English Romanesque and the Empire

Summary

The view expressed by Sir Alfred Clapham of English romanesque architecture, that ‘Its affinities … are restricted, and architecturally at least it forms the full development of the Norman School untouched by other influences before the middle of the twelfth century’, is no longer a popular one. One can find articles or books suggesting forms derived from Burgundy, western France, Scandinavia, Italy and Spain on English romanesque, and often these claims are well founded. This paper will consider some architectural affinities with another area that has been suggested, the Holy Roman Empire. It is not my contention, however, that the architecture of the Empire was the decisive factor in the transformation of Norman architecture into its Anglo-Norman derivative. Indeed, one of the problems with this area of research has been that where similarities between the architecture of England and the Empire do exist, they rarely seem to settle into a regular pattern. What have been selected for consideration here are four instances of architectural borrowing, between which there seems to be very little overlap.

Some observers have no time for the notion that the architecture of post-Conquest England was in any way related to the architecture of the Empire, later called the Holy Roman Empire. There are indeed fundamental differences in approach to church architecture, and this paper is concerned only with churches, between the two areas. The romanesque architecture in the Empire, at least before the twelfth century, is generally regarded as austere, perhaps a little unadventurous, certainly dependent on traditional forms, while that in England is frequently presented as being in the avant-garde of romanesque, its structures lightened, using three rather than two storeys, and almost playful in the use of pier forms, window designs and sculptural detailing. Clearly these judgements reflect modern concerns rather than medieval ones, though that is not to say that medieval observers did not notice differences in architectural style. Furthermore, even when no direct connection should be postulated, it is possible to see architects or masons in two different areas working along similar lines. An example of this tendency can be provided for the Empire and the Anglo-Norman world. The wall passage is first found in Normandy at Bernay, a building started before 1017 and finished by 1050, though the functional passage there gives little idea of the importance of the feature to later Anglo-Norman romanesque, in which it is almost a signature feature.