Transcript The Age of Faith

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500-1000 AD –the “Dark Age”
 Regions plundered
 Centers of learning destroyed
900AD- A new spirit rose in the church as they
began to reconstruct themselves and create new
centers of worship
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Monasteries lead the reform
 Cluny in France led the push to return to Christian
principles.
 Needed to establish a new religious order
Restored and expanded the churches power and
authority creating a new age of religious feeling
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Many priests were illiterate and could bairly
read their prayers
Many popes were men of questionable
morals.
Many bishops and abbots cared more about
their positions as Feudal Lords than about
their spiritual duties
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Many village priests married and had families
which was against Church rulings
Bishops sold positions in the Church- Simony
Using the practice of lay investiture, kings
appointed church bishops and Church
reformers believed only the Church alone
could appoint the bishops
Pope Leo IX and Gregory VII enforced laws
against simony and the marriage of priests
 1100’s-1200’s the Church was reconstructed to
resemble a kingdom, with the pope at the head.
 The pope had a group of advisors known as the
papal Curia which acted like a court developing
the canon laws.
 The Church collected taxes in the form of tithes
that money was used for things like caring for
the sick
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1200’s wondering friars traveled from place to
place preaching and spreading Church ideas
 Friars generally owned nothing and lived by begging
 Dominic founded 1st group of friars, the Dominicans
 Stressed the importance of study end education
 Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscan order for
women
 Women lived like friars but were not allowed to travel
from place to place
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Most people worshiped in small churches
near their homes but larger churches called
Cathedrals were being built in city areas
Built to represent a city of God and decorated
with all the richness that Christians could
offer
800-1100 AD churches were built in the
Romanesque style
Early 1100’s thanks to the growing wealth of
towns a new style known as Gothic develops
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The term Gothic comes from a Germanic
tribe named the Goths
Unlike the heavy, gloomy Romanesque
buildings, Goth cathedrals were tall, open,
bright with huge stain glass windows
Notre Dame – famous cathedral in France
ROMANESQUE ART
11 important aspects of Romanesque
architecture
1.“Romanesque” is the first international
style since the Roman Empire. Also
known as the “Norman” style in England
2.Competition among cities for the largest
churches, which continues in the Gothic
period via a “quest for height.”
3.Masonry (stone) the preferred medium.
Craft of concrete essentially lost in this
period. Rejection of wooden structures
or structural elements.
4. East end of church the focus for
liturgical services. West end for the
entrance to church.
ROMANESQUE ART
5.Church portals as “billboards” for
scripture or elements of faith.
6.Cruciform plans. Nave and transept at
right angles to one another. Church as a
metaphor for heaven.
7. Elevation of churches based on
basilican forms, but with the nave
higher than the side aisles.
ROMANESQUE ART
8. Interiors articulated by
repetitive series of
moldings. Heavy masonry
forms seem lighter with
applied decoration.
9. Bays divide the nave into
compartments
10.Round-headed arches the
norm.
11.Small windows in
comparison to buildings to
withstand weight
One of the defining characteristics of Gothic
architecture is the pointed arch.
Look at the façade of this Gothic building.
Notice that none of the arches are rounded.
Each of them comes to a point.
Why do you think the architects did this? What
did they like about this design? What do you
think about this design?
The pointed arches are the intersecting halves of
arches that create the Gothic vault, which we
will look at next.
The intersection of two or three barrel vaults (a
vault that is shaped like half of a barrel)
produces a ribbed vault. Can you see the
intersection in this photo?
Ribbed vaulting was new in the eleventh century
when Gothic Cathedrals were built.
These vaults provided extra structural support to
the buildings and allowed the cathedrals to
be very tall.
Ribbed vaulting also allowed for the addition of
more windows high up in the building. You
will see later how important light was in
Gothic cathedrals.
Flying buttresses are used as structural support in
Gothic Architecture. The buttresses are
actually used to hold up the walls.
The buttresses also allowed for more windows in
each wall because the buttresses are the
structural support of the building.
Before buttressing, the wall itself would hold the
whole weight of the building, so the walls
had to be thick and solid.
Buttressing allowed the walls to be thinner and
taller than ever before.
Gothic churches are laid out in a cross shape,
called a cruciform plan.
Why do you think the architects did this? Was it
an accident, or did they do it on purpose?
Dedicated in 1260, this Cathedral in Chartres (pronounced sharte) just outside of Paris is considered one of the finest
examples of Gothic architecture in the world.
Notice that the 2 spires are different. The plainer one was built in the 1140s while the more ornate spire was built in
the 1500s on top of an older tower.
There has been a church on this site since 876. The church was destroyed by fire and rebuilt many times. It came to
look much as it does today during construction in about 1200 when about 300 men would be working on site at any
time.
How can you tell that this is a Gothic Cathedral?