Book Description

BYZANTINE AND ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE by THOMAS GRAHAM JACKSON. Contents include: VOL. II CHAP. PAGE XVIII German Romanesque r XIX French Romanesque. Aquitaine and Poitou . . 28 XX French Romanesque. Provence 62 XXI French Romanesque. Toulouse 82 XXII French Romanesque. Burgundy 90 XXIII French Romanesque. Auvergne 127 XXIV French Romanesque. Normandy .... 147 XXV French Romanesque. The Isle of France . . . 159 XXVI English Romanesque before the Norman conquest . 173 XXVII English Romanesque after the Norman conquest . 205 XXVIII English Romanesque after the Norman conquest ( cont.} 235 XXIX Conclusion 257 Chronological tables of architectural examples . . 269 Index 278 ERRATUM p. 83, line i. For i2th read nth. CHAPTER XVIII GERMAN ROMANESQUE THE history of Romanesque architecture in Germany begins with Charlemagne. We find no buildings in that country older than his time except those which the ance Romans had left behind them. Charlemagne however was a great builder. Eginhardt his secretary and bio grapher says he repaired the churches throughout his dominions, but he gives no details. A book de aedificiis in the 8th century would have been very interesting, but Eginhardt was no Procopius, nor was Charlemagne a Justinian. Two buildings however, we are modestly told, seem not unworthy of mention, the Mx-ia basilica of the most holy mother of God, constructed with ape e wondrous workmanship at Aquisgranum, and a bridge over the Rhine at Moguntiacum 1 This bridge at Mainz was only of wood, perhaps of boats, but the basilica at AIX-LA-CHAPELLE was a great work considering its age and situation. It was destined by Charlemagne to be also his tomb house, and here he was in fact afterwards buried; seated on his throne, imperially robed, and with his sceptre in his hand and a copy of the gospels on his knee, as he was found when the tomb was opened in 1165. The splendour of this church, says Eginhardt, was the ex pression of his Christian devotion. He adorned it with 1 Eginhardt, Vita Caroli Magni, cap. xvii. j. A. II. r Aix-la-Cbapelle Imitation ofS. Vitale 2 GERMAN ROMANESQUE [ en, xvm gold and silver, and lights, and with doors and screens of solid bronze. Hither he would come to the service morning and evening and even by night as long as his health permitted 1 . The building ( Fig. 63) was something of an exotic in the kingdom of the Austrasian Franks in the 8th century, AIX-JLA-CHAPOLE. original j& faru Fig. 63. and no one who has seen it and also the church at Ravenna from which it is supposed to have been imitated, can doubt its foreign origin. Eginhardt tells us that Charlemagne imported columns and marbles for the work from Ravenna and Rome 2, and he is supposed to have stripped and ruined the splendid palace of Theodoric at the former city which has now practically disappeared. But besides materials there can be little doubt he also 1 Eginhardt, Vita Caroli Magni DEGREES cap. xxvi. 2 Ad cujus structuram, cum columnas et marmora aliunde habere non posset, Roma atque Ravenna devehenda curavit Eginhardt, cap. xxvi. Plate LXXXII AIX-LA-CHAPELLE CH. xvin] GERMAN ROMANESQUE 3 imported from Italy his architect and his principal Aix-ia builders. The resemblance to S. Vitale is very strong, Chapelle and yet there is sufficient difference to show that the builders were men of originality, able to think for them selves, not tied to a simple imitation of their model, and there could have been no such men in Austrasia then. Both churches have a dome over an octagon, a surround-The plan ing aisle in two storeys, though a women's gallery was not required by the Latin use, two staircases by which to m