be seen at once how early and energetic was the architectural movement in Germany under those emperors who were also kings of Italy; and we need not wonder at the immense hold which the architecture, thus generated, had over the national mind of Germany. It is probable that about the same period a style somewhat analogous to the Lombardo-Rhenish, though more strongly tinctured with Classic detail, was growing up in Provence and the other southern provinces of France, spreading itself northward, and thus meeting the German variety on the borders of Switzerland and in Burgundy. The dates, however, of buildings in those districts seem too indefinite to be argued upon with confidence, though it is certain that at a date somewhat later a very noble and refined variety of Romanesque, but with a strong Classic admixture, prevailed there. About the same time the development of a distinctive style was promoted in the North by an apparently adverse cause. The Northmen, under Rollo, having ravaged and possessed themselves of an extensive province in the north of France, and having soon afterwards joined the Christian Church, set themselves vigorously about the task of repairing the sacrilege which, in the days of their ignorance, they had committed: nearly every ecclesiastical edifice in their new dominions had been destroyed, and never, perhaps, had a new and vigorous people a more perfect _carte blanche_ for generating a new phase of architecture. We accordingly find that they soon covered their land with edifices; at first, it is true, rude and simple,[5] but subsequently possessing elements of dignity and massive grandeur of a very high order. Of the central district of the Frankish monarchy at this period we have few architectural relics. The weakness of the Carlovingian monarchs, and the almost entire dismemberment of their dominions, left them, probably, little able to carry out great works; yet it cannot be doubted that the active genius of the race--surrounded as they were by the Romanesque developments of Lombardy, Provence, Rhineland, and Normandy--could not have failed to have produced works fully proportioned in merit to those of their neighbours, though during the period of subsequent greatness they were not deemed worthy to be retained. We now arrive at the period at which the real subject of which I have undertaken to treat commences; and it may here be well to give a few moments’ consideration to the intrinsic nature of the art at this time being generated.