Roman Aspects of Romanesque Architecture in England and Wales

Abstract

This article investigates late eleventh- and twelfth-century architecture in England and Wales from five interrelated points. First, it considers the appropriation of Roman sites for buildings of the post-1066 Norman administration. Second, it examines the creation of an architectural iconography in which there are associations with Imperial Rome. Third, there is the matter of scale, the desire to build big after many centuries of little or no tradition of constructing large edifices. Fourth, it explores the acquisition of a practical understanding of the building technology required for erecting large buildings. Fifth, it looks into the vocabulary of architectural articulation, the use of marble, and aspects of stone sculpture inherited from antiquity and appropriate to the monumentality of the new architecture. It references specific buildings, such as the Constantinian Basilica of Old St Peter’s in Rome, through the adaptation of triumphal arches down to details such as chip carving, marble, and the reuse and recreation of Roman bricks. Of the many large-scale buildings built by the Normans, a more detailed examination is devoted to the White Tower in London, castles at Colchester and Castle Rising, Winchester and Durham cathedrals, and the former abbey churches of Tewkesbury and Gloucester. It investigates the application of principles of the first-century BCE Roman architect and engineer, Vitruvius, the author of De architectura.