Ottonian and Norman Architecture

Carolingian Quotations.

Charlemagne's vision of a Christian Roman Empire dissolved in the later ninth century, bringing an end to a great period of public construction. Central authority, undermined by the division of territory and royal rivalries among Charlemagne's grandsons, was shattered by the invasions of Vikings in the north, Magyars in the east, and the Muslims around the Mediterranean. Their attacks devastated hundreds of towns, churches, and monasteries. A new kingdom emerged in central Germany in the mid-tenth century that laid claim to the mantle of the Carolingians, and in 962, Otto I was crowned emperor. In the projects generated by the court and its ecclesiastical allies, architecture reinforced Ottonian political pretensions through a deliberate continuation of Carolingian models. The palace chapel at Aachen was copied repeatedly throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries: in the chapel of St. Nicholas at Nijmegen in the eastern Netherlands, at Bishop Notger's chapel at Liège in Belgium, and, oddly enough, in nunneries at Essen and S. Maria im Kapitol in Cologne in Germany, and at Ottmarsheim (1049) in eastern France. The interest of these female monastic communities in Charlemagne's chapel underscored their imperial connections, but may have also been suggested by Aachen's dedication to the Virgin Mary and its possession of the relic of her shroud. Westworks appeared in major Ottonian cathedrals and monasteries in Germany, including the cathedrals of Speyer and Worms, and the abbey church of St. Michael's in Hildesheim, suggesting that by this time they were seen as an important component of the imperial architectural image. The cruciform basilica, revived by Carolingians, remained the basis for large-scale church plans. At St. Michael's, Hildesheim, this basic plan was elaborated with a transept and apse at each end of the building with the western choir raised above a crypt whose ambulatory was visible on the exterior.

Speyer.

The Cathedral of Speyer in western Germany, started in 1030 during the reign of Emperor Conrad II and vaulted (given its stone ceiling) around 1100, was the pre-eminent structure of the period and illustrates what might be called the progressive historicism—the creating of new architectural forms inspired by historical models—typical of so much of medieval architecture. A glance at the exterior of the cathedral with its massive westwork and grouped crossing towers certainly recalls Carolingian precedents, such as Saint-Riquier, but the enormous scale of the cross-shaped plan, 435 feet in length, equals that of Roman imperial churches such as St. Peter's in Rome. The interior conjures up a similar Roman spirit. Its combination of rectangular piers and attached columns reproduces the structure of the Colosseum (Rome's massive amphitheater), while the arcade that rises through the entire 90-foot high elevation to frame each window resembles an aqueduct (Rome's system of raised water channels) or, again, the exterior of Constantine's audience hall at Trier in Germany. Visually, the new mix of piers and columns created a system that articulated the building as a series of repeating units that reflected the geometry of the plan. It also produced a more emphatically three-dimensional architecture whose walls were organized in distinct planes. In a similar vein, the exterior was embellished by the disciplined formal rhythms created by niches, decorative arches, and wall arcades framed by columns or pilasters (flattened or rectangular columns). A setting of overwhelming monumentality was created at Speyer to demonstrate the Roman and Carolingian origins of the power of the German kings who lay buried in the spacious crypt under the choir.

Imposing Verticality in Norman French Architecture.

In a treaty of 911, the Carolingian king Charles the Simple granted the area around Rouen in northwestern France to the Vikings, creating what was to become the duchy of Normandy. Converted to Christianity and expanding their territories, the Normans soon turned to the task of building architecture worthy of a powerful state. The cathedrals and monasteries they erected during the eleventh century reveal a farflung array of sources drawn from southwestern France, Burgundy, and the Holy Roman Empire in Germany. At the Abbey of Jumièges in France, begun in 1037 and completed in 1066, a pair of tall towers flank a projecting porch with an upper chapel to form an impressive frontispiece that is reminiscent of such Carolingian façade blocks as Saint-Denis or Corvey. The interior of the church emphasizes elegant verticality through the use of tall, attached columns that divide the nave wall into a series of regular units or bays. Even more notable, the elevation now contains three levels: above the arcade, a spacious gallery is introduced with a window zone, called a clerestory, at the top of the wall just below the timber ceiling. Appearing in Ottonian church designs, but known in early Christian examples from Jerusalem to Trier, the gallery might have accommodated additional altars or been used by pilgrims. Clearly, it invested the church structure with a lordly height that was a symbol of status. Saint-Etienne at Caen in Normandy, founded around 1060 by William the Conqueror, who was also buried in front of the high altar at his death in 1087, exhibits an even more imposing demeanor. The rigorously ordered façade with its three portals and twin towers offered a scheme that would be repeated until the end of the Middle Ages. Like Jumièges, the interior of Caen contains three stories, including a gallery, but here supported exclusively by piers composed of a bundle of shafts set around a cruciform core that are coordinated with the key structural elements of the arcade, aisle vaults, and original wooden ceiling. Its thick walls, honeycombed by passages, resemble the architecture of contemporary Norman castles—the Tower of London, for example—and capture an image of the church as a Christian fortress as well as a symbol of political might.

Norman Domination in England.

Few events so thoroughly remodeled an architectural landscape as the Norman conquest of England in 1066. In the generation following the Battle of Hastings, at which the Norman invaders, led by the future king William I, conquered the Anglo-Saxon king Harold, the Normans rebuilt every major cathedral and monastery in the country, literally obliterating the architecture of the Anglo-Saxons whom they had defeated. Dominating the skylines of English towns, these Norman churches left no doubt as to who was in control. As the twelfth-century historian William of Malmesbury noted in his Deeds of the English Kings, "You may see everywhere churches … [and] monasteries rising in a new style of architecture; and with new devotion our country flourishes, so that every rich man thinks a day wasted if he does not make it remarkable with some great stroke of generosity." The ambitions of the new regime were apparent immediately in the projects launched by the conqueror and his ecclesiastical entourage, including Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and Walkelin, bishop of Winchester. If the recent Norman plans of Rouen Cathedral or Saint-Etienne at Caen guided design at the cathedrals of Canterbury, Durham, or Lincoln, the conscious desire to evoke Rome and rival the architecture of the Continent lies behind the pursuit of overwhelming scale, and the selection of majestic forms and materials. By William the Conqueror's death, the kingdom had no fewer than nine churches comparable in scale to St. Peter's. At Winchester, the columns that rise from floor to ceiling, seen in the surviving late eleventh-century transept or in the vaulted choir, parallel the insistent verticality of Speyer Cathedral in Germany and, combined with a huge western entry block, whose outlines have been recovered in archaeological excavations, create an imperial aura based on a mix of Roman, Carolingian, and Ottonian references. In the case of Durham's famous spiral columns, a specific link to St. Peter's is conjured up to reveal the local saint, Cuthbert, as an equal of the apostle. While Durham's architecture draws on Norman features present at Jumièges and Saint-Etienne at Caen, its most significant aspect is its use of pointed arches together with ribbed groin vaults, an innovation that supported the heavy stone roof in a way that was lighter, higher, and more decorative than the heavy barrel vaults they replaced. Originally planned only over the eastern arm, or choir, of the church, the stone vaults were extended over the entire edifice during the building process. Whatever their structural and aesthetic advantages, they also provided a canopy over sacred space that turns the building into a monumental shrine. This conception of the church as a precious object is reflected at Durham in the lavish decoration of the entire building: the interlacing arches of the aisle walls, the carved patterns on the piers, and the restless chevron (angled stripe) ornament that outlines the arches and ribs.

A Sicilian Blend.

An independent band of Normans established a kingdom in southern Italy and Sicily during the later eleventh century where they formulated an architecture that was an exotic mixture of Byzantine (Eastern Christian, centered in Constantinople or modern Istanbul), Muslim, and Christian Roman traditions. Best represented by the Palatine Chapel in Palermo or the cathedral of Monreale on the Italian island of Sicily, the Norman buildings of Sicily serve as a reminder that architecture is a language of communication whose vocabulary is often tailored to local circumstances. Thus, rather than erasing all signs of the past, the Palatine Chapel, built and decorated by King Roger II between 1132 and 1189, recasts the traditional basilican structure in forms absorbed from the conquered Byzantines and Muslims. The alternating smooth and fluted columns, the dome that rises over the crossing, as well as the glittering gold-ground mosaics are Byzantine in style; the pointed arches and elaborately faceted stalactite ceiling draw upon Muslim architecture. Like the imagery that showcases Christ in Majesty accompanied by the Roman saints Peter and Paul under a ceiling with paintings of constellations, courtly entertainments, and scenes of daily life, the church in its combination of traditional and alien forms comprises a text in which the impact of rival cultures, divine sanction, and the sophisticated refinement of the Norman kingdom and its rulers can be read. The same point is made by Monreale Cathedral, begun in 1174. An arresting play of interlacing pointed arches over the exterior invests the church with an ornamental luxury comparable to the most elaborate Islamic palaces, while the cruciform basilica with classical columns and mosaics seems a deliberate recollection of early Christian models. Far different in appearance from the projects undertaken in France and England, Norman architecture in Sicily underlines the bewildering variety of styles and the creative interplay of sources encountered in the Romanesque period.

sources

Bianca Maria Alfieri, The Cathedral of Monreale (Novara, Italy: Istituto geografico De Agostini, 1983).

Ian Curry, Aspects of the Anglo-Norman Design of Durham (Newcastle-on-Tyne, England: Society of Antiquaries, 1986).

R. H. C. Davies, The Normans and Their Myth (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976).

Ernst Gall, Cathedrals and Abbey Churches of the Rhine (New York: Abrams, 1963): 26, 27.

Louis Grodecki, L'architecture ottonienne au seuil de l'art roman (Paris: Colin, 1938).

John Le Patourel, The Norman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).

Brian Little, Architecture in Norman Britain (London: Batsford, 1985).

Graham A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (New York: Longman, 2000).

Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Lucien Musset, Normandie romane: Photographies inédits de Zodiaque. (Saint-Léger-Vauban, Yonne: Zodiaque, 1967-1974).

William Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom, Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum. Vol. I (ii.228.6). Trans. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom (Oxford: Clarendon Press: 1998): 418–419.

SYMBOLIC
Architecture: Copying the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Imitation and Connection

Every church, no matter its size, plan, or style, was a symbol—or rather a set of simultaneous symbols—of heaven, Noah's Ark, or the Body of Christ, as interpreted by theologians. From the beginning of Christian public architecture in the fourth century, builders often identified holy sites by special plans or by dazzling decoration. In the best known and most widely imitated example, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as it was originally built around 325 c.e. during the reign of Constantine, marked Jesus' tomb with a large circular structure, a type of building associated with commemoration in the Roman world. Religious structures in Western Europe from the ninth through the twelfth centuries frequently copied the Holy Sepulchre to make the experience of Jerusalem, which lay in Muslim hands, more accessible and to encourage devotion to the central beliefs of the faith. Bishop Meinwerk of Paderborn in Germany even sent a representative to the Holy Land to measure the building, but the structure he erected in 1036 was cruciform in shape. Evidently, he (and the many pilgrims who engaged in measurement and even carried back banners cut to symbolic proportions) believed that incorporating selective dimensions and adopting a centralized plan and common dedication to the Holy Sepulchre were sufficient to establish a compelling connection. Rather than an exacting copy, it was the meaning of the Holy Sepulchre as the place of the Crucifixion that was of paramount importance to the bishop.

Symbolic Interpretations

For the Templars, the various versions of the Holy Sepulchre that sprang up in their monastic houses throughout Europe during the twelfth century—for example, at London and Paris—all represented their charge to defend and maintain the sites of the Holy Land. Emphasizing a somewhat different interpretation, in the Baptistery of Pisa of 1153, the quotation of the circular plan, the dimensions, the exotic multicolored masonry, and the steep conical roof of the Holy Sepulchre created a symbolic link between the rite of baptism that would take place there and the death and resurrection of Christ. Shifting the symbolism back to the original idea of commemoration, the monastic church of Saint-Bénigne in Dijon (1001–1018) repeated the rotunda as the setting for the tomb of its saint, and as late as around 1180 another such rotunda was attached to the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, where the cranium of St. Thomas Becket was displayed to the eager eyes of visitors. This imitation of a prestigious model, however flexible its interpretation, was one of the ways by which importance and prestige could be conferred onto a building and the saint whose relics "lived" within.