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