with small high windows., Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome (8th – early 12th century) has a basilical plan and reuses ancient Roman columns.
File:Aachener1723aDom.jpg, alt=The interior of a tall octagonal church, rising in three rows of decorated arches. A large candelabra hangs above the central altar., Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel, Aachen, 9th century, modelled on the Byzantine church of San Vitale, Ravenna
File:Hildesheim-St Michaels Church.interior.01.JPG, alt=The interior of another long narrow church with high windows. The arch leading into the chancel at the far end has alternating red and white stones., Interior of St. Michael's, Hildesheim, (1001–1031) with alternating piers and columns and a 13th-century painted wooden ceiling
File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F078941-0014, Hildesheim, Michaeliskirche.jpg, alt=The exterior of the same church shows a short square tower with a pointed metal roof over the crossing, and a small round tower at the end of the transept., St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim has similar characteristics to the church in the Plan of Saint Gall.

Politics

Charlemagne was crowned by Pope Leo III in Old St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Day of 800, with an aim to re-establishing the old Roman Empire. Charlemagne's political successors continued to rule much of Europe, with a gradual emergence of the separate political states that were eventually to become welded into nations, either by allegiance or defeat, into the Kingdom of Germany giving rise to the Holy Roman Empire. The invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy, in 1066, saw the building of both castles and churches that reinforced the Norman presence. Several significant churches that were built at this time were founded by rulers as seats of temporal and religious power, or places of coronation and burial. These include the