Romanesque Architecture Guide: 6 Examples and Key Characteristics

Romanesque architecture is characterized by towering round arches, massive stone and brickwork, small windows, thick walls, and a propensity for housing art and sculpture depicting biblical scenes. Even if many of these structures are mainly tourist attractions or interesting historical subjects today, they once housed unbelievable power: This imposing style of architecture accounted for most of the churches and political buildings throughout medieval Europe. Although austere and dominating, Romanesque buildings were meant to inspire as much as intimidate.

As the collapse of the Roman Empire gave way to the Dark Ages, the early Christian church and its political champions took the reins of medieval Europe and, thus, the Romanesque style was born. Drawing from the architecture of Rome, Byzantine art, and biblical stories about the life of Christ, Romanesque churches and castles dominated the landscape of the Middle Ages. Here are additional considerations in the history of Romanesque architecture:

• The influences of two kings: Early Romanesque architecture was influenced by the styles associated with two different rulers. The first, Charlemagne—Holy Roman Emperor during the eighth and ninth centuries—lends an iteration of his name to Carolingian architecture, while Ottonian style derives its name from the second ruler and one of Charlemagne’s Saxon successors, Otto the Great. Both styles borrowed heavily from Greek and Roman architecture as well as that of the Byzantine Empire. These key influences laid the groundwork for the early Romanesque period.
• The rise of Romanesque monasticism: While certain Christians had been leading lives as monks for centuries, monastic orders swelled their ranks greatly from the end of the tenth century into the eleventh century. The increasing prevalence of Cistercian, Benedictine, Franciscan, and other Catholic brotherhoods led Western Europe’s landscape to be populated with monasteries and cathedrals. As monastic orders spread from Spain to Sicily to Scandinavia, so did these Romanesque cloisters housing them.
• Crusades and castles: Medieval Europe’s constant internal clashes, not to mention the Christian crusaders’ battle against Islamic warriors in the Holy Land, required imposing and impressive medieval art and architecture. It was for these reasons Romanesque church architecture soon branched out into the political world. Many of the castles from this era still stand tall across Europe’s landscape.
• Evolution over the centuries: Beginning in the twelfth century, Romanesque design began to evolve into the Gothic style, which eventually dominated medieval architecture across the European continent by the thirteenth century. Gothic buildings borrowed many of the earlier movement’s attributes but with more ornate, aesthetically soaring, and complicated motifs, laying the groundwork for the Renaissance. Most recently, Romanesque architecture inspired architects of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly of Britain and the United States, to mount a revival of the style.

Romanesque buildings may have been austere, but they remain awe-inspiring given their incredible architectural attributes. These are three of their most notable characteristics:

1. 1. Imposing size: The massive buildings dictated by this architectural style are meant to intimidate and inspire. Towers with octagonal spires reach toward the heavens, and stone buttresses extend off the buildings to give their thick walls even more girth. All this immensity makes a study in contrast with the small, stained-glass windows depicting biblical scenes ranging from the birth of Christ to the Last Judgment in the Romanesque art style.
2. 2. Cathedral floor plans: Most Romanesque cathedrals were drawn up according to floor plans in the cruciform shape of a Latin cross. These schematics designated many stations with archaic names—the apse (a dome or half dome at the front of the auditorium, usually featuring religious art), ambulatory (a walkway), tympanum (a semicircular area, usually enclosing a sculpture, located above a door or window), transept (a horizontal section of a cathedral that went across the ambulatory to form a cross), and more—to fulfill specific purposes in medieval church services. Romanesque sculptures depicting biblical scenes were sometimes etched into the walls to encourage a greater sense of reverence.
3. 3. Round, vaulting arches: Perhaps one of the most notable points of departure between Romanesque and Gothic architecture involves the former’s rounded arches. Long hallways of this architectural style are usually encased in semicircular barrel vaults—a long series of arches placed next to each other. When barrel vaults are combined into a square formation, they’re known as groin vaults. Gothic architects departed from this Romanesque feature in their preference for pointed arches, sometimes referred to as ribbed vaults. In all cases, these arcading—or successive—arches were supported by columns that wouldn’t have felt too out of place in ancient Rome.

Romanesque buildings stretched from Britain past Belgium into all of Europe during the Middle Ages—here are some of the most notable structures of the period:

• Moissac Abbey: This Benedictine abbey is located in southern France. It’s known for its beautiful Romanesque sculptures of the prophet Jeremiah and other biblical characters. Other notable French monasteries of the period include Burgundy’s Vézelay Abbey and the Abbey at Cluny dedicated to St. Peter.
• Durham Cathedral: This cathedral in England is one of the country’s greatest Romanesque monuments, but the pointed design of the Gothic deserves attribution too, given it was still being constructed up to the fifteenth century when that style had taken hold. It also possesses characteristics of Norman architecture specifically seeing as the Duchy of Normandy had control of this area of Britain when it began construction in earnest.
• Leaning Tower of Pisa: This famous, slanted Italian structure is actually the bell tower of Pisa Cathedral. Located in Tuscany, Italy, near Florence, its arcading round arches typify the Romanesque period.
• Autun Cathedral: This French cathedral doubled as a reliquary—a home to alleged relics from Christ and his apostles’ lives and times—for the many spiritual seekers traversing the pilgrimage routes of the Romanesque era. Its more simple design makes it a useful study in contrast with later French cathedrals of the Gothic style like Notre-Dame de Paris and the remodel of Bayeux Cathedral that extended from the twelfth to nineteenth century.
• Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio: This Milan basilica was designed in the early Lombard Romanesque style in honor of St. Ambrose. Its brick exterior contrasts it with the stonework common to many other buildings of the period.
• Charlemagne’s Chapel: This chapel, also known as the Palatine Chapel, was built in Aachen, Germany, and gives its visitors a historical overview of the entire Romanesque period, from its origins on through its heyday. This German landmark—a place where kings were crowned and Christ was worshiped—serves as a reminder of how intertwined the religious and political were in every aspect of this era.

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