Church Archaeology in Transylvania (ca. 950 to ca. 1450)

John Blair & Carol Pyrah (ed.). Church archaeology: research directions for the future. (CBA Research Report 104.) xvi+230 pages, 120 illustrations, 6 tables. 1996. York: Council for British Archaeology; 1-872414-68-0 paperback £28 - Volume 73 Issue 281

Major advances in church and monastic archaeology are discussed in terms of two distinct waves, ca. 1970–1995 and 1995 to the time of writing (2014). The first wave was influenced by landscape history and processual archaeology; scholarship focused principally on historical, economic, and technological questions and targeted individual sites and monuments for study. The second wave has been informed by postprocessual approaches and considers change and complexity in religious landscapes and perspectives on religious space, embodiment, and agency. In conclusion, this article calls for a more holistic approach to the archaeology of medieval Christian belief, one which moves beyond the focus on institutions and monuments that has characterized monastic and church archaeology and extends archaeological study to include the performative rituals of Christian life and death in the Middle Ages.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them?

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.

Archaeology of churches can be a powerful and interesting platform to study Late Antique and Early Medieval societies. However, in Northwest Spain this topic remains limited to stylistic and typological studies, despite being a very promising area of study, given the high density of ecclesiastical foundations that reflect Late Antique texts. The first step in order to begin this kind of research is to collect and analyze the features and problems of the available material data. According this idea, the first part of this work intends to carry out a brief but complete recompilation and critical review (in some extent, for the first time) of the available but scattered material information on ecclesiastical structures in Late Antique Galicia, this is, between 5thand 8thcenturies. This catalogue, of 50 cases, will be based both in previous archaeological works and stylistic-typological approaches from the History of Art. These two areas have initiated in the last years interesting and intense debates about the chronologies and characteristics of the Late Antique and Early Medieval churches, but they remain usually separated to each other. In this work we will discuss the main problems and possibilities for a common approach. Further, in the last part, it is aimed to discuss the coherence of all these data in the historical context that the recent advances of the research on these centuries in Northwest Spain is showing: relation with textual evidences, spatial distribution of evidences in relation to late Roman territorial articulation in Galicia, new findings on the aristocratical economies... The result is not a complete picture of late antique churches in Galicia, something which needs further case-studies, but a first framework that can help to this future development.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.

The sixth century witnessed the installation of the Visigoths in the Peninsula following their defeat by the Franks in 507; Ostrogothic domination, first by Theodoric (509-527) and later by Theudis (531-548); and the presence of imperial troops in the South-East. The end of the century saw the conversion of arian goths to catholicism in the Third Council of Toledo (589). As written sources were extremely biased and influenced by the eventual outcome, the archaeology of churches is an essential tool for reconstructing this period of history in the iberian peninsula and particularly the religious and political competition between Arians and followers of the nicene creed.

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them?

What was it that gave medieval art and architecture its form and style? What is it that attracts people to medieval art and architecture, especially that of the Cistercians? What shaped medieval buildings and determined their embellishments - and what now determines the way we look at them? Some of the most intriguing questions in monastic and ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology are discussed in this tribute to Peter Fergusson and his lifetime of scholarship as an historian of medieval art and architecture, especially of the Cistercians. These thirty-four essays range from a discussion of the earliest Christian legislation on art (fourth century) to an account of a garden project of 1811 designed to efface all previous monastic habitation. Between these chronological signposts are studies on the design, siting, building, and archaeology of churches, infirmaries, abbots’ lodgings, gatehouses, private chambers, grange chapels, and the life lived within and around them. Geographically, the papers range from the British Isles through Spain, France, Flanders, and Germany to the centre of the medieval world: Jerusalem. They treat of the complexities of building and re-building; of architectural and artistic adaptations to place, period, and political upheaval; of the interrelationship of text and structure; and of the form, iconography, and influence of some of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. This is a wide-ranging and authoritative collection of studies which is essential reading for any historian of medieval art and architecture.