THE ROMANESQUE ROUTES: 1 1th, 12th AND 13th CENTURIES CASTLES, TOWERS, WATCHTOWERS, CATHEDRALS, PARISH CHURCHES, ABBEYS, PALACES, BRIDGES, HOUSES AND GATEWAYS, AND MANY OTHER REMAINS, INTACT OR IN RUINS -NOTAS MANY AS AT ONE TIME, BUT A LARGE NUMBER, ALL THE SAME- PROVIDE US WITH PRECISE REFERENCES TO THAT EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPEAND ARE ALL EXAMPLES OF THE CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION WHICH, COLLECTIVELY, IS KNOWN AS uR~~~~~~~~~yy. n the Middle Ages, Catalonia was- and the families of the nobility became es- they were originally intended or else in an important centre of artistic pro- tablished. This new historical reality had to the museums of Barcelona, Vic, Solsona, duction, which emerged as a re- build the centres it needed practically Girona, La Seu d'urgell and Lleida. Ac- sult of the process of consolidation and from scratch and we can therefore say, cording to figures from the Patrimony de- developement of the country, both ma- metaphorically speaking, that the whole partment of the Generalitat, Catalonia terial and spiritual. Castles, towers, country was a construction site: episcopal has some 1,900 churches and some 200 watchtowers, cathedrals, parish churches, sees, abbeys, parish churches, manor castles and fortified houses with Ro- abbeys, palaces, bridges, houses and houses, castles and fortresses -al1 went manesque elements, a number of manor gateways, and many other remains, intact up together, giving a unity to the whole, houses and city palaces which have been or in ruins -not as many as at one time, that, in spite of what has disappeared, is partly reformed, unique buildings such as but a large number, al1 the same- pro- still easily imagined. Not everything that the Jewish mikwa, bridges and mills and vide us with precise references to that has survived from this' period has the same other less important elements, which add early medieval Europe and are al1 exam- value or the same interest. Between the up to a total of more than 2,000 remains ples of the culture and the civilization grand, monumental works, such as a great from the Romanesque age. which, collectively, is know as "Romanes- monastery or cathedral, and the rural Historically speaking, the counties of que1'. work, simple and repetitive, of the parish Catalonia lay along the north of the tradi- Once the initial period was over, when churches, there is the same difference as tional route towards Aragon, via the re- Romanesque art was at its peak, when the between a castle or a palace and a small gions of Anoia, Segarra and Urgell, and counts of Barcelona had been recognized farmhouse, but they are al1 important his- had an important network of roads of as rulers by the other counties and the torical evidence of the formation and which we have only scanty information links that subordinated them to the king of consolidation of Catalonia. There is no today. There was, for example, the road France were broken, when the expedition denying that the Catalan Romanesque which came from Tolosa de Llenguadoc, to Cordova (101 0) held off the threat of legacy is amongst the richest and most passed through the Cerdanya and conti- an Arab invasion, a favourable situation beautiful in Europe. As well as the nued on to Barcelona vial amongst other came about in which, coinciding with the buildings themselves, there are murals, il- towns, Besalú, Girona and Hostalric. From introduction of 'gold coin and a rapid luminated manuscripts, sculptures, altar- Barcelona, it turned west towards Olerd- growth in population, the hierarchic or- pieces and other obiects of the period, ola. We also know there was communi- ganization of the society was organized either preserved in the setiing for which cation between la Seu dlUrgell and Solso- ART na, between Solsona and Cardona, be- tain centres were abandoned in favour of and doorways of the churches, with their tween Ripoll and Berga and that there the plain as the country was stabilized led columns and ornamentation, is character- were roads that left Barcelona for the to the survival of buildings which, not ized by its plant, animal and occasionally lower points of the March. Also, the being fully used, did not have their stmc- human themes and are remarkable for successive lines of the border, marked by tures altered or substituted by newer ones. the beauty of the material: pink marble the rivers Cardener, Llobregat and Gaia, From what has been said so far, it can be from the quarries of Vilafranca de Con- led to changes in the defense routes with seen that in any comprehensive discussion flent. The uniformity of the Roussillon their fortified and defensive elements. of the Romanesque routes we must not school of architecture is remarkable and Logically, buildings were concentrated forget those of Old Catalonia, around the its influence can be seen in nearby Cerda- round the nerve centres of the time or else most important counties, and those of nya and in the area around Girona (Lla- they were intentionally isolated from them New Catalonia, across the newly-incor- dó, Cistella and Besalú). In Perpignan, one as in the case of certain monastic institu- porated lands to the south and west. Simi- should visit the architectural remains of tions. All this happened in the "Old larly, we must bear in mind that, on the Sant Joan el Vell, with a magnificent Catalonia", between the rivers Tet and the north side of the Pyrenees, these historical sculptured doorway dominated by the Gaia but, when the Christian conquest routes do not conform to the present divi- "Maiestas Domini", a leading example was completed (1 148-49), and the sions (Roussillon, Conflent, Vallespir and from the end of the twelfth century and March lands of Tarragona and Tortosa French Cerdanya), nor do they do so in the beginning of the thirteenth, which and of Lleida and Camarasa had been the case of Vall &Aran or Ribagorqa, part takes after the sculpture of the baptistery incorporated, communication routes ex- of which are now in Aragon. of Parma. At the neighbouring town of tended throughout the territory known as Setting out from the north, one should visit Cabestany, now almost completely ab- "New Catalonia", which carried on the the first important Benedictine abbeys at sorbed by Perpignan, the tympanum by earlier construdion boom. This chronolo- Sant Marti del Canigó (first consecration the "master of Cabestany" (mid-twelfth gical difference between the two Catalo- 1009, second consecration 1014 or century) presents a renovation of the nias explains, in part, why there is such 1026) and at Sant Miquel de Cuixa, in the sculptural concept related to the classical a great density of Romanesque buildings valley of Codalet, (tenth, eleventh and backgrounds. This artist also worked on in the Pyrenees and pre-Pyrenees twelfth centuries), as well as the Augusti- the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes and compared with the decreasing number as nian priory at Santa Maria de Serrabona other places in the south of France and in one approaches the plateau of the (eleventh to twelfth centuries) and the Tuscany. Continuing on our route, we Central Depression, and the almost sym- canonical church of Santa Mana &Espira come to Elna, where the cathedral, with its bolic nature of the Romanesque remains drAgli (second half of twelfth century). The basilican orientation (eleventh-twelfth in the south. Also, the fact that the moun- sculptural work of the cloisters, galleries century), survives as an example of Ro- manesque layout and decoratiori. One of 'tower (eleventh and twelfth centuries) mdnastery of Santa Maria, dominated by ' the wings of the cloister is an important apd the cathedral cloister, with outstand- anrapocalyptic version of the "Maiestas exÚmple of the work produced by the . ing sculptures related to those of the mó- -~$~i,niywhich relates a series of relevent Roussillon workshops. 'Sanf Andreu de - nastery of Sant Cugat del Valles, the events taken from the Old Testament. Sureda and Sant Genís les Fonts are two monasteiy of Sant Pere de Galligans Ripoll being one of the great centres of examples of an architectural style that (twelfth century), Sant Nicolau (eleventh repopulation 'of Old. Catalonia, founded straddles the tenth and eleventh centuries, century), the Moorish baths (Gelfth .to by Guifre el Pilós in 879, and at the same and also contains twelfth century el- thirteenth century), the episcopal palace time a centre of cultural diffusion, the Ro- ements. They respond to the same con- (twelfth century) and the "Fontana d'Of', mantic spirit of the nineteenth century was cept as the monastery of'Sant Pere de a good example of civic Romanesque. In attraded by its historical connotations . Rodes. They also have important sculpted the cathedral museum, one can see the and, applying, the criteria of the period, lintels and windows, dating from the elev- outstanding tapestry of the Creation, a work started on its restoration in 188.6, enth century. first class example of European Roma- thus saving it from the total ruin with which . As one enters the lands of Girona, the nesque (late eleventh, to early twelfth it was threatened. From Ripoll, one can , Benedidine monastery of Sant Pere de century). visit the monastery of Sant Joan de les Rodes (tdnth-eleventh and twelfth centu- The Central Depression, the Ripollhs re- Abadesses (twelfth century) and, from Vic, ry), the remains of Sant Miquel de Fluvia gion and that of Osona provide us with Santa Mana de I'Estany and Santa Eugh- (eleventh and twelfth centuries), the cano- two centres of capital importance in Old nia de Berga (twelfth century). The cathe- nical church of Santa Maria de Vilaber- Catalonia: Vic and Ripoll.