The name
Romanesque, like many other stylistic designations, was not a term contemporary with the art it describes but an invention of modern scholarship to categorize a
period. The term "Romanesque" attempts to link the
architecture, especially, of the
11th and
12th centuries in
medieval Europe to
Roman Architecture based on similarities of forms and materials. Romanesque is characterised by a use of round or slightly pointed arches, barrel vaults, cruciform piers supporting vaults, and groin vaults.
The great carved portals of 12th century church facades parallel the architectural novelty of the period - monumental stone sculpture seems reborn in the Romanesque.
Romanesque seems to have been the first pan-European style since Roman Imperial Architecture and examples are found in every part of the continent. One important fact pointed out by the stylistic similarity of buildings across Europe is the relative mobility of medieval people. Contrary to many modern ideas of life before the Industrial Revolution, merchants, nobles, knights, artisans, and peasants crossed Europe and the Mediterranean world for business, war, and religious pilgrimages, carrying their knowledge of what buildings in different places looked like. The important pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, modern north east Spain, may have generated as well as spread some aspects of the Romanesque style.
Surviving Romanesque buildings
- inside modern France
- Saint-Sernin, Toulouse
- Saint-Bénigne, Dijon
- Notre-Dame-du-Port, Clermont-Ferrand
- Sainte-Trinité, Caen
- Saint-Pierre, Angoulême
- Saint-Trophime, Arles
- Sainte-Madeleine, Vezelay
- Paray-le-Monial[?]
- Saint-Front, Perigueux[?]
- Notre-Dame-la-Grande, Poitiers
- Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe[?]
- abbey church, Cluny
- Chapaize
- inside modern Germany
- "Imperial Cathedrals" (Kaiserdome) of Mainz, Speyer, and Worms
- Cologne, St. Maria im Kapitol
- Maria Laach[?], Benedictine church
- Osnabrück cathedral
- Trier cathedral
- inside modern Spain
- San Miguel de Cuxa[?]
- Santiago de Compostela
- Tahull[?]
- Ripoll
- inside modern Italy
- Sant' Ambrogio, Milan
- San Zeno, Verona
- cathedral in Pisa
- San Michele, Pavia
- San Miniato al Monte, Florence
- cathedral in Cefalu
- inside modern England
- Durham Cathedral
- Kilpeck Church, Herefordshire
- Peterborough Cathedral
- Southwell[?] Cathedral
- inside modern Netherlands
- Sint Servaas, Maastricht
- Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe, Maastricht
- cathedral in Tournai
- inside Scandinavia
- cathedral, Lund
- cathedral, Trondheim
- inside Central Europe
- S. George, Prague (Czechia)
- abbey church, Jak[?] (Hungary)
- S. Andreas, Krakow (Poland)
see also:
- Periods of Architecture
- Ottonian architecture[?]
- Gothic architecture
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