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Under the Carolingians, church architecture received its first major injection of Germanicism, in the form of boosted verticality. Once again, however, few works survive, and these have often been subject to major restoration or modification. 750-900), which produced many basilica churches and Latin cross churches (see Church Anatomy). Medieval architecture truly emerged under the Carolingian Empire (ca. A handful of Merovingian baptisteries (in France) and Anglo-Saxon churches (in England) comprise the majority of surviving early Dark Age structures. At any rate, very few buildings survive from the early Dark Ages, and those that did were generally significantly modified in later periods. the transformation of Roman architecture with intricacy and verticality) made little headway during this period. The transition to medieval architecture (i.e. 500-750) witnessed the Germanic adoption of Roman architecture.
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This was only to be expected, as the hitherto migratory Germanic peoples possessed centuries of tradition in the decoration of practical objects, but none in the erection of permanent structures. 500-1000) in the form of small-scale visual art (especially metalwork, relief sculpture, and illuminated manuscripts), but not in the form of architecture. These aesthetics, known as the barbarian styles, flourished throughout the Early Medieval period (ca.
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The fall of Rome caused Western Europe to become politically and culturally fragmented, such that the unity of Roman art gave way to regional Germanic aesthetics. (The term "central-plan" denotes rotational symmetry if the plan is rotated around its central point, it looks the same at multiple points of rotation.) Minor Christian buildings tend to feature central-plan designs. These structures include the chapel (a place of worship that is relatively small compared to a church many churches contain chapels, allowing for private worship), baptistry (a building in which the ceremony of baptism is performed), shrine (which honours a holy figure or place, and may contain relics), and mausoleum (an above-ground tomb). The term minor Christian building is used by Essential Humanities to denote several types of relatively small Christian structures.
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An abbey is the residential complex of a religious community (see Abbey). Yet "cathedral" is often used (as it is throughout Essential Humanities) simply to denote any church of monumental size.įinally, it should be noted that while churches are the primary sacred architecture of Europe, two other types are also prominent: abbeys and minor Christian buildings. The next level up is the diocese, which consists of multiple parishes a diocese is administered from a cathedral (by a bishop). In the Roman Catholic scheme of administration, the smallest territorial unit is the parish, which contains a church (with a priest). The term cathedral can also be ambiguous. This usage has nothing to do with the physical layout of the church. Yet this term also has another, unrelated meaning: in Roman Catholicism, "basilica" is a title granted to churches that are deemed to have exceptional significance (e.g. The term basilica denotes a type of Roman building from which the standard church layouts developed (see Church Anatomy). ("Verticality" simply means that a structure is tall relative to its width.) These two qualities in medieval architecture are often referred to collectively as Germanicism. Once the Germanic tribes had absorbed the architectural traditions of the Romans (or rather what remained of those traditions following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire), they dramatically transformed them with intricacy and verticality. The greatest secular building type was the castle, a medieval Western fortress (see Castle). Styles of church architecture were often adapted to other monumental buildings of the medieval period, including residences, civic halls, and commercial structures. While Byzantine architecture remained relatively faithful to the simplicity and balanced proportions of Roman buildings, a dramatic transition away from classicism occurred in Western Europe, as the Germanic peoples (the new rulers of the West) built churches of ever-increasing verticality and intricacy.