Cultural and construction history of the Romanesque period

Cultural and Construction History Of Romanesque Period

Cultural Environment

The term Romanesque is an architectural category that refers to the art and architecture of the Mid -- Late Medieval Period in Europe (1000 to 1240 AD). It was coined in the nineteenth century to delineate features of the post-Roman Empire style. The Romanesque period saw the decline and downfall of the Roman Empire, a vacuum that was filled by the Roman Catholic Church. During this time, cathedrals and castles connected with the church and the Crusades sprang up in stone. Their Romanesque elements comprise round-headed arches, barrel vaults, apses, and decorations, and in southern Europe are often blended with Byzantine elements (Atrisgerinko). Additionally, the Romanesque style developed to reflect a rebirth of art, science, and culture in the High Middle Ages. This European intellectual revival came with a great deal of social, political, and economic transformation (Benson). There was also a renewal in scholasticism that coincided with the Romanesque architecture and its new technologies.

Relationship to Previous Periods

The Romanesque period is considered a furthering of the traditions of the Roman and Byzantine empires. Through feudalism, Europe became more prosperous and experienced urbanisation. This placed more emphasis on urban art and architecture related to the church, which was the cultural centre of every European town. The church continued as the vehicle for spiritual art and building, but gave artists new opportunities to experiment with past trends and designs.

Politically, Europe was divided and not as robust or unified a civilisation as that of the Islamic World. However, by the twelfth century the Hanseatic League had been founded, and the Holy Roman Empire had taken on the overall political administration of the old Carolingian (from Charlemagne) structure (Grant). Added to this were the Eastern artistic, cultural, and scientific influences brought back to Europe by the Crusaders. One scholar has written:

The twelfth century in Europe was in many respects an age of fresh and vigorous life. The epoch of the Crusades, of the rise of towns, and of the earliest bureaucratic states of the West, it saw the culmination of Romanesque art and the beginnings of Gothic; the emergence of the vernacular literatures; the revival of the Latin classics and of Latin poetry and Roman law; the recovery of Greek science, with its Arabic additions, and of much of Greek philosophy; and the origin of the first European universities. The twelfth century left its signature on higher education, on the scholastic philosophy, on European systems of law, on architecture and sculpture, on the liturgical drama, on Latin and vernacular poetry. (Haskin viii)

This important summary of the period by historian Charles H. Haskins describes the major features of the High Middle Age renaissance at the end of the eleventh century and its important connections with other periods and movements.

Essentially, the Carolingian renaissance was historically grounded in previous periods, especially the Islamic Golden Age and the Byzantine Empire with their contributions to the rediscovery of Greek science. It heralded later literary, artistic, and scientific achievements in the fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance and the seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution.

This medieval Renaissance was in both Latin and vernacular writing, with new dynastic histories like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles becoming common all over Europe. Henry II's Anglo-Norman court and its famous scholars like John of Salisbury became a model for the rest of the continent, along with an "explosion of learned writing" based on both the Latin and popular traditions (Damian-Grint xi). Given that this was a period of relative peace, order and stability compared to what came before or afterwards, scholars, clerics and students were able to travel more and exchange ideas. Growth in towns and the expansion of trade, commerce and the money economy also meant that "high-quality education was now available to those who could travel to acquire it" (Swanson 27). Paris became the centre of theology and philosophy, while Padua led the way in law, and graduates in law and theology were in great demand by the expanding church and civil administrations.

Contribution(s) to Western Civilisation

The twefth-century renaissance that accompanied the development of the Romanesque style was international in scope. For example, wandering scholars travelled from country to country developing their own genre of poetry (Sommerville). There were social, political, and economic transformations too. For example, the new institution of the university altered higher education, providing innovative techniques of thought and speech. Scholars working within the universities and monasteries created fresh approaches to ancient intellectual problems (Middle Ages).

Any association between the 12th Century Reniassance and the Renaiassance in Italy in the 15th and 16th Centuries would lead to questions of whether the medieval period produced any important artistic, literary and scientific figures like Galileo, Leonardo, Petrarch and Michelangelo, as opposed to St. Thomas of Aquinas and St. Francis of Asssi. It also raises the question of whether any imporant historical trasnition merits the title of a "remaissance" rather than all periods simply being "taken on their own terms" (Swanson 2). Even 12th Century writers and thinkers reverred to their era as a "renovatio" or renewal, and this was at least partially secular in nature rather than only eccesiastical (Benson et al. xvii). In addition, the 12Th Century Renaissance produced more individualism and "individuation, both of people and groups, which was founded on an examination of the inner life and an awreness of self" (Benson et al. xxiii). It has this much in common with humanists of the Italian Renaissance, although unlike them the medieval theologians and philosophers did not "perceive the discontinuity of history, a cuktural gap between Antiquity and the present" (Benson et al. xxiv). In short, they did not know that they were living in the Middle Ages or reagrd themselves as moderns reviving classical knowledge after a long period of backwardness and superstition.

2. Scientific Environment

Background

The twelfth-century renaissance also entailed a revitalization of intellectualism in Western Europe. This revival was influenced by the recovery of Ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. The centres of this intellectual movement were the monasteries and the new European universities. By the outset of the thirteenth century, these centres had produced accurate Latin translations of these texts, which allowed the transfer of scientific ideas. Ancient ideas on the natural sciences began to spread. Scholastics like Robert Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon commented and expanded on the Greek works, creating a new context for the elaboration of science. Numerous commentaries on Aristotle's writings framed these intellectual debates (Grant 127 -- 31). In addition, other texts were sought out for translation. The Greek Church Fathers became popular writers and a broad interest in the Qur'an and Islamic scientific texts (d'Alverny 429 -- 30) and literary texts (Irwin 93) enflamed the quest for knowledge. This interest in Islamic thought was illustrated by Gerard of Cremona's journey to Toledo, where he found in the library numerous Arabic books on every subject matter and set about learning Arabic to translate them (Burnett 255). Science and knowledge exploded as a result of such efforts to make texts accessible.

Thus, the renaissance of the twelfth century played an integral part in fostering scientific methodology as it forced a renewed interest in Arabic texts, which themselves had been transferred from Europe prior to the demise of the Roman Empire. The Arabic translations once again allowed the works of antiquity to be rediscovered by the Europeans.

Because of the collapse in the Early Middle Ages, ancient Greek and Latin texts became unavailable and illiteracy was very widespread, at least until the revival or Renaissance in the 12th Century. (Huff 180-181). New universities became centers of theology, law, philosophy and translation of classic texts, and also "laid far greater emphasis on science than does its modern counterpart and descendent" (Grant 68).

Technology, Science and Intellectual Life

During the High Middle Ages in Europe, there was a change in the rate of new inventions and innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production and economic growth. Alfred Crosby described some of this technological revolution in The Measure of Reality: Quantification in Western Europe, 1250-1600, such as the windmill, compass, rudder and use of Arabic numerals, and other major historians of technology have also noted it (Crosby). Greek and Arab texts in philosophy, medicine, mathematics and science were widely translated into Latin by scholars like Gerard of Cremona, an Italian who came to Spain "to copy a single text then stayed on to translate some seventy works" (Turner). His biography describes how he came to Toledo, and was "trained from childhood at centers of philosophical study and had come to a knowledge of all that was known to the Latins; but for love of the Almagest, which he could not find at all among the Latins, he went to Toledo; there, seeing the abundance of books in Arabic on every subject and regretting the poverty of the Latins in these things, he learned the Arabic language, in order to be able to translate." (Grant 35)

Medieval Jewish and Muslim philosophers from Spain like Maimonides, Avicenna (sand Averroes influenced Christian philosophers, including Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure and Abelard. Thomas Aquinas led the move away from the Platonic and Augustinian and toward Aristotelianism and "developed a philosophy of mind by writing that the mind was at birth a tabula rasa ('blank slate') that was given the ability to think and recognize forms or ideas through a divine spark" (Haskins viii). By 1200 there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Archimedes, and Galen, that is, of all the intellectually crucial ancient authors except Plato. Also, many of the medieval Arabic and Jewish key texts, such as the main works of Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonides now became available in Latin. During the 13th Century, scholastics expanded the natural philosophy of these texts by commentaries and independent treatises. Notable among these were the works of Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John of Sacrobosco, Albertus Magnus, and Duns Scotus. Precursors of the modern scientific method can be seen already in Grosseteste's emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature and in the empirical approach admired by Roger Bacon.

Grosseteste was the founder of the famous Oxford Franciscan school, and based his work on Aristotle's vision of the dual path of scientific reasoning. Concluding from particular observations into a universal law, and then back again: from universal laws to prediction of particulars. Grosseteste called this "resolution and composition." Further, Grosseteste said that both paths should be verified through experimentation in order to verify the principals. These ideas established a tradition that carried forward to Padua and Galileo Galilei in the 17th Century.

Roger Bacon described a repeating cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and the need for independent verification. He recorded the manner in which he conducted his experiments in precise detail so that others could reproduce and independently test his results - a cornerstone of the scientific method, and a continuation of the work of researchers like Al Battani. He contributed to the development of optics, and is also thought to have developed compasses, telescopes, gunpowder and firearms based on examples that Marco Polo and other merchants brought back from China.

3. Economic Environment

Background

In the High Middle Ages, urban life revived along with trade, commerce and the money economy, while agriculture developed the two-field method that left one field fallow in each season (Medieval Economics). Norman institutions like serfdom "were superimposed on an existing system of open fields and mature, well-established towns involved in international trade" (Dyer 14). Despite economic dislocation in urban and extraction economies "including shifts in the holders of wealth and the location of these economies, the economic output of towns and mines developed and intensified over the period" (Hatcher 40). In England, the population grew from 1.5 million in 1086 to 4-5 million in 1300, although the majority of these were peasants and serfs (Hodgett 148; Kowalski 248). More land was "brought into production to feed the growing population or to produce wool for export to Europe" (Bailey 41). Mining increased in England, with the silver boom of the 12th century helping to "fuel a fast-expanding currency" (Dyer 115).

Towns

By the late-11th Century more than a hundred towns had developed with a combined population approaching 200,000, and by 1300 about 600 towns existed, including forty with populations over 2,000. Burghers and bourgeoisie (town dwellers) received charters of self-rule from medieval kings and aristocrats, and by 300 had won "the rights to regulate trade, levy taxes and hold courts" (Medieval Economics). Trade, commerce and the circulation of money kept expanding, at least until the crisis of famine and plague inhibited these developments in the 14th Century. A new class of merchants evolved in the towns that believed in liberalism and free enterprise, and became a third force between the aristocracy and peasantry (Medieval Economics).

Agriculture

Wheat remained the single most important crop, followed by but rye, barley and oats were (Bailey 44). Sheep, cattle, oxen and pigs were common, "although most of these breeds were much smaller than modern equivalents and most would have been slaughtered in winter" (Dyer 25). New villages had adopted an open field system "in which fields were divided into small strips of land, individually owned, with crops rotated between the field each year and the local woodlands and other common lands carefully managed" (Dyer 19-29). Most peasants were tied to the land and had to pay rents to the aristocracy in cash or kind (Bartlett 313). This early English economy was not entirely at subsistence level "and many crops were grown by peasant farmers for sale to the early English towns" (Dyer 14-26). At the same time, the number of slaves decreased and the Anglo-Saxon nobility gradually merged with the Normans (Bartlett 319; Dyer 81-82). Fishing became an important trade along the English coast, especially in Great Yarmouth and Scarborough (Bailey 51-53). Most of the peasant population lived in great poverty, though, and "records of household belongings show most possessing only 'old, worn-out and mended utensils' and tools" (Dyer 174).

Taxation

William enforced the collection of taxes be his shire reeves (sheriffs) and imposed new taxes on trade. He also commissioned the Domesday Book in 1086, "a vast document which attempted to record the economic condition of his new kingdom" (Douglas 299-302). Norman kings adopted the French feudal aid model, "a levy of money imposed on feudal subordinates when necessary; another method was to exploit the scutage system, in which feudal military service could be transmuted to a cash payment to the king" (Lawler and Lawler 6). These were increasingly unpopular and, along with the feudal charges, were condemned and constrained in the Magna Carta of 1215. As part of the formalisation of the royal finances, "Henry I created the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post which would lead to the maintenance of the Pipe rolls, a set of royal financial records of lasting significance to historians in tracking both royal finances and medieval prices" (Bartlett 159).

In 1275, the Great and Ancient Custom began to tax woolen products and hides," with the Great Charter of 1303 imposing additional levies on foreign merchants in England, with the poundage tax introduced in 1347" (Hodgett 203). In 1340, the discredited tallage tax system was finally abolished by Edward III. Assessing the total impact of changes to royal revenues between 1086 and 1290 is difficult. At best, Edward I was "struggling in 1300 to match in real terms the revenues that Henry II had enjoyed in 1100, and considering the growth in the size of the English economy, the king's share of the national income had dropped considerably" (Carpenter 51).

Trade

Unable to produce much they were often left to purchase items at a cost that exceeded their income. Compensation for these small holders came again "in the economic advances of the wealthier peasants. Private employment, steady wages and annual taxation took its roots in this byproduct of the expansion of the medieval market" (Medieval Economics). Some towns, such as York, "suffered from Norman sacking during William's northern campaigns. Other towns saw the widespread demolition of houses to make room for new motte and bailey fortifications, as was the case in Lincoln" (Douglas 313). In the years immediately after the invasion, a lot of wealth was drawn out of England in various ways by the Norman rulers and reinvested in Normandy, "making William immensely wealthy as an individual ruler" (Douglas 303-304).

New towns were usually located with access to trade routes in mind rather than defense, and the streets were laid out to make access to the town's market convenient. A growing percentage of England's population lived in urban areas, and "estimates suggest that this rose from around 5.5% in 1086 to up to 10% in 1377" (Pounds 80). London was also "an important hub for industrial activity; it had many blacksmiths making a wide range of goods, including decorative ironwork and early clocks (Geddes 174-175). The increasing wealth of the nobility and the church "was reflected in the widespread building of cathedrals and other prestigious buildings in the larger towns, in turn making use of lead from English mines for roofing" (Bailey, 46). Land transport remained much more expensive than river or sea transport during the period (Bartlett 361). Shipbuilding generally "remained on a modest scale and economically unimportant to England at this time," while transport remained very costly in comparison to the overall price of products (Hodgett 109). A large number of bridges were built during the 12th century to improve the trade network (Bartlett 364).

Money Supply

William the Conqueror maintained the old system of standardized coinage and used the term "sterling" as the name for the Norman silver coins (Stenton 162). Subsequent kings continued to increase control over coinage throughout the 13th century (Stenton 169). Before the Norman invasion "there had been around £50,000 in circulation as coin, but by 1311 this had risen to more than £1 million" (Bailey 49). As a result, coins were being "moved in barrels and sacks to be stored in local treasuries for royal use as the king travelled" (Stenton 163).

Mining

Four metals were mined commercially in England during the period, "namely iron, tin, lead and silver; coal was also mined from the 13th century onwards, using a variety of refining techniques" (Bailey 131-132). By end of the 12th Century, strip mining for iron was being replaced by "more advanced techniques, including tunnels, trenches and bell-pits" (Geddes 169). In addition, coal production grew in the 12th Century and "began to be commercially produced from bell-pits and strip mining" (Bailey 49). This led to a local economic boom and improvement in royal financing (Blanchard 33). Economically fragile, however, "the lead mines usually survived as a result of being subsidized by silver production" (Homer 62).

4. General Management

Background

Medieval economies in urban areas began to develop larger and more complex organizations and the application of increasingly sophisticated management techniques (Shama). For example, the Venice Arsenal of Venice mass-produced ships on assembly lines using manufactured parts, producing "nearly one ship every day and, at its height, employed 16,000 people" (Factory). Certain concepts developed by the military and industry of the period are still widely used today, although in a more refined and elaborate form, including the concept of corporation as a separate entity, which was "a remarkable and extremely useful contribution of the Late Roman law" (Sharma). Besides the first generation mass production system of Venice Arsenal, two other management systems were developed during the Romanesque period, they were domestic system and guild system.

Domestic System

For most of the Romanesque period, travel was arduous and extremely rare. Transportation systems were unreliable, expensive, or dangerous. People generally stayed in their towns and worked in their homes or on farms. Most of those who were not involved in agriculture did not commute to work. This is important because of the rise of domestic system (History of Organization of Work).

With rare exceptions, though, domestic or cottage industry was the main method of manufacturing -- which includes many producers, working from their homes, typically part time. Most industries like textiles and shoemaking which are usually operated from large centralized factories were cottage industries before the Industrial Revolution. One of the factors which allowed the industrial revolution to take place in Western Europe was the presence of business people or 'factors' who had the ability to expand the scale of their operations. Peasant families worked part time in this domestic system to earn extra cash, especially during winter.

Domestic system, for example that involved in the manufacture of textiles, was organised among families, whose homes were often located in a semi-circle, allowing each family to complete a particular stage in production and then to pass it to the next until production was complete. There would be a division of labour for each activity, such as shearing the sheep, cleaning the wool, combing, bleaching, and dying it, spinning the yarn, and weaving the yarn into cloth. The whole organisation of activity occurred without commuting, bosses, regulation, common buildings, and other modern forms of work structure. Such groups of workers were inextensive and self-organising, thus there was little need for management (History of Organization of Work).

Guild System

Trade guilds were formed by skilled tradesmen, including leather goods makers, furniture makers, and blacksmiths. The precursor to labour unions, these guilds organized the specialized labour necessary for society to stay in operation. Typically the craftsmen worked out of their shops, which were located in or next to their homes (History of Organization of Work).

According to Etienne Boileau's Book of Handicrafts, by the mid-13th Century there were no less than "100 guilds in Paris, a figure which by the 14th Century had risen to 350" (Rutenburg 30). The guild system reached a mature state in Germany circa 1300 and held on in the German cities into the 19th Century, with some special privileges for certain occupations remaining today, and "by 15th Century, Hamburg had 100 guilds, Cologne 80, and Lubeck 70." The latest guilds to develop in Western Europe were the gremios of Spain (Burton and Marique). Not all city economies were controlled by guilds; some cities were "free." Where guilds were in control, they shaped labor, production and trade. In Ghent as in Florence the woolen textile industry developed as a congeries of specialized guilds. The appearance of the European guilds "was tied to the emergent money economy, and to urbanization. Before this time it was not possible to run a money-driven organization, as commodity money was the normal way of doing business" (Braudel).

Mass Production System

Construction of the Arsenal began around 1104, during Venice's republican era. It was the largest industrial complex in Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution,"spanning an area of about 45 ha (110 acres), or about fifteen percent of Veni. Surrounded by a 2 mi (3.2 km) rampart, laborers and shipbuilders regularly worked within the Arsenal, building ships that sailed from the city's port" (Giove, Rosato and Breil ). Prefabricated parts were assembled into a ship in as little as one day, while "an exclusive forest owned by the Arsenal navy, in the Montello hills area of Veneto, provided the Arsenal's wood supply" (Davis 201).

The Venetian Arsenal's ability to mass produce galleys on an almost assembly-line process was unique for its time and resulted in possibly the single largest industrial complex in Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution. Indeed even Dante himself was transfixed by the wonder of the Arsenal, who found it inspiring enough to include it in his Inferno:

As in the Arsenal of the Venetians

Boils in winter the tenacious pitch

To smear their unsound vessels ov'er again

For sail they cannot; and instead thereof

One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks

The ribs of that which many a voyage has made

One hammers at the prow, one at the stern

This one makes oars and that one cordage twists

Another meds the mainsail and the mizzen (Lane 163)

The Arsenal's amazing capacity for production was rare in a "time when most of Europe had no manufacturing abilities more efficient than the guild system, the slow and tradition-bound way craftsmen had of passing on skills to their sons or apprentices while monopolizing production and sale of craft pieces in a given region... The Arsenal was something different, a harbinger of future times." In this respect at least, the Arsenal represented a huge breakthrough in the ability to mass-produce items, or in the very least, producing items at a scale that was unique to its time (Dolinsky).

5. Architectural Principles

Background

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 8th to the 10th century, although it developed into Gothic in the 12th cCntury, with more use of Islamic-style pointed arches. Combining features of Western Roman and Byzantine buildings, "Romanesque architecture is known by its massive quality, its thick walls, round arches, sturdy piers, groin vaults, large towers and decorative arcading" (Fletcher). Many castles were built during this period, but they are greatly outnumbered by churches, while 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" (Fletcher).

Spatial Planning

Many parish churches, abbey churches and cathedrals are in the Romanesque style, or were originally built in the Romanesque style and have subsequently undergone changes. St. Mark's Basilica, Venice and the Church of the Holy Apostles have a Greek cross plan with five domes. In the same region, Angouleme Cathedral is "an aisle-less church of the Latin cross plan, more usual in France, but is also roofed with domes" (Fletcher). In Germany, Romanesque churches are often of distinctive form, "having apses at both east and west ends, the main entrance being central to one side. It is probable that this form came about to accommodate a baptistery at the west end" (Harvey). During the Romanesque period there was a development from this two-stage elevation to a three-stage elevation in which there is a gallery, known as a triforium

Cathedral East and West Ends

Romanesque church facades, generally to the west end of the building, are usually symmetrical, and have a large central portal made significant by its moldings or porch and an arrangement of arched-topped windows. In Italy there is often a single central ocular window. The common decorative feature is arcading (Fletcher). Smaller churches often have a single tower which is usually placed to the western end, in France or England, either centrally or to one side, while larger churches and cathedrals often have two.

In France, Saint-Etienne, Caen presents the model of a large French Romanesque facade in which towers rise through three tiers, "the lowest of tall blind arcading, the next of arcading pierced by two narrow windows and the third of two large windows, divided into two lights by a colonnette" (Toman). While the form is typical of northern France, "its various components were common to many Romanesque churches of the period across Europe. Similar facades are found in Portugal. In England, Southwell Cathedral has maintained this form, despite the insertion of a huge Gothic window between the towers." Lincoln and Durham must once have looked like this. In Germany, the Limburg Cathedral has a rich variety of openings and arcades in horizontal stories of varying heights, while in France, "simple churches without apses and with no decorative features were built by the Cistercians who also founded many houses in England, frequently in remote areas" (Huyghe).

Architectural and Figurative Sculpture

In England, such decoration could be discrete, as at Hereford and Peterborough cathedrals, or have a sense of massive energy as at Durham where the diagonal ribs of the vaults are all outlined with chevrons, which were combined to create one of the richest and most dynamic interiors of the Romanesque period. Although much sculptural ornament was sometimes applied to the interiors of churches, the focus of such decoration was generally the west front, and in particular, the portals. Chevrons and other geometric ornaments, referred to by 19th Century writers as "barbaric ornament" are more 'barbaric' in England, Germany and Scandinavia, such as that seen at Speyer Cathedral. France produced a great range of ornament, "with particularly fine interwoven and spiralling vines in the 'manuscript' style occurring at Saint-Sernin, Toulouse" (Holmes; Harvey).

During the 11th and 12th centuries figurative sculpture in a distinctly Romanesque style existed all over Europe, although the most spectacular sculptural projects are concentrated in South-Western France, Northern Spain and Italy (Howe). In South-Western France "many have survived, with impressive examples at Saint-Pierre, Moissac, Souillac" (Hall 154), Autun Cathedral has "a Last Judgement of great rarity in that it has uniquely been signed by its creator, Giselbertus" (Gardner; Harvey).

Murals

In England, France and the Netherlands murals were systematically destroyed during the Reformation, or in later wars. The north wall of the nave would often "contain narrative scenes from the Old Testament, and the south wall from the New Testament. On the rear west wall would be a Last Judgement, with an enthroned and judging Christ at the top" (Seddon). Other parts of the church would have the "martyrdom of the local saints shown in the crypt, and Apocalypse in the narthex and Christ in Majesty." The range of colors employed was limited to light blue-green, yellow ochre, reddish brown and black. Similar paintings exist in Serbia, Spain, Germany, Italy and elsewhere in France.

6. Construction Technology

Background

Romanesque architecture was the first distinctive style to spread across Europe since the Roman Empire. 6th Century octagonal Byzantine churches like the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna inspired "the greatest building of the Dark Ages in Western Europe, the Emperor Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel, Aachen, Germany, built around the year AD 800" (Gardner). Romanesque construction, like Byzantine architecture "relies upon its walls or sections of walls called piers" (Fletcher).

Romanesque building construction draws on the structural features of the Roman Empire period, including the following building elements: thick and heavy walls, flat square buttresses, round arches and arcade, thick and heavy pillars, stone barrel and groin vaults (Sacred Destinations).

Walls, Buttresses, Arches and Other Supports

Walls of Romanesque buildings are often of massive thickness with few and comparatively small openings, and are often double shells filled with rubble. Smooth ashlar masonry was not a "distinguishing feature of the style, particularly in the earlier part of the period, but occurred chiefly where easily worked limestone was available" (Huyghe). Because of the massive nature of Romanesque walls, "buttresses are not a highly significant feature, as they are in Gothic architecture. In the case of Durham Cathedral, flying buttresses have been employed, but are hidden inside the triforium gallery" (Clifton-Taylor). In many cases, arches were a direct imitation of Islamic architecture. Other late Romanesque churches such as Durham Cathedral introduce the pointed arch in as a structural device. An arcade is a row of arches, supported on piers or columns, which occurs in the interior of large churches, separating the nave from the aisles, and in large secular interiors spaces, such as the great hall of a castle, supporting the timbers of a roof or upper floor. Arcades also occur in cloisters and atriums, enclosing an open space. In Romanesque architecture, "piers were often employed to support arches that occur at the intersection of two large arches, such as those under the crossing of the nave and transept" (Fletcher; Gardner).

Arcades of columns cut from single pieces are also common in structures that do not bear massive weights of masonry, such as cloisters, where they are sometimes paired (Fletcher; Toman). Architectural compromises of this type are "seen where materials have been salvaged from a number of buildings. Salvaged columns were also used to a lesser extent in France" (Toman). In most parts of Europe, Romanesque columns were massive "as they supported thick upper walls with small windows, and sometimes heavy vaults. The most common method of construction was to build them out of stone cylinders called drums, as in the crypt at Speyer Cathedral" (Toman).

In churches, typically the aisles are vaulted, but the nave is roofed with timber, as is the case at both Peterborough and Ely (Clifton-Taylor). In Italy where open wooden roofs are common, "tie beams frequently occur in conjunction with vaults, the timbers have often been decorated as at San Miniato al Monte, Florence" (Fletcher). However, the barrel vault generally required the support of solid walls, or walls in which the windows were very small (Toman). Groin vaults occur in early Romanesque buildings, notably at Speyer Cathedral where the high vault of about 1060 is the first employment in Romanesque architecture of this type of vault for a wide nave (Toman). Groin vaults are frequently separated by transverse arched ribs of low profile as at Speyer and Santiago de Compostela. At La Madeleine, Vezelay, the ribs are square in section, strongly projecting and polychrome (Pevsner).

Towers

Towers were an important feature of Romanesque churches and a great number of them are still standing. Large churches of Spain and Portugal usually have two towers. Large paired towers of square plan could also occur on the transept ends, such as those at Tournai Cathedral in Belgium. In Germany, where four towers frequently occur, they often have spires which may cathedrals of Limburg or Speyer. It is also common to see bell or onion-shaped spires of the Baroque period surmounting Romanesque towers in central and Eastern Europe (Toman). Norman towers exist at the cathedrals of Durham, Exeter, Southwell, Norwich and Tewkesbury Abbey. This is the case in nearly all Italian churches both large and small, except in Sicily where a number of churches were founded by the Norman rulers and are more French in appearance (Fletcher). Two fine examples occur at Lucca, at the church of San Frediano and at the Duomo. It is also seen in Spain (Fletcher). In Italy, there are a number of large free-standing towers which are circular, the most famous of these being the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Italy and Spain such as that of the Old Cathedral, Salamanca, which is covered by a dome supported on a ribbed vault (Toman).