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2008 Review of The Origins of Medieval : Building in Europe, A.D. 600-900, by Charles B. McClendon Dale Kinney Bryn Mawr College, [email protected]

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Custom Citation Kinney, Dale. Review of The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, A.D. 600-900, by Charles B. McClendon. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67 (2008): 446-448.

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For more information, please contact [email protected]. rization of bridges from fully wooden to offers an interesting argument to support the narrative chapters also reflects the mixed to fully stone, Ulrich suggests, the hypothesis that the state halls of inherent difficulty of organizing the plausibly, that these types were coeval. Domitian’s Palace in Rome had a timber- material. Despite these shortcomings, Wooden piles, he argues, remained trussed roof and coffered ceiling rather Ulrich’s book offers scholars one handy important throughout. than vaults. He acknowledges the impor- volume containing a wealth of informa- The best known wooden structures tance of wooden centering for concrete tion on the subject of ancient Roman from ancient Rome are the Iron Age huts vaults and domes, but because of the lack wood, a material once ubiquitous, from the Palatine for which only the of literary or visual evidence, he does not though all but invisible today. postholes remain. These huts and their speculate on the technical aspects of nayla kabazi muntasser proposed reconstructions serve the dis- vaulting. He does, however, raise the University of Texas at Austin cussion of the post-and-lintel system and question of whether wooden vaulted ceil- associated terminology in the chapter on ings might have existed. Portals, doors, walls and framing. A brief section on and shutters are included in the last of Notes wooden considers indirect evi- the chapters dealing with structural mat- 1. William L. MacDonald, The Architecture of the dence of their use in surviving terra-cotta ters. Roman Empire, rev. ed. (New Haven, 1982), 1:147. 2. Henry C. Mercer, Ancient Carpenters’ Tools bases and capitals from the sixth century The three final chapters concern (Doylestown, Pa., 1929). BCE. Ulrich then addresses the framing types of wood and their sources. The 3. Roger B. Ulrich, “Contignatio, Vitruvius and the of large structures such as theaters, first focuses on the veneers and parquetry Campanian Builder,” American Journal of Archaeology amphitheaters, and spans for bridges in used to decorate furniture in the Roman 100, no. 1 (1996), 137–51. which the basic techniques using verti- world. Here Ulrich relies on pictorial 4. Stephan T. Mols, Wooden Furniture in Herculaneum cal, horizontal, and diagonal beams were representations in various media as well (Amsterdam, 1999). scaled up to create cantilevered or arcu- as on the inventory of partially lost car- ated support systems. The of bonized examples from Herculaneum.4 Trajan provides visual evidence of Certain types of wood were prized above Charles B. McClendon wooden frames for bridge spans and others and a chapter follows that lists the The Origins of Medieval amphitheaters. types of trees available and the uses of Architecture: Building in Europe, The chapter on wooden flooring, their various woods. This material is A.D. 600–900 based on a previously published article, offered in the form of a catalog with New Haven and London: Yale University demonstrates that the Vitruvian descrip- entries alphabetized according to the Press, 2005, 280 pp., 35 color and 175 b/w tion of a multilayered flooring system Latin names for the species. A final short illus. $70, ISBN 9780300106886 corresponds closely to Roman practice.3 chapter provides an overview of the Vitruvius’s seventh book provides a term sources of timber used by the Romans, In the language of architectural history, for this system (contignatio) and its com- concentrating mainly on wooded areas in “medieval” means Romanesque and ponents. Contignatio was used in both the environs of Rome. Gothic. Older forms of Christian archi- public and private structures for the The glossary is an extensive and tecture are classified as the end of classi- upper floors and in some cases supported valuable resource for those philologically cal antiquity (as Kenneth John Conant a floor surface of mosaic, particularly in inclined, but it would have been easier to put it, “Ancient Rome created no new luxurious houses. Most of the evidence navigate were it organized alphabetically monumental types after the Christian for the floors he discusses comes from rather than broken down by chapter and Roman ”1) or as ethnographic Ostia and Herculaneum, which has some type. A useful appendix gives a selection expressions of the wandering peoples carbonized remains. of tools and provides detailed informa- who subsequently occupied Roman terri- Roofing technology had antecedents tion about the actual examples as well as tory: Visigoths, Lombards, Saxons, in Greek and Etruscan structures, and the types of media in which they are Franks. The value of these buildings is Ulrich emphasizes the role of wood in depicted. measured by their perceived contribu- the external protective layers of pitched In researching his book Ulrich has tions to the ultimate crystallization of the roofs. With regard to support, Ulrich cast a wide net, but the results have been Romanesque, just as Romanesque used postulates that the timber-trussed roof uneven and have led to compositional to be assessed primarily in terms of inno- was a Roman invention of the second difficulties. This is manifest in the cata- vations that could be considered proto- century BCE, a result of the need for a log chapters where, for example, the Gothic. Conant’s Pelican History of clear span in built in that period. entries in chapter three are in English Carolingian and Romanesque architec- Vitruvius’s account of his basilica at while those in chapter twelve are in ture famously contains a single chapter Fanum sets the stage for a discussion of Latin, and the glossary (which is organ- on Carolingian architecture called “The technical and philological problems sur- ized by chapter) contains entries in Latin. Carolingian Romanesque,” within a sec- rounding roofing and ceilings. Ulrich The variety in the length and depth of tion titled “The Pre-Romanesque and

446 JSAH / 67:3, SEPTEMBER 2008 Proto-Romanesque Styles.” At the oppo- course, romanitas could mean Byzanti- formative “northern vigour and site pole from this traditional view stand nism, since Byzantium was Rome in the bravura,” the perpetuation of “the old a small number of postmodern histories, sixth century and continued to provide Roman idea of substantial structure,” and notably Jerrilynn Dodds’s Architecture the West with models for the material a receptivity to the subtlety and sophisti- and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain, culture of empire until 1453. But as cation of Byzantium and the Orient.4 which refuse the teleological narrative of McClendon uses it, romanitas generally McClendon’s history is literally more style. Dodds insists on the radical partic- denotes reference to old Rome, either as cryptic, focused on architectural motifs ularity of premedieval buildings and their the seat of the papacy or as a repository rather than spatial and atmospheric role in “the formation of cultural iden- of authoritative architectural vocabulary effects: the annular crypt, the outer tity,” both in their own time and in the (witness the “reuse of ancient columns crypt, the westwork, etcetera. He is at his self-defining narratives of modern nation and capitals”). As such romanitas is a leit- best, in my opinion, with buildings that states.2 motif of this chapter and of the book as a relate to human personalities, in which On a spectrum anchored by Conant whole, and agreement or disagreement choices of motifs can be animated by at one end and Dodds at the other, with its thesis depends, in large part, on anecdotal information about the patron; Charles McClendon’s book stands much whether one finds this use of the term the extended unpacking of the formal closer to Conant; its stated aim is to trace persuasive. genealogy and biblical iconography of “the architectural transition from late Chapter four finds romanitas in Theodulf’s church at Germigny-des- antiquity to the in the Latin Britain, in the dedications of churches, Prés is an especially satisfying example. West,” more precisely, “the innovations . ground plans, crypts, galleries, and dec- Other reviewers have rightly praised . . that transformed the Early Christian oration, including the presence of McClendon’s book for its beautiful pro- basilica into the medieval church in both columns and . In Britain duction, its careful attention to a ne - form and function” (1). To that end, the aspirations to Roman-ness have good glected era of Western architectural book opens with a chapter describing the documentary support, and this chapter history, and its useful synthesis of churches of Constantine and subsequent dwells at length on the churches associ- decades of published research. At the church building in Milan and Ravenna, ated with the known Romanizers Wilfrid same time, it has been faulted for failure followed by a chapter on “The Roman and Benedict Biscop. As in the previous to fully incorporate the results of recent Response to the Cult of Relics,” focused chapter, McClendon finds that romanitas archaeology, lack of attention to secular mainly on crypts, culminating in the is combined or offset with local tenden- and wooden architecture, and its limited invention of the “annular crypt” in St. cies, resulting in a “unique synthesis of focus on Rome as the locus of romanitas Peter’s in the last decade of the sixth cen- continental and insular traditions” (84) rather than the entire Romanized land- tury. The third chapter traces the “blend- that was brutally cut off by the Viking scape of England and Europe west of the ing of barbarian and Roman” (35) in the invasions of the late eighth and ninth Rhine, including Spain.5 These criticisms previously Roman territories of Gallia, centuries. Consequently the focus shifts highlight the fact that The Origins of Germania, Hispania, and in Italy itself to Carolingian architecture, which occu- Medieval Architecture is a fundamentally under the Lombards. pies the second half of the book. The traditional project; its aim is to integrate McClendon’s approach is exempli- well-known Carolingian penchant for its subject into a larger narrative that is fied by his account of São Frutuoso de romanitas is described as “a shift in inherited, highly standardized, even to Montelios near Braga, a Visigothic cruci- degree rather than kind” (195) from that some extent formulaic. Unquestionably, form mausoleum, and the ways in which of the Visigoths, Franks, Lombards, and as Dodds has shown, the very same it differs from that offered by Dodds. Anglo-Saxons; and the Carolingian con- buildings could have been made to tell a Both authors depart from the building’s tributions to the architectural future are different story, driven by more contem- close resemblance to the so-called mau- identified in the innovations that drove porary interests in socioeconomic his- soleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, but church design away from the Roman tory, local regimes of power, the whereas Dodds moves from this resem- vocabulary: westworks, outer crypts, vernacular, the environment, and daily blance to the emulation of contemporary alternating supports. life. But that is not the story the author Byzantine court forms and ceremonial by In some ways McClendon’s history set out to tell. Visigothic kings in Toledo, positing a is not very different from Conant’s, dale kinney “taste” or deliberate symbolism of con- although it is differently expressed. Bryn Mawr College temporary royal power in São Frutuoso, Overtly writing a history of style, Conant McClendon stresses “the desire of the described the Carolingian contributions Notes Visigoths to instill their architecture with in terms of principles, abstractions, and 1. Kenneth John Conant, Carolingian and a sense of romanitas through design, effects: “the fine tradition of Gallic , 800–1200, 2nd ed. (Har- mondsworth, 1966), 37. mode of construction, and even reuse of mason work,” “the will to make Rome 2. Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Architecture and Ideology in 3 ancient columns and capitals” (39). Of live again in a classical revival,” a trans- Early Medieval Spain (University Park, Pa., 1990), 1.

BOOKS 447 3. Ibid., 13. cak has unearthed fascinating archival from being seen by anyone outside of her 4. Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, documents showing that Turhan Sultan immediate entourage. Turhan Sultan 55. responded by beefing up the Ottoman used her architectural patronage as a way 5. Reviews of McClendon, The Origins of Medieval navy and constructing two at the of making herself visible to her subjects, Architecture, include those by Richard Hodges, in Aegean entrance to the Dardanelles, one and she had the financial means to do so Catholic Historical Review 92 (2006), 298–99; John Steane, in Medieval Archaeology 50 (2006), 407–8; and on the European side and one on the because Ottoman laws allowed women to Deborah M. Deliyannis, in Art Bulletin LXXXIX Asian side. Her next major project was a own property and control their finances (2007), 364–66. large religious complex called Yeni Valide in ways that European laws of the time in the heart of Istanbul, consisting of a did not. She was also free to choose the mosque, a royal pavilion, a dynastic mau- type of building she wished to construct, Lucienne Thys-Senocak soleum, a covered market, a fountain, whereas there were typological restric- Ottoman Women Builders: The and a Quran school. Other constructions tions for her Western European counter- Architectural Patronage of Hadice elsewhere in the empire included a parts (namely, fortresses were at this time Turhan Sultan palace near Edirne and the conversion of constructed only by men). The fourth Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2007, 346 pp., 88 several churches into mosques after the chapter surveys the castles of Seddül- b/w illus. £60, ISBN 9780754633105 Ottoman conquest of Crete. Turhan Sul- bahir and Kumkale, and is based on the tan was clearly a significant figure as both results of a project led by Thys-Senocak Hadice Turhan Sultan was captured by a ruler and a patron, and Thys-Senocak and published in this volume for the first slave raiders on the Russian steppes in has illuminated a fascinating case study time. The fifth chapter discusses the con- 1640, when she was about twelve years from a period that has often been erro- struction of the Yeni Valide complex, old. Taken to Istanbul, she was given as a neously dismissed as an era of Ottoman which entailed expropriating property gift to the Ottoman queen mother, or decline. from Jewish inhabitants of the commer- valide sultan, the most powerful woman The book forms part of the series cial district of Eminönü and was conse- in the vast Ottoman Empire. Within a Women and Gender in the Early Modern quently presented as a local expansion few short years, the young slave girl con- World and is the first to venture slightly and triumph of Islam. Thys-Senocak verted to Islam and received a Muslim outside Europe; most of Turhan Sultan’s argues that the layout of the Yeni Valide name, underwent training in religion, constructions are located within Europe, complex, which was previously dismissed language, and courtly arts in the Topkapi while her Dardanelles fortifications by architectural historians as disorgan- Palace, and was presented by the valide straddle the continents of Europe and ized, derivative, and emblematic of sultan to her son, Sultan Ibrahim, as a Asia in the most dramatic way possible. decline, was actually shaped by the gen- possible concubine. Although not the Although it is lavishly illustrated in black der of its patron, who wished to view as sultan’s favorite concubine, she was the and white, the book would have bene- much of her complex as possible from first to conceive a son. The boy was only fited from at least one color illustration the royal pavilion. The final chapter sur- six years old when his father died and he of the Iznik tiles inside the royal pavilion veys the evidence for Turhan Sultan’s became Sultan Mehmed IV. A power at the Yeni Valide complex. other constructions, arguing that she struggle ensued between his mother and The book is divided into six chap- would have been able to communicate grandmother over the position of valide ters: the first introduces the parameters extensively with the chief architect of the sultan, culminating in the murder of the and aims of the study, which include doc- Ottoman court and thereby shape the older woman in 1651. At the approxi- umenting the Dardanelles castles for the design of her projects. mate age of twenty-one, Turhan Sultan first time, challenging the paradigm of This book represents a major con- became the de facto ruler of the Ottoman Ottoman decline in the seventeenth cen- tribution to the study of imperial female Empire. She ruled with distinction even tury, and comparing Turhan Sultan with patronage and to architectural history as after her son came of age, since he dis- several European patrons to show how a whole. Turhan Sultan provides a fasci- liked both the task of ruling and his cap- this particular queen mother used archi- nating case study, and Thys-Senocak ital city, Istanbul. tecture for self-representation as well as achieves the aims she outlines in chapter In Ottoman Women Builders, Luci- political and religious legitimization. one with exhaustive research and con- enne Thys-Senocak documents the The second chapter documents the early vincing argumentation. The documenta- architectural patronage of this fascinat- life of Turhan Sultan, and the third con- tion of the Dardanelles fortresses alone ing woman. Shortly after becoming trasts her with Elizabeth I, Catherine de is a significant achievement that adds valide sultan, Turhan Sultan faced a mili- Medici, and Maria de Medici, emphasiz- considerably to our knowledge of an tary threat from the Venetians, who were ing how the Ottoman woman was often-neglected aspect of Ottoman making incursions into the Dardanelles, restricted in her means of self-represen- architecture. As Kumkale, the on the narrow strait connecting the Aegean tation by customs, related to her gender the Asian side of the Dardanelles, is still Sea to the Sea of Marmara. Thys-Seno- and imperial status, that prevented her occupied by the Turkish military, gaining

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