Middle Ages, Romanesque

The Romanesque era was marked by:

enormous building activity as each town or abbey tried to outdo its neighbors and rivals in building Sacred Spaces to praise God and venerate the saints

Silver gilt worked in _______________, with inlays of garnets and other stones

filigree

Many monasteries on the pilgrimage route realized ____________________________ from providing food and shelter for pilgrim travelers

financial profits

Carpet page incorporates brilliant colors, active lines, and complex patterns of _______________

interlace

Monks usually signed and dated their work on the:

last page of the book: colophon page

Romanesque churches sit:

lower to the ground

Wooden roofs in Romanesque churches were replaced by ____________________ vaults: thereby enhancing acoustic and minimizing fires

masonry (stone)

Before the invention of the printing press books were made individually by _______________________ using ink, pen, brush, and paint

monks and nuns

Many of the non-Roman tribes moved aggressively into the ___________________________________, forcing the weaker groups to re-locate

nearby territory of neighbors

A tranquil, secluded place only for the monks and priests to read scripture in convents:

Cloisters

Supportive of the images as a didactic tool to instruct the faithful and praise God:

Cluniacs

Believe that images are good and give us a window to the afterworld

Cluniaques

Piers divided into many sections:

Compound piers

58. CHURCH OF SAINTE-FOY

Conques, France Romanesque Europe 1050-1130 CE Reliquary 9th century CE: gold, silver, gemstones, and enamel over wood Stone structure Stone and paint tympanum

What is beneath Herald when he hears about the bad omen?

Ghost boats that may have been one of his dreams.

Helped foster this independence, as did the remote locations of the monasteries, far from secular temptations and distractions

Irish isolation from Europe

Example of the fusion of Christian imagery and the animal-interlace Norse style:

LINDISFARNE CARPET PAGE

Mixture of color powder with water, egg yolk, or oil

Pigment

_____________________ were the single most important catalyst for the art and architecture of the Romanesque period

Pilgrimages

Accompanying the unifying forces that helped bring about the origins of a shared feudal culture, what helped import new ideas to western Europe?

Pilgrimages and Crusades

Romanesque churches were constructed so that ________________________ could come visit relics anytime of the day. They could walk around the Church in the ambulatory without disturbing what was going on in the nave.

Pilgrims

Carpet page is also replete with design elements and local Anglo-Saxon motifs that resemble the metal work from the ________________________

Sutton Hoo ship

"Lover of God"

THEOPHILUS

The extra post in the middle of post and lintel:

TRUMEAU

A _____________ is a bound book made from parchment-monks copied these by candlelight in the scriptorium, a process that often took several years to complete

codex

Last page of the book:

colophon page

Carpet pages were placed at the beginning of:

each Bible book, particularly Gospels

Most of their surviving art works consist of ____________________________________ that once probably adorned the gear of their nobles and rulers (swords, pendants, bracelets, fibulas)

small "status symbol" objects

Romanesque buildings featured:

solid, thick masonry walls that hugged the ground, at least in relation to the subsequent Gothic Rounded arches and vaults were also the norm, echoing ancient Rome

The ink of the actual text wording was made from:

soot

Funding secular works of art enhanced a noble's:

standing

Some scholars speculate that such narrative _____________ formed the subject matter backdrop for troubadours and poets performing in castles for a lord or king and his retinue

tapestries

The Romanesque period (circa 1000-1200) was an amalgam of:

the Old and the New The Old: feudalism The New: growth of towns + pilgrimages + new ideas from the East brought back by Crusaders

Romanesque Europe fused:

traditional local culture and feudal influences with more cosmopolitan ideas imported from well beyond the narrow confines of Western Europe

Manuscript made out of calfskin:

vellum

People of this time were constantly moving, so none of their art was ever:

very big

Church building thus became an obsession across western Europe, as Europeans thanked God for not ending the world, as some had predicted He would in the year:

1,000

Paper did not become common in Europe until the ________________

1400s

The Nobility arguably about _____________ of the overall population

2-3%

ST. FOY RELIQUARY

33 inch tall, richly decorated gold container: RELIQUARY That is, a work of art used to house or store purported relics: her skull is inside the head of this reliquary statute Silver and copper gilt over a wooden core (gems were added later) Just as Byzantines venerated icons, so, increasingly, members of the Western church turned for intercession to the heroes of the Church: saints and martyrs Legend has it one of the cures associated with St. Foy's intercession involved a knight with a herniated scrotum She directed him in a vision to have a blacksmith smash the diseased area (he was cured just before the blacksmith struck the blow) Owning and displaying relics so added to the prestige of a community that often little was spared in acquiring them This St. Foy reliquary, for example, resided in the abbey church, Conques, France after its monks stole it from a nearby monastery in 866 in a "holy robbery"

What surrounds the cloister?

A walkway with a bunch of sculptures and images evoking hope and fear.

The ___________________ peoples, for example, displaced from north-central Europe, migrated to Britain and in their turn pushed the resident _______________ northward into modern day Scotland

Anglo-Saxon, Picts

BOOK OF DURROW (680) ST. MATTHEW GOSPEL

Basilican shape Perhaps made in the monastery at Iona founded by Columba, but the provenance has not been documented (housed in the Middle Ages in Durrow, Ireland Book of Durrow continues the zoomorphic tradition, here employed along the boundaries of the page The swirling patterns around the rectangular border reflect Hiberno-Saxon metalwork designs of the place and period The patterns are consistent but the colors change Flattened, floating figure with no hints of an actual body beneath the checkerboard pattern clothing

Irish monks soon journeyed forth to bring the Gospel message to peoples of:

Britain and Scotland

Romanesque architecture was also influenced by:

Byzantine, Islamic, and Early Medieval features

Artistically and architecturally, elements of ancient Rome were important, but influenced as well by artistic conventions from _________________________ discovered by Crusaders

Byzantium and the Islamic world

Artisans solder small metal strips face up to a metal background creating raised-up areas. And then fasten semiprecious stones or colored glass into these compartments. Part mosaic, part stained glass but on a miniature scale:

CLOISONNÉ

_____________ and _________________ art had been named for emperors, and Hiberno-Saxon art derived from a region

Carolingian and Ottonian

Westworks, introduced into church architecture during the ______________________ (oldest known example), continued during the Romanesque period

Carolingian era

Textile-like decorative pages feature regularly in illuminated manuscript books:

Carpet pages

By the time of __________________'s royal court (CIRCA 800) the demand for books necessitated an increase in lay professionals employed by the king supervised by well-known scholars

Charlemagne

THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

Christ on the road to Emmaus, carved on a corner pier in the CLOISTER of a Spanish abbey along the pilgrimage road to Compostela The three men under a Roman arch support seem to glide together on tiptoe Three bearded faces, all with haloes Locks of hair on the foreheads LACK OF EMOTION Shoulders melt away, giving the viewer a sense of boneless form, without a skeleton beneath Add the lack of finger joints: together these three factors reveal the inability of the artist to mirror the naturalistic, observed world Christ distinguished by his larger size and cruciform halo (hierarchy of scale) The satchel He carries on a strap over his shoulder has the scallop sea shell = badge/passport of the pilgrim who completed the journey to Compostela in Spain Christ's ribbed cap and short staff are further evidence of a pilgrim on his spiritual road Christ's feet: is He pivoting backwards? Romanesque with the Roman blind arcade

________________________ thus became an obsession across western Europe, as Europeans thanked God for not ending the world, as some had predicted He would in the year 1,000

Church building

Surviving ancient _________________________ inspired Romanesque masons and builders to include spiky acanthus leaves and ribbon-like volutes in "inverted bell" shapes to support a wide ABACUS and establish an architectural FRAME

Corinthian capitals

Whether for monks in a cloister or the faithful laity in the church, the goal was always teaching and instruction

Didactic

One of the most elaborate such carpet page books of the second half of the 7th century was the __________________

Durrow Gospels

55. LINDISFARNE GOSPEL ST. MATTHEW CARPET PAGE

Early medieval (Hiberno-Saxon) c. 700 CE Illuminated manuscript (ink, pigments, and gold on vellum)

MEROVINGIAN LOOPED FIBULAE

Early medieval Europe, mid 6th century CE Silver gilt worked in filigree, with inlays of garnets and other stones Fibula were decorative pins for fastening garments that had been worn by the ancient Etruscans and Romans Made of bronze, silver, and gold usually profusely decorated with inlaid precious and semi-precious stones Fibula also functioned as emblems of office and symbols of prestige This paired example was buried with a wealthy woman The various decorative patterns are shaped to mirror the basic contours of the work, thus amplifying the object itself and becoming an organic part of the whole Zoomorphic forms are often embedded in these works, like the fish here Resemblance here to the fibula of those flanking Justinian in the San Vitale apse mosaic, although those of the emperor and his supporters are much more elaborate

A delicate type of jewelry metalwork often involving tiny beads of gold or silver soldered together or to the surface of an object of the same metal, and including artistic design motifs

FILIGREE

T/F. Concrete, however, that staple of Roman architecture, was a feature of the Romanesque period.

False

T/F. Romanesque architecture has grand stained glass windows.

False. They cannot use windows because the building would collapse.

Scenes from the Old and New Testament that depict actual people

Figurative

Functioned as water spouts to drain snow and/or rainwater safely away from the roofs, upper story porches, and parapets of churches

Gargoyles

Some ______________________ were intentionally grotesque and served to remind the faithful of the torments of Hell or the lurking presence of the Devil

Gargoyles

Early Middle Ages = roughly 400-1000 CE = a fusion of three worlds:

Greco-Roman heritage (classicism) Christian (didactic religious artifacts and images) "Non-Roman peoples from north of the Alps" (small portable objects that were both functional and aesthetically pleasing)

LINDISFARNE MATTHEW

Greek letters (the language of the New Testament) but written in Roman script (the imperial language) lay out the name of the evangelist, with the winged man ("imago hominis") as his symbol (upper left) Attempts to present Matthew's garment folds unconvincing, with a more persuasive portrayal of the curtain The artist here seems uninterested in volume, shading, and perspective Moses behind the curtain (linking the wisdom of the Old Testament with the message of salvation in the New) Poor job of conveying depth and perspective Several areas of abstract design elements Seated Scribe/Jupiter stance apparent here

________________ were published laying out local customs and offering key phrases in the Basque language for pilgrims

Guidebooks

Key Romanesque contribution to architecture are these narrative sculptural elements compressed into the geometric confines of column capitals:

HISTORIATED CAPITALS

____________________________ often illustrated the lives of the saints, Biblical stories or the Crucifixion

HISTORIATED CAPITALS

What did people consider a bad omen for Harold as king?

Haley's comet

JUDAS CAPITAL, AUTUN

Here two screaming demons with contorted faces string up the limp corpse of a screaming and agonized Judas Their upswept wings reinforce the inverted bell shape of the capital (and evoke the Exekias vase of Achilles and Ajax) Light and shadow interplay

Some scholars believe eastern textiles and carpet designs and motifs including those of Islamic artists may well have influenced ____________________ designs

Hiberno-Saxon

Capital in which there is a didactic message:

Historiated capital

Frequently on the move as new groups threatened their flanks

Huns, Vandals, Franks, Merovingians, Goths

Title page also known as:

INCIPIT PAGE

Around cloisters were:

Images in bas relief about Jesus Christ and religious scenes.

What provided the funds needed to build the Romanesque Churches?

Increased urban prosperity

__________________ was a monastery on an island just off the English coast near the Scottish border that, during a long period of upheaval and invasion protected the remains of St. Cuthbert (died 687), whose relic remains were reputed to trigger miracles and cures

Lindisfarne

58A. TYMPANUM

Lunette Seated Christ Orant position On the right are sinners burning in hell On the left are the good people enjoying Heaven

METALWORK INFLUENCED:

MANUSCRIPTS

God/Christ in kind of a pointed or almond shaped thing:

Mandorla

Most inhabitants lived on an estate, either owned by a lord, high clergyman, or abbey

Manorialism

EVANGELIST ICONOGRAPHY:

Matthew depicted as a man meant the humanity of Christ as found in the Gospels Mark imaged as a lion symbolized the triumphant Christ of the Resurrection Luke as the calf implied the sacrificial victim of the Crucifixion And John as an eagle implied Christ's Second Coming to judge the world

________________ communities were still the center of intellectual life during Romanesque period.

Monastic

Christian victories over the ______________ of Spain helped open roads and encouraged travel

Moors

Are carpet pages non figural?

NO! They contain figures

Biblical scenes that tell a story in visual terms for a largely illiterate public

Narrative

Are Gospels always bearded?

No

58A. ST. FOY TYMPANUM

On the left are the faithful who lived good lives and on the right are the sinners. Above portal doors into the church Gates of Hell on the bottom register

Another animal skin product was used in addition to vellum:

Parchment

St. Foy had ________________ that symbolize Greek influence.

Pediments

Each church along the four major routes held ______________, further attracting the faithful to pilgrimages

RELICS Chartres claimed to have the tunic of the Virgin Mary at Christ's birth; Vezelay, bones of Mary Magdalene; Autun, relics of Lazarus

What protrudes out of the apse?

Radiating chapels

55 A. ST. LUKE PORTRAIT PAGE

Red cushion Seated and bent toward his work holding a quill pen (echoing the monks in a scriptorium: continuity over time + direct link to the Gospel writers) Bearded = mature Yellow halo Lack of background ornamentation Feet + footrest: naturalistic? Romanized clothing The winged ox (Luke) has a profile body and frontal head, and carries a green book (Luke's Gospel) Some scholars, citing St. Bede, believe the ox was intended to symbolize the crucified Christ

Used to store relics of saints:

Reliquary

Cloister is similar to:

Roman army camp and Roman towns

Term coined in the 19th century to characterize the art and architecture of the early 11th to the late 12th centuries:

Romanesque

Europe's first universities surfaced during the ____________________ period

Romanesque Bologna (1080), Paris (1160), Oxford (1096), Cambridge (1209)

59. BAYEUX TAPESTRY CAVALRY ATTACK

Romanesque Europe English or Norman c. 1066-1088 CE Embroidery on linen One of the greatest achievements of Romanesque era France Remarkable that this tapestry has survived for nine hundred years Parallels the Column of Trajan in the information it provides about contemporary military life and affairs 230 ft. in length and 20 inches tall The borders contain many of the same real and imaginary animals found in the illuminated manuscripts of the period Continuous, frieze-like pictorial narrative of a crucial moment in English history: the battle that transferred power and control from the Anglo-Saxons to the French Normans, descendants of the Vikings The narrative depicts the mid-11th century events leading to the conquest of England by the Duke of Normandy, later named William the Conqueror Who defeated the Anglo-Saxon king of England, Harold of Wessex, at the 1066 Battle of Hastings After which William assumed control of England and ordered the creation of the Doomsday Book, a comprehensive census of his new kingdom The French believed the dead King Edward had recognized William, Duke of Normandy as his rightful heir But the crown was given instead to Edward's brother-in-law, the Anglo-Saxon Harold, who had previously sworn an oath of allegiance to William, who saved his life on the French coast The betrayed Normans decided to invade England The tapestry frieze consists of fifty labeled and titled scenes (with the latter often in the vertical center rather than the top or bottom) Probably commissioned by Bishop Odo (right), William's half-brother, and created in England not Bayeaux The work, of wool yarn on linen, is not technically a (woven) tapestry because the images are embroidered (sewn onto the cloth) rather than woven directly into the cloth The vegetable dyes in the tapestry have been found in other Anglo-Saxon cloth from the same region and time period The Latin inscriptions contain hints of Anglo-Saxon wording The main yarn colors are terracotta-russet, blue-green, gold, and olive green Most of the key scenes, especially the death of Edward, which sometimes overflow above the borders, are located in the center panels Scenes are often separated by highly stylized (exaggerrated and non-naturalistic forms) trees

In 432 _____________________ built a church in Ireland and began the Christianization of the Celts

Saint Patrick

Room where monasteries copy out the gospels

Scriptorium

Symbol that you went on a pilgrimage:

Sea Shell

When the ________________________ failed to materialize at the end of the First Millennium, Europeans experienced a profound sense of relief and of God's presence

Second Coming

Bland and no imagery:

Sistertion

Some characteristics of Romanesque churches:

Squattier, closer to the ground, thick walls, not many windows, barrel-vaulted nave.

______________________ founded a monastery in 563 on the Scottish island of Iona whose monks went on to build Lindisfarne along the British coast in 635 (sacked by the Vikings in 793)

St. Columba

______________ was a twelve year old girl who was martyred in about 303, during the Diocletian persecutions

St. Foy

What did the Norman Calvary knights invent?

Stirrups

___________________________ involved a complex hierarchy of interrelationships with fealty and allegiance owed up and down the line: clergy to bishops, bishops to cardinals, cardinals to popes)

The Feudal System

__________________________, one of the best of the manuscripts of the early Middle Ages, was written and decorated in the the late 6th century probably by the monk ______________ who later became the local bishop for over 20 years before dying in 721

The Lindisfarne Gospels, Eadfrith Its sumptuous leather binding was added by his successor bishop, while jewels were embossed onto the surface several decades later The text is also famous as the first book featuring Old English translations of the original Latin by Aldred, an important 10th century cleric and scholar Its current cover decorations were added in the 19th century

ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS

The old view of the Middle Ages as a "dark" period in western Europe that was rough, uncivilized, crude and primitive in comparison to the glories of the Classical period that preceded it and the artistic richness of the Renaissance that followed has long been discarded by scholars Decorative design

The Feudal Order:

Those who pray: the clergy Those who fight: the nobility Those who work: the peasantry, laborers and artisans

Many of these towns were granted autonomy from local lords in the form of _________________ which enumerated the communities' rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions that superseded many feudal obligations

charters

Scholars believe Odo commissioned the BAYEUX TAPESTRY CAVALRY ATTACK for three reasons:

Three of Odo's chief lieutenants, mentioned in the Doomsday Book are pictured on the tapestry Odo was the patron and builder of the Bayeaux Cathedral, where the tapestry was found in the 18th century It may well have been created in the 1070s (the same decade in which the Cathedral was built and dedicated

T/F. By law only the nobility could be trained in the use of weapons.

True

Peasants to nobles, nobles to kings

Vassalage

To ask a saint to intercede in your life with God through prayer:

Veneration

____________________ in a church was a great help in instructing the (largely illiterate) faithful

Visual imagery

Two large towers on the side of the Church facing west:

WESTWORKS

Monks from this and other monasteries later journeyed to ____________________ and gradually established numerous other communities of monks

Western Europe

BISHOP ODO BLESSING THE FEAST

William, and a centered Odo giving the blessing, are feasting before the Battle of Hastings (Odo's hierarchy of scale) A kneeling servant offers a basin and towel so that the diners may wash their hands Attendants bring in roasted birds on skewers, placing them on makeshift trestle tables topped by the knight's shields Diners are summoned by a trumpeter blowing a horn (Viking) While the man to Odo's right points impatiently to the next event: a council of war between William (now the largest figure), Odo, and a third man, probably another of William's half-brothers, Robert Latin text above the narration explains the unfolding events

Treating an image like a God-like object:

Worship

Romanesque period is a pilgrimage period?

Yes

Can tapestries be easily transported?

Yes, very portable

Animal forms within an art piece

Zoomorphic

Many leaders among these non-Romans had held key positions in the governmental and military structure of the fading Empire and had fused their cultures with that of Rome:

a new hybrid cultural order gradually emerged in western Europe

Earlier generations of scholars rejected these objects as _________________________ because the works did not conform to the Greco-Roman tradition of figural art that sought to represent organic nature (figural naturalism)

aesthetically unworthy

Many of these emerging towns were located ________________________ which greatly aided their commercial reach and scope

along rivers

Romanesque Period is the first era since Archaic and Classical Greece to take its name from an _____________ rather than ________________________

artistic style, politics or geography

Second or third born sons of nobles could:

be in the military and try to earn recognition in that field or dad buys you the ability to be appointed bishop or cardinal.

The High Clergy:

only first born men of nobles: popes, cardinals, bishops, and abbots)

Carpet pages are wholly devoted to _________________, both figural and non-figural

ornamentation

The Low Clergy:

parish priests and ordinary monks who were at best barely literate

Typically High Clergymen were the younger sons of important nobles who were frozen out of secular power by the rules of __________________

primogeniture

Growth in the cult of ____________ emerged in part out of the Byzantine icon phenomenon

relics

Non-religious subject matter was common at __________________________ in Europe during the Romanesque period

royal and ducal courts

Often the work on the actual book was divided between a __________ who copied the actual words, and an artist who did the illustrations, large initials, and other decorative elements

scribe

The _____________________ was the room within a monastery where these books were laboriously produced

scriptorium