Architecture, Medieval; Church architecture; Vaults (Architecture)
In both the other examples true groined vaulting is used, but at La
Trinité it is in practically square bays, and carried by walls running
down to the ground,[122] making it easier of construction than that at
Saint Nicolas[123] where the bays are rectangular and the choir has true
side aisles. This church is similar in structural principles to La
Madeleine at Vézelay--except that the wall ribs are omitted,--and these
two churches may be said to represent the highest point reached by
groined vaulting with practically flat crowns during the Romanesque
period.
Other examples might be cited, ranging from such an unusual church as
Saint Loup-de-Naud (Seine-et-Marne) in the Ile-de-France,--which is of
uncertain date,[124]--to churches as late as the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, among which are Severac-le-Château (Aveyron) and
Saint Pons-de-Mauchiens (Hérault).[125] Occasionally, also, groined
vaults were used in the crypt as at Saintes (Charente-Inférieure),[126]
even when tunnel vaults were used in the upper part of the church, a
peculiarity explained by the fact that underground it was easy to
dispose of the thrusts which could not so readily be offset in the nave.
The question of the origin of the method has frequently arisen and a
number of writers, including Choisy,[127] suggest the East as a possible
cradle of the style because of the numerous churches in Palestine thus
vaulted, but Rivoira[128] shows rather conclusively that it was the
Cluny influence which carried the method to the East rather than the
reverse, a theory strengthened by the fact that the earliest example
there, which is the church of Saint Anne at Jerusalem,[129] would seem
to be after rather than before the beginning of the twelfth
century.[130] Moreover it is quite reasonable to attribute the
development of this advanced type of vault to the builders of Bourgogne
themselves, for they were surely progressive enough to have taken such a
step.
GROINED VAULTS OVER SQUARE NAVE BAYS
Churches with groined vaults over square nave bays are much more
numerous than those with rectangular bays, just described. The most
important of these belong to the school of the Rhenish Provinces, which
had, perhaps, clung to Byzantine and Carolingian traditions in this
respect. As a rule the large churches of this school were originally
planned for vaulting only in the side aisles.[131] These were usually
divided into square bays by round headed transverse arches, and then
each bay covered by a more or less domed up groined vault, which, from
its size and form, might be erected with comparatively little
centering.[132] There was no triforium gallery, but a wall with blank
arches took its place beneath the clerestory windows. In many of the
churches[133] shafts were carried up on the inner face of alternate nave
piers, probably to support the cross beams of the roof, or possibly to
carry transverse arches, but not to carry vaulting.
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