Medieval Architecture Notes

Oxford History of Art: Medieval Architecture by Nicola Coldstream

Introduction

Western Christendom c.1200 & c.1450

Maps illustrating the extent of Western Christianity are shown for the years c.1200 and c.1450, highlighting key locations and boundaries.

'What we now vulgarly call the Gothic'

Defining Late Medieval Architecture

Late medieval architecture is often equated with the Gothic style, exemplified by soaring cathedrals dominating European skylines.
Chartres Cathedral is presented as an example: built of limestone, featuring an aisled basilica design, three stories high, with cross-ribbed vaulting, pointed arcades, clerestory windows, and piers with crockets and colonnettes.
Flying buttresses support the superstructure and vault pressures.
However, Chartres is not representative of all medieval architecture.
The hall was a more characteristic building type - used for dwellings, barns, hospitals, shops and markets, and integrated into complexes like castles, colleges, and monasteries.
The hall of Tonnerre hospital is stone-built, but timber and brick were also common.
The Wheat Barn at Cressing Temple in Essex (c.1260) is a more typical example: a large, aisled hall of seven bays constructed with wooden trusses and timbers.

Beyond Gothic: Orvieto Cathedral

Orvieto Cathedral (founded 1290) in central Italy is a light, two-story structure with flat walls supporting a timber roof.
It features round arches, foliage capitals, and semicircular chapels.
The interior is clad in black and white marble.
The pointed windows are a shared feature with Chartres.
To contemporaries, Orvieto's design, derived from early Christian basilicas and Romanesque churches, held historical significance.
Despite being built in the Gothic period and having some 'Gothic' details, scholars debate the meaning of 'Italian Gothic.'

Historiography and the Perception of Gothic Architecture

The dominance of the Chartres type in our perception of late medieval building is due to historiography.
Fifteenth-century Italian architectural writers, seeking classical principles, viewed the contemporary maniera tedesca (German manner) as a barbaric, or Gothic, subversion.
By the seventeenth century, 'Gothic' was a neutral term, as indicated by a quote from Sir Christopher Wren.
In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, medieval—Gothic—architecture gained legitimacy and moral force through scholarship, religious revival, and the expression of national identities, leading to preservation efforts and the rise of historicist styles.
Viollet-le-Duc defined and promoted Gothic structure principles based on restoring cathedrals like Amiens and Notre-Dame, Paris.
Gothic has been interpreted as a structural system, spatial organization, and expression of monarchy, nationhood, and civilization.
While early interpretations like rib vaulting inspired by trees and Gothic as national identity are now viewed with some skepticism these have contributed to thinking on the subject.
Each generation adds its own layer of interpretation.
The medieval period is viewed through centuries of distortion.
Architecture's constant alteration and reinterpretation complicate accurate understanding.

The Origins of Gothic

Early attempts to vault high, thin walls occurred in Paris and surrounding areas in the 1130s.
Sens Cathedral and abbey churches like Saint-Denis are considered the beginnings of Gothic.
Spaciousness, thin structure, and visual coordination replaced solid Romanesque forms.
'Classic' cathedrals like Chartres, Soissons, Amiens, and Reims represent a culmination of these developments.
The notion of 'classic' Gothic is based on a biological view of architectural development and the idea that Chartres represents an ideal canon.
Terms like 'classic High Gothic', 'crazy vaults', and 'capriciousness' reflect this canon.
This canon was imposed by scholars trained in the classical tradition who expected architecture to follow rules.
Medieval architecture inherited arches and piers from Roman architecture but lacked the classical orders.
Medieval architects used structural and geometric systems of proportion, but aesthetic rules were not explicitly recorded.

Secular vs. Religious Buildings

The tradition of separating secular and religious buildings in architectural study has hindered balanced understanding.
Castles are viewed as military engineering feats rather than architectural designs.
Timber-framed structures are categorized as vernacular architecture.
This exclusion affects the historiography of late medieval architecture, as masons and carpenters worked on all building types.
The timber frame of a barn can be as complex as a cathedral roof.
Castles and churches were set out using similar methods, with attention to planning, interior space, and outward appearance.
High style was not exclusive to churches or Gothic architecture.
Different approaches to studying ritual, social functions, and styles yield new information.
Architecture served ritual and display purposes, acting as a backdrop for ceremonies.
The sacred and profane were intertwined, with religious fused with secular activities.

Hierarchy and Space

Hierarchies in Heaven were reflected on Earth.
Church structures expressed these hierarchies.
Spatial designs may seem unrelated to ground-level arrangements and furnishings.
This dichotomy can be interpreted as a horizontal division between human and heavenly realms.
Space was multi-directional, with symbolic links created through the placement of figures.

Aesthetic Taste and Function

Architectural settings had to be appropriate and signify the building's nature.
Style was critical, dictated by propriety, or decorum, derived from Vitruvius.
While Vitruvius' influence on medieval builders is limited, there was awareness of his precepts.
Decorum was expressed in structures suited to the building's function and status.
Barns were plain, while plainer vaulting was used in undercrofts and storage areas.
The quantity of decoration did not always indicate status.
Absent ornament in Cistercian churches reflected a belief that it distracted from mystical union with God.
Tastes for decoration changed over time, but this did not imply reduced functionality.
Functionalism is a modern concept irrelevant to the Middle Ages.
Ornament indicated a building's function, making buildings assertive.
Towers, gables, portals, and thresholds conveyed purpose and the patron's interests.
Spatial disposition controlled access and movement.
Decorative elements conveyed intention, meaning, and symbolism.
The decorative language – mouldings, tracery, foliage – defines late medieval architecture more comprehensively than structural systems.

The Language of Medieval Architecture

Language has been a metaphor for architecture, with grammar and vocabulary parallels for structure and ornament.
High style is most evident in church buildings but was also used in secular buildings.
Architectural changes embodied new structural expressions and ideas about what was appropriate.
Saint-Denis' new choir exemplifies this, aiming for a splendid setting, ample space for pilgrims, and light from stained glass windows.
The architect adapted a semicircular apse plan with radiating chapels, pulled inward to form a continuous line.
Walls were reduced to buttresses and dividing masonry, with chapels featuring two windows each.
Rib vaulting and monolithic columns enhanced spaciousness.
The master mason fulfilled the patron's wishes, inspiring emulation while manipulating existing technology.

Developing Vaulting Techniques

Masons aimed to vault higher and wider structures, balancing support with large windows.
Buttressing techniques developed, leading to arched flying buttresses.
Flying buttresses allowed for longer clerestory windows.
Soissons Cathedral and Chartres exploited this, contrasting with earlier designs like Mantes-la-Jolie.

French Influence

The designs of these churches were highly influential.
Romanesque architecture had regional characteristics.
Late medieval architecture also had regional character.
However, between the 1170s and late thirteenth century, church architecture was designed on French terms.
Other regions adopted cross-ribbed vaulting and surface adornment.
North French milieu produced the language of late medieval architecture in a wealthy, politically strong region.
Architects had opportunities to practice their craft and build on a grand scale.
The style spread through traveling masons: southeast to the Holy Land and Cyprus, to central Europe carried by Francophile royals, and north to England.
Cistercian monastic order helped introduce the style to Yorkshire.
Canterbury Cathedral was rebuilt by a French master mason.
English preference for surface ornament facilitated acceptance.
German response grafted these features onto traditional structures (Magdeburg Cathedral).
Spanish builders adopted hybrid styles until basing cathedrals on French models.

Window Tracery:

Reims perfected window tracery, decorating window openings with stone circlets.
Tracery slowly penetrated other regions, appearing tentatively in England and Germany.
Tracery designs became independent of French models in the late thirteenth century.

Vaulting Innovations:

British builders experimented with vault designs, introducing 'split' ribs at Lincoln.
This design suggested that vaults were surfaces for decoration.
French designs were still influential, partly due to the prestige of King Louis IX.
The elevation of the nave and upper choir of Saint-Denis had the same characteristics as Chartres, with arcade, triforium passage, and tall clerestory.
Masonry was reduced to a thin membrane, with clerestory glass filling the bay's width.
Mouldings proliferated on piers, tracery patterns, and vault supports.
The style—Rayonnant—came from the radiating rose windows.
Exteriors featured tracery and canopy work.

Rayonnant and its Impact

Rayonnant was well-suited to smaller churches.
Aspirations for height waned, though never died.
The Sainte Chapelle, built by Louis IX, was the most influential building of the thirteenth century.
The Sainte Chapelle was built to house relics of Christ’s Passion.
The upper chapel is a single cell with a seven-sided apse featuring walls of huge windows.
Moulded piers, fronted by statues, rose to the vault.
The interior featured paint, sculpture, gilding, and stained glass, while the exterior included tracery, mouldings, and gables.

Color and Splendor

Interiors were routinely painted - Chartres featured finer mouldings picked out in white against yellow ochre walls.
*St M ary’s, Lübeck, had masonry lined out with red on a white ground.
The Sainte Chapelle’s metallic quality influenced buildings like Lincoln and Ely Cathedrals.
This chapel set a new standard of splendor and became a model for chapels and church choirs.

Micro-Architecture:

Rayonnant introduced micro-architecture, using miniature elements like gables, pinnacles, and tracery.
Metal reliquaries inspired these forms.

The Spread of Rayonnant

Cologne Cathedral, León Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey were begun shortly after the Sainte Chapelle.
Rayonnant remained the basis for such churches, including Strasbourg Cathedral, York Minster, Prague, Vienna, Milan, Ulm parish church, Seville, Segovia, and Salamanca.
The French style was widely admired and achieved superficially with rib vaults and tracery.
Political shifts and patronage changes led to architectural independence from France.
The urban patriciate endowed churches and erected public buildings.
Masons may have transformed into modern architects who designed but did not construct.
Creativity broke the Parisian hegemony.
Regional traits returned, even with Parisian influence.
The choir of Aachen Cathedral was modeled on the Sainte Chapelle.

Regional Variations

In Italy, flirtation with French forms was limited.
Dominican churches in Florence featured high and domical vaults.
Alternative elevation types were explored in Catalonia and the Empire.
S. Maria del Mar in Barcelona has a very tall arcade with small clerestory windows.
German alternative to the basilica was the hall church, with aisles of the same height.
This type was developed for urban parish churches.
Tall, slender piers rose to the arches and vault.
The expanses of even vaulting fields inspired varied patterns.
England and Germany led in vault and tracery designs.

Vaulting and Space

The English taste for extra ribs and ridge ribs spread to the Baltic.
The need to vault corners led to the invention of tri-radials.
Different attitude to vaults and space developed, releasing the vault from defining the bay.
In polygonal chapter houses, ribs radiated from a central column.
Elaborate timber vaults and ceilings fashioned, such as the lantern over Ely Cathedral.
Islamic craftsmanship influenced artesonado work in Spain.
Net vaults at Bristol and Gloucester were tracery in all but name.
Tracery was no longer confined to windows but decorated walls.
Freiburg-im-Breisgau started a tradition of openwork tracery spires.

Geometric Shapes

New shapes were introduced—trefoils, quatrefoils, curved triangles, and propellers.
The ogee, or reversed curve, transformed shapes into daggers and reticulations.
Curvilinear or flowing tracery denied the framework, while tracery at Oppenheim was contained within a rigid frame.
Parler’s work at Prague Cathedral proved equal in influence to the Sainte Chapelle.
Hall churches developed Parler’s ideas.
Gables on the brick buildings (Backsteingotik) of the Baltic region became surfaces for tracery patterns.
Clarity was rejected in favor of texture, softened edges, and illusionism.
Capitals were often dispensed with as pier mouldings rose seamlessly into the vaulting ribs.
Brick developed decorative qualities, and Spanish Mudéjar buildings developed the possibilities of mouldings and tracery in brick.

Ornamentation and Design

The manipulation of polygons was a key aspect of design techniques with polygons being expressed overtly, as reflected in surviving medieval writing on methods of design.
Surface ornamentation suggested precious metals.
Henry VI stipulated against excessive ornamentation at Eton College.
Two aesthetic trends emerged: movement and arrest.
The Decorated style, in which ogee arches were bent through space, created three-dimensional movement.
The twisting, petal-like vaults developed in Bohemia and the Empire.
Tracery of Milan Cathedral was designed in swirling patterns.
French conversion to curvilinear forms was fervent.
Figure sculpture emphasized the active spirit of the style.
The Manueline style in Portugal also was developed.

Restraint and Exuberance

Severe restraint existed alongside exuberance.
Fan vaulted interiors and cell vaults shared an impression of stasis.
Connections between these areas ensured similarities.
Stillness was combined with movement in France, and the Norman capital found a balance between them.
Architects reversed the earlier taste for clarity, but these changes were not radical.
The first radical change in architecture was to come in the sixteenth century, as will be discussed in Chapter 7.

Definition of Gothic/Medieval Architecture

Gothic/Medieval architecture is defined not by a single style but by an evolving collection of regional interpretations and decorative languages that prioritize the building's function, status, and the patron's interests. It incorporates elements such as rib vaults, tracery, and various geometric shapes while