The White Mantle of Churches. Architecture, Liturgy, and Art around the Millennium (review)

Abstract

The White Mantle of Churches. Architecture, Liturgy, and Art around the Millennium. Edited by Nigel Hiscock. [International Medieval Research, Volume 10: Art History Subseries 2.] (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers. 2003. Pp. xix, 283. Paperback.) One intriguing issue facing medieval historians is whether the passing of the millennium in the year 1000 had any connection with the birth of Romanesque architecture. Nobody can deny that the early years of the eleventh century brought a new and more ambitious approach to building, something that the contemporary chronicler Rodulf Glaber appeared to sense in his famous comment about the world shrugging off the burden of the past and cladding itself everywhere in a mantle of churches. But was the chronicler providing a literal description of church building or was the phrase white mantle of churches merely a metaphor for a new world order, brought about by monastic reform and political stability? The interpretation of Glaber's comments lies at the heart of several of the essays in this impressively produced collection, nine out of fourteen of which were delivered as papers at the Leeds medieval conference in a session designed to mark the year 2000. Several contributors review the nature of architectural activity on either side of the year 1000, the general thrust of the arguments being to emphasize continuity rather than sudden change. But the arguments are not really conclusive either way. Most of the key monuments have been destroyed or reconstructed, and precise evidence for building chronologies is rare. We are reminded that evidence is elusive, problems are notorious, interpretation is difficult, and questions are complex. It is perhaps inevitable, therefore, that the conclusions reached in some chapters are not as impressive as the display of learning (of 264 pages of text and illustrations, some fifty-nine are occupied by footnotes). Refreshing in its clarity is Carolyn Malone's study of St. Benigne at Dijon, that extraordinary building designed by Glaber's mentor, William of Volpiano, around the year 1000-01. As well as providing a succinct account of the design, the author deconstructs Glaber's text in a subtle and plausible way. The three levels of the rotunda, she argues, afforded access to God, expressed as light descending through its oculus while at the same time providing an anagogical framework for worshipers ascending upward through the various storeys to the light and altar of the Trinity. …