Mediaeval Church Vaulting

During the Romanesque period, or roughly speaking, from the beginning of the eleventh to the middle of the twelfth century, three chief forms of vaulting were employed over the naves and aisles of church edifices. The first of these was the dome, the second the tunnel vault, and the third, groined vaulting. With the development of the ribbed vault, all three gave way to this new method of construction, and the Gothic era was inaugurated. The dome was employed in two rather distinct ways according to the form of pendentives used for its support. Thus a number of churches continue the tradition of the spherical pendentive, while in others some form of squinch or trumpet arch is found. Both methods are of early origin, dating back, in fact, to the Roman era preceding the reign of Justinian (483-565) and consequently earlier than the Byzantine architecture of which they are so conspicuous a feature. Rivoira has shown the existence of numerous spherical pendentives of the second century A.D. or even earlier, and Lasteyrie has added to these a small cupola at Beurey-Beauguay (Côte-d’Or) in France dating from the second or third century. But even if this method were known at an early date it was not until the Byzantine era that it obtained a wide-spread and extensive usage. During the sixth century it became the principal method of vaulting throughout the Roman Empire, and, as such, had a considerable influence upon Carolingian architecture of the ninth and tenth centuries. This is true even in France, for traces of pendentives were found in 1870 during a restoration of the church of Germigny-des-Prés, a fact of particular interest because it is in France that the principal Romanesque examples of this method are to be seen.