The Architecture of Medieval Churches

Theology of Love in Practice

John A.H. Lewis

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351796040
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Architecture
• Sous-sujet: History of Architecture

The Architecture of Medieval Churches investigates the impact of affective theology on architecture and artefacts, focusing on the Middle Ages as a period of high achievement of this synthesis. It explores aspects of medieval church and cathedral architecture in relation to the contemporary metaphysics and theology, which articulated an integrated theocentric culture, architecture, and art. Three modes of attention: comprehension, instruction, and contemplation, informed the builders' intuition and intention. The book's central premise reasons that love for God was the critical force in the creation of vernacular church architecture, using a selection of medieval writings to provide a unique critique of the genius of architecture and art during this period. An interdisciplinary study between architecture, theology, and philosophy, it will appeal to academics and researchers in these fields.

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1 Introduction

A view of medieval churches

In portraying the battle to save the soul of Notting Hill—to save the identity of the city—G. K. Chesterton set it in a medieval time-warp. It was not, however, merely romantic medievalism. In the silent darkness at the close of the story a philosophising voice says, ‘And in the darkest of the books of God there is written a truth that is also a riddle. It is of the new things that men tire—of fashions and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things that are young.’¹ The medieval architecture of churches and cathedrals which we still see can startle our minds and intoxicate our senses, and all the more as our world’s obsession with ‘fashion and proposals’ hides a tiredness and temporariness affecting deepest human potentialities. The final dialogue in Chesterton’s novel is heard by no one but the reader: it may be the same with this book, but it is warranted if here is ‘written a truth’. We may see it participating in all truth—but it will only talk of certain matters.

Achievements in medieval church architecture and medieval theology alike had extraordinary power and enduring value. The theology may be a less immediately accessible field than the architecture, for while it is text-based the writings seem like dark books in our century. Architectural history has had little real engagement with it. This study tries to discern whether much of the power and value in the architecture can be elucidated through the minds that constructed the theology, and whether the theology was at some or many levels embodied in the buildings. It investigates the mental influence and creative impulses in the spiritual regimen, and draws from the parallel culture of learning and arts a context for the architecture. It thus seeks to understand central ideas directing somehow the makers of churches in the Middle Ages.

According to academic norms this is an interdisciplinary study, and because of established demarcations the connections in the subject may seem strained. But to medieval thinkers of profound ideas and makers of manifold things the opposite was rather the case: there was a sensed unity and coherence linking all that exists. If valid in the Middle Ages, it might have value for today to attempt to give an account of such noetic and spiritual awareness and pervasive, even unconscious, integration: this, hopefully, is an open possibility.

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Although remote in time from their construction, very many churches are in the present time still used and loved. They evoke a sense that somehow these places locate us between two great preoccupations—architecture and theology. The underlying locus is deeply Christocentric thought. Architects now might admire medieval church architecture but are unlikely to venture very far into medieval learning, while those charged with the care of the churches tend to find archaeological aspects more pressing than theological ones. Architectural historians in such a rich field of study, though presumably having an awareness of theological subjects, do not follow far the ramifications of a spiritual focus in architecture. But when we are open to a convincing power and integrity in the works themselves the natural questions are: how were such extraordinary churches made? why were they made thus? Difficult as those questions may be, harder ones remain: what meaning do the works carry? how do they express it? We should not be surprised to find that the questions as to the making and the enquiry into the meaning have one underlying answer. We may come to see that that which held a central place in theology had a key role in the conception and art of making of these buildings.

Aside from architecture and theology, building and religion are two most fundamental activities in a culture (unless there be a wholly secular society). In the Middle Ages, while there was so much religion, vigorous theology was not impeded and the culture owned it, to the extent that the theology carried essentials of the culture quite explicitly. It can therefore effectively lead interdisciplinary enquiry. It was a dominant tenet that everything be connected to God by every person—and in community—coming to love him first; and this will be adduced from many written sources. The evidence will show that connecting ‘everything’ to God included the arts and, implicitly, architecture, which things were to be in fact means to the end of loving and magnifying God. The insight that embraces both architecture and theology, and becomes the key signifier of meaning, is that from conception to completion the buildings may properly be understood as works of love towards God, as material things pointing to spiritual.

To give attention to love as a central theme in the mentality may seem too oblique to the appreciation of architecture. But a starting point is that theocentric love could regard everything created and made as part of a universally integrating order. In the light of this emphasis, we will consider how it might have been intrinsic in the architecture and art. We will see love as central because it was reiterated in intellectual, affective, and mystical modes of theology as being indispensable in human attitudes and acts. A radical appraisal then of the architecture of abbey churches, cathedral churches, and parish churches will connect motivation, processes of making, and the buildings and art works produced, with this almost indefinable element.

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The coincidence of developments in architecture and theology in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries brings this into sharpest focus. Both became highly articulate. Love for God was reiterated by theologians; and devotion may have operated with fervour in architects and builders of churches. Our first purpose is achieved if we can deduce that love for God was an effective motivating factor—without having to prove that this was the sole factor. Motivations are seldom single, as the theology of love well recognised; nor did it reckon human works to be perfectible. At that time theology and church building held primary places and their works were vast; and because of their diverse modes—one dealing with ideas and texts, the other with arts and phenomena—we have to be prepared to find evidence of connections quite dispersed and fragmentary. The problems inherent in this will be discussed shortly, but some boundaries of the topic and limits to research can be delineated.

It might be thought that use of theological evidence by itself entails a too simplistic theory of derivation. The hypothesis in turn may seem more idealistic than application to the material phenomena can support. Günther Binding, appraising a medieval text which employs a building metaphor, writes, ‘These comments make it clear to us that theological ideas were not the prime mover in the design of Gothic cathedrals. [They] were a conceptual aid [. . .] but did not determine form.’² He allows that ‘theoretical’ theology reveals meaning but disallows any instrumental role of note. Such a view provokes the need for extensive and closer scrutiny of sources.

There were, of course, complex conditions underlying the construction of medieval churches; societal aspects such as patronage, and political and religious forces. There may seem to be a legitimate demand for exhaustive treatment of all surrounding issues, but even if that were possible it would, because of the special claims of theological love, only bear out theology’s contention that love operates on or from a superior level, ultimately beyond contradiction or negation. We will not give attention to evidently contrary or equally prevalent features of medieval society, for instance profane love, or religious practices such as a regard for images which later reformers considered idolatrous. Such aspects are emphasised by some with the effect of detracting from spiritual influences shaping the works of ecclesiastical art and architecture, and diverting the focus away from positive substantive matters. Despite human deficiencies the main attitude of medieval theologians in treating human love for God is affirmatory, and we must resist being deflected from seeing its full ramifications. Also it should become apparent that distinctions between, or the emphases of, scholastic theology and monastic theology are not very relevant to our subject, although their milieu deserves to be taken into account. As to the role of liturgy in the architecture it warrants more particular treatment than this study can give.³

From the twelfth to the mid-fourteenth century both architecture and theology in Latin Europe produced extraordinary work which was innovative and prolific. The roots of the achievements in both endeavours are earlier, a continuum indeed from the start of the Christian era; there are also fine later achievements. Where evidence across the whole time span can be treated for its acuity rather than historically, it need not be precluded. Thus the time-frame for theological and intellectual sources can accommodate two strands of evidence: (a) earlier and contemporary written sources which might have been drawn upon by, or have indirectly influenced, the architects and builders; (b) literary evidence from contemporary and late medieval sources which might articulate or explain the architectural work which was being produced. The time-frame for the architecture for which the case is being made likewise extends to earlier works which may cast light on the matter. Later examples also are important, in order to accommodate the length of building projects, recognising too that ‘development’ was not necessarily linear or consistently ‘progressive’. From the much studied high period in France and England we should allow a time lag of half a century and more to include the full achievements in the north and east of Europe.

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The useful methodologies are not those of architectural history; rather they will be the detection of the critical elements of...