This book presents a fresh perspective on eleventh- and twelfth-century Irish architecture, and a critical assessment of the value of describing it, and indeed contemporary European architecture in general, as “Romanesque”. Medieval Irish Architecture and the Concept of Romanesque is a new and original study of medieval architectural culture in Ireland. The book’s central premise is that the concept of a “Romanesque” style in eleventh- and twelfth-century architecture across Western Europe, including Ireland, is problematic, and that the analysis of building traditions of that period is not well served by the assumption that there was a common style. Detailed discussion of important buildings in Ireland, a place marginalised within the “Romanesque” model, reveals the Irish evidence to be intrinsically interesting to students of medieval European architecture, for it is evidence which illuminates how architectural traditions of the Middle Ages were shaped by balancing native and imported needs and aesthetics, often without reference to Romanitas. This book is for specialists and students in the fields of Romanesque, medieval archaeology, medieval architectural history, and medieval Irish studies.

"This book presents a fresh perspective on eleventh- and twelfth-century Irish architecture. Eschewing its conventional description as "Romanesque", it offers a critical assessment of that term, "Romanesque", and of its accompanying theory of a common, pan-European, style of architecture in the early second millennium CE. Medieval Irish Architecture and the Concept of Romanesque is a new and original study of medieval architectural culture in Ireland. The book's central premise is that the concept of a "Romanesque" style in eleventh- and twelfth-century architecture across western Europe, including Ireland, is problematic, and that the analysis of building traditions of that period is not well served by the assumption that there was a common style. Detailed discussion of important buildings in Ireland, a place marginalised within the "Romanesque" model, reveals the Irish evidence to be intrinsically interesting to students of medieval European architecture, for it is evidence which illuminates how architectural traditions of the middle ages were shaped by balancing native and imported needs and aesthetics, often without reference to Romanitas. This book is for specialists and students in the fields of Romanesque, medieval archaeology, medieval architectural history, and medieval Irish studies"--

The Romanesque style was a pan-European tradition of art and architecture that emerged on the Continent during the 11th century. It reached Ireland as the movement to reform the Irish Church gathered pace at the start of the 12th century. Executed under secular patronage but for the benefit of ecclesiastics and their churches, it became a metaphor for that reform. The fashion for Romanesque faltered in eastern Ireland with the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in 1169, but it survived into the 13th century west of the Shannon. This book is the first substantial analysis of Romanesque Ireland to appear in thirty years. Concentrating on architecture and sculpture, it examines how Irish artists and builders of the 12th century reconfigured the language of the international Romanesque according to their own aesthetic tastes, and it considers the meanings of their art to contemporary spectators. In a departure from earlier literature, this book also explores the concept of 'style' itself, and its value in reconstructing social identity in the past.

This is the first book devoted to churches in Ireland dating from the arrival of Christianity in the fifth century to the early stages of the Romanesque around 1100, including those built to house treasures of the golden age of Irish art, such as the Book of Kells and the Ardagh chalice. � Carrag�in's comprehensive survey of the surviving examples forms the basis for a far-reaching analysis of why these buildings looked as they did, and what they meant in the context of early Irish society. � Carrag�in also identifies a clear political and ideological context for the first Romanesque churches in Ireland and shows that, to a considerable extent, the Irish Romanesque represents the perpetuation of a long-established architectural tradition.

Irelands landscape is dotted with remains of medieval buildings, most of them in ruins. As works of architecture, these buildings have very specific stories to tell about the people who built them and about the societies in which they functioned, but it is hard for historians to hear those stories without some knowledge of architecture. This guide seeks to provide historians with the knowledge they need to tap into this great reservoir of information. It reviews the different types of medieval building that one encounters in Ireland, discusses their measurements, materials and construction techniques, explains their functions, and provides a checklist of datable features and includes a guide to recording buildings.

Professor Stalley began to explore Ireland's rich legacy of medieval art in 1969, at a time when it was little known by students abroad. From the start his principal aim was to discover how Irish art fitted into its European context, an aim which led to a series of important comparative studies on major European monuments, both Romanesque and Gothic. Having begun his career as a historian, the author has been concerned with the social and political implications of medieval art, particularly the effect of the racial divisions that existed in medieval Ireland. He has written about Irish cathedrals, as well as the buildings of the Cistercian monks and Franciscan friars. He has also investigated the royal programme of castle building in the thirteenth century. Other essays in this volume include a fascinating account of the repercussions of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, as well as a consideration of the influence of Viking styles on Hiberno-Romanesque sculpture. In recent years Professor Stalley has turned his attention to the high crosses, writing with authority on the iconography of these complex monuments. The opening essay in the volume is devoted to the patronage of Henry I's justiciar, Bishop Roger of Salisbury, whose cathedral at Sarum was destined to influence the course of Irish Romanesque.

Drawing on new work published over the past twenty years, the author offers a history of building in Western Europe from 300 to 1200. Medieval castles, church spires, and monastic cloisters are just some of the areas covered.

The nineteen papers collected in this volume explore a notable phenomenon, that of retrospection in the art and architecture of Romanesque Europe. They arise from a conference organized by the British Archaeological Association in 2010, and reflect its interest in how and why the past manifested itself in the visual culture of the 11th and 12th centuries. This took many forms, from the casual re-use of ancient material to a specific desire to re-present or emulate earlier objects and buildings. Central to it is a concern for the revival of Roman and early medieval forms, spolia, selective quotation, archaism and the construction of histories. The individual essays presented here cover a wide range of topics and media: the significance of consecration ceremonies in the creation of architectural memory, the rise of pictorial concepts in 12th-century chronicles, the creation of history in the Paris of Hugh of St-Victor, and the appeal of the works of Bernward of Hildesheim and of Hrabanus Maurus in the centuries after their deaths. There are studies of buildings and the ideological purpose behind them at Tarragona, Ripoll, Cluny, Pannonhalma (Hungary), La Roccelletta (Calabria), and Old St Peter's, comparative studies of Trier, Villenauxe and Glastonbury, and of Bury St Edmunds, Rievaulx and Canterbury, and wide-ranging papers on the tantalizing evidence for an engagement with an overseas past in Ireland, an Anglo-Saxon past in England, and a Milanese past among the aisleless cruciform churches of Augustinian Europe. The volume concludes with an assessment of the very concept of Romanesque.