CHAPTER XIX

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ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE AND ORNAMENT.

Romanesque is the name given to the architectural style developed by the Western barbarians who overran the Roman Empire, after their partial civilisation, when they had learned the art of building. The style arose chiefly from the copying of Roman buildings and their remains, with some added features of Byzantine buildings.

Out of this Romanesque, in its turn, there sprang another style which was founded on the Romanesque and on the architecture of the Saracens. Towards the end of the eleventh century the new masters of the Roman Empire, in the course of their military expeditions to Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, were brought in contact with the Saracens and their architecture, and in coming back to Europe they brought with them new ideas of building, such as the pointed arch of the Saracens, which feature together with new forms of ornament were added by them to the prevalent Romanesque style, the mixture producing an entirely new style, which has been curiously named after the early Northern barbarians—the Gothic.

The subsequent Crusades against the Mohammedans had the effect, among others, of extending the knowledge of mathematics and geometry among the Crusaders, sciences in which the Saracens excelled; and in coming home again to the West, they applied their geometrical knowledge to the development of Gothic architecture to such an extent that, towards the end of the fourteenth century, this architecture could show examples of the most lofty and daring constructions in stone that were marvels in the science of building. Some Gothic buildings present with their fretted pinnacles, spires, flying buttresses, intersecting and pierced work, in flamboyant tracery, daring vaulting, and inter-penetrating mouldings, a worked-out solution of some intricate mathematical problem. In its complicated phases Gothic construction is more scientific than artistic, however much one may admire the grouping or design of the Gothic pile as a picturesque conception.

Returning to the Romanesque style, we find that in the sixth century Theodoric the Ostrogoth had, in the erections of churches, palaces, and of his tomb in Ravenna—his capital—sown the first seeds of the future developments of the German Romanesque, and in some degree of the later German Gothic style. In producing these works his ambition was to emulate the grandeur of Imperial Rome. The Longobards, the successors of the Ostrogoths, continued this building activity through the Middle Ages, and have left to us monuments of their genius in the early and rude Duomo Vecchio of Brescia, and amongst many others of their noblest works were Sant’ Ambrogio at Milan, and San Zeno at Verona.

Prior to the Carlovingian era, the Germanic people began to cultivate the fine arts in a tentative manner. This was brought about by the contact of German chiefs and warriors with Italian pomp and splendour, which also bred in them a love for personal adornment, that strongly marked the nobles and warriors of this period.

Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Germany at Rome, on Christmas Day in the year A.D. 800. The dream and ambition of this great German Prince was to establish a mighty Christian Empire in the West of Europe that should rival pagan Rome itself, not only in military power, but in a widespread culture of literature, science, and artistic excellence.

These were the days of Chivalry, of the Crusaders; the days when men were rich in high and lofty ideals; when those knightly mystics, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Vogelweide, sang of the Parsival and the Quest of the Holy Graal, of songs of love and chivalry, of deliverance from wrongs, and of many stirring and tuneful themes.

Though Charlemagne never learned to read or write, he thoroughly appreciated the value of learning. He gathered together learned men, architects, and artists, and established a school of religious music. He built many churches, palaces, and bridges, and collected many statues from Rome and elsewhere for the adornment of his great church at Aix-la-Chapelle; he organized and encouraged the professions and trades of his towns and cities.

The great tomb-church at Aix-la-Chapelle—or Aachen—was built by Charlemagne, and became the prototype of all subsequent churches erected in the Romanesque style in Germany.

It was in the region bordering on the Rhine that the great church building activity was developed in Germany. The cities of the powerful bishoprics rivalled each other in pomp and splendour, as we see in such buildings as the Doms of Spiers, Mayence, and Cologne, and in the Romanesque churches of Swabia, Franconia, Westphalia, and Lower Saxony. The Romanesque style is also found in the churches or Doms of Bamberg, Brunswick, and Osnabruck; the Godehardi and Michael’s churches at Hildesheim, the carving in which excels that in the churches of the Rhineland.

The distinctive characteristics of the German Romanesque are the great octagonal dome-like towers that arise from the crossing of the nave and transept, and the flanking towers at each end that are sometimes united to the central tower by an outside western gallery or façade. A fine modern church, built in the Romanesque style, is that of the Cathedral of Fourvière, on the hill overlooking the city of Lyons in France.

[Illustration: Fig. 368.—Round Arch Frieze.]

[Illustration: 369.—Intersecting Blind Arcade.]

Some German Romanesque churches have a western as well as an eastern apse, and the church known as the Apostelkirche in Cologne has the transept, both of which features are disturbing elements in any church where the chief attention should be directed to the culminating point where the choir, reredos, or altar are usually found—in the apse or chancel, and at the eastern end only.

[Illustration: Fig. 370.—Rose Window.]

The church architecture of the West—the Romanesque followed closely the requirements of the Western ritual, while the churches which observed the Eastern ritual kept to the Greek or Byzantine models.

Romanesque churches of the tenth century are distinguished by the basilica plan, the apsidal east end, round-headed arches, and single or double-light windows. The walls have generally a decoration, consisting of a series of flat pilasters—reminiscences of classic architecture—and the roofs in many cases were vaulted. Arcaded decoration, with or without small columnar supports (Figs. 368 and 369) and rose windows (Fig. 370) are features of the Romanesque. Some of the round-headed doorways are especially rich in character, and have often five or six recessed columns (Fig. 371) that carry richly moulded heads, and carved capitals of quaint animal and bird decoration (Fig. 372).

[Illustration: Fig. 371.—Porch of the Heilsbronn Monastery, near Nüremberg.]

The shafts of the columns are usually plain, though in some instances, for the sake of contrast, they are twisted or imbricated, and the bases are copies of the classic orders (Fig. 373). Above the lintel and under the round arch mouldings is the lunette or tympanum; this space often has rich decoration of figures and ornament; sometimes it is divided into two spaces, when the entrance doorway is divided by a central pillar.

[Illustration: Fig. 372.—Capital from Wartburg.]

[Illustration: Fig. 373.—Romanesque Shaft and Base.]

The details and motives of Romanesque decoration are derived from classic ornament—mostly Roman—and are, as a rule, debased forms of the latter.

[Illustration: Fig. 374.—Roof Cornice of Church at Alstadt-Rottweil.]

[Illustration: Fig. 375.—Later Romanesque Ornament.]

The cable or rope torus-ornament, the scale or imbricated work, the chevron or zigzag, bead and reel, scroll, billet, checkers, and diapers, were all extensively used in the Romanesque, many of which have been retained in the later forms of Gothic ornament. Figs. 374, 375, and 376 are examples of the above ornaments.

[Illustration]

_a_, Arcaded.

_b_, Checkers.

_c_, Waved ribbon.

_d_, Cable or Torus.

_e_, Chevron or Zigzag.

_f_, Billet.

_g_, Nail-head.

_h_, Scales or Imbrication.

_i_, Lozenge.

_k_, Tooth Ornament.

Fig. 376.—Various Romanesque Moulding Ornaments.

The tower was a feature of later Romanesque work, which marked the broad difference between the latter and Byzantine architecture; these towers had their stories decorated with semicircular arches on corbels or on small pillars (Fig. 377).

The corbels usually consisted of masks or grotesque figures, animals, dragons, or twisted snakes. These forms of decoration were also used in the capitals and cornices, both in the Romanesque transitional and Gothic periods. Grotesque forms were used very much as sculptural decoration in the Lombardic Gothic architecture. In Scandinavia and in Ireland this kind of ornament assumed the forms of snakes, serpents, and interlacings developed from them. (See Fig. 65, 69, 70.) The capitals were at first rude copies of the Roman Corinthian order (Fig. 309), developed later—after the character of the Byzantine cubical forms—to a solid cubic shape, called in the Norman style of Romanesque in England, the “cushion-headed” capital.

[Illustration: Fig. 377.—Towers and Round-arched Frieze, Abbey of Komberg.]

Window-openings were usually small, and the grouping of two or more lights under one arcaded head occurs in Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic buildings. The light came usually from the clerestory, but sometimes smaller circular windows were introduced into the end gables, which subsequently were developed into windows of greater importance and intricacy of design in the great Gothic chancels and in western lights.

[Illustration: Fig. 378.—Capital from Palace of Barbarossa, Gelnhausen.]

[Illustration: Fig. 379.—Capital from St. Cross, Winchester.]

Romanesque architecture, and especially its decorative ornamentation, was never quite free from Byzantine or Saracenic influences. It was of itself an incongruous mixture, out of which, when the pointed arch of the Saracens was adopted, and the ornamental features modified to conform with it, the new ogival or Gothic style arose.

In every part of Europe in which the Romanesque took root, there may be noticed so many distinct varieties. The style in Rome and Central Italy naturally followed, as we have seen, the antique Roman forms. In the cathedral of Pisa the capitals are Corinthian, and there is a greater display here of mosaics and coloured marbles, both on the exterior and in the interior, than in most Romanesque buildings.

[Illustration: Fig. 380.—Porch of St. Zeno at Verona.]

The style in Lombardy and Upper Italy is, on the other hand, different to that of Central Italy, as it there inherited the German traditions. The columns had in their capitals leafage of a different character to that of the classic orders, and had birds and animals carved amongst it, and the bases of the columns rested on animals. Doorways were square-headed, and had also a circular arch, over which was a pedimented canopy (Fig. 380). One of the finest examples of Lombardic Romanesque is the St. Zeno Church at Verona, which has a doorway of this description. The Church of Monreale in Sicily (_A.D._ 1174), and the Cathedral of Palermo, exhibit a mixture in which Byzantine and Saracenic influences are well defined; this was owing to the successive powers that were at different periods masters of that country.

The Normans at a later date made changes in the architecture of Sicily, and Norman architecture was developed to a great extent in this place.

It was in Sicily that Norman architecture first developed the characteristic zigzag feature that is seen so much in the Norman portals and window-heads in England (Figs. 381 and 382).

[Illustration: Fig. 381.—Norman Doorway, Semperingham Church, Lincolnshire. (G.)]

The pointed arch of the Saracens was added to the Norman Romanesque in Sicily. The Cathedral of Cefalu (1132), and the palace of La Ziza at Palermo, are examples. Nowhere else was the Romanesque of so mixed a character. The illustration from Palermo (Fig. 383) clearly shows the pointed Saracenic arch, used after the manner of the Romanesque round arching, while some other portions of the details are distinctly Byzantine. In the south of France Romanesque architecture is far more ornate than that of the Norman style in Normandy, or other parts of the North; in fact, the latter style in France has its ornament confined to purely linear decoration; but the churches that were built at the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth centuries, which represent Norman architecture in its purest phases, were noble edifices, plain and solidly built, of which the church of St. Etienne is a good example. Its arcades rest on piers, it has a vaulted nave and aisles, and has a fine transept. The gable of the nave is flanked by two western towers, the western front is built in three stories, and has two ranges of five-light windows. The Cathedrals of Bayeux and Evreux may be mentioned as two other fine examples of Norman architecture.

[Illustration: Fig. 382.—Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire.]

[Illustration: Fig. 383.—Pointed Arcading from the Cathedral of Palermo.]

The Romanesque doorway (Fig. 384) from the South of France illustrates the somewhat motley character of this architecture in that part of the country. Some churches of this locality show the receding arches in the doors and arcading, supported by engaged columns, which feature was developed very much in the later Gothic.

The Romanesque style in England is seen in buildings that were erected before the Norman Conquest.

[Illustration: Fig. 384.—Door of St. Gabriel’s, South of France.]

The buildings of this period—the eleventh century—have received the name of “Anglo-Saxon.” They are characterized by the round openings of doors and windows, the latter being sometimes triangular-headed. The tower of Earl’s Barton, in Northamptonshire, is an example of Anglo-Saxon. It has pilaster-like strips of stone decorating and tying the masonry together; small triangular and circular stone-work connecting the perpendicular strips—a reminiscence of arcading—gives a distinctive appearance of wood-framing to the whole work, which is probably a copy of the earlier timber construction.

The Anglo-Saxon tower at Sompting, Sussex, and the Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon (A.D. 705), are also examples of early work executed in England prior to the Norman Conquest (1066).

The work we understand as Norman in England was in existence long before the Conqueror’s time, and it is quite likely that the subsequent English Gothic would have developed just the same if the Normans had not invaded England.

The English Romanesque, or Early Norman style, dates, as near as possible, from Edward the Confessor’s time (1041-1065). This king founded the great Abbey of Westminster, of which the Dormitory substructure walls and vaulting still remain, but the rest of the original church has disappeared. On the Continent and in England, just after the year 1000, a great building period set in, as for many years prior to this date a corresponding period of an opposite kind, or a lethargy in the life of the Christian peoples, and consequently an inactivity in all building operations, was manifested, owing to the prophecy that the end of the world would come in the year 1000. When this was found to be a delusion, a building craze spread over Europe, and the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries were the great building ages, when both Christian and Saracenic architecture advanced with leaps and bounds.

The Normans in England after the Conquest, no doubt, hastened the advancement of architecture; for the rule seems to have been that wherever they found a small or old church of the Anglo-Saxon type or period, they invariably pulled it down, re-dressed the stones, and built a much larger and better church on the same site, using up the old material when available, besides building many churches on new sites. The Normans were also much better builders than the Saxons, and at this time great numbers of Norman masons were brought over from France.

The strongholds, or castles, with their massive keeps, were built at this period by the new Norman barons, in order not only to have stately dwellings for themselves, but to protect their newly-acquired honours and possessions from their Saxon foemen. Remains of many of these strongholds, especially of the keeps, are still to be seen at Hedingham Castle at Rochester; Gundulph’s Tower—the oldest—at Malling, Kent; Newcastle, Guildford, Colchester, Richmond, and Conisborough in Yorkshire, &c. One of the earliest is the great White Tower of London, in which is found the beautiful little Norman Chapel, one of the best and most perfect examples of Norman architecture in England. The Norman keeps, or towers, are uniform in design, having a square plan, with a square projecting turret at each angle, and a flat, thin buttress in the centre of the walls; windows were small, and were round or square-headed. The doorways were round-headed, recessed, and were generally ornamented.

[Illustration: Fig. 385.—The Landgrave’s Room at the Wartburg.]

Portions of Canterbury Cathedral, as indeed, of almost all the principal English cathedrals, and many old churches, were built in the Norman period, which shows how extensively church building must have been carried on from the Conquest (1066) to the commencement of the reign of Richard I. (1189). The Norman and oldest parts of Canterbury Cathedral, built by Archbishop Lanfranc (1070-1089), are the towers forming the choir transepts.

[Illustration: Fig. 386.—Romanesque Ornament, Iron Hinge from Notre-Dame, Paris.]

Prior Ernulf, under St. Anselm, rebuilt much of Canterbury Cathedral (1130), and added richer elements to the ornamentation. The peculiar plain cushion, or cubic capital, found so much in England in Norman work, was meant to be carved or enriched afterwards, but often the want of funds, or haste and carelessness in after years, were the causes that left them plain, until it was too late, when the style had changed, and they were superseded by later developments. It is certain that they were not intended to remain so, for many have been left half-finished in the carving, and some plain ones are found to alternate with others of the same type, but richly carved, as at Canterbury and some other places. Sometimes the intention seems to have been to decorate them with painted ornament.

[Illustration: Fig. 387.—Romanesque Panel from a Church at Bonn.]

At Winchester and Rochester Cathedrals, St. Peter’s Church, Northampton, the transepts of Exeter, Peterborough, and, above all, at Durham, the Norman style is seen both in its best earlier and later developments.

The ornaments are very few, the zigzag being the chief. The lozenge and billet are also used in the early work, but in the later, as in the rich doorways, such as that at Iffley, Oxfordshire (1160), grotesque masks, frets, interlacings, birds, dragons, fishes, and the quadruple form of the zigzag are added. The columns in some cases are twisted and banded, and Ionic volutes appear in the capitals. In some late Norman work the tympana are richly carved with figures and ornament. Many examples of Romanesque non-ecclesiastical buildings are still in existence in Germany, or have been skilfully restored as such, which give a tolerably good idea of the private dwellings of this period. The illustration (Fig. 385) is an example of the domestic Romanesque. It is the interior of the Landgrave’s room at the Wartburg, Germany.

Examples of Romanesque ornament are given in the iron hinge from the Church of Nôtre Dame, Paris (Fig. 386), and the panel from Bonn (Fig. 387).

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