The architectural
aspect of Saint Sernin
The Silve bishop made undertake
towards the end of the IV° C. the construction of a new basilica-martyrium.
How to know the architecture of this disappeared church ?
The apse in arc of exceeded circle
of average size (6 m interior diameter) found in 1970 in the high crypt of
current Saint-Sernin belongs to him if it is considered that the sarcophagus
of Saturnin remained in his ground since the translation of Exupère
until 1258.
It was wrapped by the major apse of the church of the end of the XI° C.,
so that the interior diameter of the Romance roundabout corresponds with approximation
the diameter external of the apse paléochrétienne. In fact,
only the admirable apse, the transept with the tower of crossing, the collateral
doubles of the nave and the last spans of the central vessel date from the
Romance time, having been high lasting the last quarter of the XI° C.
and the first quarter of the XII° C.
Approximately from 1070
to 1080, one started to raise the Eastern part of the new church. In
1096, this capitis membrum (ambulatory and its roundabout, transept and its
vaults), thus indicated in a text relating to the life of the canon administrator
of the building site Raimond Gairard, was almost finished. The chapter could
then urge on the project manager (of which the name is unknown for us) to
launch out in the construction of the Corpus, the second part of the building,
which includes the nave and its collateral as well as the Western frontage
with its two turns.
The remainder of the nave was finished only
at the beginning of the XIV° C., in full Gothic period. It is thus advisable
to wonder about the way in which one had then treated the high parts of the
building.
The Romanesque Architecture
The " Romance " term (of Latin
romanus, of Rome) is created in 1818 by a Norman architect, Charles de
Gerville to qualify the architecture of the Christian occident from
V° to the XII° century. Nowadays, this word exclusively indicates
the artistic production of the XI° and XII° centurys.The last phase
of the Romance art, which is prolonged in certain countries until towards
1250, corresponds already, in Island-of-France, with the first achievements
of the Gothic builders.
After the year one thousand, architecture
grow in Occident.En these times of famines, epidemics and of apprehension
of the end of the world, the fear or the recognition encourages the men
to raise very many religious buildings; but dice the end of X° C. appeared
already the first signs of an architectural rebirth.
However, it is certain that the XI° C. is one period of exceptional
fruitfulness, marked by a fast progress in all the spheres of the human
activity. After creation in 962 of the Saint Roman Germanic Empire
is constituted into 987 the monarchy capétienne , which, initially
weak, consolidates little by little its authority. Demographic rise and
the revival of trade are at the origin of the development of the life urbaine.This
remarkable deployment of activity has an immediate effect on the birth of
the Romance art, which the action of new monastic orders and eminent characters
facilitates.
In 910 Cluny is created, which radiates soon on all France,
the North of Spain and Italy. Deep fervour of religious enthusiasm animate
the Christians who forward themselves to Jerusalem, Rome, Saint-Jacques-of-Compostelle
or other sanctuaries to venerate holy relics, and which, eager to release
the Holy Land, answer with enthusiasm the call of the pope Urbain II,
preaching in Clermont-Ferrand into 1095 for the first crusade.
These spiritual and material conditions
help to understand the formation of' Romance art and the width of its development,
but its origins stylistics remain to be defined..
If it inaugurates a new era, it is
far from breaking with the first times of the Middle Ages. It proceeds of
art carolingien like Roman and Gallo-Roman traditions, with which interfere
with the Eastern influences, Barbarian, Celtic and Moslem, especially in
decoration. The " first Romance art " is characterized by constructions
in small apparatus of stones broken with the hammer, imitating brick, and
especially by a very particular decoration external and constantly employed,
formed of blind blind arcades and thin pilasters known as "bands
lombardes " or " lesenes ".
This ornamentation develops on the apses and side walls, on the frontages
and the bell-towers, of which it rhythm the stages, and is often accompanied,
above the cornices, of a succession of blind niches or teeth of gears.
The religious buildings have initially a great simplicity of plan and party,
derived sometimes from the formulas carolingiennes. They are small churches
without transept, covered out of frame, with one or three naves finished
by arched apses. But soon appears a capital innovation: the vault, of which
the use, initially limited to the crypts and the sanctuaries, extends then
to the great naves. Voûtement of all the parts of the building, which
controls its proportions, its lighting and its general aspect, is one of
the most typical features of Romance architecture.
Certain buildings combine several processes: groined vaults, cradles transverse,
longitudinal, annular, half-cradles, cupola.
The
Loire Valley sees being born certain original formulas, like the ambulatory
with radiating chapels. In Normandy, Notre-Dame of Jumièges,
high to the medium of the XI° C., offers very new solutions: the alternation
of the supports, division out of vertical spans, the interior rise characterized
by the proportion decreasing in the stages (large arcades, high platforms,
windows),le chœur with ambulatory and the cover out of frame on the
nave, will be, with alternatives, among the distinctive features of Norman
art.
Thus with the XI° C. the data of a rich
and varied art are constituted, drawing with old traditions, but renewing
them by many innovations and daring experiments. The architects sought to
solve the problem of voûtement out of stone and the lighting of the
naves and multiplied research of an aesthetic or practical nature with regard
to the plans, rises and the ordinances general, preparing thus directly
the blooming of the Romance style in the last third of the XI° and with
the XII° century.
If the first two thirds of the XI°
century are one fertile period of formation and experiments, the end of
the century and the following century are the time of the great achievements
by which the Romance genius expresses with plenitude its maturity. Since
the end of the XI° C., the Romance church seems the completed expression
of an architectural program adapted to the function religious and social
of the building, granted to concerns aesthetic and techniques.Almost everywhere
from now on, instead of materials of various forms broken and drowned in
cement, are used carefully installed freestones. The majority of the churches,
whose plan is in Latin cross and who are sometimes provided with a narthex,
have a nave with or without collateral, a simple or double transept, a chancel
developed to facilitate the circulation of faithful and the progress of
the great ceremonies.