Romanesque architecture developed throughout Western Europe between the 10th and 12th centuries. It was influenced by a variety of geographical, geological, climatic, religious, social, political, and historical factors. The style is characterized by its sober and dignified formal massing, with an emphasis on towers, transepts, and vaulted construction methods derived from Roman precedents. Rib and panel vaulting became widespread, allowing for more complex vault configurations. Door and window openings featured receding concentric moldings and arches. Ornamentation included carved vegetable and animal motifs. Major Romanesque architectural works include cathedrals, abbeys, and their associated structures across Europe.

1. Romanesque Architecture in Europe
Sheree Ann M. Labe

3. Influences
Geographical
The style which grew up on the decay of the
Roman empire, and is known as Romanesque, was
carried on throughout practically the whole of the
Western empire; that is, in those countries which had
been directly under the rule of Rome. The position of
each country will be slightly touched upon under its
own heading . The influence of Byzantine art brought
Ravenna and Venice also influenced the Italian
Romanesque in Lombardy and Europe generally.

4. Influences
Geological
In these early times a rough use of the material
at hand characterizes the style in each country, and
will be referred to under the same.
Climate
Local styles were favored by the variations of
the climate north and south of the Alps, as referred to
in each country.

5. Influences
Religion
The Christian Church, which was the civilizing and educating agency of the period, was
striving to extend its boundaries in Northern Europe, and the erection of a church was often the
foundation of a city. The nlonastic communities, with the encouragement and aid of
Charlemagne, came into existence. The papacy had been rising to great power and
influence, and, directed with skill, it rivalled or controlled such civil government as existed. The
Pragmatic Sanction (A.D. 554) had already conferred authority on the Bishops over the provincial and
municipal governments, thus increasing the power of the Church, with which now often rested the
nomination of public functionaries and judges. As East and West drifted apart their architecture
developed on opposite lines, but architecture of Western Europe due to Eastern influence is classed as
Byzantine. The different countries looked to Rome until each developed its own style. Religious
enthusiasm and zeal prevailed, and was manifested in magnificent edifices, and in creed warfare, so
that when the Turks overran Palestine, the loss of the Holy Places resulted in the long warfare known
as the Crusades (1096-1270) between the Christians of the West and the Mahometans of the East.
Until the middle of the twelfth century science, letters, art and enlightenment generally were
the monopoly of religious bodies, and pupils of monks afterwards became the designers of many of the
great Gothic Cathedrals.
The feudal rank of bishops and abbots made them in some sense military chiefs, occasionally
taking the field in person. Schools attached to certain monasteries discharged to some extent the
functions of universities, as those at S. Gall, Tours, and Rheims, and the aid thus rendered by monastic
institutions to architecture was therefore important. Down to the thirteenth century, architecture was
practised largely by the clergy and came to be regarded as a sacred science, as stated by Albert Lenoir
in " 1'Architecture Monastique." Dr. Jessop's "Daily Life of an English Monastery" is interesting as
showing the life led by the monks, and may be studied with advantage.

6. Influences
Among the chief monastic orders were the following:
Benedictine Order (Black Monks)
Early 6th century houses commonly sited in
towns part of the church being devoted to
offices for the laity. Founded by St. Benedict
in South Italy, who decreed that architecture,
painting , etc. are to be taught.
Cluniac Order
Founded by Abbot Odo in 910 at Cluny in Burgundy. The plan was especially notable for double transepts, a feature
which was adopted in many English Cathedral, as at Lincoln and Salisbury.
Carthusian Order
Founded by S. Bruno in 1086 carthusian
architecture is notably severe and unadorned.
The charter house, often remotedly sited
provided separate cells for the monks, generally
grouped around a cloister Garth, and the
community served a simply – planned church.

7. Influences
Cistercian Order (white monks)
Founded in 1908 at Citeaux by S. Stephen
Harding and at Clairvaix by S. Bernard.
He ascetic aims of the cistercian order
produced an architecutecture which was at
first simple and severe.
In mature Cistercian planning he monk’s
frater or reflectory was sited at right angles
to the South walk of the cloister with the
kitchen adjoining it to the West, and the
frater of the ‘conversi’ or lay brethren,
beyond the usual form of Cistercian chapter
house was an aisled hall in contrast to those
of the Benedictine order and Augustinian
order and which were either rectangular or
circular.
Secular Canons
Serving principally cathedral and collegiate
churches.

8. Influences
ORDERS OF CANONS Regular:
Augustinian Canons (Black Canons Regular) established in
1050. They undertook both monastic and pastoral duties in houses
often sited in towns and planned similarly to those of thee
Benedictine order.
Premonastic Canons (White Canons regular) founded around
1100 by S. Norbert at Premontre in Picardy.
Gilbertine Canons an exclusively English order founded in
the 12th century by S. Gilbert of Sempringham, usually combining a
house of canons of Augustine rule with another of Nuns of Cisterian
rule, in conventual buildings separately planned, attached to a
common church divided axially by a wall.

9. Influences
MILITARY ORDER
The Knights Templar, founded in 1119 to protect the Holy
Places in Palestine and to safeguard the pilgrim routes to
Jerusalem.
The Knights Hospitallers organized in 1113, but develop no
characteristic architecture of its own.
The Mendicant orders of Friars, founded during the 13th
century and headed by the Franciscans and Dominicans.
Their houses were usually sited in towns, where the friars
preached and did charitable works among the common
people.

10. Influences
Social and Political
The system of feudal tenure, or the holding of land on
condition of military service, was growing up, and caused important
changes in the social and political organization of states. While
through its operation the class of actual slaves died out, still the
poorer freemen gradually came to be serfs, bound to the land and
passing with it, on a change of ownership.
The growth of the towns as civilization advanced is
noticeable, and the privileges which they acquired, amounting
almost to independence, rapidly gave them importance.
Constant warfare rendered the condition of the people
unsettled during this period, and skill in craftsmanship was at the
lowest ebb. Christianity and civilization gradually extended from
southern to western Europe. The clergy the scholars of the period
directed the building of the churches, while the influence of the
freemasons produced important results.

11. Influences
Historical.
In the year A.D. 799 the Roman Empire in the West practically passed from
the hands of the Romans, by the election of the first F. Vankish King,
Charlemagne, whose election is a convenient date to mark the end of the Roman
Empire as such. Till the time of Charlemagne very little ROMANESQUE
ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE. 221 building was done, hut he in a great measure
restored the arts and civilization to Western Europe before his death in A.D. 814.
Before the year A.D. 1000, when it was popularly supposed thatthe world
would come to an end, little building was carried out, but after the millennium had
passed, buildings sprang up in all parts, with many local peculiarities, which will be
noticed under each country; but the change was slow, traditional forms being firstly
transformed in general design and detail, and then new features created.
Nearly all the nations of Europe had at this time come into existence ; France,
Germany, and Spain, were becoming powerful and tending to set aside the rule of
the Holy Roman Empire, which now had become only a title. In northern Europe,
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were distinct kingdoms, and England had become
welded into one by the Norman kings at the end of the eleventh century.

12. Character
1.
The Romanesque style of the tenth to the twelfth centuries was remarkable for the tentative use of a
new construction principle; the deliberate articulation of structure in which each construction part
played a designed role in establishing equilibrium.
2.
The general character of the Romanesque style is sober and dignified, while formal massing depends
on the grouping of towers and projection of transepts and choir.
3.
The character depends on the employment of vaulting, based initially on Roman methods.

13. Character
4.
Roman cross-vaults were used throughout Europe till the beginning of the twelfth century, but they
were heavy ad difficult to construct and were gradually superseded by rib and panel’ vaulting, in
which a framework of ribs supported thin stone panels. The new method considered in designing the
profile of the transverse, longitudinal and diagonal ribs to which the form of the panels was adapted.

14. Character
5.
Groins had previously been settled naturally by the
intersection of the vault surfaces; this arrangement
produced the quadripartite (four part) vault.
6.
If the cross vaults were semi-cylindrical the diagonal
groin would be a semi-ellipse.

15. Character
In France and Germany, the vaulting ribs of a square vaulting compartment were usually
semicircular turvest starting from the same level; therefore the diagonal rib; having the longest
span rose to a greatet height than the transverse and longitudinal ribs, and when the panelling was
filled in on the top of these ribs each vault was domical.
In England vaults were generally constructed with
continuous level ridges, instead of this domical
form, and the differences in height between diagonal
and transverse ribs in a square vaulting compartment
was equalized by "stilting" the latter or by making the
diagonal rib a segment of a larger circle than that of the
longitudinal and transverse ribs.
which were semicircular.

16. Character
7.
In vaulting an oblong compartment the difference between the heights of diagonal and
transverse ribs was still greater than in a square compartment and produced 8n awkward
waving line of the ribs on plan, but little attempt was made to vault any but square
compartment. The difficulty of vaulting oblong nave compartments was partially surmounted.
8. In some instances, the
intermediate pier was carried
up as a vaulting shaft to
support a rib whk:h altered
the quadripartite vaulting
compartment into six parts,
known as "Sexpartite“
vaulting.
The main piers were usually
more massive than the
intermediate because they
supported the chief weight of the
vaulting.

17. Character
9. The addition of transepts and the prolonation of the sanctuary of chancel made the church a welldefined cross on plan.
10. Transepts were generally the same breadth as the nave; which was usually twice the width of the
aisles.
11. The choir was often raised on piers above the level of the nave and over a vaulted crypt, in which
saint or martyr had been buried.

18. Character
12. Towers, square
octagonal or circular
are prominent features
of most Romanesque
churches, either over
the crossing, at the
West end centrally
with the nave, or at
East end, sometimes
arranged in pairs. at
the west end and at
the ends of transepts
or at the eastern ends
of the aisles, often
rising to a great height
in well-marked stages
pierced with windows.

19. Character
13. Roman methods of craftsmanship still influenced constructive art in Europe.
Walls were often roughly built, and were relieved externally by shallow
buttresses or pilaster strips connected at the top by bands horizontal moldings
or by a. series of semicircular arches.

20. Character
14. Attached columns, with rough capitals supporting semicircular
arches, formed wall arcading, which was a frequent decorative feature.
APSE: St. Pierre: Aulnay
15. Arcades consisted of massive circular columns or piers which supported
semi-circular arches, as in the naves or Norman cathedrals.

21. Character
16. Door and window openings are very characteristic, with jambs or sides
formed in a series of receding moulded planes known as 'orders', in which are
set circular shafts surmounted by a continuous abacus. The semicircular arch
above was also constructed in receding concentric rings which followed the
lines of recesses below.

22. Character
17. A Rose or wheel window was often placed over the west door.
18. Glass seems not to have
come into general use till the
ninth century.
St. Zeno Maggiore, Veronica

23. Character
19. In Italy, the traditional monolithic column
was usual but in the west, in France and
England, the columns were generally cylindrical
and of massive proportions, built up
with ashlar masonry and having a rubble core.
These were treated with plutings or with
spiral, trellis or chevron patterns.
20. Variations of Corinthian or tonic
capitals were used.
Durham Cathedral : Nave

24. Character
21 . In later times the capital was often of a cushion (cubiform shape).
Interior of St. John’s Chapel

25. Character
22. Mouldings were often elaborately carved.
Etton Church Yorkshire
Doorway
Ornament :
Limburg
23. Ornament, into which entered
vegetable and animal forms, was
treated with conventionally and
carving and sculpture were often
rough.

26. Character
Bronze Pilaster
Door of Trani Cathedral
Hyllestad Church,
Setesdalen, Norway : Detail
of Doorway
Urnes Church, Sagne Fjord,
Norway : Detail of
Doorway
Twin Capitals: St.
Sernin Toulouse
Font : Baptistry Parma

27. Other Example
Diotisalvi, Deotisalvi or Deustesalvet was an
architect from Pisa, Italy, active in the 12th century in
Pisa.
The Baptistery, Cathedral, and Leaning Tower, Pisa