Jan Mainzer, Ph. D.
Department of Art and Art History, Marist College, Poughkeepsie NY 12601
(845) 575-3000 x 2028 (Library) x 2280 (Donnelley); Jan.Mainzer@marist.edu
Text and images copyright
Jan Mainzer 1995, 2000, 2002
Meeting 8: Introduction to the Middle Ages: Development of the Gothic Cathedral from the Basilica, part 1
Required Reading assignment to support meeting 8: Stokstad, pp. 233-236 "Roman History;" pp. 246-249; pp 263-264 "Domestic Architecture;" pp. 279 "The Tetrarchs" thru 284; pp. 289- top of p. 302.
Recommended Video, on reserve at the Library: Cathedral.
Recommended reading to support meeting 8: David Macaulay, Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction (very strongly recommended). This book is available at the bookstore, and on traditional reserve at the Library
Additional recommended reading posted on MERIT (Marist's electronic reserve room)
Required Reading assignment to support meeting 9: (Development of the Gothic Cathedral from the Basilica, part 2): Stokstad, pp. 555-top of page 571
Flashcard Tutorial Review materials covered in class: Choose either the web-based interactive version of the tutorials, or click on "Microsoft Word version" for tutorials that you can print out and study away from the computer.
We started w/ a quiz on the Parthenon + early Christian basilicas, + then went over the quiz, referring to the groundplan of Old St. Peter's OK... We've got St Peter's in particular down pretty well Now let's apply that knowledge to another church whose apse mosaic we'll be looking at very carefully after we have our test We then looked at a slide of St. Apollinare in Classe (near Ravenna, in Northeast Italy, 533-549 AD) and compared it to a reconstruction drawing of Old St Peter's. Below left is a simplified drawing of St Apollinare from above:
OK, now the inside (A simplified drawing of St. Apollinare is on the left, Old St. Peter on the right) Similar: apse w/ mosaic, Triumphal arch, columns, tho only one row on each side NB that the columns are made of solid stone not "drums" or cylindrical pieces wooden beams across ceiling Christ in both apses, tho depicted differently (we'll be comparing these a few meetings from now) Question: How did Christ being depicted in the apse relate to a Pagan Roman custom? [Image of Roman Emperor used to be in apse of pagan Roman basilica: illegal to hold a court of law w/out the Emperor's image being present Also, in Imperial audience hall, Emperor's chair would be in the apse] But despite these differences, it's easy to see that Old St Peter's + St Apollinare are variants of the same type of building
(Simplified groundplan of Old St Peter's on the left; Ditto for the Parthenon on the right) Question: How does a Christian basilica differ from the Parthenon? Dimensions: Old St P: Total length: approx 653' Interior: 355 x 208' Parthenon: bottom step: approx 110 x 237' Inside chamber w/ statue (Cella): length 91 1/2 Greek feet (a Greek foot is a tiny bit shorter than the "foot" measurement we use) Question: Why would the Parthenon be smaller? How did the USE to which the building was put relate to the size? What about the placement of columns: compare the arrangement in the 2 buildings [Old St Peter's: Columns march down the nave. Structural use, but also lead the eye down to the focal point, the apse Parthenon: structural use, to hold up ceiling Formed an aisle (or ambulatory) around the statue There were bronze barriers between the columns to keep people from walking right up to the statue Focal point was the statue] A subtle difference that's not immediately obvious is that Old St Peter's is built over what is believed to be the tomb of St Peter, + that in Christianity there's traditionally very little discomfort w/ the idea of tombs inside a church or (as a variation) a graveyard surrounding a church This makes sense, given the theological idea that Christ, by becoming human (+ so being fully God + fully human at the same time) . . . becoming human + dying, overcame death In strong contrast, there's no tomb in the Parthenon + except in very rare instances of a hero's tomb being w/in the temple precincts there was by Greek gods a strong avoidance of human death + dying ...so much so that people who had been recently in contact w/ death were banned from the temple precincts --we know this from the survival of ancient inscriptions that state this clearly And in Greek mythology there are tales of Greek gods who abruptly abandoned their human favorites when they were at the point of dying lest the god be defiled by human death --Two very different orientations (we then looked at slides of the exteriors of St Apollinare + the Parthenon) Question: What about the exterior appearance Which is fancier: Parthenon or St Apollinare (or Old St Peter's) . . . the Parthenon WHY? [Focus was on the outside of the Parthenon Services (most of them) outside Exterior was sculptural, inviting entry from all sides; Lots of sculpture Focus was on the INSIDE of the early Christian basilica Services held indoors Also: Plain exterior, beautiful interior was the way a Christian should be So you see, the USE of the building greatly affects the shape of the structure
...Both in buildings, like the Imperial audience hall (310 AD) (on right) that we looked at last time and in utilitarian structures such as aqueducts w/ their wonderful pattern of repeating arches (Here we looked at a slide of the Pont du garde, Nimes, France AD early 1st century) The arch was used too in the early Christian basilica See how, in St Apollinare (on the left) we have: The triumphal arch that frames the apse and on either side of the nave an arcade (or row of arches) held up by columns made of a solid piece of variegated marble (Here we looked at a closeup of one of the arcades of St Apollinare See how there are wooden beams across the ceiling of the aisle, just like over the nave?) . . . All of the windows of the clerestory are arched rather than square or rectangular Here, we looked at a detail of the exterior of St Apollinare) . . . And you can see how the pattern of repeating arches is subtly picked up on the outside of the building,
...in a way that's similar to the pattern on the outside
of the Imperial Audience Hall that we looked at last time
The use of the ARCH, then, in architecture was perfected
by the ancient Romans, + quite understandably was used in the early Christian basilica
The ARCH is also extremely important to the development of the Gothic cathedrals
One perspective from which we'll look at the development of
the Gothic cathedral will be that of STRUCTURE:
we'll look at the basics of the engineering that went into the evolution of the cathedrals
But first we need to clarify what we're talking about when we say "cathedral"
So let's start by looking at some slides + then talk a bit about how a cathedral functioned
. . .
So:
What is a cathedral?
The word "cathedra" is a term that goes back to ancient Rome
In the home, it was simply a chair w/ a high curved back
often made of wicker, + used by the elderly
(Most of the Romans' chairs had no backs)
In a more official context, a cathedra was the chair in which a judge sat.
In the Middle ages, a cathedra was the bishop's chair
So a cathedral is a church that is the "seat" or headquarters of a bishop
There was a passion in the middle ages for building churches + cathedrals.
Why would this be?
. . .Part of it was civic pride:
Each town wanted to have a church or cathedral that was
higher + more handsome than that of the next town
They pushed so hard for height that they found their limit
Cathedral at Beauvais (vault 156' 6")
--that's about the height of a 14 storey building-- crashed in 1284
Record for height: Spire of Strasbourg Cathedral: 466 feet
--that's about the height of a 44 storey building
In Europe this record was not surpassed until Eiffel tower
Towers went along w/ civic pride
Example:
A nobleman had a quarrel w/ a certain town laid siege to it, + captured it.
He was understandably pleased w/ himself +
to "rub it in" to the town that had so annoyed him
he tore down the top of their cathedral tower
So part of the function of a cathedral or church was:
1) civic pride
2) if a cathedral, the headquarters of a bishop
Other functions:
1) religious:
Masses, or communal worship
Private prayer in a side chapel
2) A place to
meet a friend
gossip
flirt
3) A place for a town meeting:
Everyone could attend because there was lots of room
The church building functioned a bit like a modern community center or clubhouse
The people's strong religious feeling didn't interfere w/ their using it in a casual way
For example:
Laws against storing grain in churches were not unusual:
The church was a nice solid building w/ the best roof in town
Churches + cathedrals, then, played a central role in the life of towns + cities
A little while ago I said that the use of the arch was
crucial to the development of the great Gothic cathedrals
That's great, but a very reasonable question we might ask ourselves is:
Why, all of a sudden did the arch gain such importance?
What was wrong w/ such nice functional basilicas such as St Apollinare or Old St. Peter's?
For an answer we have to look again to the historical context
The Roman Empire fizzed out in the mid-5th century AD
I'm speaking casually here, but also w/ fair accuracy
because scholars usually give an approximate date for the end of the Roman Empire
The last Roman Emperor was deposed in 476 AD
but when that happened, the empire had already been crumbling for 200 years +
from the second century up to the beginning of the 9th there was a trend of
population decline +
migration from towns + cities to the countryside
This migration to the countryside was aggravated --made worse--
by Germanic invasions from the North
These barbarian invasions began in the 1st century AD
(Remember the Hellenistic statues of the
Dying Gaul + the Gaul + his wife, + the reason the Gauls were in Asia Minor?)
By the 4th century
the Romans were no longer able to drive them back, +
the gradual movement to the countryside +
the gradual population decline in city + country became a sharp decline
Paul the Deacon, an 8th century historian spoke eloquently of the desolation of 6th century Italy: "You saw villas or fortified places filled w/ people in utter silence. The whole world seemed brought to its ancient stillness: no voice in the field, no whistling of shepherds. The harvests were untouched. Human habitations became the abode of wild beasts"
Towns + cities of the Roman Empire in the West, then,
died or were greatly reduced by the 6th century
Since Rome was an urban culture the loss of towns + cities meant a
loss in the continuity of Roman culture
And this of course is where the monasteries
became so important because they preserved
at least part of the Roman tradition even tho a great deal was lost
So --culturally speaking--things were pretty dismal
until Charlemagne (Charles the Great) of France
sponsored a revival of learning
pulled together a large kingdom +
on Christmas Day in 800 AD was crowned by the Pope
as "Emperor of the Romans" + his capital at Aachen was called "New Rome"
What does this have to do w/ arches? --Quite a lot, actually.
Charlemagne sponsored a revival of -- building, based on Roman models
(including, among other things, stonework + arches)
+ tho his empire didn't last long after his death
it was a beginning of a new flowering of Western culture
Then, in the 9th + 10th centuries
Western Europe was attacked by
Vikings from the north
Hungarians from the east
Saracens (Arabs)
During these attacks, a great many churches were burned
--especially in Italy + France
Some of these would have been basilicas
constructed the way St Apollinare is
It's easy to see that the wooden beams are very
vulnerable to fire --especially if someone is intent on torching the church
Others would have been wooden structures in the Germanic tradition
(for as one historian puts it, to the Northern Barbarians,
stone building had "never been more than an admirable curiosity")
The attacks on Western Europe ended around 1000 AD
And then by around the mid-11th century
Western culture began to bloom
(This period is called the High Middle Ages ca 1050- ca 1250)
There was:
a population boom
people began to move to towns + cities (the re-urbanization of Europe)
greater political stability
And there was both a need for churches:
to accommodate the increasing population +
to replace those destroyed by Vikings + Hungarians
All those burned out shells of churches
were a strong reminder to everyone that
the new churches really needed to be fireproof
And THAT is where the arch comes in
All of a sudden stone ceilings based on the arch
became very interesting indeed + the combination of
need for churches +
prosperity
made possible the development of a new kind of architecture
As I said earlier, the ancient Romans perfected the
use of the arch in architecture + this included arched (or vaulted) ceilings
The ancient Romans + the Medieval builders used different methods of construction:
The Romans
perfected the use of concrete to put up strong + relatively inexpensive buildings
The medieval cathedral builders
also used concrete but only as a
thin layer to reinforce a vault or ceiling that was
made w/ "true arches" of segments of stone
(Left drawing, St Apollinare in Classe
Right St Sernin, Toulouse, France, 11th -12th c. Simplified drawing.)
So the ancient + medieval methods of making an arch differed from one another
But the Roman influence is clear in the use of the rounded arches
See them in St Sernin, in
the arcade going down either side of the nave
in the openings in the gallery or balcony,
that provided space for extra worshipers
in the arched ceiling
But as you can see, the arches that go up to the ceiling are really elongated
The triumphal arch in St Apollinare is broad--almost squat-- in comparison
There's also the beginning of a change in the orientation
from the HORIZONTAL orientation of the
early Christian basilica where your eye
zooms right down to the focal point of the apse (as in St Apollinare)
to a VERTICAL orientation
that you can see starting to emerge in St Sernin
(in Toulouse, France, ca 1080-1120)
In St Sernin there's some horizontal orientation
in the ledge that's halfway up the wall +
in the line formed by the capitals of the half-columns that go up the walls
But there's also a tendency for those
half-columns to lead your eye upward- +
this new orientation was an important part of the development of the Gothic cathedrals
