Romanesque and the Past

The nineteen papers collected in this volume explore a notable phenomenon, that of retrospection in the art and architecture of Romanesque Europe. They arise from a conference organized by the British Archaeological Association in 2010, and reflect its interest in how and why the past manifested itself in the visual culture of the 11th and 12th centuries. This took many forms, from the casual re-use of ancient material to a specific desire to re-present or emulate earlier objects and buildings. Central to it is a concern for the revival of Roman and early medieval forms, spolia, selective quotation, archaism and the construction of histories. The individual essays presented here cover a wide range of topics and media: the significance of consecration ceremonies in the creation of architectural memory, the rise of pictorial concepts in 12th-century chronicles, the creation of history in the Paris of Hugh of St-Victor, and the appeal of the works of Bernward of Hildesheim and of Hrabanus Maurus in the centuries after their deaths. There are studies of buildings and the ideological purpose behind them at Tarragona, Ripoll, Cluny, Pannonhalma (Hungary), La Roccelletta (Calabria), and Old St Peter's, comparative studies of Trier, Villenauxe and Glastonbury, and of Bury St Edmunds, Rievaulx and Canterbury, and wide-ranging papers on the tantalizing evidence for an engagement with an overseas past in Ireland, an Anglo-Saxon past in England, and a Milanese past among the aisleless cruciform churches of Augustinian Europe. The volume concludes with an assessment of the very concept of Romanesque.

John McNeill teaches at Oxford University's Department of Continuing Education, and is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association, for whom he has edited and contributed to volumes on Anjou, King's Lynn and the Fens, the medieval cloister, and English medieval chantries. He has a particular interest in Romanesque architectural sculpture and the design of medieval monastic precincts. Richard Plant is Director of the Arts of Europe programme at Christie's Education in London. He is Honorary Publicity Office for the British Archaeological Association and has published on Romanesque architecture in England and the Holy Roman Empire. His previous editorial experience was for The Rough Guide to Jazz (1995).

Preface; Colour Plates; Veteves statuas emit Rome: Romanesque Attitudes to the Past; Memorializing Bernward of Hildesheim in the 12th Century: A Contribution to Medieval Imitatio; Making an Impression: Consecration and the Creation of Architectural Memory; St Peter's Basilica in Rome c. 1024-1159: A Model for Emulation? Architecture as a Visual Record? S. Maria della Roccella in Calabria; Iconic Architecture and the Medieval Reformation: Ambrose of Milan, Peter Damian, Stephen Harding and the Aisleless Cruciform Church; Archaism or Singularity? The Nave Clerestory in Romanesque Architecture Between the Loire and Dordogne; Cluny and the Past; The Portal at Ripoll Revisited: An Honorary Arch for the Ancestors; Tarragona: Lieu de mémoire; On the Edge of the World: Hiberno-Romanesque and the Classical Tradition; The Reconstruction of Pannonhalma: Archaism in 13th-Century Hungary; Uses of the Past in English Romanesque Sculpture: Beyond the Antique; Three Romanesque Patrons and their Regard of the Past; Artistic Strategies for Institutional Memory: Trier, Villenauxe, Glastonbury; Recasting Hrabanus: Romanesque Praise for the Holy Cross; Visualizing the Order of History: Hugh of Saint Victor's Chronicon and Peter of Poitiers'; Compendium historiae; Person, Time and Place in the Construction of History in Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark; The Concept of the Romanesquem; Index