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When
you think of The Middle Ages what comes to mind? Monks
bent over manuscripts? Castles filled with knights and
princesses? Soaring Gothic
cathedrals? Well, all of those would be correct. For
simplicity, we’ll divide The Middle Ages into three
separate periods: Early Medieval ,
Romanesque and Gothic
.
The
Early Medieval period is
marked as the migration period. After the decline of
the Roman Empire, many different groups of people began
migrating from Eurasia and across the Mediterranean
and into Western Europe . Barbarian Huns settled the
Danube, Vikings raided across Northern Europe , and
the Goths and Vandals had frequent battles, all creating
a society that was ever-changing and confusing. Great,
vast forests covered Northern Europe and those forests
provided the people with ready building materials. Though
the landscape of Europe was dotted with the stone architecture
of the Roman Empire , timber-frame structures were preferred
for the material’s availability and easy construction.
A
typical Northern European timber-frame structure began
with a bay ; four posts connected horizontally
to form a rectangle. A bay could be multiplied many
times over to create structures of almost any size.
This bay was covered with a pitched roof (pointed at
the top and sloping down so that snow and rain can not
accumulate.) The roofing material used was usually thatch
or tightly packed straw. On some houses the roof sloped
all the way down to the ground, creating an A-frame
type house. Others had walls that were stone or wood
covered in straw and mud.
Inside
these homes, many things happened. Often many generations
of family lived together and right along with their
animals. The floor was packed dirt covered with straw,
and the windows were just openings covered with wood
shutters or animal skins. A loft was often built under
part of the roof for a sleeping area. In colder climates,
more insulation was needed. More straw was used on the
roofs and floors and the fire was the most important
part of the home. Timber-frame structures are still
how we build most houses today, though with many major
improvements.
Your
turn:
What
would your house look like if it was built 1500 years
ago? Draw a picture of your house in pencil and don’t
forget to include all the details. Now, grab your eraser.
First, let’s erase the windows and in their place draw
some that are half that size and put a wooden door or
some skins or fabric on top to replace the glass. If
you have modern parts like porches, decks, and garages
you’d better erase those all together. And, no basement,
no satellite dish and no swing set. What else do you
need to do to move your house back in time?
After
1000 CE a new millennium dawned and people were happy
to have lived through it. There had been a great concern
that the world was going to end at the turn of the millennium.
The relieved people began to settle into unified kingdoms
and empires. The two institutions that dominated their
daily existence were Feudalism and Christianity.
Feudalism
was the major social and political system of the time.
A feudal lord held or owned land and had serfs to work
the land for him. The serfs were bound to him and the
land, handing over the harvest and produce. The serfs
lived in the shadows of a castle, home to the feudal
lord or king.
Christianity
was what united the people. There were many struggles
over who had supreme power, the king or the pope. Monasteries
and monks received great gifts of wealth to assure that
the people got in to heaven. The Crusades became more
than a trip to visit holy places, but acted as an expansion
of commerce and trade with Eastern Europe and the Near
East .
The
castles and churches that were the center of life to
everyone at this time are now classified as being Romanesque
in style. The features of these buildings
were blunt, heavy walls, round arches and an overall
blocky appearance and they had a similar look to ancient
Roman architecture. The buildings were groupings of
simple, geometric masses such as rectangles, cylinders
and cubes. Many churches had to be rebuilt after the
earlier roaming tribes had attacked villages, often
setting fire to the wood-roofed churches.
Do
you remember how the Romans used concrete in their construction?
Well, concrete had become a lost art to the Europeans
and they had to build their churches and castles entirely
out of stone blocks. This meant that the barrel-vaulted
ceilings of fitted, cut stone needed thicker
outer walls and larger buttresses to support the weight
of the ceiling. The biggest problem that faced these
builders was how to let in more light because windows
would weaken the sidewall structure. The solution evolved
over time by adapting a groin vault
(two barrel vaults intersected in a cross shape.)
By
the middle of the 1200’s, society had settled down with
centralized governments creating order; kings held supreme
power and vast trade routes brought greater commercial
wealth. Wandering minstrels sang tales of fair maidens
rescued by powerful knights and monastic schools evolved
into the university. All this happened around the soaring
Gothic cathedral, reaching
up towards the heavens, a symbol of unity in religion,
philosophy and art.
The
first advancement made in Gothic architecture
was with the vaulting system. The rib vault
was perfected at this time by using pointed
arches crossed at the groin of the
vault or where two barrel vaults meet.
This system allowed for greater flexibility in the shape
and size of the spaces created and builders could plan
better for how the weight was to be buttressed.
The
next advancement made was the use of flying
buttresses . These were different from previous
buttresses. Instead of being hidden under the aisle
roofs, they were left intentionally exposed and made
a decorative part of the cathedral as well as a support
structure. Flying buttresses, used with rib vaults,
meant that the thick Romanesque walls
previously used could be reduced to mere skeletal frames
for windows and galleries. The first cathedral built
this way was Notre Dame in Paris , France, begun in
1163.
Your
turn:
Romanesque
architectural elements were used again
in Victorian times. These elements were first re-used
by the architect
H.H. Richardson on the east coast of the United
States . Richardsonian Romanesque
became popular with other architects and was used by
William Lang in many Denver houses including the Molly
Brown House Museum . Look at the following photos of
the Molly Brown House Museum and pick out the Romanesque
elements.
Next:1400
CE –1750 CE: The Renaissance & Baroque
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