ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE is that style of round-arched architecture which (with local or national peculiarities) prevailed through a large 'Art of Europe during the 11th and 12th centuries. Under BT7ANTINE ARCHITECTURE, it was pointed out how the archi tecture of the ancient Romans diverged in the bands of their barbaric successors into a two-fold forum : the older becoming moulded, in the Eastern Empire, into that known as the Byzantine style, and which was the parent of the eubssquent ecclesiastical architecture of the east of Europe; and the later, that which in time Western Empire became in the hands of the ecclesiastical architects what is now known as Itotnanealue, and which, as was shown under GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, became in its ultimnate development, Pointed Gothic. Romanesque architecture then, both In time and place, stands between the classic Itoinan and time Pointed Gothic ; and is, in fact, the link which con nects the one with the other.
Until the final separation of the Western from the Eastern Empire, the Byzantine type was in the ascendant; but in the West such archi tecture as existed was rather a debased Roman, than an independent or derived style. Yet traces of the Romanesque appeared at a com paratively early date. Its germ was certainly visible in the 0th or 7th century; but this was followed by a bug interval of quiescence. Some have fancied that the revival is due to the Lombard kings, and have consequently termed the style itself Lomberdie. But the revivifica tion of architecture does not seem to be really traceable farther back than the 10th century; the development of the style belongs to the 11 th centnry, and its highest perfection to tho 12th, when its obvious insufficiency to meet the growing requirements of the age led to the Introduction of the feature which caused it to merge into what is usually regarded as a totally different style. Nor, as we have intimated, can it be especially assigned to any' particular. locality Lombardy may have been the cradle of the actual Romanesque, but It eoon spread through other parts of Italy; along the Rhine, in Germany and Switzer land ; thro:mghout France, and by way of Normandy to England. The styles of these countries are indeed frequently treated as though not only different but unconnected, hut in principle they are essentially the came; the differences consisting of those local and national features are due to the character of the inhabitants, and the physical (or geological) resell :trifled of the country, and which are always found unless the inventive faculties are controlled by rigid ecclesiastical or professional precedents. We may say, however, that as the birthplace
of the style sots Italy. it was there that it retained most decidedly the resemblance to its original, the divergence from the classic type be coming more marked in proportion to its distance in place as well as time from its source. And whilst in other countries the Romanesque merged in the 12th century into Pointed Gothic, in Italy it maintained itself as the prevalent style till the advent of the RENAISSANCE.
We shall hero treat of Romanesque architecture generally : the peculiar forms it assumed in our own country, first iu a very rude shape in the AugheSaxon, and afterwards in a more developed and artistic condition as the Anglo-Norman style, are noticed under NORMAN A ROIIITECTellr, and SAXON AnCIIITF.CTURE, to which articles we refer for many of the details necessarily omitted here, and which are in a measure applicable to the style iu other countries.
The earlier buildings of Christian Rome were merely a degenerate imitation of the older buildings. From the establishment, if not from the tolerance, of Christianity the ancient basilicas were employed as churches; and the earliest churches erected, were modelled on the type of the basilica. Presbyteries, chapels, and other features were gradually added, and ultimately the church assumed the form of a Latin cross ; but even then the principles of the basilica form were retained. [Hammes ; Careen.] In the buildings of the degenerate Roman period it was usual to employ the materials as well as to imitate the forms of the older edifices and columns, and other ornamental fragments were appropriated to places which they could only be made to fit by various modifications and contrivances. Hence the classic proportions, at first little heeded, were soon entirely forgotten, and the different parts of the building were designed according to the necessities of the case, or the taste or caprice of the architect. Arches were made of all sizes and placed anywhere. Columns were arranged without regard to the orders; and the dimensions of the shafts were regulated merely by the weight they had to sustain. Mouldings and carvings assumed the most irregular and fantastic patterns.