Digital Analysis of Vaults in English Medieval Architecture

Alexandrina Buchanan, James Hillson, Nicholas Webb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781351011273
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Medieval churches are one of the most remarkable creative and technical achievements in architectural history. The complex vaults spanning their vast interiors have fascinated both visitors and worshippers alike for over 900 years, prompting many to ask: 'How did they do that?' Yet very few original texts or drawings survive to explain the processes behind their design or construction.

This book presents a ground-breaking new approach for analysing medieval vaulting using advanced digital technologies. Focusing on the intricately patterned rib vaulting of thirteenth and fourteenth century England, the authors re-examine a series of key sites within the history of Romanesque and Gothic Architecture, using extensive digital surveys to examine the geometries of the vaults and provide new insights into the design and construction practices of medieval masons. From the simple surfaces of eleventh-century groin vaults to the gravity-defying pendant vaults of the sixteenth century, they explore a wide range of questions including: How were medieval vaults conceived and constructed? How were ideas transferred between sites? What factors led to innovations? How can digital methods be used to enhance our understanding of medieval architectural design?

Featuring over 200 high quality illustrations that bring the material and the methods used to life, Digital Analysis of Vaults in English Medieval Architecture is ideal reading for students, researchers and anyone with an interest in medieval architecture, construction history, architectural history and design, medieval geometry or digital heritage.

1

GROINS AND RIBS

For over two hundred years, the origin of the ribbed vault has been one of the most contested topics in the study of medieval architecture. Whilst its emergence during the eleventh and twelfth centuries has often been represented as the product of an evolutionary sequence of cumulative steps embodied by a canon of commonly cited examples, this smooth narrative of logical progression is not supported by the evidence of the vaults themselves. With so few vaults surviving from this early period, the exact sequence of developments which culminated in rib vaulting can never be reconstructed fully. Furthermore, the interwoven chronologies and sheer variety of the extant examples suggest a more complicated and less teleological history which is difficult to account for within traditional theoretical models.

It has long been recognised that all the types of vaulting used in western Europe during the Middle Ages were already known in the ancient world. Geometrically, the simplest form of vault is the tunnel, or barrel, vault, which consists of an arch projected into three dimensions [Fig. 1.1]. Round-arched barrel vaults can be found in Greek architecture (Boyd 1978) and were common in Roman buildings from as early as the second century BC (Lancaster 2015; MacDonald 1982). A groin, or groined, vault is notionally formed by the intersection of two barrel vaults [Fig. 1.1], though the actual geometry was not always as straightforward as this implies. Groin vaults are found in both Greek and Roman architecture and by the fourth century AD could be encountered from northwestern Europe to the Middle East.

FIG. 1.1Barrel and groin vaulting

Early Christian architects could draw on a rich tradition of vault forms. After Christianity was decriminalised by Emperor Constantine in 313 AD there was a substantial campaign of church building across the Roman Empire. Many of these churches adopted the formal language of the Roman basilica, an aisled structure raised on columnar supports and spanned by a wooden roof. Other churches and burial places followed the central plans of mausolea, palatial dining halls, audience chambers or the Roman Pantheon, rededicated as a church of the Virgin Mary in 609 AD. The Pantheon was topped with a dome, audience chambers were often vaulted and it is in their derivatives that we first find vaults being used in Christian architecture [Fig. 1.2].

FIG. 1.2The Pantheon, Rome, second century

Source: Photograph by Mohammad Reza Domiri Ganji (Wikimedia Commons), reproduced under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license

Stone vaults offered a different aesthetic experience from timber ceilings, the openness of their expansive concave shapes contrasting sharply with the closed flatness of horizontal beams and panels. They also provided practical advantages in terms of fire-proofing and carried a wealth of symbolic possibilities which could be enhanced with painted or mosaic decoration. Ribbed vaults became associated with altars and burial sites, perhaps inspired by the baldacchino of the Old St Peter’s in Rome [Fig. 1.3]. Much like its seventeenth-century replacement, this covered the high altar and the burial place of St Peter with a canopy supported on four twisted columns believed to have come from King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, topped by a pair of intersecting arches which provided a close visual parallel for the ribs of a quadripartite rib vault.

FIG. 1.3Pola Casket, image of the Baldacchino at Old St Peter’s, c.430, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Venice

Source: Reproduced by permission of the Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo

Early vaulting in medieval England

The history of vaulting in medieval England is closely linked to that on the Continent. Pre-Conquest architecture (c.500–1066) is known from both documentary sources and surviving examples to have been on a relatively small scale. Churches were often roofed in wood and reliant primarily on the richness of their contents and decoration for their aesthetic impact. There is nevertheless evidence that some vaulting techniques were in use during the seventh and eighth centuries. Barrel vaults appear in the crypts built as pilgrimage sites by Bishop Wilfred of Northumbria (c.633–709/10) in his monasteries at Ripon and Hexham, the design of which may well refer to the similar winding tunnels of the catacombs in Rome, and the eighth-century crypt at Repton features groin vaults carried on spiral-carved columns recalling those of the baldacchino at Old St Peter’s [Fig. 1.4].

FIG. 1.4St Wystan’s Church, Repton, crypt, early eighth century

Source: Photograph by Christopher Wilson, reproduced by permission of the author

It was not until the eleventh century, however, that vaulting began to appear on a large scale in English architecture. Throughout continental Europe, the years around 1000 had seen a series of extensive church-building campaigns as local potentates (both lay and ecclesiastical) founded churches and monasteries to cement their power and lay claim to eternal salvation through pious works. Contemporary chronicler Raoul Glaber wrote of a ‘white mantle of churches’ adorning the land at the time of the first millennium (Glaber 1989, pp. 114–17). The style of these buildings has come to be known as Romanesque, reflecting their close relationship with ancient Roman buildings in scale, construction techniques and decorative details. Their structures incorporated a wide variety of vaulting types, including domes, tunnel vaults (both round and pointed) and groin vaults. Though a number of regional variations were produced, perhaps the most significant for English architecture was that of Normandy. This local style is typified by grandiose churches with clearly defined bays, articulated by continuous shafts which formed part of the pier, extending up to become an arch traversing the width of the building. The spaces between these transverse arches were usually spanned by groin vaults. This idiom was imported into England in the years after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and from the 1080s onwards appeared across the country as cathedrals and monasteries were reformed and rebuilt on a similarly imposing scale.

Ribbed, or rib, vaults seem to have been introduced in a number of different places simultaneously during the decades around 1100, with early examples appearing in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. The rationale for their adoption is not mentioned in contemporary sources, although the difference was noted by at least one twelfth-century chronicler. Writing of the rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral after a disastrous fire in 1174, the local monk, Gervase, contrasted the choir aisles of the previous building in which ‘the vaults were plain (planus)’ (i.e. groined) with their rebuilt form where they were ‘arched (arcuatae) and keystoned (clavatae)’ (i.e. ribbed) and the old main vessel where ‘there was a ceiling (caelum) of wood decorated with excellent painting’ with the new ‘vault (fornix) appropriately constructed of stone and light tufa.’ These new vaults were closely associated with the church’s transition into a ‘more august form’ (augustior forma) of architecture, ennobling and aggrandising the building by their mere presence (Stubbs 1879–80, pp. 27–28).

Yet despite this apparent contrast in aesthetic experience, the introduction of ribbed vaulting did not immediately displace groin vaults. Throughout the twelfth century ribbed and groined vaults continued to be used together, often within the same building. This can be seen in three of our case study sites, specifically the west range at Norton Priory, the crypt and ambulatory at Gloucester Abbey and the transept chapel at Tewkesbury Abbey. The chronology of each of these sites does not suggest an evolutionary sequence from one form of vaulting to the other, but instead an experimental creative climate in which design possibilities were being explored in both groins and ribs simultaneously. This chapter identifies the specific architectural problems which were presented by vaulting each of these case studies, outlining the processes through which a diverse variety of construction techniques and architectural features were adapted to suit the particular demands of each site or the individual preferences of its patrons and designers.

Groins, arches and plans

At Norton Priory the only surviving part of the fabric is the lower storey of the west range of the cloister (c.1170–1200), which includes an undercroft with two vaulted aisles supported by a central line of octagonal columns. This was originally divided into two chambers by a single partition wall, the north featuring groin vaults, the south ribbed vaults. Some of the groin vaults were rebuilt in the nineteenth century using modern stereometric methods (see Chapter 5), whilst others were reconstructed following a more archaeological approach during the 1970s, with the original arches and masonry being largely retained. Though the groin vaulted bays are not all therefore strictly medieval in date, they do nonetheless provide a close approximation of their principles of construction, which is widely corroborated by comparison with other sites. In these bays the longer transverse arches are semi-circular, as are the shorter longitudinal arches. The curvatures of these bounding arches were apparently used as the basis for the centrings of the webbing, which was created in the form of two intersecting tunnels as though each web was an arch projected horizontally into three dimensions [Fig. 1.5]. These webs are neatly constructed in parallel courses of masonry, with a line of blocks marking the apex of each tunnel, possibly taking the form of a set of wedge-shaped keystones (Greene 1989, pp. 100–2).

FIG. 1.5Norton Priory, West Range, bay W3, digital model and contours

Anatomy of a vault

A vault can be defined as an arched surface covering part of the interior of a building. Most vaults have a longitudinal and a transverse axis. Longitudinal components are those that are parallel to the length of the whole run of vaulting, whereas transverse ones are parallel to its width. The outer edges of a vault are often defined by bounding arches or ribs and the apex point of the structure is referred to as the crown. The webs are often defined by longitudinal and/or transverse tunnels, the intersections between which are called groins. These are often covered by ribs or broken up by more complex patterns in later designs of vaults (see Chapter 2). The line along the apex of the vault tunnels is referred to as a ridge.

FIG. 1.6Diagram of vault anatomy

Case study 1...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Groins and ribs
• 2 Experiments with ribs
• 3 Plans
• 4 Curves
• 5 Stonecutting
• 6 Webs
• 7 Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Glossary
• Index