The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
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The Plan of St. Gall | ||
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EVENTS THOUGHT, TECHNOLOGY, MOVEMENTS 1 |
STRUCTURES TECHNOLOGY, RELATED ARTIFACTS 2 |
WRITING, MANUSCRIPTS, PAINTING, OTHER ART WORKS 3 |
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55 B.C. Julius Caesar's (102-44 B.C.) first expedition to England followed by a second in 54. |
13 B.C. Rome, theater of Marcellus. | 1st century B.C., subsequent to Roman conquest of Greece, the Greek Y and Z, upsilon and zeta, were adopted as y and z, and placed at the end of the Roman alphabet. With these 2 additions the alphabet, by this time, was brought to a more or less final form of 23 letters-A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, P (original shape of R, from Greek rho), S, T, V, X, Y, Z. From here on, growth of Roman writing is largely concerned with adaption to other languages and the evolution of cursive scripts. E.B. |
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Built by Augustus, it was dedicated to Marcellus in this year (I fig. 51.A-C). |
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4 B.C. Birth of Christ. | 12 B.C.-12 A.D. Rome, Basilica Aemilia. | ||
Timber-roofed hall; clerestory, gallery surmounted double aisles on four sides; no evidence of terminating apses. |
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0 | 1ST CENTURY | 1ST CENTURY | 1ST CENTURY |
late 1st CENTURY B.C. /early 1st CENTURY A.D. beginnings of London (a Celtic name). |
1st century. Augusta Raurica (Augst), Switzerland. | ||
Roman forum with timber-roofed aisled basilica; apse, counterapse; large galleried court attached to one long side. |
49-61. Letters to Galatians, Thessalonians, Corinthians, Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon, by St. Paul. |
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28-30 A.D. Christ abandons the belief that only the Jews are chosen of God; he is rejected by Jewish leaders and crucified. |
1st-2nd century. Hodorf (Holstein), Germany. | A vivid portrayal of Paul's personality and a superb account of the worship and organization of the early church, these letters display in frank and spontaneous language the thoughts and feelings of the man who recognized the universal implications of the Christian faith and became the primary force in making it a worldwide religion. |
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Germanic timber houses; aisled, bay-divided prehistoric antecedents of Lower Saxon Wohnstallhaus. |
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43. Under Claudius, Roman conquest of England begins. |
1st-2nd century. Earliest Christians assemble for religious services in private houses, sometimes altered internally for liturgical use. |
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50 | 49-50 A.D. Council of the Apostles. | 1st-4th century. Feddersen-Wierde, Bremerhaven, Germany. Site of Hodorf-type Germanic timber houses; aisled, bay divided; excavated in 7 successive Warf layers (I fig. 176; II figs. 315-16). |
ca. 50. De materia medica, by Dioscurides Pedanius of Anazarbos. |
Paul argues that converted pagans should be free from observing Jewish law. |
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1st-4th century. Fochteloo, Friesland, The Netherlands. Site of timber-built aisled homestead of a West Germanic farmer, with a main house and 3 smaller ones. |
Describing properties of some 600 medicinal plants (fig. 204, I258), this herbal became a leading reference for pharmaceutical medicine in the Middle Ages, through an illustrated copy made in 512 (q.v. below). Its author was a Greek physician who served in the army of Nero. |
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1ST-2ND CENTURY | 80 A.D. Rome, Flavian amphitheater (Colosseum). Begun by Vespasian, it was finished and dedicated by Titus in this year (I fig. 50). |
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The Christian community, led by priests in turn ruled by bishops, is established. The bishop of Rome gradually becomes head of the church. By ca. 200, adherents of the faith number around 20,000-30,000 people. |
ca. 85 A.D. Rome, basilica of the imperial palace. Barrel vaulted, with narrow aisles and internal apse for the emperor's throne. |
It is a curiosity of the history of Roman writing, a writing in capitals[1] , which came into conspicuous use after Octavian, 27 B.C.-14 A.D., that it gave at beginning, no warning clue of splendour to come. In its first 6 centuries it possessed no characteristics of particular visual interest, was singularly unimpressive. Then in the first century B.C. appear portents of a magificence that was to make its writing one of Rome's greatest achievements. For this writing is the |
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Variants of this type became a standard form of later imperial audience halls and served as prototypes for Charlemagne's audience halls at Aachen and Nieder-Ingelheim (see Trier, so-called "hasilica," ca. 330). |
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1ST CENTURY A.D. The Apostolic Age | 90-120. Kastel Künzig, Passau, Germany. | ||
The work of the Apostles among Gentiles is so effective that pagan converts soon outnumber Jewish followers. Unity of church is maintained by letters and visits. |
Typical transalpine Roman military camp (I fig. 71.B). |
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continue below | |||
100 | 2ND CENTURY | 2ND CENTURY | 2ND CENTURY |
2nd century. Silchester, Hampshire, England. | vehicle that has linked successive generations in a continuum of thought and action, through war, peace, and revolution to carry western civilization across two millenia. The characters of its alphabet remain scarcely changed. In languages new to him, Marcus Aurelius, if here today, would recognize his alphabet as he knew it. For English, three letters are added, J, U, W. |
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2ND-3RD CENTURY Age of Persecution | Roman basilica with apse, counterapse; galleried court surrounded by shops attached to one long side (I fig. 202). |
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Rise of Christianity in cities, and development of hierarchical structures in the church that parallel those of the state, enable the church to assume many state functions when the state institutions collapse centuries later. |
Remains of Sikhester-type transalpine basilicas could be seen in Merovingian/Carolingian times. With their great Roman archetype, the basilica and forum of Trajan, they may have influenced formation of the Carolingian claustral scheme codified in the Plan of St. Gall. |
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Christian communities reject secular control of religion. The Roman state, unable to tolerate "an empire within the empire" (imperium in imperio) inflicts endless persecutions, causing the church intermittently to go underground. |
2nd-3rd century. Worms, Germany. Site of Roman forum with timber-roofed basilica, aisled; large galleried court attached to one long side. |
By 114 A.D. an inscription on Trajan's Column was carved in letters so noble in character and perfect of form they have never been excelled. Nothing so profoundly perpetuates and qualifies Rome as "Eternal", in the vast and varied legacy that civilization and culture gave the world in its WRITING. E.B. |
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Given to Burgundian king Gunther in 413; perhaps used as his palace; destroyed in 600 to make room for the Merovingian cathedral of Worms. |
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116. Roman merchants visit Lo-yang, Honan, on the Hwang-ho River as emissaries of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Han Period). Other Roman traders are reported in 226, 284. |
ca. 118-ca. 128. Rome, Pantheon. | ||
Cylinder-shaped space (dia. 144 feet); semi-circular dome rising from masonry shell of great thickness. The shape expresses the volumetric simplicity of the Roman concept of spatial corporeality with great eloquence. |
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120. Emperor Hadrian visits York. | 113. Rome, Trajan's forum and basilica dedicated. Roman basilica with apse, counterapse; large galleried court attached to one long side (I.291). |
105. Invention of papermaking by Ts'ai Lun, China. Papermaking was to reach Europe 1100 years later, to doom parchment, manuscript, and scribe as prime agents in the scheme of western education, learning, and literature. Papermaking technology was to stimulate the invention of mechanical replication of identical images in alphabetical writing,-the thing we call PRINTING. E.B. |
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One of the three great fortresses of Rome in Britain, the others, Chester and Caerleon. |
Enough of the magnificent work of the forum was left when Charlemagne first visited Rome so that it may have exerted some influence on the Carolingian infatuation with double-apsed basilicas (Cologne, Fulda, Plan of St. Gall). |
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123. Hadrian's Wall built (from Solway to the mouth of the Tyne). |
164. Galen (ca. 130-ca. 200), widely travelled Greek physician, founder of experimental physiology, and after Hippocrates the most distinguished physician of Antiquity, wrote some 500 medical treatises. In this year he settled in Rome and served in the army under Marcus Aurelius. |
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ca. 180. Mousmieh, Syria. Praetorium (or temple?). | |||
Roman secular antecedent to layout of cross-in-square church; barrel-vaulted arms, domed crossing. |
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3RD CENTURY | 3RD CENTURY | 3RD CENTURY | 200 |
205-208. Rome. Forma Urbis Romae. | |||
211. Severus dies at York. | Monumental lapidary inscribed delineation of plans of public buildings of imperial Rome at the scales of 1:240 and 1:245 (I figs. 46-47, 50-51). |
203-ca. 254. Origen produces about 6,000 works in these years: letters, textual criticism, exegesis, apologetics, dogmatical and practical theology. A theologian of prodigious erudition, probably the most prolific writer of the ancient church, he was trained in and eventually head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, where Christians were instructed in both Greek sciences and Scripture. |
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ca. 250 Establishment in Rome of a consensus of priests, deacons, and laymen to decide matters of faith. |
216. Lepcis Magna, Tripolitania. Basilica of Septimius Severus dedicated. |
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250, 258. Germanic tribes invade Gaul. | Double-apsed basilica; gallery-surmounted aisles; large galleried court attached to one long side. |
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276. Franks and Alamanni devastate Gaul. | * | ||
284-305. Reign of Diocletian under whom the most vicious persecution of Christians takes place. |
ca. 240. Dura Europos, on the Euphrates River. Remains of house-church typical for the period. |
UNCIAL | |
293-331. Reorganization of the empire by Diocletian (245-313). |
The uncial hand is a majuscule evolved at an early period by the Greeks (possibly about the 4th century B.C.) as an informal alternative to the monumental lapidary script. In Latin, the uncial appears about the 3rd or 4th century A.D., and continued in use for many centuries. Latin uncials,[2] like the early Greek uncials, were a search for a script more rapidly executed than the squarish majuscule. E.B. |
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He makes Trier capital of both Belgica Prima and the entire "diocese" of Gaul. |
250-350. Bärhorst, Germany. Site of Migration Period village of aisled timber houses destroyed by fire. |
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Constantine the Great, generally residing there from 306-331, enriches the city with great works of architecture. Magnificent imperial villas such as Konz (I fig. 241.A-B) rise on the banks of the Moselle. |
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end, 3rd century. Adherents of the faith number an estimated 2 million people. |
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Spreading from Spain to Persia and India, Christianity has become, particularly in the east, numerically the strongest religious community. |
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4TH CENTURY | 4TH CENTURY | 4TH CENTURY | 300 |
early 4th century. Rome, pavillion in Licinian Gardens (so-called Temple of Minerva Medica). |
SEMI-UNCIAL | ||
Domed decagon with billowing niches. | By the 5th century the semi-uncial evolved in response to need for an even more rapidly executed script of books and for utilitarian and commercial practice, and lasted till about the 9th century. The essential characteristic of uncial and semi-uncial is roundness of hand, the uncial stressing the majuscule but allowing the miniscule, while the semi-uncial stressed the minuscule but accepting the majuscule; uncials were slower of execution than semi-uncials (see remarks on speed page 215, column 3). Each type in its fully developed expression is a hand of great beauty. The Irish-Anglo half-uncial is one of the most original scripts, perhaps the most original, in the history of Roman writing. E.B. |
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Used with increasing frequency from the 1st century onward in imperial villas and garden palaces, this building type may have influenced the layout of the Golden Octagon in Antioch (327-341) and the church of San Lorenzo at Milan (ca. 370). |
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305. Diocletian retires to Spoleto. | 300-350. Sites in Nitrian and Celian deserts of Egypt: caves, abandoned tombs and huts of sundried brick inhabited by solitary hermits and hermits living in groups. |
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306. Constantine proclaimed Augustus by his army at York. |
300-350. Abu Mak'r, Wadi 'Natrun, Egypt, laura of St. Maccarius. |
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Rare but archaeologically well-attested example of group-eremitic monastery with mud huts scattered loosely around unenclosed site. |
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307-312. Rome. Basilica of Maxentius. | * | ||
310-330. St. Anthony, St. Macarius, and St. Ammun establish eremitic and group-eremitic settlements in the Nitrian and Celian deserts of Egypt. |
Nave covered by 3 monumental groin vaults; aisles transversely by barrel vaults; east porch; shallow apse at west. |
320-347. Rule of St. Pachomius. | |
311. Emperor Galerius on his deathbed grants toleration to Christians. |
308-316. Barbegal (Arles), France, site of 16-wheel Roman flour mill, believed the principal source of flour for the Roman army stationed in Narbonne. Archaeological evidence exists for a similar mill at Prety (Pistriacum) near Tournus, Burgundy, to serve the army of Northern Gaul. |
The Egyptian founder of coenobitic monachism postulated communal living based on discipline and uniformity in prayer, eating, work, and clothing. |
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313. Edict of Milan establishes freedom of religion. | 324. History of the Christian Church, by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea. The most important ecclesiastical history of ancient times. |
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Emperors Constantine and Licinius thus make Christianity a legal religion. |
313-320. Rome, church of St. John Lateran. | On the council of Nicea (325) Eusebius first sided with the moderates but in the end voted to repudiate Arianism. |
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Five-aisled timber roofed basilica with low transept and semicircular apse. Built on imperial grounds at the periphery but still within the walls of Rome. |
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As the political, religious, and administrative center of Rome the Lateran became the seat of the bishop of Rome, and retained this function throughout the Middle Ages. |
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314. Tyre, Palestine (Lebanon), aisled basilica (described by Eusebius). |
Note I | ||
Writing as Book | |||
With atrium; apse flanked by side chambers (I fig. 104). |
In the ancient world the common form of the book was the roll, made at different periods from the inner bark of certain trees, tanned skins as leather, or linen, with papyrus eventually to become the principal material of writing and scribe. The important discovery of a process for converting skins to PARCHMENT created a writing material of spectacular significance, and marks the start of the demise of roll and papyrus. |
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306(?)-330(?). Trier, Germany, Aula Regia. | |||
Monumental imperial audience hall presumably built by Constantine. Semicircular apse for emperor's throne; timber roof. Narthex and galleried courts on each long side. |
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318 or 319. Excommunication of Arius at Alexandria. | |||
He is cast out by the College of Presbyters for his views that Christ is not truly divine but a creature called into existence ex nihilo who at one time did not exist. |
Even today excellently preserved, the hall must have been known to every Carolingian and doubtless to the builder of Charlemagne's audience hall at Aachen. |
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320. Hilarion of Gaza establishes himself as a hermit in the desert of Majum; monachism spreads into Syria and Palestine. |
319/322-377. Rome, Old St. Peter's. | By the second century B.C., Pergamum in Asia Minor was the chief trading center for the material. With rapid improvements, parchment (and vellum, see below, note: parchment, vellum) was to prevail for early Christian writings. |
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Five-aisled timber-roofed basilica; tall continuous transept; semicircular apse; large atrium on entrance side. |
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320-327. St. Pachomius founds nine coenobitic monasteries for men and two for women in the Egyptian Thebaid. |
Only church of its kind besides St. Paul's Outside the Walls, and a type not in general use until revived in the Carolingian period. |
Parchment was in common use by the Romans of the late 1st century A.D., replacing CERAE, thin wood panels with a film of black wax used for writing with a stylus. Cerae, not suitable for literary writing but widely used for current business memorandums, when hinged by rings or thongs (booklike) were called caudex or codex, literally a stock or stack of wood, from their appearance stacked on a shelf. In replacing cerae, several sheets (frequently 4) of parchment folded in half were nested to form gatherings or quires, then were stitched together in the form of a book as we still know it today. These gatherings of parchment leaves corresponded to sets of hinged cerae and became likewise known as "codex". |
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321. Constantine grants grudging toleration to the Donatist movement of North Africa; the movement gains upper hand in North Africa. |
320-325. Foundation of first large chain of coenobitic monasteries by St. Pachomius (none survives). |
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323. Reaffirmation of Edict of Milan. | Twenty to forty monks were accommodated in separate houses, segregated according to skills. Within an enclosure wall were also; a modest church, porter's house, 2 guesthouses, refectory, kitchen, and an annex for those serving in the kitchen. |
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325 | 325. Council of Nicea. | ||
Constantine the Great recognizes Christianity as the leading state religion. Arianism is condemned as heresy. The council was the first attempt to assemble the entire episcopate of the empire, and was precedent for all subsequent ecumenical synods. |
324. Orléansville, North Africa, aisled basilica. | ||
No transept; timber roof, rectangular east end with inner apse; counterapse added in the west in the 5th century. |
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328. Constantine the Great founds Constantinople through enlargement of the old town of Byzantium. |
after 325. Trier, Germany, double cathedral. | Parchment had many advantages over papyrus: it was useable on both sides and also washable or erasable on both sides (papyrus for the market was never opisthograph), and so facilitated easy reference that jurists quickly adopted the parchment codex. Consequently the term CODEX became associated with law and legal writings and soon applied to certain other literary writings and mss of singular importance. |
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Two parallel basilicas preceded by atria, terminating in the east in rectangular sanctuaries. |
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330. Constantine the Great transfers the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople, owing to his displeasure with the hostile Roman senate. |
327-341. Antioch, Golden Octagon, adjoining the Imperial Palace on the Orontes. |
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Thereafter no Roman emperor resided permanently in Rome, yet it retained the title caput mundi and after the collapse of the Western empire continued to use this title in a religious sense. |
Double shell with octagonal center space perhaps surmounted by timber-built dome, and surrounded by ambulatory and galleries. |
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329-331. Birth of St. Basil the Great. | It may have anticipated by 200 years the design of SS. Sergios and Bacchos at Constantinople, and San Vitale at Ravenna. |
By or during the 4th century, the codex superseded the roll as book form at a time when parchment was taking predominance over papyrus. Papyrus, so long almost exclusively the material of writing in roll form, adapted to gatherings of leaves into codex in Europe (and Egypt) to become almost obsolete by the 6th and 7th centuries. Parchment rose to preeminence as the material of writing (see Note II, below column 3, page 207) and of bookmaking until parchment became replaced by paper (see Note III, below column 3, page 207), a word derived from the Latin papyrus. E.B. |
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339. St. Athanasius introduces anchoritic monachism in Italy, making it known worldwide through his Life of St. Anthony. |
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340. Eustathius of Sebaste (300-377), settling as a hermit in his homeland Cappadocia, thus introduces Egyptian monachism in Asia Minor. |
ca. 333. Bethlehem, Palestine, church of the Nativity. | ||
341. Ulfila (311-383) is elected bishop, probably at the Synod of Antioch. |
Five-aisled timber-roofed basilica; preceded by atrium; attached in the east to an octogon enshrining the site of Christ's birth. |
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He spends most of his life among the Goths north of the Danube and dies in Constantinople. |
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347. Donatus, with other leaders of the Donatist church, is exiled to Gaul where he dies in 355. |
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350 | 351. Arian controversy is reopened; Arianism enjoys a brief revival (357). |
ca. 346-ca. 356. Philocalia, compiled by St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nazianzus; a famous anthology of the works of Origen. |
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355-364. Further German invasions of Gaul. | before 355. Milan, Italy, cathedral (later St. Tecla). |
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356. Pagan temples are officially closed and sacrifice is prohibited. |
Of aristocratic family that gave many distinguished supporters to the church, Basil was educated in Constantinople and Athens with Gregory of Nazianzus. Together they founded the monastery of Annesi (Pontos). In 370 Basil succeeded Eusebius as bishop of Caesaraea. Thereafter much of his writing was against Arianism. |
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359. St. Basil the Great studies monastic life in Egypt; with St. Gregory of Nazianzus he founds a monastery at Annisi (Pontus). |
Five-aisled basilica with inner transept created by cross partitions in the aisles separating the last five bays from the rest of the church; semicircular apse; timber roof. |
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361. Followers of Donatus return in triumph to North Africa. |
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The Donatist church, although vigorously opposed by St. Augustine and suppressed by severe laws denying its adherents civil and ecclesiastical rights (405, 412, 414), manages to survive until the extinction of Christianity in Africa in the early Middle Ages. |
360. Asketikon, by St. Basil the Great. | ||
Basil writes two rules for monks, propounding hard labor, charity, and a common life as being superior to prevailing eremitical asceticism. Thus he becomes the father of coenobitic life in the Eastern church. |
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361. Julian the Apostate reinstates paganism. | |||
In this same year he dies after being wounded in battle. | |||
364. St. Martin founds the first monastery of Roman Gaul at Ligugé near Poitiers. |
ca. 370. Milan, church of San Lorenzo. | ||
364. Birth of St. Augustine at Tagaste, Numidia, in North Africa. |
Dome-surmounted tetraconch with billowing niches opening into gallery-surmounted aisles. |
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Descendant of a group of double-shell constructions found in imperial garden palaces from the 2nd century onward. |
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ca. 370. Sites on the Ruwer (tributary of the Moselle): Ausonius reports water-driven corn mills and masonry saws used for cutting marble. |
364. Contra Arianos vel Auxentium mediolanensem liber, and Contra Constantium Augustum liber, by St. Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 300-367). |
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370-400. Cologne, Germany, church of St. Gereon. | In these treatises Hilary accused Auxentius, bishop of Milan, of heterodoxy. |
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371. Death of Hilarion of Gaza. | Ovoid space surrounded by fenestrated semicircular niches; large semi-circular apse; narthex with lateral apse on entrance side. |
Hilary is regarded by some as the first Christian writer of Latin hymns, and with this type of composition may have influenced Sts. Ambrose and Augustine. |
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373. Milan is established as the See of St. Ambrose. Through Ambrose it becomes known for some decades as the spiritual center of the West, as well as one of the greatest architectural centers of the world (Krautheimer). |
373-379. Life of St. Paul of Thebes, by St. Jerome (ca. 340-420). |
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374. St. Ambrose is baptised and installed as bishop of Milan. He gives his money to the poor and his land to the church. |
In these years a hermit in the Syrian desert, Jerome begins to study Hebrew, and militates against Arianism. |
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378. Battle of Adrianople. | 378. Antioch Kaoussié, church of St. Babylas. | 375 | |
Ostro- and Visigoths onite to defeat the emperor Valens, and are subsequently settled as federati in Pannonia. |
Four undivided arms attached to central martyrium. | ||
379. Death of St. Basil the Great. | 379. Milan, Italy, Basilica Ambrosiana. | 379. Jerome translates into Latin the Chronicon of Eusebius, and 37 Homilies of Origen. |
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380. Theodosius the Great formally reinstates Orthodox Christianity. |
Aisled basilica without transept; semicircular apse; timber roof. |
Ordained presbyter, he studied Greek in Constantinople under Gregory of Nazianzus. Pioneer in patrology and biblical archaeology, Jerome gained sainthood in recognition of services rendered rather than for eminent sanctity. |
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As defined at the Council of Nicea, it becomes the official state religion. Pagan worship is banned; incentive to restricted toleration. |
ca. 380. Trier, Germany, north basilica. | ||
Enlarged by installation of galleries over nave aisles; in the east in addition a monumental cross-in-square structure was added (I fig. 151.Y). |
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381. Synod of Aquileia (presided over by St. Ambrose) leads to deposition of Arian leaders Palladius and Secundianus. |
This bold and for its period unusual grouping of masses may have influenced Carolingian Latin-cross churches, but lacks the modular control of the latter. |
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381. Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople. | ca. 380. Rome, church of San Clemente. | 381-383. Jerome revises the "Old Latin" translation of the Bible. |
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Arianism is again condemned; the Nicean creed is approved. |
Aisled basilica without transept. | He was called to Rome by Pope Damasus to perform this task, and there taught Hebrew and Scripture to wealthy Roman women. |
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after 384. St. Augustine comes under influence of St. Ambrose who baptises him in 387. |
382 and later. Milan, church of the Holy Apostles. Unaisled nave 200 Roman feet long, and unaisled transept of nearly equal length intersect to form a huge cross. |
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384. St. Jerome travels in the Near East to avoid attacks in Rome. |
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In Antioch he joins Paula and a band of Roman wardens; together they visit Nitrian desert convents. Eventually settling in Bethlehem, Paula builds three convents, one monastery, the latter headed by Jerome. |
385. Rome, St. Paul's Outside the Walls. | ||
Five-aisled timber-roofed basilica; continuous transept; erected over tomb of St. Paul (I fig. 81). |
385. Ambrose composes the 4-line stanza (the "ambrosian" stanza) in a battle hymn for the besieged Christians of Milan. |
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386-387. St. Jerome spreads the fame of coenobitic monachism through his translation into Latin of the Rule of St. Pachomius. |
4th century. Ambrosian Iliad. | ||
390. Birth of St. Simon Stylites, first and most famous of the Syrian pillar-hermits. |
Earliest extant example of a Greek illuminated manuscript and presumably the earliest extant illustrated book. |
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395. Theodosius the Great dies in Milan. | It contains 58 pictures in Classical style (many framed) but of lesser quality than the best illuminations of the Vatican Vergil. |
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The Great Empire is divided into East, ruled by Rufinus, and West, ruled by Stilicho. |
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395. Pretorian prefecture transferred from Trier to Arles; the Roman secular aristocracy gradually withdraw to the south of France. |
end, 4th century. Tebessa, North Africa. | 395(?). St. Augustine composes the "augustinian" hymn form to fight the Donatists with their own method of "psalming." |
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Aisled basilica with galleries; apse framed by side chambers; monks' cells attached to flanks of church. |
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396. St. Augustine is consecrated bishop of Hippo, in Proconsular Africa. |
A rare and not normative expression of the Greco-Roman literary tradition, this form and those developed by Hilary and Ambrose contributed greatly to formation of Carolingian modular verse. |
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From this point onward St. Augustine is involved in all the great controversies of his time, combatting Donatism, Pelagianism, and refuting Manichaeism (to which he had adhered in his youth). |
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397. St. Ninian founds a church at Whithorn (Casa Candida) in Scotland and dedicates it to St. Martin of Tours. |
399-410. De Trinitate, by Augustine. | ||
397. Death of St. Martin. | 4th-5th century. The "Vatican Vergil"; books 3-4 of the Georgics; books 1-9 of the Aeneid. |
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ca. 400[?] Arianism becomes the creed of the Visigoths, finding a foothold in Western Empire after the capture of Rome in 410. |
ca. 400. Epidaurus, Greece. | ||
Five-aisled basilica with pseudo transept. | Illustrations in the best Roman illusionistic style framed by bands of 3 colors, either entire folios or in-text illustrations; text written in capitalis rustica. |
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400 | 5TH CENTURY | 5TH CENTURY | 5TH CENTURY |
400-600. Christianity survives in the mountain fastnesses of Wales in the period of Roman retreat. |
5th century. Mainz, Germany, St. Alban's church. Box church without apse. |
beginning, 5th century. Sulpicius Severus (ca. 363- ca. 425) uses the term "Europe" to designate the Christian West, as distinguished from Christian Egypt and Asia. |
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401. Alaric, king of the Visigoths, invades Italy and is repelled by Stilicho in 402. |
5th century. Gerasa (Jerash), Palestine. | 5th century(?), Codex Romanus, illustrated with scenes from Bucolics, Georgics, and Aeneid of Vergil; considerably less refined than the Vatican Vergil and more manneristic in style. Exact date controversial. |
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Two Early Christian sanctuaries on axis; cathedral ca. 400, St. Theodore's church 494-496 (I fig. 243). |
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406-407. Vandals and Suevi invade Gaul. | |||
408. Saxons invade Britain; the last imperial troops withdraw. |
5th century. "Vergilius Augusteus" (Georgics, books 1 and 3, fragments). |
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409. Vandals and Suevi control Spain. | Written in an accomplished capitalis rustica, the ms displays the earliest known initials and is therefore of prime importance in the genesis of medieval initial decoration; in considerably more elaborate forms it becomes a principal trait of Hiberno Saxon and Carolingian book illumination. |
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410. Alaric reappears in Italy and proclaims Attalus emperor (404-410). |
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410. Sackage of Rome by the Visigoth Alaric. | |||
A shattering blow was thus dealt to Roman secular power; the eventual result was to strengthen the position of the church. |
ca. 400-ca. 450. Abu Mina, Egypt. | 404. Rule of St. Pachomius, translated by St. Jerome into Latin from fragmentary sources in Greek and Coptic. |
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Aisled basilica with aisled transept, timber roof. | |||
Until the death of emperor Leo I the pope is the de facto ruler of Rome, a title retained de iure by the emperor until the coronation of Charlemagne in 800. |
410. De Civitate Dei, by St. Augustine. | ||
410. St. Honoratus founds the monastery of Lerins modeled on group eremitic settlements of Egypt. |
In this epochal book written after the fall of Rome, Augustine sets forth a new philosophy of history that exerted profound influence on medieval theology and thought. |
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414. Ataulf succeeds Alaric as king of the Visigoths. | 410-454. Confessiones, by St. Augustine. | ||
He marries Galla Placidia, daughter of Theodosius the Great; he is assassinated in 415. |
Autobiographical description of the struggle of Augustine's soul as he progresses from agnosticism to orthodox Christianity. |
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415. St. John Cassianus, a recluse trained in Palestine and Egypt, founds the abbey of St. Victor in Marseilles. |
422-432. Rome, church of Santa Sabina. | ||
Timber-roofed basilica; apse directly attached to nave; no transept. |
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418. Honorius yields Aquitania to the Arian Visigoths of Spain who remain masters of Toulouse until 507. |
A high-water mark of Roman church building typifying in plan and proportions the new Roman standard basilica of the 5th century. |
419-426. De Institutis Monachorum, by Johannes Cassianus. |
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425 | 424-434. Ravenna, Italy, church of San Giovanni Evangelista. |
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428. Vandals take Seville and Carthagena. | Aisled basilica without transept; timber roof. | In 12 books, a description of monastic customs with which the author was familiar as a monk in Bethlehem, and an anchorite in the Egyptian deserts, for 10 years. |
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429. Vandals cross Strait of Gibraltar, conquer North Africa, and become a leading maritime power in the Mediterranean. |
ca. 425. Ravenna, mausoleum of Galla Placidia. | ||
Cruciform, barrel-vaulted mausoleum with crossing tower. |
Although he considers eremitic life to be a heroic ideal, Cassianus provided guidance in practice for establishment of coenobitic monasteries. |
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430. St. Augustine (born 354) dies during siege of Hippo by Vandals. |
Galla Placidia married the Visigothic king Ataulf (ca. 413) and went with him to Spain. The design of her mausoleum may have influenced the layout of Visigothic 7th century churches and sepulchral chapels such as Santa Comba de Bande, Spain, (I. 193) and San Fructuoso de Montelios, Portugal. |
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432. St. Patrick a Romanized Briton (probably trained at Lerins-oriented Auxerre) introduces Egyptian-style eremitism in Ireland, and founds many monasteries and bishoprics. He brings also the Latin language which is soon turned to brilliant scholarly ends in sacred and profane writing. |
430-440(?). Hermopolis (Ashmunein), Egypt. | ||
Aisled cathedral church; triconch transept. | |||
432-440. Rome, church of Santa Maria Maggiore. | |||
Aisled basilica without transept; timber roof (I fig. 174). |
ca. 434-533. Life of Pather Romanus. | ||
433. Burgundians establish themselves on the upper Rhône between Alps and the Jura Mountains. |
ca. 440. Deir-el-Abiad (White Monastery), Egypt. | This vita includes the first mention of a water-powered monastic mill. |
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Aisled basilica with tri-lobed presbytery. | |||
440-461. Reign of Pope Leo the Great. | NOTE II | ||
The position of the bishop of Rome begins to develop into the all-embracing office of pope. |
444. Armagh, Ireland, monastery founded by St. Patrick. |
Writing: Parchmentand Vellum parchment is made from the split skin of (usually) sheep. The flesh side is converted to parchment, the wool or hair side is converted by tanning and hair removal to leather (of good quality, "top grain"). |
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441-450. Angles and Saxons cross the English Channel. |
Circular enclosure (dia. 140 feet) contains "Great House" (dia. 27 feet), "Kitchen" (dia. 17 feet), and "arbegal" (dia. 7 feet). |
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They complete the conquest of southeast England. Christian Britons withdraw to the west, some emigrating to Ireland and French Brittany (Armorica). |
ca. 450. Romainmôtier (Kanton Waad), Switzerland, abbey church. |
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452. Attila, king of the Huns, invades and ravages Gaul. |
Box church; semicircular and square lateral side chambers at end of nave. |
VELLUM, as the name indicates, is strictly the skin of a calf, or may be of other animals such as goat and lamb. Unlike parchment, the entire skin, unsplit, is treated by long exposure in lime, hair removed, scraped, then rubbed smooth to a fine surface by abrasive stones such as pumice. Parchment, split and separated from the hair side, is free on both faces from any traces of hide grain or hair marks. The terms parchment and vellum, unfortunately, are commonly used interchangeably without respect to any technical difference of skin composition. Sometimes the finer grades of manufacture or of still-born or newly born animals are called vellum, or occasionally uterine vellum. Such material is quite thin and permits books with hundreds of pages to be formed without excessive or abnormal bulking. |
450 |
Defeated at Chalons by a Romano-Gothic army, he returns to his base in Pannonia. |
ca. 450. Ephesus, Asia Minor, first church of St. John. |
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452. Attila invades and ransacks Italy, again returns to Pannonia; dies in 453. |
Largest Early Christian church of Latin cross plan, formed by aggregation of four basilicas built separately in successive stages against the square martyrion of St. John (I fig. 142). |
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450-460(?). Corinch-Lechaion, Greece, church of Leonidas. |
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453. Ripuarian Franks cross the Rhine and advance as far as Trier. |
Aisled basilica with semicircular apse, tripartite transept; timber roof (I fig. 161). |
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455. Genseric, king of the Vandals, invades Italy, captures Rome, and empties it of its movable wealth. |
Even in cuins it is one of the most impressive sights of Early Christian Europe, reaching, after the addition (518-527) on its entrance side of a semi-circular atrium and large rectangular forecourt, the remarkable length of over 610 Byzantine feet. |
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455. Capture of Trier by the Franks. | |||
After thrice previously sacking the city, the Franks take it into permanent possession. |
before 461. Ireland, "four-cornered oratories" of St. Patrick. |
VELLUM, having a hair side and flesh side, has a verso and recto, a somewhat yellowish hair side and a whitish flesh side. In the assembly of leaves into gatherings that comprise a codex, leaves were positioned so that hair side faced hair side, flesh side faced flesh side. In this way facing pages of a ms had identical color, surface finish, and appearance of writing (since pen behavior and ink response were not always identical on opposite sides of the same skin). |
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ca. 460. Alamanni settle in Alsatia. | Built of timber if available, or of packed earth; average size 10 × 15 feet. |
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461. Theodoric sent as hostage to Constantinople. | 465. Gerasa (Jerash), Palestine, church of Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs. |
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461. Death of St. Patrick. | |||
463-471. Burgundians occupy territory between the Durance and the plateau of Langres. |
Aisled cross-in-square church; nave, aisles of equal width; timber roof (I fig. 149.A-B). |
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468-476. Visigoths under Euric settle in Gaul; Burgundians establish themselves in Lugdunesis Prima. |
468-483. Rome, San Stefano Rotondo, martyrium of St. Stephen, perhaps sheltering the relics of the saint. |
Paper which succeeded parchment and vellum as a material for conveyance of alphabetic writing by mechanical means was destined to exercise influence in the affairs of all society and all its institutions at all levels, that continues to the present. That a simple tangible substance should be of fragility infinitesimal relative to the depth and range of power wielded by it, too, borders on bewilderment. E.B. |
475 |
A colossal cylinder of space, with wide ambulatory intersected with transeptal roofs in the form of a cross; timber roofed. |
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ca. 470. Qualat-Siman, Syria, shrine of St. Simon Stylites. |
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476. End of the Roman Empire of the West. | Four basilicas attached to octagonal martyrium enshrining the pillar of the saint. |
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Romulus Augustulus is dethroned. Odoacar, chief of the Herulii, becomes king of Italy, recognizes the supremacy of the East Roman emperor, and receives the rank of "patrician." |
480-529. Qalb Lauzeh, R'safa, Sergiopolis (basilicas A, B.), Tourmanin, Ruwêha, Syria. |
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* | |||
ca. 480. Birth of St. Benedict of Nursia (now Norcia, province of Perugia). |
Group of aisled basilicas without transept apse framed by side chambers; entrances in both facade and flank; timber roofed. |
NOTE III | |
481. Odoacar seizes Dalmatia. | 485. Southern Syria, monastery of Umm-is-Surab. Basilica with gallery-surmounted aisles; cimber roof; galleried court on northern flank surrounded by monks' buildings; the arrangement anticipates the layout of the classical Carolingian monastery (I fig. 194.A-B). |
Writing: Paper Technology | |
481-511. Reign of Clovis, pagan king of the Franks. |
After about 750, the Moslems in Syria are making paper which by the 9th century is of such fine quality that it is used for literary mss. Westward conquest to Egypt, then across North Africa, finds the Moors making paper in Spain by 1150, and from there, paper moves into France and western Europe. Meanwhile, Moslem conquests in Asia Minor bring contact with Byzantium and Greece, where paper-making does not find extensive use until the 13th century. In Italy in 1276 the manufacture of paper appears in mills at Fabriano, Ancona, and soon afterward mills appear in many other districts and in other countries. |
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486. Battle of Soissons. | 490. Ravenna, Italy, church of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo. |
concluded on page 208, column 3 | |
Clovis defeats Syagrius, last of the independent Roman governors of Gaul. Syagtius is executed in 487. |
Timber-roofed aisled basilica without transept. | ||
488. The East Roman emperor Zeno gives Italy to Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. |
late 5th century. Salonica, Greece, church of St. Demetrius. |
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Theodoric slays Odoacar with his own hand (493) and rules Italy until 526. |
Latin-cross church; five aisled and galleried in the nave; single aisle surrounding transept and choir; timber roof. |
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493. Clovis marries Clothilde, a Christian. | end 5th century. Bethlehem, Palestine, new church of the Nativity. |
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494. Clovis extends his domain south of the Loire. | Latin-cross church; five-aisled basilica; nave and transept arms terminating in apses; timber roof (I fig. 143). |
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The church is perplexing for its numerous incipient medievalisms; nave and transepts of same width and twice that of each aisle; fore choir repeats dimensions of crossing square. |
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5th century. Id-Dêr, southern Syria, monastery. Aisled basilica; apse flanked by side chambers; galleried court attached to entrance side with monks' dwellings ranged around it; timber roof (I fig. 194.A-B). |
concluded from page 207 | ||
Antecedent of the layout of Fulda, Cologne, and Kornelismünster. | With the presence of a papermaking technology the problem, long a dream of the visionary, of making a machine for reproduction of alphabetic writing in an edition of identical copies in large numbers from a basic ms could fittingly take possession of the mind of a man,—Gutenburg, born ca. 1398, and thereby open a new epoch in the West. While the Moors were making paper in Spain, nearly halfway around the world in China during the Sung Dynasty (960-1126), "the highest development of printing took place with a perfection of technical excellence never surpassed. All forms of literature were printed and much of this fine work remains in public and in private collections" (Dard Hunter, PAPERMAKING, Knopf, New York, 1943). Men make technology, technology remakes men. Remade men remake technology,—ad infinitum. |
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5th-6th century. Tomarza, Sivri Hissar, Halvadere, Capadocia. |
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Small cruciform churches; barrel vaulted nave and transept; domed crossing (I fig. 148.A-X). |
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5th-6th century. Tintagel Head, Cornwall, England. | |||
Early Celtic monastery with church and scattered groups of buildings, all of rectangular plan. |
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ca. 496. Clovis converts to Christianity urged by his wife and Remigius, bishop of Reims. |
5th-6th century. Valais, Switzerland, church of St. Maurice D'Agaune. |
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Thus he acquires church support for all further conquests. |
Aisled basilica; closed lateral porch; side chambers flanking semicircular apse. |
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5th-6th century. St. Blaise (Bouches-du-Rhone), France. |
E.B. | ||
Box church with apse and lateral porch. | * | ||
5th or 6th century. Tarragona, Spain, church of San Fructuosus. |
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Aisled basilica; lateral side chambers flank semicircular apse. |
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500 | 6TH CENTURY | 6TH CENTURY | 6TH CENTURY |
500. Clovis defeats the Burgundians near Dijon. | 6th century. Thasos, Macedonia. | ca. 500. On the Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies, by Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. |
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Cruciform church; aisles surrounding nave, transept, and presbytery (I figs. 94, 144-45). |
A transferrence to Christian thought of neoplatonic metaphysical speculations, these famous treatises proclaim that life streams from an ultimate source through all mediating orders of celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies to man, God being at once transcendental and universally immanent. |
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6th century. Salona, Dalmatia. | |||
Cruciform church of the Thasos type (I fig. 146). |
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505-531. The Visigoths establish themselves in Spain. |
6th century. Nikopolis, Greece, basilica A. | ||
Aisled basilica with tripartite transept. | |||
mid 6th century. Mount Sinai, Egypt, monastery of St. Catherine, built by Emperor Justinian I, the Great. |
The theory exerted profound influence on medieval metaphysical thought and became an integral part of the metaphysical schemes of William of Auvergne (fig. 187, I.231) and Thomas Aquinas. |
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Aisled basilica with narthex; two closed lateral porches; lateral chambers flanking semicircular apse. |
early 6th century. The "Vienna Genesis." | ||
Thirteen original wooden roof trusses of the basilica nave exist intact, three of which carry invocation inscriptions on behalf of Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora and architect Stephanos, indicating the church was commissioned between 548 and 565 (rare circumstance). |
One of the finest Early Christian manuscripts, illustrated probably in Constantinople with biblical scenes of remarkable freshness. |
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Painted on purple ground in the best illusionistic style of the East; text added in silver uncials and supplying continuous narrative to explain the illustrations. |
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6th century. Der Tourmanin, Syria. | early 6th century. Codex Rossanensis. | ||
Aisled, timber-roofed church with narthex and two facade towers. |
Illuminated Gospel; in style and execution similar to the Vienna Genesis; but more hieratic and in certain illuminations perhaps reflecting the style of wall-painting. |
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The latter motif may have exerted strong influence on the development of the medieval two tower facade. |
The ms includes a portrait figure of St. Mark, earliest extant prototype for evangelist portraits so popular in Carolingian and later medieval books. |
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ca. 500. Cilicia, Asia Minor, church of Alahan Kilise. |
6th century. Liber patrum, by Gregory of Tours. | ||
Barrel-vaulted, aisled, bay divided; internal apses in aisles and large internal main apse with side chambers. |
In a passage referring to the Visigothic ruler Alaric (485-507) Gregory draws attention to the construction of a water-powered monastic mill and observes their advantage: |
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More than twice the size of the others, the center bay is surmounted by a tower which may have influenced the development of crossing towers in certain Carolingian churches. |
"The work that formerly had to be done by many monks on hand-operated mills (molam manu vertentes) could now be done by a single brother." |
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507. Clovis defeats the Visigoths at Vouillé. | ca. 500. Maastricht, Belgium, Merovingian cathedral. | 6th century. Codex Sinopensis. | |
511-558. Reign of Childebert I, king of the Franks. | Rectangular box church, internally divided into three aisles of equal height. |
Of the same school as the Codex Rossanensis, but less finished in style. |
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520. St. Benedict founds Montecassino, mother settlement of all Benedictine monasteries. |
508-533. Fulgentius of Ruspe (468-533) battles the Vandal Arians with literary compositions used by St. Ambrose against the imperial army, and by St. Augustine against the Donatists; this confrontation may have helped transmit these forms through Visigothic Spain to Ireland. |
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523-524. Childebert I conquers Burgundy. | ca. 525. Constantinople, church of SS Sergios and Bacchos. |
525 | |
524. Theodoric, an Arian, orders execution of Boethius for treason. |
Domed octagon with billowing niches (alternating, square and semicircular) surrounded by aisles and galleries; within a square. |
512. The "Vienna Dioscurides." | |
531-534. Childebert I conquers Thuringia and wrests Aquitania from the Visigoths. |
Built in elaboration of structural principles first displayed in Constantine's Golden Octagon (327341). |
A superb copy made for Julia Anicia, wife of the consul Aerobindus, of the 1st century treatise De materia medica (see ca. 50, above). |
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532-537. Constantinople, church of Santa Sophia. | The ms displays many exquisitely colored drawings of medicinal plants, and one of the earliest surviving examples of the portrait of an author (Dioscurides seated in a wicker chair, writing on a scroll)-prototype for the Christian Evangelist portraits. It became a chief source for herbalists of future ages and nations. |
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535. Goths besiege Rome. | A gigantic low curved dome over a monumental central square; attached to it on the east and west two huge domed conches with billowing niches, all within a nearly square space with vaulted ambulatories and galleries; one of the most daring structures of all ages. |
after 529. Sancti Benedicti Regula Monachorum, by St. Benedict of Nursia. (ca. 480-ca. 543). |
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536-537. Franks establish themselves in Provence. | |||
539. Franks establish themselves in Italy. | Benedict sets forth the tenets of a new form of coenbitic monachism, establishing a common mode of life for all, in which all members of the community were bound in a daily round of duties consisting of common prayer, manual labor, and reading. |
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540. Byzantines recapture Ravenna. | |||
ca. 540. Birth of St. Gregory the Great. First Pope of that name and last of the great fathers of the Latin Church. |
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About 573 prefect of the City of Rome. In 579 resident ambassador at the court of Constantinople, 590 chosen pope by both clergy and people. During his papacy vigorously proclaims the authority of the Roman See over all other sees, even that of the patriarch of Constantinople. In Italy occupies an almost regal position, appointing governors to cities, issuing orders to generals and sending ambassadors to the Lombards negotiating peace. As a strong believer in monasticism St. Gregory protected monks from episcopal oppression. He died in 604 and was buried in the porticus of Old St. Peter's. |
ca. 532-546. Ravenna, Italy, church of San Vitale. Built along constructional principles of churches of SS Sergios and Bacchos, and Sofia, it is the most outstanding Early Byzantine church built in the Latin West (I. 202). |
Favored by the Papal See and later by the Carolingian ruling house, the movement profited by rich donations of property and land from barbarian kings and noblemen whose conquest of the former provinces of Rome had brought them unlimited territorial wealth. |
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It was well known to Carolingian visitors to Rome and a principal source of inspiration to the architect of Charlemagne's palace chapel at Aachen. |
538-594. History of the Franks, by Gregory of Tours. |
550 | |
541-542. Franks establish themselves in Spain. | ca. 550. Parenzo, Italy, cathedral. | From 573 Bishop of Tours, Gregory was biographer of the lives and miracles of numerous martyrs and church fathers. His lesser writings include a manual for determining the hours of the nocturnal offices by position of the stars. |
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546. Totila, king of the Ostrogoths, storms and takes Rome. |
Aisled basilica without transept; natthex and galleried forecourt, before it a baptistry coaxial with the church. |
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547. St. Benedict of Nursia dies in Montecassino. | |||
550. Totila retakes Rome after a brief occupation by the Byzantines. |
after 560. Bethlehem, Palestine, church of the Nativity. |
after 551. Institutiones divinarum et humanarum litterarum, by Cassiodorus Senator (ca. 480-ca. 575). |
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553. Franks and Alamanni invade North Italy. | |||
555. Cassiodorus returns from exile in Constantinople (540-554). |
Trefoil transept and chancel replaced the octagon enshrining the cradle of the Nativity within the Constantinian church of ca. 333. |
This encyclopedia of literature and the arts was written primarily for monks and ardently read and copied in monastic scriptoria. It was of pivotal importance for transmission of ancient knowledge to the Middle Ages. |
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He founds the monastery of Vivarium in his ancestral domain at the bay of Squilace. |
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560. The Suevi are converted by Martin of Braga. Byzantine armies, having wrested North Africa from the Vandals, take the Bafearics, the Mediterranean coast of Spain, and Murcia, Cordoba, and Cartagena. The Visigoths move their capital inland to Toledo. |
563. St. Columba (521-597) flees to Iona, having furtively copied a Gospel book belonging to another believer. |
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563. St. Columba (Columcille) founds Iona in the Hebrides, which soon becomes a major center of conversion for Scotland. |
565. Ephesus, Asia Minor, second church of St. John. |
His flight is associated with the famous verdict by the judge who arbitrated the dispute: "As the calf belongs to the cow, so the copy belongs to the owner of the original." |
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568. Lombards invade Italy and settle in the north, thus re-establishing Arianism in Italy. |
Latin cross plan; domed over nave, transept, and choir; barrel vaults over surrounding aisles and galleries. |
ca. 570-636. Originum sive etymologiarum libri XX, and Regula monachorum, by Isidore of Seville. |
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ca. 570. Mohammed born. | 571-586. Grado, Italy, basilica of Sant' Eufemia. Aisled basilica without transept; side chambers flanking polygonal apse. In clerestory over nave arcades, pilaster strips rise from capitals over each second column, for this period a highly unusual feature. |
Spanish encyclopedist and historian, opponent of Arianism, archbishop of Seville (609), participant in the councils of Toledo (610, 633), and Seville (619), Isidore made a monumental contribution to medieval learning through the Etymology; his Rule was widely adopted in the monastic life of Spain. |
575 |
575. Sigibert I is murdered. | |||
575 | 574-604. Life of St. Benedict, by Gregory the Great. |
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580-590. Lombards sack Montecassino. | |||
The monks of Montecassino flee to Rome. There, under tutelage of the popes, Benedictine custom is established as the Italian standard form of monachism. |
584. The Frankish king Gunthram I orders construction of a royal guest house with solarium and caminata, providing what appears to be the earliest recorded reference to a corner fireplace with chimney. |
During these years Gregory reformed liturgy and church music, and wrote numerous commentaries on contemporary religious doctrine. |
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589. Council of Toledo condemns Arianism. | |||
590-604. Pope Gregory the Great establishes the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. |
586. Rabbula Gospels, written and illuminated by the monk Rabbula. |
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Superseding even the powers of the patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory acquires unprecedented secular powers and steps boldly into the gap left by the emperors as Rome collapsed. |
594-604. Rome, Old St. Peter's, new crypt. | Earliest extant Syriac codex, related to the Rossano Gospels but less refined in style and with distinctly more Syrian traits. |
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Pope Gregory the Great raises the floor of the presbytery; beneath it he makes Peter's sepulchral monument accessible to pilgrims by a semicircular corridor crypt, first of its kind and prototypal for many to follow (I fig. 154.B). |
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597. Gregory sends St. Augustine to England. | The raised-floor presbytery is used in the Plan of St. Gall. |
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Landing at Thanet Augustine is welcomed by Saxon King Ethelbert of Kent and his Christian wife, Bertha. |
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Augustine founds the first Benedictine settlement out of Italy in England at Canterbury, the capital of Ethelbert, which to this day remains the metropolis of the Church of England. |
597. Canterbury, England, church of SS Peter and Paul. |
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6th-7th century. The heavy colter plow (probably of Asiatic origin) begins to replace the traditional Roman scratch plow (also used by the Celts). |
Box church with semicircular apse, narthex and closed lateral porches; founded by St. Augustine (I fig. 244). |
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The scratch plow, a simple vertical stick, left a wedge of undisturbed earth between furrows, thus making cross plowing a necessity (which tended to create square fields). |
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Wet and heavy alluvial soils of the North called for more powerful equipment. The colter plow, with colter, share, and mould board, tilled so effectively that the need for cross plowing was eliminated, tending to produce long, narrow fields. |
late 6th century. Echmiadzin Gospels. | ||
6th-7th century. Establishment in Western agriculture of principles of crop rotation. |
Eastern in iconography and of a distinctly Syrian linear style. |
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A three-field system allows two thirds of all arable land to be under continuous cultivation, thereby eliminating the need to search for new land to replace exhausted soil, and encouraging establishment of villages, and growth of population. |
before 597. Altus prosator, by St. Columba. | ||
In each three-field group, one was sown with winter wheat, one with barley, oats, and beans, one lay fallow. By this means the soil was not exhausted, and its productivity increased even beyond gains made by use of the colter plow the deep furrows of which provided drainage and access to minerals in deeper layers of soil. |
late 6th century. Antalya, Asia Minor. | A versified digest of the Christian faith; each strophe starts with the successive letter of the alphabet. |
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Cross-in-square church with arms of equal width and strong modulat implications; timber roof. |
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6th-7th century. Establishment in agricultural practice of pooling of draft animals, and human effort. |
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Adoption of the colter plow leads to formation of cooperative agricultural communities and the emergence of the medieval manor. |
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The scratch plow required one yoke of oxen. The heavy colter plow required four (i.e., 8 oxen). Few peasants could support so many draft animals alone. From the communal use of animals emerged a cooperative system in which all arable land was held in common, and divided into strips apportioned to individuals according to the contribution each made with his ox teams. |
6th-7th century. Development of Insular script. | ||
Irish monks, copying the half-uncial script of Late Antique manuscripts, developed this new script, soon adopted by the English. |
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600 | 7TH CENTURY | 7TH CENTURY | 7TH CENTURY |
7th century(?). Zamora, Spain, San Pedro de Nave. |
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7th century. Province of León, Spain. Evidence survives of use of water-powered trip hammers used for forging iron in Fructuosan monasteries of León. |
Aisled, Latin-cross pillar basilica; crossing tower, rectangular apse; principal spaces barrel vaulted. |
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7th century(?). Annait, Isle of Skye, Hebrides, early Irish hermitage. |
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Rectangular oratory and three circular dwellings. | |||
7th century(?). St. Macdara's Island, County Galway, Ireland, St. Macdara's church. |
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Oratory with antae imitating in masonry the shape and structural features of cruck-built timber churches. |
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7th century(?). Skellig Michael, Kerry, Ireland. Corbel vaulted oratory, six "beehive" dwellings. (Small island offshore about 9 miles.) |
[Comments of general, a few somewhat technical, character, set in italic type, occurring in the Writing column (3) and appearing on several pages of this chronology, derive from several sources, including Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, David Diringer, Edward Johnston, Graily Hewitt, S. H. Steinberg, Alfred Fairbank, Daniel Berkeley Updike, Beatrice Ward. |
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7th century(?). Inishmurry Island, Sligo, Ireland. Monastery with square oratories and "beehive" dwellings; a converted pre-Christian ring fort (I fig. 195). |
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beginning, 7th century. Ardward Isle, Kircudbright, Scotland, hermitage. |
The several remarks and this parenthetic note, addressed to the general reader, are prompted by an impression that, except for learned specialist and scholar, few are aware of the great wonder inherent in, or even that constitutes, letters and writing, in particular alphabetic writing. |
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Small rectangular timber church; circular dwelling. | |||
7th century. Escomb, Durham, England. | |||
Box church with rectangular apse. | That the workings of one mind, thought, can be communicated to others by the visual device, writing, is central to the wonder. That with so few letters (Greek 24; Roman 23; Arabic 28) thoughts can be expressed of naive simplicity, enormous complexity, and abstruseness in a wide range of shades of meaning, degrees of precision, vagueness, emotions and feelings to satisfy needs of people in all walks of life,-makes writing a thing that fades away beyond the outermost reaches of comprehension. Yet, despite the profoundness of its nature,-writing, omnipresent it seems, taken for granted, so `understood', each day is passed by with indifference and without heed. |
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7th century. Spain: foundation of monasteries of Isidoran plan (none survive). |
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601-604. Augustine is Primate of England. | Isidore (ca. 470-636) required that the cells of monks be next to the church, suggesting a layout similar to that of the 4th-century Tebessa. The plan includes: cellar, refectory, infirmary within, and a villa (for crafts and agriculture) without the monastic enclosure. |
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602. Frankish bishops accuse St. Columban of keeping Easter according to Celtic usage. |
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Because of this, and his unremitting rebuke of the immoral court and life of Theodoric II and Brunhilde his mother, he is forcibly removed from Luxeuil and with 12 other monks withdraws to Switzerland to preach to the Suevi and Alamanni. One Gallus goes with him. |
7th century. Orense, Spain, church of Santa Comba de Bande. |
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Cross-in-square plan; nave and transept arms barrel-vaulted; crossing groin-vaulted; prototype for Germigny-des-Prés(?). (I figs. 151.Xa-c.) |
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ca.600. Worms, Germany, Merovingian cathedral. | Works under Writing (items listed, mostly in Latin script) to illustrate its development in the West, are but a few of a great body that survive in several languages, in some degree complete or fragmentary, but, taken collectively and in some cases individually, they bear ringing testimony to writing as perhaps the greatest force in advancing civilization on this planet. (Following Latin, Arabic is the second most extensively used alphabet today). |
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612. Columban founds Bobbio in Northern Italy and dies there in 615. |
Aisled basilica without transept; rectangular apse flanked by side chambers; built on site of the Roman forum of Worms. |
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ca.612. Gallus (St. Gall, born ca. 550) founds a cell on the Steinach, a tributary of Lake Constance. |
after 602. Near Bregenz, Austria on east end of Lake Constance. |
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Gallus was left behind by Columban because of illness; his foundation later became the famous abbey of St. Gall. |
Columban establishes Irish-style community of probably round cells around a rectangular timber oratory, with 12 companions, among them a monk named Gallus. |
"Without writing, culture, which has been defined as `communicable intelligence', would not exist (except, perhaps, in a form so rudimentary as to be virtually unrecognizable)" (Diringer). Writing is then a measure by which to measure culture. |
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616. King Aethelfrith of Northumbria is defeated and slain during a revolt of the native Britons. |
612. Steinach River, Switzerland (tributary to Lake Constance). |
It is not difficult to understand how, at certain periods and stages of man's evolving development, writing has been viewed as magic, and among some, held to be a benefaction divine.] E.B. |
625 |
Expelled, his son Oswald takes refuge in the monastery of Iona where he is baptized and educated. |
Timbered oratory and community established by St. Gall (later to develop into the famous monastery). |
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617. Northumbria, under King Edwin, reverts to paganism. |
630-646. Vagharshapat, Armenia, church of St. Gayané. |
after 615. Life of St. Columban, by Jonas. | |
627. King Edwin converts to Christianity. | Cross-in-square plan; domed, barrel vaulted; typical for Armenian churches in later periods (I fig. 151.A-B). |
Contains the earliest known occurrence of the term dormitorium designating a communal monastic sleeping room (see Glossary, s.v.). |
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629-639. Reign of Dagobert I, king of the Franks. | 630-655. Galicia, Spain (and northern Portugal), monasteries at Compludo, Rufia, Visonia, Leone, San Salvadore de Montelios, and others, established by Saint Fructuosus (none survive). |
ca.625. Cathach of St. Columba. | |
Earliest ms to treat initials as display characters emerging from and receding into the body of the text at increasing or diminishing scale-a feature that became a distinctive trait of Hiberno-Saxon book illumination. |
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632. Mohammed dies. | |||
633. Oswald defeats and slays the British king Cadwallon and reconquers Northumbria. |
640. Nivelles, Belgium, abbey. | ||
ca.640. Death of St. Gall. | Box church with rectangular apse founded by mother of St. Gertrude, who succeeded her in 562. |
630-635. Regula monachorum, and Regula communis, by St. Fructuosus. |
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His body is deposited in a tomb between the altar and wall (inter aram et pariatem) of the oratory of his settlement. |
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649. Seine-Maritime, France, foundation of Fontanella by St. Wandrille. |
Two rules for monks adopted in monasteries of northern Portugal and Galicia, in Spain; from them it can be inferred that monks slept in a common dormitory under supervision of a prior. |
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639-644. Arab conquest of Egypt. | Box church 290 feet long; 37 feet wide; 4 subsidiary churches; monastic structures scattered, Irish-fashion, through the grounds. |
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642. Oswald is defeated and slain by Penda, pagan king of Mercia. |
ca.650. Durham Gospels, Fragment I. | 650 | |
This ms was written in Lindisfarne. | |||
650 | 653. St. Aidan establishes Lindisfarne on the coast of Northumbria; it becomes the center of conversion for northern England. |
ca. 650 or 700. Church Island, Kerry, Ireland. | ca. 650. Hisperica famina. |
653. The Lombards convert to Christianity. | Hermitage with circular wooden hut (dia. 6m); oratory (2 × 3m); later replaced by masonry structures of similar design. |
A collection of mannered poetry written by foreign secular students who came to Ireland to study in monastic schools. |
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654. King Penda slain by Oswin of Northumbria. Penda's son Peada and a daughter marry into the Christian royal house of Northumbria. |
650-800. Warendorf, Westphalia, Germany. | They wrote a Celtic form of language (Hisperic Latin) in which Hebrew, Greek, Vulgar Latin, and words of unknown origin are so esoterically mixed that even the most adept students of this language run into impenetrable phrases. |
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Site of important settlement (186 timber structures) for history of northern vernacular architecture (II figs. 325-26). |
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655-656. Aethelhere, pagan king of the Angles and former ally of King Penda, is killed in combat. |
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ca. 655. Seine-Maritime, France, foundation of Jumièges, by St. Philibert. |
654. Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, England. Burial site. | ||
ca. 655-660. Oswio (Oswy, Oswey, Oswiu, Oswin) king of Northumbria (ca. 612-670) founds monastery of Whitby. |
Cruciform church; 4 minor sanctuaries; guest-house; and two-storied structure of remarkable size (50 × 290′) containing refectory and cellar on ground floor, with monks' domitory above. |
Probably the grave of Anglo-Saxon king Athelhere, it contained a mastless clinkerbuilt oared boat 80 feet long, filled with lavishly decorated artifacts, many solid gold. |
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657-661. Queen Balthilde, wife of Clovis II, founds Corbie on royal demesnes, after the custom of Columban. |
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657. Whitby, Yorkshire, England, monastery. | Their ornamentation of incerlaced beasts and checkerboard pattern reflect a stylistic tradition that formed one of the main sources of the Book of Durrow and the Lindisfarne Gospels. |
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664. Synod of Whitby declares in favor of Roman vs Irish observance with regard to the Easter calendar and other conflicting rites. |
Box church surrounded by scattered rectangular houses. |
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661. San Juan de Baños, Palencia, Spain. | 658-680. The Caedmon Poems. | ||
This turn of events was critical for the ultimate ascendancy of the Benedictine over the Celtic mission. Wilfrith of York led the debate. |
Aisled basilica of nearly square (10.85 × 11m) plan; rectangular porch, narrow transept; 3 rectangular barrel-vaulted chapels. |
Striking early examples of the adoption in the Christian poetry of Ireland of such artistic patterns as alliteration, stress, and beat, as well as a variety of compositional pauses common in the oral traditions of both Germanic and Celtic peoples. |
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665-666, 671-672. Benedict Biscop founds Monkwearmouth and Jarrow near Durham, centers of conversion for northern England. |
before 665. Braga, north Portugal, church of San Salvadore de Montelios. |
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Cruciform chapel; domed tower; mansonry-vaulted arms; founded by St. Fructuosus. |
In subsequent centuries, their amalgamation with Ambrosian and Augustinian forms of literary composition leads to an artistic expression that eventually peaks in the creation of rhyme and scansion. |
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668-690. Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury, imposes Roman liturgy. |
671. Kairouan, Tunisia, founded by Sidi Okba ibn Nafi. |
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He brings the African Hadrian of Miridanum to England, as well as Benedict Biscop, who for some years was a monk at Lerins. |
671-672. Jarrow, Durham, England, monastery. | 679-704. Life of St. Columban, and De locis sanctis, by Adamnan, abbot of Iona. |
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672/673. Birth of The Venerable Bede, great English historian and theologian. |
Saxon box church; large buildings sited parallel to the church. No evidence of four-cornered cloister. |
The latter, a treatise, includes descriptions and plans of churches of the Holy Land based on an oral account of the Frankish bishop, Arculf who visited the Holy Land ca. 680 and, blown off course, was shipwrecked in Ireland. Adamnan's work was copied by Walahfrid Strabo (see I, 5355, figs. 41-42). |
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His relatives gave him at age 7 to Benedict Biscop (and afterward to Crolfrid) to be educated in the twin monasteries of St. Peter and St. Paul at Wearmouth and Jarrow. |
674. Wearmouth, Durham, England, monastery. Saxon box church and other scattered buildings, both rectangular and circular; founded by Benedict Biscop. |
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Bede spends his entire life in these monasteries studying (with aid of Benedict Biscop's superb library) scripture, theological, and historical writing. He dies there in 735 at age 59. |
675. Abbington, Oxfordshire, England, early Irish monastery. |
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675 | 673. Relics of St. Benedict of Nursia transferred to Fleury (St.-Benôit-sur-Loire). |
A circular enclosure (dia. 120 feet) containing 12 round dwellings for monks; 12 small oratories; a church; outside near the entrance, a parlor. |
ca. 680. Book of Durrow. |
676. St. Cuthbert builds himself a hermitage on Farne Island off the Northumbrian coast. |
676. Farne Island, Northumbria, England, hermitage of St. Cuthbert. |
The earliest of the fully decorated Hiberno-Saxon Gospel books to incorporate canon tables; ornamental (diaper) pages of decorative motifs preceding each Gospel, followed by a folio illustrating each Evangelist's symbol in a decorative frame; monumental embellished initials opening the text of each Gospel (often nearly the full height of the folio); also the first ms to combine Celtic and Germanic ornaments not yet integrated, and therefore in their earliest state of development. |
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678. Wilfrith of York makes a first attempt to evangelise Friesland. |
Circular enclosure with diameter of "4 to 5 poles." | ||
680. Pepin of Heristal becomes mayor at the palace of the Austrian Franks. |
7th-8th century(?). Reask, Dingle Peninsula, Ireland, monastery. |
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684. St. Cuthbert becomes bishop of Lindisfarne. | Within a circular enclosure, a rectangular oratory; "beehive" huts single and conjoined; all of dry masonry. |
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686. St. Cutbbert resigns his bishopric at Lindisfarne and withdraws to Farne Island. |
Only surviving example on the mainland of a once common type of monastery. |
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Cuthbert dies on Farne Island in 687. | |||
687. Pepin of Heristal attacks and defeats a Neustrian army near St. Quentin and becomes sole master of the Frankish kingdom. |
7th-8th century. Illauntannig, Magharee Islands, Kerry, Ireland, monastery. |
late 7th century. Codex Amiatinus. | |
Copy by a Northumbrian monk of a lost illuminated 6th century ms of the Institutiones of Cassiodorus presumably brought to Jarrow by Benedict Biscop. |
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695. Pepin routs the Frisians who retreat across the Rhine. |
Converted ring fort with rectangular oratory; "beehive" huts with corbelled vaults; in dry masonry. |
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696. Willibrord forms the bishopric of Utrecht. | It was well known to the illuminator of the Lindisfarne Gospels, whose portrait figure of St. Matthew is modeled after the seated portrait figure of the prophet Ezra in this codex. |
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698. Willibrord founds the monastery of Echternach near Trier. |
7th-8th century. Castelseprio, Italy, church of Santa Maria Foris Portas. |
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Issuing from York, he carries the Benedictine mission into the territory of the Frisians. |
Architecturally insignificant rectangular sanctuary; entrance porch and apse on three other sides; on grounds of former summer residence of the archbishop of Milan. |
ca. 698. Lindisfarne Gospels. | |
The most accomplished of all early Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts, combining the best of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon decorative tradition. |
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The modest church contains one of the most fascinating early medieval cycles of frescoes illustrating the childhood of Christ-a summit of religious wall painting. Their date is controversial. |
Exhibiting an intensive process of linear transformation, its portraits of seated Evangelists use the illusionist tradition of Late Antique illuminated mss, as seen in the Codex Amiatinus. According to a late but trustworthy tradition this ms was written and illuminated by the Anglo-Saxon Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne (698-721), perhaps in connection with or soon after the transfer of the bones of St. Cuthbert to a reliquary shrine in 698. |
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8TH CENTURY | 8TH CENTURY | 8TH CENTURY | 700 |
711-713. Arabs conquer Spain. | 8th century(?). Inishmore, Aran Islands, Ireland, Temple McDuag and Temple Benen. |
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712-744. Reign of Luitbrand, greatest king of the Lombards, who rejects Arianism. |
Masonry churches imitating shape and structural details of earlier cruck-built timber churches. |
716-719. Lex Alamannorum. | |
717-741. Charles Martel succeeds his father Pepin II. |
Codification of Alamannic law laid down by an assembly of dukes, counts, and bishops under the presidency of Duke Lantfrid I. |
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He unifies Neustrian and Austrian Franks and forces many other Germanic tribes to recognize his suzerainty. |
early 8th century. Pier, Cologne, Germany, church of St. Martin. |
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His military success is enhanced by the organization of a heavy cavalry, its abilities apparently strengthened by use of stirrups, a Eurasian invention unknown to the Greeks and Romans. Stirrups were in common use in Germanic territories of the West by the 4th century; in China and Korea by the 5th; in Japan and the Byzantine empire by the 6th. |
Small aisled church, rectangular apse; timber built; probably common in Merovingian-Carolingian countryside. |
It is an important source for the description of Almannic house construction (see II, 26-27). |
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8th century. St. Gervais, Geneva, Switzerland. Fortified Carolingian villa clearly influenced by the layout of the Roman castrum (I fig. 72). |
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The device enabled a horseman to stand firm, thus employing the full inertia of his body and that of his mount against adversaries without himself being thrown to the ground by the impact. This made cavalry a formidable weapon of shock attack. |
ca. 700. Pfalzel, near Trier, Germany. | ||
719. Charles Martel becomes mayor at the Frankish palace. |
Cruciform, timber-roofed church; may derive from Cappadocian churches of similar design (I fig. 148.C). |
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In this capacity he attacks the Saxons, Bavarians, and Frisians in campaigns between 719-732, forcing them to submit to Frankish rule. |
ca. 700. Regensburg, Germany, church of Niedermünster. | ||
719. Narbonne taken by Saracens. | Box church with rectangular apse. | ||
719. Otmar assumes abbacy of monastic settlement that had arisen around the tomb of St. Gall. |
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720-721. Saracens take Toulouse. | 700-1000. Leens, Groningen, The Netherlands. Site of aisled Germanic houses with turf walls. |
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723-724. Windfrid of Wessex, called Boniface, preaches among the heathen of Hesse and Thuringia, consolidating his mission by founding Benedictine monasteries. |
706. Echternach, Germany, abbey church of St. Willibrord. |
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Box church with rectangular apse; behind altar is site of first burial of the saint. |
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723. Charles Martel gives Boniface safeconduct for missions in Thuringia, Alemannia, and Bavaria. |
724 and after. Reichenau, Mittelzell, Germany, church of SS Mary, Peter and Paul. |
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725-731. Arabs take Carcassonne and plunder Autun. |
Box church with rectangular apse. | 725 | |
726. Byzantine emperor Leo III issues edict against image worship. |
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727. Pope Gregory II denounces as impious the edict of Leo III against image worship. |
731. Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, by Bede. |
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ca. 730. Birth of Alcuin. He is educated in York under Aethelbert. |
after 726. Dorestadt, The Netherlands, site of Carolingian castellum (I fig. 72). |
By this work the Venerable Bede justly earned the title, "Father of English History." |
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732. Charles Martel defeats Arabs at Moussais-laBataille near Poitiers. |
Less original (more obviously based on earlier, still surviving compositions) historical works are his History of the Abbots (after 716), and Shorter and Longer Chronicles (703; 725) embodied in his computistical treatises in which he addressed himself to the bitter controversy between the Roman and Celtic churches about the ecclesiastical and civil calendars. |
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As mayor at the Merovingian court he acquired powers exceeding those of the king. Victory at Poitiers was decisive for the future course of history, comparable with the defeat of Attila at Chalons in 452. |
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732. Martel begins to confiscate church property for distribution to his vassals. |
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He does this to strengthen his military forces by attractive rewards of property, a system from which the feudal fief originated. His sons Carloman and Pepin pursue this policy even more ruthlessly. |
His hagiographical works include two lives of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, one in verse (a form normally used for scholastic instruction) and one in prose (a form used for lections in Office). |
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Pope Zacharias acquiesces because of the danger presented to the Franks by Saracens, Saxons, and Frisians ("pro eo quod nunc tribulatio accidit Saracinorum, Saxonum vel Fresconum"). |
Bede's latest exposition, his Epistle to Egbert, Archbishop of York, was finished in 734, only six month before his own death. The aggregate of Bede's writings, more than half of them exegetical, adequately summarize all the learning of Western Europe available at his time. |
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738. Death of St. Willibrord. | |||
739. Luitbrand, king of the Lombards, besieges Rome. |
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Pope Gregory III invokes aid of Charles Martel against them, promising him the Roman consulate-beginning of a new papal policy. |
740-745. Lex Bajuvariorum. | ||
741. Charles Martel dies at Quiercy. | Codification of Bajuvarian law compiled at a time when their territory was already controlled by the Franks. |
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He is buried in the royal abbey of St. Denis; his realm is divided between his sons Pepin the Younger and Carloman. |
It contains detailed references to the component members of the Bajuvarian standard house (see II, 27-33). |
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741-754. St. Boniface influences state policies. | |||
Between the death of Charles Martel and his own in 754, Boniface is the most powerful churchman east of the Rhine. Cooperating with Carloman and Pepin the Younger, and popes Gregory II and III, he prepares ground for alliance of the Carolingian monarchy and the papacy. |
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742. Pepin the Younger and Carloman subjugate Aquitanians and Alamanni. |
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742. Birth of Charlemagne. | |||
742-766. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, founds the abbeys of Gorze (748), Gengenbach (761), and Lorsch (764). |
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743. Concilium Germanicum convoked by house mayor Carloman (son of Charles Martel). |
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It places the church of Austria under the tutelage of St. Boniface and orders the return of alienated acclesiastical property. |
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743-751. Reign of Childeric III, last Merovingian king. |
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744. Synod of Estinnes (Henegau) binds Frankish monachism to the Rule of St. Benedict. |
744. Fulda, Thuringia, Germany, monastery founded by Sturmi. |
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744. Synod of Soissons attaches the church of Neustria to the whole of the Christian church. |
Small basilica; western crypt (details unknown); cloister to the south of the church. |
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747. Carloman resigns his office; Pepin the Younger becomes sole ruler as mayor of the Franks. |
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747. Otmar establishes Benedictine rule in St. Gall, by order of Pepin the Younger. |
after 747. St. Gall, Switzerland, monastery of St. Gall, church of St. Otmar. |
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In the same year he falls from favor in conflict with Sidonius, bishop of Constance, and several local lords over property rights and abbatial jurisdiction. He is made captive, banished to the isle of Werd in the Rhine, and dies there in 759. |
Aisled church with crypt; in 830 demolished by Gozbert. |
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750 | ca. 750. Birth of Benedict of Aniane. | ||
751. Lombards capture Rome. | ca. 750. A Spanish source written shortly after the battles of Tours and Poitiers (732) refers to all combatants following Charles Martel as "Europeans" (Europeenses); whereas the invading Moslems are described as living in the Orient and Occident (Orientis et Occidentis). |
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751. Pepin the Younger [King Pepin the Short] deposes Childeric III. |
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With approval of Pope Zacharias Pepin assumes the crown in a ceremony conducted at Soissons by St. Boniface. |
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752-759. Septimania is reconquered by Pepin the Younger. |
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754. Pope Stephen II annoints Pepin the Younger king at Paris, together with his sons Charlemagne and Carloman. |
758. Ms of the writings of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite is presented to King Pepin by Pope Paul I. |
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✶ | The Carolingian Dynasty officially begins. | Translated into Latin by Hilduin of St. Denis (819-840/44) and again by Johannes Scottus Erigena (ca. 858), this great metaphysical vision became a source of boundless fascination to medieval theologians. |
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ca. 754. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, establishes a new rule for his clergy to regulate their common life as canons. |
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Shortly afterward the Roman mass replaces the Gallican liturgy at Metz. |
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756. Pepin the Younger enters Italy. | The purpose of writing is to be read, hence legibility is one of its essential features. `Legibility is not an abstraction'. It is, though, subjective and criteria for its evaluation include purpose (how and where is it to be used), the materials used, and a capacity for response to change with the times. The history of writing identifies with the rapidity of its execution, in short, speed. |
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756. Death of Aistulf, king of the Lombards, who also in this year beseiged Rome. |
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759. Narbonne retaken from Arabs by Pepin the Short. |
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ca. 760. Pope Paul I urges Pepin the Younger to adopt Roman liturgy for all the Gallican church, furnishing him with the Antiphony and Responsorial. |
765-775. Lorsch, Germany, monastery of Gundeland. Box church with rectangular apse. |
SPEED, the rate at which a script is written, is inseparable from components of legibility, appropriateness and,-the evasive and tantalizing abstraction of beauty. In a Book of Kells, speed, certainly present, was the tiniest of its ingredients, whereas to an Alcuin at Aachen in the later part of the same century in a momentous period in the West, engaged in far reaching reforms (some aspects of which would penetrate a thousand years into the future), endeavoring to assist in uniting an Empire in a pressing program of systematized writing as an agent of fusion, speed was a criterion: but not to the exclusion of beauty,-re- |
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764. Foundation of first monastery of Lorsch by Chrodegang. |
Conversion of Roman villa rustica to monastic use; monastic buildings around 3 sides of a central court. Earliest example of its kind in Carolingian Europe (I figs. 198-99). |
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after 768/69. Neustadt-am-Main, Germany, Savior's Church. |
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768. Death of the brothers Pepin the Younger and Carloman (sons of Charles Martel). |
Cruciform cellular structure; arms of nearly equal length; disengaged crossing; incipient modularity (I figs. 133, 167). |
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concluded on page 215, column 3 | |||
769. Charlemagne is crowned king of the Franks at Noyon. |
768-774. Lorsch, Germany, abbey of Lorsch "Torhalle". | 781-783. Godescalc Gospels. | |
Like his father he maintains close contact with the papal see in ecclesiastical policies. He becomes the foremost champion of ecclesiastical romanization in the barbarian territories of transalpine Europe. |
A jewel of Carolingian architecture surviving in an impeccable state of preservation, it was built in the shape of a Roman triumphal arch carrying over its passages a large hall that may have served as aula regia to the visiting emperor or as audience hall for the abbot. |
First link in the chain sumptuously illustrated Gospels of the Court School, it was written by the scribe Godescalc at command of Charlemagne and his wife Hildegarde, as attested in a dedicatory poem introducing the miniscule script newly adopted at the Carolingian court, which became the basis of the modern Roman alphabet. Liturgical parts of the book are written in uncials, headings in Roman capitals. The large opening initials of each Gospel derive from Hiberno-Saxon mss; figures of the Evangelists and many illusionistic elements derive clearly from an Italo-Byzantine source. |
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769. Relics of St. Otmar transferred to the abbey of St. Gall and deposited in the crypt of the basilica built by him. |
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771. Death of his brother Carloman makes Charlemagne sole ruler of the Franks. |
The external relief of pilasters and capitals as well as the interior wall decoration of the hall are remarkably classical in style and mark, together with the illuminations of the Godescalc Gospels (771-773) the first exuberant phase of the Carolingian revival of classical forms. |
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772-774. Reign of Desiderius, king of the Lombards, who takes title "Patrician of the Romans." |
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772-804. Charlemagne's Saxon wars. | 772-795. Rome, S. Maria in Cosmedin, crypt. | ca. 787. De emendatione librorum (encyclical). | |
A series of ferocious wars with the Saxons ends with total submission, and conversion of Saxony. |
A noncharacteristic Early Christian hall crypt owing its unusual shape to its service as a repository for an entire collection of relics (I fig. 153. A-B). |
Charlemagne recommends Alcuin's edition of the Vulgate to the Frankish bishops. |
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774. Charlemagne besieges Pavia, proclaims himself king of the Lombards. |
774. Salzburg, Austria, dedication of cathedral. | 789. Capitulary issued by Charlemagne. | |
He makes his first visit to Rome, is proclaimed "Patricius Romanorum," and guarantees the papacy its ancient and lawful possessions in Italy. |
Aisled basilica; no transept; semicircular apse attached directly to nave. |
It decrees the use of the Gregorian chant brought north to the Frankish kingdom (ca. 750) at the initiative of Pepin II. |
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775. Paris, France, abbey church of St. Denis consecrated. | * | 775 | |
concluded from page 214 | |||
777. Monastery of Lorsch transferred to a more suitable site, a short distance from the first foundation. |
Aisled basilica; westwork; continuous transept; first in a long line of Carolingian churches to revive the layout of Old St. Peter's in Rome (I fig. 166.X). |
flect on the great Caroline script (Fig. 524, p. 12). This hand culminated in a blend of a new minuscule with majuscule, minuscules carrying the burden of message. Uncouthness and archaism in regional hands of the time disappear as new minuscule teams with majuscule. The old Roman half-uncial and minuscule hand are restudied, reworked, transformed into the CAROLINE SCRIPT which was to gain supremacy during the 9th and 10th centuries in Europe (and affect Insular usage). |
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778. Charlemagne begins his battle with Arab Spain. |
777. Paderborn, Germany, church of SS Peter and Paul. |
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After serious setbacks, most notably the defeat of his rear guard at Roncevaux, the campaign culminates in the establishment of the Spanish March. |
Box church with rectangular apse. | ||
779-780. Benedict of Aniane founds monastery of Aniane. |
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780. Adalbard becomes abbot at monastery of Corbie. |
By the 13th century a `standard' Caroline script took on diverse regional and national characteristics as the dynastic organization and authority of Charlemagne disappeared, followed by political disruption and Norse invasions. |
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Grandson of Charles Martel and first cousin to Charlemagne [that is Martel is grandfather of Adalbard and of Charlemagne. See GENEAOLOGY p. 127), with whom he was educated at the palace school. Adalbard made Corbie a training ground for noblemen, at times supporting a military contingent of 350-400 knights (miles christi). |
Of several offshoots of the Caroline script two are clearly discernable, one of which, through successive development and including mergence with printing later, would endure to the present wherever the Latin alphabet was used as the writing vehicle. Both hands are referred to as black letter. |
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781. Pope Hadrian annoints Charlemagne's sons Carloman and Louis kings of Italy and Aquitaine, at the ages of 3 and 4. |
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781. Alcuin is called by Charlemagne (whom he met at Parma) to the court as an educator. |
One, of pronounced angularity, was adopted north of the Alps, the Low Countries, and England. In Germany this evolved into the "fractur" of the printer. The other variety, characterized by roundness of form, descendant of antique models, budded in Italy and blossomed. A letter of illustrious beauty, it spread throughout Europe and England. With the rise of the humanistic minuscule in the Rinascimento, and appearance of punchcutter and printer, it was embraced by the presses of north Italy. At this period the slanting type, italic, an outstanding innovation in the history of alphabetic writing was created by Francisco da Bologna for Aldo's Vergil of 1501. |
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781-782. Charlemagne makes second visit to Rome. | |||
781-796. Alcuin heads the palace school in which the emperor's children and those of his nobles were educated. |
784-804. Lorsch, Germany, church of abbot Richbold. | ||
ca. 787. Charlemagne officially recommends Alcuin's edition of the Vulgate to the Frankish bishops in his encyclical De emendatione librorum. |
Aisled basilica; rectangular apse; westwork preceded by open court accessible through gate flanked by towers (I figs. 200-201). |
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787. Charlemagne, at Capua and Benevento, forces the Duke of Benevento to recognize his sovereignty. |
The face used for text type of these volumes derives from the round form black letter and its entry into Venetian printing (COLOPHON p. 266). By comparison with most trade books their pages are notable for strength of `color', a haunting remote savour of a great period at Aachen and a man of genious at Tours on the Loire, Alcuin. E.B. |
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787-789. Charlemagne orders establishment of monastic and cathedral schools. |
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788. Charlemagne incorporates Bavaria into the kingdom of the Franks and conquers Istria. |
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789. Charlemagne issues the Admonitio generalis reaffirming adoption of the Roman liturgy by his father Pepin the Younger. |
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He orders it extended to all territories under Frankish control, directing every bishop to test the theological education of his priests, and to establish reading schools everywhere. |
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790-799. St. Riquier, Centula, France, church and cloister of Angilbert. |
ca. 790. Modular verse of Paul the Deacon. | ||
Aisled basilica; westwork; eastern transept, extended choir; earliest Carolingian church laid out in modular sequence of squares. |
A clear example of Carolingian modular verse in rhyme and measured stress, a phenomenon comparable to the emergence in the same period of modular concepts in architecture. |
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ca. 791. Charlemagne appoints Angilbert councilors and abbot of St. Riquier. |
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Einhard appears at court shortly thereafter and becomes friend, counsellor, and biographer of Charlemagne. |
Two smaller churches, one circular and one rectangular in the corners of the vast triangular cloiser yard; claustral structures sited within (not around) this enclosure (I figs. 135, 168, 196-197). |
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791-805. Charlemagne secures the eastern boundaries of the empire. |
791-817. Fulda, Thuringia, Germany, church of Ratger. |
791. Libri Carolini. | |
He makes several expeditions against the Avarii along the Theiss and Danube, and imposes tribute on the Bohemians. Pannonia is converted to Christianity. |
Monumental aisled basilica; vigorously projecting continuous transept; semicircular apse in the west; modeled after Old St. Peter's in Rome, but with evidence of modular planning in dimensions of nave and transept (I fig. 169). |
A proclamation drafted for Charlemagne, probably by Bishop Theodulph of Orléans, setting forth the response of the Frankish church to readmission of the veneration of images by the Council of Nicea in 787. |
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793. Lindisfarne plundered by Norsemen; its monks flee with the body of St. Cuthbert. |
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794-795. Capitulare de villis. | |||
794. Council of Frankfurt. | Ordinance issued by Charlemagne to curtail mismanagement of royal estates and regulate their future conduct. |
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Charlemagne refutes image worship restored in 787 at the Council of Nicea, with arguments set forth in the Libri carolini (789-791). |
796-805. Aachen, palace grounds of Charlemagne. Site of Roman Aquae Granis; on a tract 360′ × 626′ were: emperor's audience hall (north); palace chapel (south); site divided by covered corridor into inner and outer courts (I fig. 71.Y). |
The enumeration and descriptions of the various houses found on these estates are vitally important for the history of house construction in the kingdom of the Franks (see II, 33ff). |
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796-805. Aachen, palace chapel of Charlemagne. Octagonal center space surrounded by 16-sided ambulatory with superincumbent gallery reached by 2 staircases; preceded by atrium; flanked by two structures, a royal vestiary (north) and a meeting room (south) (I figs. 71.Za-c). |
ca. 795. Epitaph for Pope Adrian I (†795), Rome, porch of St. Peter's. |
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Lapidary inscription, slab size 2.20m. high, 1.17m. wide, cut in Belgian Black marble (Namur bassin, near Aachen), letters gilded. Made on order of Charlemagne, possibly initiated by Alcuin, then sent to Rome. |
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796. Alcuin becomes abbot of St. Martin in Tours and establishes a flourishing school there. |
799-806. St. Benoit-sur-Loire, France, church of Germigny-des-Prés. |
The lapidary inscription in capitales quadrata, strongly influenced by fine Roman precedent, projects vigorous character of its own, is clearly lapidary, strongly independent of manuscript style. |
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end, 8th century. Benedictine rule is so completely established that all others have sunk into oblivion. |
Small cross-in-square church; tower-surmounted crossing; barrel-vaulted arms; residual spaces in corners domed. |
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Built by Theodulf of Orléans on grounds of his summer residence. Perhaps inspired by Visigothic cross-in-square churches of the type of Santa Comba de Bande (I figs. 52.A-C). |
between 800 and 807. Book of Kells. | ||
In the main aspe a mosaic of two winged cherubim worshiping the Ark of the Covenant. |
Written presumably on the island of Iona and taken from there to the mainland when the monks of Iona, pressed by Norse raiders, fled to the monastery of Kells about 806-807. |
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end, 8th century. Valais, Switzerland, church of St. Maurice d'Agaune. |
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Sixth-century church rebuilt at larger scale; counter-apse added. |
Stylistically it relates closely with the Tara brooch and Ardagh chalice, each of about mid 8th century. |
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end, 8th century. Regensburg, Germany, church of Niedermünster. |
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Box church with rectangular apse; replaced earlier church (ca. 700), smaller but of similar design. |
The Book of Kells ranks as one of the outstanding works of its kind, reflecting the Insular manuscript probably in richest form, its pages saturated with patterned design of greatest intricacy and complexity. |
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late 8th/ early 9th century. Müstair, Graubünden, Switzerland, Johanneskirche. |
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Large rectangular hall with 3 apses rising to full height, all surfaces covered with frescoes (overrestored) in series of rectangular panels extending from floor to roof level. |
ca. 800. Beowulf. | ||
Finest heroic poem in Old English; in poetic diction richer than all other similar epics. |
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An arrangement perpetuating a compositional principle already established in Castelsperio and anticipating that of Ottonian paintings in churches of the Lake Constance region. |
It consists of 3,182 metric units, each line divided into two halves of equal weight linked by alliteration, a technique largely conforming to traditional German practice. |
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late 8th/ early 9th century. Breberen, Germany, church of St. Maternus I. |
ca. 800. Corbie Psalter. | ||
Aisled timber-built church; no apse; inner transept; a common type in Germanic-occupied territories, with roots in vernacular architecture. |
Unique among early Carolingian manuscripts for the richness of its initials combining ornament and figurative motifs with imaginative freshness (fig. 527, p. 90). |
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9TH CENTURY | 9TH CENTURY | 9TH CENTURY | 800 |
800. Charlemagne allows himself to be crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III. |
early 9th century. Malles, Italian Tyrol, oratory of San Benedetto. |
800-810. France. The Court School | |
Risking war with Constantinople by this act, Charlemagne thereby establishes medieval ecclesiastical and secular policy for half a millennium to come. |
Rectangular hall; timber roof. Recessed in its west wall are 3 tall niches with frescoes of Christ, St. Stephen, St. Gregory, and 2 donors. |
Ada Gospels | |
Harley Gospels | |||
Gospels of St. Médard of Soissons | |||
801. Charlemagne takes Barcelona, extending the Frankish kingdom to the Ebro River; he also makes an expedition to Dalmatia. |
early 9th century. Brescia, Italy, San Salvatore. | Lorsch Gospels | |
Aisled, timber-roofed basilica without transept. | (Listed in presumed chronological order.) | ||
805-806. Charlemagne conquers Bavaria. | Church of a monastery founded in 753 by Aistulf, king of the Lombards and rebuilt during reign of Louis the Pious, its walls were decorated with remarkable paintings and stuccoes. |
The Evangelist portraits of this illustrious series of Gospel books combine corporeal Roman figure style and manneristic Byzantine drapery treatment with strong touches of Northern linearism and geometricity (especially well balanced in the Lorsch Gospels). |
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806. Einhard goes to Rome as missus to obtain papal approval of plan to divide the empire among Charlemagne's sons. |
800-819. Cologne, Germany, cathedral of SS Peter and Mary. |
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807-833. Ansegis reorganizes monasteries of St.-Germer-en-Laye, Luxeuil, and Fontanella and institutes Benedictine rule. |
Aisled, double-asped basilica; western transept, eastern extended choir; layout on modular square grid; monks' dwellings ranged around atrium at western end of church (I fig. 172). |
This stylistic evolution is parallel to a comparable synthesis in contemporary architecture between classical corporeality and Northern trends of organizing space in modular unit sequence (Fulda, Cologne, St. Gall). |
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809-812. Charlemagne conquers Venetia and establishes the Italian March. |
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812. Michael Rhangabe, East Roman Emperor, sends envoys to salute Charlemagne as "Basileus" at Aachen, thereby acknowledging equality of the Carolingian and Byzantine empires. |
ca. 800-820. Nieder-Ingelheim, Germany, imperial palace. |
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813. Charlemagne names Louis the Pious, his son, to be his consort and successor. |
Site of a Frankish villa regia; walled enclosure divided into separate courts; on northern edge the emperor's audience hall with narthex, semicircular apse; perpendicular to it on southern edge, a cruciform church without aisles, preceded by a large atrium. |
ca. 812. Brevium exempla ad describendas res ecclesiasticas et fiscules. |
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In a ceremony at Aachen Louis is crowned. | Specimen descriptions of property, drawn up for guidance of royal agents in assessing property and produce of royal and ecclesiastical domains; a manifestation of the powerful drive for codification and standardization of law and practice under Charlemagne. |
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814. Death of Charlemagne. | |||
At his death the empire reached from the Ebro in Spain to the Elbe in Germany and included Istria, Dalmatia, and the entire Italian peninsula except Byzantine-controlled territories. |
The walls of both imperial hall and church were covered with frescoes. Their subject is described in the Life of Louis the Pious, by Ermoldus Nigellus. |
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814-840. Reign of Louis the Pious. | 805. Mainz, Germany, new church of St. Alban dedicated. |
814. Works of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite translated into Latin, under supervision of abbot Hilduin of St. Denis. |
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The deaths of his two brothers in 810 and 811 left him sole heir of Charlemagne. |
Asiled basilica with narthex and semicircular apse. |
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814. Louis, on accession, banishes Adalhard of Corbie to Noirmoutier (island off the mouth of the Loire) for about seven years. |
806-819. Reichenau-Mittelzell, Germany, church of SS Mary, Peter, and Paul. |
Hilduin incorrectly identified this author with the Parisian martyr Dionysius (passio sanctissimi Dionysii). |
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814. Benedict of Aniane becomes abbot of Inden (Kornelismünster). |
Aisled basilica with eastern transept, extended choir; layout of modular grid of squares and rectangles; alternating supports in the nave (a leitmotif in Ottonian and Early Romanesque architecture of Saxony and the Rhineland). (I figs. 117, 134, 171.) |
816. Statutes of Murbach. | |
The model monastery was built for him and 30 monks by Louis the Pious, Friend and counsellor of Louis, he is the force behind the Benedictine reform and becomes abbot over all monasteries in the empire. |
In this document Haito of Basel promulgated to monks of Reichenau and Murbach resolutions taken at the first reform synod of Aachen. |
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814. Louis the Pious makes Einhard responsible for educating his son Lothair. |
816, 817. Imperial capitularies issued promulgating resolutions taken at the first and second reform synods of Aachen. |
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815. Louis the Pious makes Einhard abbot of four great monasteries. |
815. Inden (Kornelismünster), Germany, model monastery built by Louis the Pious for Benedict of Aniane and 35 monks. |
816-835. France. The School of Reims | |
816. Louis the Pious makes Ebo archbishop of Reims. |
Small pillar basilica; tripartite transept, extended choir; cloister attached to entrance side of church (as with Cologne and Fulda). (I fig. 147.) |
Utrecht Psalter | |
Ebo Gospels | |||
(Listed in presumed chronological order.) | |||
Born ca. 778, educated at court with Louis, Ebo was deposed in 835 for rebellion against him (833); reinstated by Lothair (840); irrevocably banished by Charles the Bald (841). |
816-862. France, cathedral of Reims, begun by Ebo (816-35) and completed by Hincmar. |
Under archbishop Ebo the center of Carolingian illumination shifted to Reims. |
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816. Pope Stephen IV performs a second coronation ceremony at Reims for Louis the Pious. |
Aisled basilica; westwork, transept; details uncertain. | The Utrecht Psalter combines with its Late Antique stylistic antecedents a spirited linear liveliness that is a striking example of medieval expressionism. |
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816. Gozbert is elected abbot of St. Gall. | The Ebo Gospels illustrations by contrast supress inherited classical elements in a barbarian linearism without counterpart in Roman illusionistic art, and clearly in reaction to Hellenistic figure and drapery style typical of the Court School. |
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816, 817. Synods of Aachen. | |||
They are held to reaffirm earlier directives establishing Benedictine custom as universal, and to rule on issues heretofore unsettled. In the search for unity of monastic custom these two synods produced that masterpiece of architectural planning to which these volumes are devoted. |
818-822. Fulda, Thuringia, Germany, abbey church. |
817-822. Vita Caroli, by Einhard. | |
817. Louis the Pious arranges the division of the empire among his three sons. |
To Ratger's basilica, Eigil adds two crypts; begins construction of new cloister at west end of church (I fig. 122). |
Invaluable source for information and overall view of the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious; incorporates much of Charlemagne's voluminous correspondence. |
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818. Gozbert of St. Gall secures from Louis independence from the bishop of Constance, recovers lost properties, and increases holdings in the library. |
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820. Norsemen appear at the mouth of the Seine. | ca. 820. Plan of St. Gall; master plan for a monastic settlement worked out during the two reform synods of Aachen in 816-817. |
before 820. Codex Augiensis CXXXVI (Karlesruhe, Landesbibliothek). |
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Hagiographical ms, probably written in Fulda; subsequently acquired by Reginbert for the library at Reichenau. |
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821. Death of Benedict of Aniane, and Theodulf of Orléans. |
The Plan displays the most accomplished example of a square-divided Carolingian basilica with apse and counterapse. In the layout of its claustral structures around a galletied open court on the southern flank of the church, it becomes prototypal for all future monastic planning. Design of guest and service buildings has roots in vernacular architecture. |
On fols. 21-19 appears a Vita s. Bonifatii written by the main scribe of the Plan of St. Gall (as Bischoff has shown). The Vita predates the Plan and shows the hand of the scribe in transition, from a miniscule leaning slightly to the right (see p. 12, fig. 524) to the same miniscule written vertically, the form appearing on the Plan of St. Gall. |
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Louis the Pious recalls Adalhard from exile at Noirmoutier, reinstates him at Corbie, and eventually makes him his main advisor. |
The Plan of St. Gall incorporates in its layout structures accommodating these technological devices: Two water-powered mills and mortars; three Roman hypocauses with external firing chambers and chimneys to heat dormitories and warming rooms; some 20 corner fireplaces as amenities in chambers of higher ranking officials. Their presence on the paradigmatic Plan offers evidence that henceforward such equipment was to be considered standard for Carolingian monasteries. |
822. Upon return from exile Adalhard writes his famous Customs of Corbie (translated above, pages 89ff). |
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822. Consuetudines Corbienses, by Adalhard of Corbie. |
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820-822. Fulda, Thuringia, Germany, cemeterial church of St. Michael. |
Managerial directive setting forth measures to insure an even flow of supplies for the monastery of Corbie. |
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823. Lothair crowned emperor by Pope Paschal I at Rome. |
Two-storied circular structure; ambulatory at both levels around center space. |
This important document is a remarkable managerial counterpart to the Plan of St. Gall. |
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He spends most of his reign in strife over division of the empire with his father Louis. |
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Begun during abbacy of Eigil by the monk Racholf, in accordance with design furnished by Hrabanus Maurus. |
ca. 822-867. Gesta SS Patrum Coenobii Fontanellensis. | ||
823. Drogo, a natural son of Charlemagne, is made bishop of Metz. |
822. Saxony, foundation of Corbeia nova by Adalhard of Corbie upon his return from exile. |
Its three parts (written before 830, ca. 845, and ca. 850-867) narrate the history of the monastery from its foundation in 649 by St. Wandrille to the last half of the 9th century. |
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Adalhard transferred a monastery earlier founded at Hethis to this new site on the Weser at Höxter. |
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824. Louis the Pious establishes the right of the emperor to supervise the temporal administration of the pope through a permanent envoy in Rome. |
823-833. Fontanella, Seine-Maritime, France. | With the Chronicle of the Abbots of St. Maurice d'Agaune it is the oldest monastic history of the Middle Ages; it is modeled after the celebrated Liber gontificalis (History of the Popes). Like the latter it interprets history as being shaped by outstanding individuals rather than by development of institutions. |
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New cloister built against the northern flank of the church built by St. Wandrille in 649 (for details see II, 276ff, and fig. 478.A-B). |
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825 | |||
826. Death of Adalhard of Corbie. | 826-847. Höchst-am-Main, Germany, church of Otgar of Mainz. |
ca. 825. Aeternae rerum conditor, by Hrabanus Maurus. |
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His brother Wala succeeds him. | |||
Aisled basilica with tripartite transept; 3 semicircular apses of identical size (I fig. 114). |
This hymn (direct imitation and development of Columba's Altus prosator), together with Paul the Deacon's earlier poems in measured stress and rhyme (ca. 790), is one of the most characteristic verse compositions of the Carolingian period. |
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827. Steinbach im Odenwald, Germany, completion of Einhard's church. |
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Aisled pillar basilica; semicircular apse; low transept arms (or lateral choirs) each with apse; cruciform shaft, barrel-vaulted crypt beneath eastern half of church. |
ca. 828. Maastricht, Belgium, abbey of St. Servatius, Maastricht reliquary. |
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830. Sons of Louis the Pious revolt. | |||
830. Einhard retires to the abbey of Seligenstadt where in 840 he dies. |
ca. 830. Hitsau, Germany, church of St. Aurelius. | Gift of Einhard; in the form of a triumphal arch; beneath it equestrian figures of Constantine and the reigning Carolingians sovereign, their bodyguards, the Evangelists, and scenes from the life of Christ. (Lost in the French Revolution.) |
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Box church with semicircular apse. | |||
830-834. Seligenstadt-am-Main, Germany, abbey church founded ca. 827 by Einhard. |
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830-836. Gozbert of St. Gall rebuilds the abbey church with the aid of the Plan of St. Gall. |
Aisled pillared basilica; narthex, tripartite (?) transept; annular crypt for relics of SS Peter and Marcellinus. |
ca. 830. Liturgical writings of Amalarius of Metz (ca. 775-850). |
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Amalarius concerned himself with the state of Gregorian chant in the Frankish kingdom; his liturgical works include many details about it. |
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830-836. St. Gall, Switzerland, abbey church. | |||
Upon site of Otmar's church, Gozbert builds one modeled after that delineated on the Plan of St. Gall (II fig. 522). |
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831. Louis the Pious regains power from his rebellious sons. |
In complying with a title of the Plan, Gozbert reduces the length of the church to 200 feet, thereby destroying the principle of square schematism on which it was designed. |
after 830. In honorem Hludovici imperatoris, by Ermoldus Nigellus. |
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During the next two years his sons continue intransigent. | This poem in 4 books treats the life and exploits of Louis the Pious from 781 to 826. |
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835-851. France. School of St. Martin of Tours |
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838. Coronation of Charles the Bald. | |||
ca. 836. Calculus Victorii Aquitani. | |||
838. Death of Pepin of Aquitaine. | This Carolingian copy of a 5th-century Aquitanian calculator of the Christian calendar has inserted in its text an alphabet exemplar of capital letters executed in the most accomplished style of the Carolingian scriptural renascence (see figure 523, p. xxxiv). |
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838. Saracens devastate Marseilles. | |||
840. Death of Louis the Pious. | ca. 839 (or ca. 800?). Vreden, Kreis Ahaus, Germany, abbey church of SS Felicissimus, Agapitas, and Felicitas. |
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On his deathbed he sends the imperial insignia to Lothair. |
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With death of Louis the Pious, the evil decline of the Carolingian Dynasty accelerates. |
Three-aisled cruciform basilica westwork; extended choir; annular crypt (I fig. 136). |
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840-877. Reign of Charles the Bald. | 838-841. Life of St. Gall, Life of St. Otmar, and Hortulus, by Walahfrid Strabo. |
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841. Battle of Fontenoy. | 841-847. St. Gall, Switzerland, abbot's house of the monastery. |
Educated at Reichenau, and subsequently at Fulda under Hrabanus Maurus, in 838 Strabo returned to Reichenau as abbot, where he died in 849. |
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Lothair attempts to claim Louis' partitioned kingdom for himself, but is defeated by his two brothers. |
Rebuilt by Grimoald with aid of masons from the imperial court. |
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842. Charles the Bald and Louis the German form an alliance to resist pretentions of their brother Lothair I. |
841-859. Auxerre, France, church of St. Germain. Cruciform basilica; westwork; aisled hall crypt accessible by circumambient U-shaped corridor (like that of the church of the Plan of St. Gall). |
Author of numerous widely read theological and historical treatises, his most famous poem Hortulus (after 841) is an account of a little garden he loved to tend, and the virtues of medicinal herbs grown in it. |
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ca. 840. Bible of Moutier-Grandval. | |||
843. Treaty of Verdun. | In the north arm of the corridor crypt extraordinary frescoes with scenes from the life of St. Stephen, made presumably before 857, the year of bishop Heribald's death (plan, I fig. 157). |
ca. 845. Commentary to the Rule of St. Benedict, by Hildemar of Corbie (written in the monastery of Civitate). |
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Unity of empire is destroyed by its division into three parts ruled independently by Louis the Pious's three sons. |
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Lothair receives the "Middle Realm" (North Sea to Italy), Louis the German the "Eastern Territory" (coterminous with later Germany), Charles the Bald the "Western Territory" (coterminous with later France). Beside receiving the Middle Kingdom, Lothair retains title of "Emperor". |
Of the St. Germain frescoes in the crypt at Auxerre, says J. Hubert, "that the mural painters of this period could surpass the illuminators in skill and imagination. Some analogies have been rightly drawn between these frescoes and manuscript paintings from the scriptorium of Saint-Denis." |
845-846. Vivian Bible. | |
✶ | The Golden Age of Carolingian Dynasty comes to an end. |
849, 851. Lothair Gospels. | |
843. Norsemen sack Nantes and other places along the Loire. |
844. Corvey near Höxter on the Weser, Saxony. Addition of westwork and fore court to Adalhard's church. |
Under abbots Adalhard (834-843) and Vivian (844-851), Gospels, sacramentaries, and Bibles were illuminated with fixed cycles of illustrations: Majestas Domini, Evangelist portraits, emperor portraits, historical biblical scenes. |
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845. Norse invaders destroy Centula, the basilica of St.-Geneviève in Paris, and force the monks of St.-Germain-des-Prés and St.-Philibert-de-Grandlieu to flee to Coulainville and Cunault. |
The most noteworthy books of this school (listed above) influenced medieval illumination for centuries afterward. |
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847-859. France, crypt of church of St.-Philibert de-Grandlieu. |
Mss of this school enriched the iconographical repertoire of Carolingian art with the unprecedented revival of narrative biblical scenes. In style the illustrations consistently linearize classical prototypes forms, subordinating them to essentially geometric concepts, thus continuing an esthetic ambivalence already evidenced in mss of the Court School. |
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Originally a barrel-vaulted transverse shaft intersected by three shorter longitudinal arms; in 843849 made accessible by a U-shaped corridor built around it, perhaps under influence of Plan of St. Gall (I fig. 156). |
Plundered by Norsemen in 853, the school of illumination that flourished at Tours never recovered from this shock. |
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849-850. Saracens raid Provence. | 850 | ||
850. Norsemen destroy the monastery of St.-Bavo in Ghent. |
ca. 850. Paderborn, Germany, church of SS Peter and Paul. |
ca. 850. Evolution of the Frankish sequence. | |
Basilica with apse, counterapse, western transept, western towers. |
New styles and forms of the chant were developed, especially in the region northeast of the Loire to the Rhine. |
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850-875. Heiligenberg, Germany, church of St. Michael. |
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Aisled transept basilica; 3 semi-circular apses directly attached to transept. |
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852. Reims, France, abbey church of St. Rémi dedicated by Hincmar. |
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Details of upper church unknown; crypt said to be "of the finest workmanship." |
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851. Norsemen raid and destroy the abbey of Fontanella (St.-Wandrille). |
852. Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany; dedication of church of the Savior, built by Louis the German. Aisled transept basilica; semicircular apse; west-work (?). |
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853. Norsemen raid abbeys of St.-Germer near Beauvais and St.-Florent near Saumur, and devastate Angers, Poitiers, and Tours. |
852-872. Hildesheim, Germany, cathedral church. Aisled cruciform basilica; westwork (?); extended choir; circumambient corridor crypt. |
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855. Death of Drogo, bishop of Metz. | 855-892. Würzburg, Germany, cathedral. | ||
855. Death of Lothair. | Aisled basilica with western transverse room; details uncertain. |
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Falling ill, he divides his land among his three sons, enters the monastery of Prüm, and there dies. |
864-875. Werden, Germany, abbey church. | ca. 858. Works of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, translated into Latin by Johannes Scottus Erigena (head of Court School of Charles the Bald). Erigena based his translation on mss in the scriptorium of the abbey of St. Denis. |
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856. Norsemen attack Paris and Orléans. | Layout of Werden I unknown (ca. 800); it was furnished ca. 864 with annular crypt (preserved). In 875 original church replaced by aisled basilica with alternating supports. |
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857-875. Annual raids of Norsemen bore deeper and deeper along the rivers into the heart of France. |
864-878. Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, France. | 870-873. France. Court School of Charles the Bald |
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867. At the abbey of St. Gall, relics of St. Otmar are transferred to the new church of St. Otmar. |
Aisled basilica with apse (details unknown); beneath and behind apse a hall crypt accessible by a circumambient U-shaped corridor with access in the east through rectangular fore room to a hexagonal chapel built in honor of SS Peter and Paul (I fig. 158). |
870. Codex Aureus of St. Emmeran. | |
ca. 870. Bible of San Paolo fuori le mura; possibly written at Reims. |
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875 | 875-877. Reign of Charles the Bald. | 867. St. Gall, Switzerland, abbey, church of Otmar consecrated. |
871-873. Second Bible of Charles the Bald; written at St. Amand. |
Roman emperor and king of the West Franks, his reign witnesses a revival of arts and letters, but Norsemen incursions continue. |
Located west of Gozbert's church and connected to it by a porch serving as entrance to both and surmounted by a chapel of St. Michael consecrated in same year. |
Stylistically based on the tradition of the schools of Tours and of Reims, their baroque opulence betrays the passing of the zenith of Carolingian art, and signals that the end of the great Carolingian revival of Antiquity is not far off. |
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881. Charles the Fat crowned emperor by Pope John VIII, at Rome. |
before 872. St. Gall, Switzerland, abbey church. | ||
The youngest of the three sons of Louis the German returns to Germany and launches an expedition against the Norsemen of Friesland, but rather than risk battle, he prefers to come to terms by paying tribute. |
Tower erected by Hartmut on north side and near apse of Gozbert's church, with vaulted strongrooms for abbey treasures (II figs. 508. 509). |
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881, 882. The deaths of his brothers Carloman and Louis the Young make Charles the Fat possessor of all his father's dominions. |
ca. 890-896. Reichenau-Oberzell, Germany, church of St. George. |
ca. 880. Liber ymnorum, by Notker of St. Gall. | |
Notker's work contained 32 texts set to 25 sequence melodies, some West Frankish, some from his own region, representing the first major accomplishment of Frankish chant. |
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886-887. Norsemen besiege Paris. | Basilica with tripartite inner transept; rectangular apse above groin vaulted crypt; circular apse in west (I fig. 121). |
Within a century of its formal adoption by Charlemagne, the Gregorian chant (of Eastern origin) was converted from the long, raphsodic, infinitely convoluted and expressive form of Carolingian times to the extremely complex and subtle, superbly structured composition of the Frankish sequence. |
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Charles the Fat buys their retreat with heavy ransom and permits them to ravage Burgondy without interference. |
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887. Charles the Fat is deposed by an assembly held at Frankfurt or Tibur. |
end, 9th century. The Age of Charlemagne produced a new type of church architecture based on both the revival of the T-shaped Constantinian basilica (of the type of Old St. Peter's, Rome) and a process of simultaneous reorganization along modular lines of spatial composition (evidenced in St. Riquier, Cologne, Fulda, and most conspicuously in the church of the Plan of St. Gall). Only toward the end of the 10th century did it become clear that modularity in the proud beginnings had entered the mainstream of European architecture, with far-reaching consequences. |
882. De ordine palatii, by archbishop Hincmar of Reims. |
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888. Death of Charles the Fat. | On Carloman's accession to his father's (Louis the Stammerer) throne Hincmar presented him with his treatise setting forth the Carolingian system of government and duties of the sovereign, a work based in part on a lost treatise by Adalhard of Corbie. |
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He dies in poverty at Neidingen on the Danube. | In earlier works (De regis persona et regio ministerio, Instructio ad Ludovicum regem) Hincmar had already touched on these subjects. |
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✶ | The Carolingian Dynasty virtually comes to end. Technically, it survived until the death of Louis the Sluggard (Louis V), the last French king of the Carolingian line. Dying childless in 987, he was succeeded by Hugh Capet, first of the House of Capet, 987-1328. |
883-904. Formulae Sangallenses miscellaneae. | |
Contains earliest literary reference to waterpow-ered triphammers. |
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end, 9th century. | |||
After the death of Charles the Fat, as central authority continues to lapse, the empire is transformed into a mosaic of local protectorates forming prime cells of medieval feudalism. Religion and the arts decline and will not recover until Cluniac reform, and the emergence of the House of Capet in France and the Saxon House in Germany, give new strength and life to Western Europe. |
9th-11th century. Elisenhof, near Tönning, Germany. | 888-896. The Siege of Paris, by Abo of St.-Germain-des-Prés. | |
Site of aisled timber houses in Warf layers, identical in design with Hodorf structures (1st-2nd cent.) and Feddersen-Wierde (1st-4th cent.). (II figs. 319-20.) |
The epic written by this monk is a blatant example of Carolingian "numerical composition" (for details see above, pp. v-vi). |
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900 | The accomplishments of the great Carolingian renovatio of the Roman empire survived the troubled century that followed and remained a driving force in shaping future European history. |
They close the gap between Iron Age and Migration Period examples of this house type and their medieval derivatives, including guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall. |
END, CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE |
The Plan of St. Gall | ||