A story in wool
Around 1070, women and men, probably in England, embroidered a picture story on a strip of linen some 70 metres long. It tells how the Norman duke William crossed to England in 1066 and defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. There are ships, horses, feasts, battles and a comet in the sky, with short Latin captions like a comic strip.
The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most famous images of the Middle Ages. From September 2026 to July 2027 it can be seen in England for the first time in more than 900 years, on loan to the British Museum in London.
A name from the 19th century
Scholars coined the term “Romanesque” in the early 19th century. They saw in its round arches and piers a continuation of Roman architecture, much as the Romance languages had developed from Latin. The art before it, Carolingian art and the art of the Saxon emperors, Ottonian art, is considered its precursor.
Churches like fortresses
Romanesque churches look heavy and fortified. Thick walls carry the vaults, the windows are small, the spaces clearly articulated. Speyer Cathedral, built from 1030 as the burial place of the Salian emperors, was one of the largest churches of its time and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In Burgundy, the third church of the abbey of Cluny was begun in 1088; until the new St Peter’s was built, it was the largest church in Christendom. After the French Revolution it was almost entirely demolished.
Cologne has twelve large Romanesque churches, among them St Gereon, St Maria im Kapitol and Gross St Martin, an ensemble with few equals in Europe.
Images in stone and bronze
On portals and column capitals, sculptors told biblical stories, often with demons, fabulous beasts and drastic scenes of hell. Above the entrance to Autun Cathedral, a sculptor carved a Last Judgement around 1130 and set his name beneath it: “Gislebertus hoc fecit”, Gislebertus made this. Such signatures are rare in the Middle Ages.
In Hildesheim, at the transition from Ottonian to Romanesque art, Bishop Bernward had two bronze doors cast in 1015, each in a single piece, with scenes from the Creation to the Resurrection. As early as around 970, still in the Ottonian period, the Gero Cross was made in Cologne, one of the oldest surviving monumental crucifixes in the West. It shows Christ not as a victor but as a suffering, dying man.
Painted walls and precious books
Romanesque churches were usually painted throughout. Such wall paintings have survived in the Pyrenees. Many were removed in the 20th century and taken to Barcelona, among them the Christ in Majesty from Sant Climent de Taüll, with large eyes and strong contours.
Monasteries such as Reichenau on Lake Constance, already famous in the Ottonian period, produced splendid manuscripts with gold and brilliant colours. Women also took part in this art. Abbess Hildegard of Bingen had her visions recorded in images, and Herrad of Landsberg created the Hortus Deliciarum, an illustrated encyclopedia that burned in Strasbourg in 1870. In the 12th century a nun named Guda drew herself into an initial and wrote: “Guda, a sinful woman, wrote and painted this book.” It is regarded as one of the earliest self-portraits of a woman in European art.
Why it still matters
Romanesque still shapes the look of many European cities and landscapes, from the imperial cathedrals on the Rhine to the village churches along the Way of St James. Its clear forms and expressive figures later fascinated modern artists too. And it shows how closely Europe was linked a thousand years ago through pilgrimage routes, monasteries and art.
Further reading
- Rolf Toman (ed.): Romanesque: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting (German original 1996).
- Meyer Schapiro: Romanesque Art (1977).