It is dubious whether a fragment of the structures erected by the Lombard kings now exists from which we may ascertain their style;[3], and though it is possible that the subsequent architecture may have been influenced by them in some degree, it is certain that the models which the Frankish emperor more especially followed were rather found in Byzantine Ravenna than in barbarous Lombardy, and the few remains of his architecture seem to be imitations of either Classic or Byzantine structures. In England the works of this period were a very rude and unintelligible imitation of those of the same period at Rome, united with a strange translation into stone of their own timber structures, and occasionally enriched with that primitive kind of ornamentation which it is customary to call Runic.[4] In the north of France it would not appear that the humbler class of churches were much better than those of which we find the remains in our own country. The remnants of one of the churches erected at that period on the site now occupied by Nôtre Dame at Paris, are debased Roman with Corinthian capitals; but the few remains of smaller churches--such as the old church at Beauvais--are not very unlike the Saxon structures in England. Of the latter it is but fair to state that the fragments which remain nearly all belong to merely rustic churches, and are hardly fair specimens of their style; they afford, however, sufficient proof of the rude state of art, though we have the witness of contemporary and succeeding historians to the fact that they were supposed and intended to be in the Roman style--meaning thereby, not that of ancient Rome, but that which prevailed at the period, and which we usually designate as the Basilican style. The dawn of better things may be dated from the commencement of the tenth century, and may be mainly attributed to the consolidation of the German empire under the three first Othos (936-1002) and their immediate successors, and more especially to the fact of these emperors having had Lombardy equally with Germany, Switzerland, and portions of France under their sway, and thus in some degree uniting in one that vast expanse of country which extends from the banks of the Po to those of the Elbe. Though Charlemagne had been the first to establish this mighty empire, and that on a yet grander scale, and may claim the title of the founder of modern civilisation, the seeds he had sown scarcely began to take root till the days of his German successors of the tenth and eleventh centuries. I say _German_ successors, because the kings of France were his successors as _Frankish kings_, the others as _German emperors_; and from this time forward we find a sort of contest or competition ever going on, both in politics and arts, between those who represented him in those two capacities.