Romanesque Architecture Timeline

Dating shortly after the Palatine Chapel, the 9th-century Plan of Saint Gall is a detailed Swiss manuscript showing a monastic complex, including its buildings and their functions.

Image source: Plan of Saint Gall

Built around AD 800 in Aachen, Germany, Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel was inspired by the 6th-century octagonal Byzantine Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna and became a major Early Medieval European building.

Image source: Palatine Chapel, Aachen

Romanesque-style architecture developed simultaneously in northern Italy, parts of France, and the Iberian Peninsula during the 10th century, before the later influence of the Abbey of Cluny.

First Romanesque describes buildings in northern Italy, Spain, and parts of France that possess Romanesque features but predate the later influence of the Abbey of Cluny.

The movement of people and armies encouraged bridge building. Surviving examples include the 11th-century Puente de la Reina in Navarre, the 12th-century bridge at Besalú in Catalonia, and the Pont-Saint-Bénézet at Avignon.

The style flourished across Europe from the 11th to the 13th century. It was distinguished from the Gothic style that followed by its semicircular arches and more massive forms.

Across Europe, the late 11th and 12th centuries saw unprecedented growth in the number of churches. Many large and small Romanesque buildings survive, although some were heavily altered in later centuries.

A dazzling Romanesque style developed in Pisa during the mid-11th century and became known as Pisan Romanesque.

William, Duke of Normandy, invaded England in 1066. The resulting Norman presence encouraged the construction of castles and churches in the Romanesque tradition.

Image source: Norman architecture

The Crusades brought a large movement of people, ideas, and trade skills across Europe. Skills involved in fortification and metalworking for arms were also applied to the fitting and decoration of buildings.

Image source: Crusades

The Imperial Palace of Goslar was built in the early 11th century by Otto III and Henry III. The complex was heavily restored in the 19th century.

The slow process of construction often left the upper parts of Romanesque towers incomplete for centuries, as happened at Durham and Lincoln.

The structure of large Romanesque churches differed by region and developed over time. Some 11th-century churches used huge circular columns and had no clerestory or only a small one, as at St. Philibert in Tournus.

Romanesque interiors used varied roofing systems, including open timber roofs, wooden ceilings, barrel vaults, groin vaults, and increasingly ribbed vaults in larger abbey churches and cathedrals.

St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim, built from 1001 to 1030, displays Proto-Romanesque features including the characteristic treatment of architectural mass and space.

Image source: St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim

Octagonal cloister vaults appeared in connection with basilicas across much of Europe between 1050 and 1100.

Some churches, including Saint-Étienne at Caen and Pisa Cathedral, had three western portals modeled on the arrangement of Early Christian basilicas.

Groin vaults occur in early Romanesque buildings. The high vault of about 1060 at Speyer Cathedral is identified as the first Romanesque use of this type of vault over a wide nave.

Image source: Speyer Cathedral

The circular chapter house at Worcester Cathedral was built under Bishop Wulfstan between 1062 and 1095. It was the first circular chapter house in Europe and became a model for others in England.

Image source: Worcester Cathedral

Depressed diagonal ribs were used in the sexpartite vaults of Saint-Étienne and Sainte-Trinité at Caen, France, during the late 11th and early 12th centuries.

The church of St. Sernin at Toulouse, built from 1080 to 1120, remains substantially intact. Its modular form, massive appearance, and repeated simple arched windows demonstrate the regularity of Romanesque design.

Image source: Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse

The rebuilding known as Cluny III was constructed from 1088 to 1130. Although little of the abbey church remains, its design is known to have made it the largest building in Europe until the Renaissance.

Image source: Cluny Abbey

By the early 12th century, composite piers had evolved. Their attached shafts rose toward ribbed vaults or continued into the arcade mouldings at places including Vézelay Abbey, Saint-Étienne at Caen, and Peterborough Cathedral.

Ribbed vaults came into general use during the 12th century and became increasingly important in large abbey churches and cathedrals.

The transverse ribs of the vaults at Durham Cathedral in northern England, dating from 1128, represent one of the first appearances of pointed ribs.

Image source: Durham Cathedral

The chapter house at Durham Cathedral is a wide space with a ribbed vault. Its restoration returned it to the form in which it was originally constructed around 1130.

The narthex of La Madeleine at Vézelay contains the earliest pointed vault in France, dating from 1130.

Abbot Suger's innovative choir at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, built from 1140 to 1144, helped establish the Gothic style in Paris and the surrounding region.

Image source: Basilica of Saint-Denis

The ruined palace at Gelnhausen was received by Frederick Barbarossa before 1170, representing the secular and imperial side of Romanesque construction.

Norwich Cathedral's huge ornate 12th-century crossing tower later received a 15th-century masonry spire. The spire rose to 320 feet and remains standing.

Stained glass came into increasing use from the 11th century, adding colored pictorial and decorative windows to Romanesque churches.

Image source: Stained glass

Chevrons and other geometric ornaments, called 'barbaric ornament' by 19th-century writers, were frequently used on the mouldings of Romanesque central doorways.

During the 11th and 12th centuries, figurative sculpture flourished in a recognizable Romanesque style across Europe. The most spectacular projects were concentrated in southwestern France, northern Spain, and Italy.

Image source: Romanesque art

The five prophet windows at Augsburg, dating from the late 11th century, are the earliest intact figures known in medieval pictorial stained glass.

Panels from the 12th century survive at Canterbury and Chartres Cathedrals. Canterbury includes images of Adam digging and his son Seth from a series depicting the Ancestors of Christ.

Notable Romanesque baptisteries include Parma Cathedral's building with a galleried exterior and Florence's polychrome Baptistery of San Giovanni, whose vault mosaics date from the 13th century.

The vault of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe in France preserves an important example of early 12th-century medieval painting.

A figure of the Prophet Jeremiah on a portal pillar at the Abbey of Saint-Pierre in Moissac, France, dates from about 1130 and is considered one of the finest examples of Romanesque sculpture.

Major 19th-century reconstructions in Germany sought to return Romanesque buildings to their presumed original forms.

Image source: Romanesque Revival architecture

Romanesque Revival churches appeared from as early as the 1830s and continued into the 20th century. The style valued the massive and sometimes brutal qualities of Romanesque architecture, often using brick.

Designed by Alfred Waterhouse and completed in 1879, London's Natural History Museum is a Romanesque Revival building that makes extensive use of Romanesque arcading and architectural sculpture.

Image source: Natural History Museum, London

Marshall Field's Wholesale Store in Chicago, designed by H. H. Richardson in 1885, is a notable American example of Romanesque Revival architecture.

The Chadwick Lead Works in Boston, designed by William Preston in 1887, is another notable example of the Romanesque Revival style in the United States.