Customer Reviews

The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, A.D. 600-900

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You may have to love medieval architecture to love this book, but if you do, you'll discover a very exciting journey into the development of Romanesque and Gothic Architecture from Roman and Byzantine forms. And very well written!

This intelligent, passionate, and well-illustrated book takes us from the the very end of antiquity to the beginnings of the Middle Ages.

Author McClendon argues that building and decoration in the "Dark Ages" was magnificent in its own right and had a greater impact on the fabulous traditions of medieval architecture than has been generally acknowledged He is particularly elegant and passionate when it comes to Carolingian (aka Frankish Empire) architecture. And this was a time of dramatic change for Europe! As the last bits of the Roman Empire fell away, "Barbarian" Europe took hold, establishing the beginnings the national divisions of what we now know as Europe. This -- accompanied with the steady rise of Christianity as the arbiter of taste and the prime mover of architecture -- provides us with an exciting time which, though certainly not modern, is a fertile mixing of ancient, older, and newer aesthetic traditions.

This is a handsome book from Yale University Press: large format hardback in dustjacket, 264 pp, 3.25 pounds. Cloth over hardback boards with a sewn binding. Indexed. Over 40 pp of bibliographic information.

Something like 400 illustrations grace this book in color and b&w: photos, floorplans, some sections, some elevations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I: The "Dark Ages"

The Legacy of Late Antiquity

The Roman Response to the Cult of Relics

Romanitus and the Barbarian West

The Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England

Part II: The Carolingian Era

Symbols of the New Alliance

Aachen and Rome: The Poles of an Empire

Private Patronage and Personal Taste

The Monastic Realm: Ideal and Reality

The Innovations of Later Carolingian Architecture

Epilogue: The Architectural Contribution of the Early Middle Ages