Romanesque Period

Romanesque was a style of art that arose in Italy and Southern France around 800 A.D. It was a time where Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, was emperor of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne encouraged learning and the arts. He also focused on preserving the Roman literature, establishing schools and monasteries, and encouraging building structures with the use of technology from the Roman structures. Prior to 1000 A.D., there was little architecture that was built; this was evident due to the millennium of the Apocalypse. In other aspects of life during this time, the religious movement was very strong. It initiated pilgrimages to Christian shrines. Due to this spark of religion, a minimum of 1,587 churches were built between 1000 and 1100 A.D.

Within the Romanesque churches were very evident features of architecture. These features included a semicircular arch and a wide use of vaults. They used the plans from the Early Christian basilica which included the nave, transept, and apse. Instead of it being the exact replica, they modified those elements for better space accommodation. They also added a side chapel in the transept. The structures had vaulting, multiple aisles, better illumination, larger space, and an added choir.

Unlike previous periods, they were the first to use masonry for building structures instead of wood. They had to support their large vault structures, so they had to accommodate for that. They had three vault structures: barrel, groin, and ribbed. The barrel vault is just a basic barreled structure without any added features. A groin vault is when two barrel vaults join together. A rib vault is when there are two or three barrel vaults edged with an armature of piped masonry.

Some furniture that was featured within this period was the throne of Dagobert, the throne of Charlemagne, and the Romanesque chest with iron tracery.

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