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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 12 2015, 01:31 PM (926 Views) | |
| Kati Ihnat | Jan 12 2015, 01:31 PM Post #1 |
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This is just to get the discussion going on liturgical spaces. It's a difficult question because there are not a lot of untouched buildings from the same period as our manuscripts. But there are some! From what I have gathered, the defining characteristic of architecture from the Visigothic and Mozarabic periods (so, between 456-711 and 711-1080) is variety. Churches, big and small, were built in many different shapes (square, varying cross-shapes, oblong), with varying numbers of apses and naves, sometimes attached to old cave-hermitages, some with more than one story, etc. The one common feature seems to have been the horse-shoe shaped arch, found in most of the churches from this early period. It looks like this: ![]() There's a website I've found useful as a first stop for looking at the surviving buildings, their architectural characteristics and background history - if you can get past some of the dodgy translation! They've catalogued buildings according to period, with handy chronological lists. There are also galleries of images which can help to imagine the spaces (and travel information if you get a chance to go!). Here's a link to a number of churches from the Visigothic period, divided by style - which coincides with spheres of influence: http://www.turismo-prerromanico.com/en/visigodo/diagrama-monumentos-fecha/ Here's a link to churches from the Mozarabic period, that is, mostly the northern Christian kingdoms, from the same period as most of the surviving manuscripts: http://www.turismo-prerromanico.com/en/mozarabe/diagrama-monumentos-fecha/ Just to point out one of the more important buildings for our work, here's a link to the entry on the monastery church of San Millan de Suso: http://www.turismo-prerromanico.com/en/mozarabe/monumento/san-milln-de-suso-20130611103946/#ad-image-0 It was built over the centuries adjacent to a series of caves in which the saint himself is supposed to have lived with his hermit companions in the sixth century. The monastery became especially important in the tenth century, when its active scriptorium (centre for book production) produced and collected a significant number of the liturgical manuscripts we're looking at. The handy floor plans in the gallery of images shows how the structure grew from a series of cave chapels to a church with two naves and apses. You can clearly see the horseshoe shaped arches, and the southern-inspired carving on some of the capitals. This all gives a sense of the structure of churches in which the liturgy would have been performed. Edited by Kati Ihnat, Jan 12 2015, 04:23 PM.
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| Kati Ihnat | Jan 12 2015, 01:32 PM Post #2 |
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Just to give a different sense of the interior of churches, here's some links to images and background of San Baudelio de Berlanga - an isolated church in the region of Soria: http://www.turismo-prerromanico.com/en/mozarabe/monumento/san-baudelio-de-berlanga-20130614013725/#ad-image-0 The most important feature of this church, in addition to its curious square shape, is the survival of some of the paintings that would have covered the entire interior. The dating of the church seems to be subject to debate, and there is also some question about the dating of the wall paintings, which have generally been placed ca. 1125 (a bit later than the manuscripts we've been looking at). But in addition to being spectacular (or would have been, if most of the frescoes hadn't been shipped off to American museums...), they also give an idea of how richly painted churches could be. Check out this video with digital reconstructions of the paintings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96xrNigg_UA Here's a more complete description (in Spanish, but with handy diagrams) of the paintings and their subjects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olgsGRHV890 What she describes are images not only drawn from the New Testament (life of Jesus), but also hunting scenes and images of animals that may have had allegorical meaning, i.e. the elephant symbolising humility, the bear gluttony, etc. Because we do have fragments of images in other Mozarabic churches we can assume that even if these are twelfth-century, churches would most likely have been painted, and that gives us an entirely different perspective on the kind of visual stimuli people would have experienced, vs. the bare walls we generally see now. |
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| Kati Ihnat | Jan 12 2015, 02:07 PM Post #3 |
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One last thing on church structures, is the question of spacial hierarchies. As you can see from many of the floor plans, churches were divided into spaces that were reserved for particular groups - the nave for the congregation (including lay people), the sanctuary to which only the officiant would have had access. The general rule was, the closer to the altar, the higher you had to be in the church hierarchy to be there. See this plan from the abbey church of San Miguel de Escalada (10th century): ![]() You can see from these pictures of the same church the layers of spacial division: This photo looks towards the apse, with various series of arches marking out the space reserved for the clergy. Here we get a view of the northern nave, with blocks of stone at knee height creating a further separation marking off the space reserved for clergy - they correspond to numbers 1 and 2 in the floor plan above. Some of the divisions are obvious: marked by arches or by the chancel stones. Some of the possible additional divisions are no longer present. It has been suggested on the basis of manuscript illuminations that there would have been curtains separating spaces, i.e. this image from the Beato of Gerona (a commentary on the Apocalypse of John), completed in 975 ![]() You can see from this image of a church how each of the arches in front of the three altars has curtains that may have covered activities ongoing in the sanctuary. The important thing to take away from this is that access to what was going on during the performance of the liturgy would have been determined by your place in the church hierarchy, with only the officiants (bishops, priests, deacons) having access to some of the innermost spaces, the choir of monks or canons separated into their own space, and the general congregation separated further off from the action. This would have affected what each group could hear or see, which could influence you in your composition. Edited by Kati Ihnat, Jan 12 2015, 04:34 PM.
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| Kati Ihnat | Feb 3 2015, 04:02 PM Post #4 |
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Here are a few more words on architectural features of some Visigothic and Mozarabic churches that might be interesting when trying to imagine the spaces in which the chants of the Old Hispanic Office were sung. Elevated chapels Some churches had chapels on upper stories, built above the entrance or narthex or over the presbytery. They may have looked a bit like this: ![]() As you can see here, there's a set of additional altars built on the second story, and it seems to align with the archaeological evidence that shows that such upper story chapels did in fact exist. See for example this one, at San Baudelio de Berlanga: ![]() Altars Those funny-shaped altars in the above images, the ones in T-shape, would apparently have been found in churches up to the eleventh century. The T-shaped altar was apparently the oldest form of altar, found also in Paleo-Christian and Visigothic churches. Here's one that specifies it is in fact 'an altar of our Lord' in Latin on the side (ara Domini nostri): ![]() Liturgical objects In addition to the chalice and censer in the first image above, there were a number of other kinds of objects in Visigothic and Mozarabic churches that enriched the space and also held symbolic significance. You can also see in the above image, the votive crowns made of various metals that hung above the altar. They were circular, semicircular or square-shaped, and were placed there to decorate the sanctuary. Here's a real one: ![]() You might also find candelabras, like these: ![]() So too would there have been crosses hanging. But these were not like the ones produced centuries later, with Jesus hanging on it and looking miserable and dying. These were Greek-inspired crosses studded with gems, and Jesus is only represented by the presence of the alpha and omega hanging off the horizontal arms of the cross, like this: ![]() Edited by Kati Ihnat, Feb 3 2015, 04:03 PM.
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| Emma Hornby | Feb 25 2015, 03:55 PM Post #5 |
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I was just talking with an archaeologist colleague about Visigothic churches and monasteries, and he pointed me at this ruin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitage_of_Santa_Mar%C3%ADa_de_Lara He pointed out that - although it's almost entirely just at ground level now - the layout of the church is almost identical to some of the very-well-preserved Anglo-Saxon churches that British people are more familiar, like Deerhurst http://deerhurstfriends.co.uk/history/ Both churches had an apse at the east end of the church (square at Santa María De Lara and rounded at Deerhurst - and only the foundations of it remain at Deerhurst). West of that, both had a choir portion, with some sort of screen dividing it from the rest of the church. North and south of that choir part there were small spaces, again in both (probably vestries, at least one of them in each church) Both had a central nave, with little side rooms all the way along ("porticuses"), which might be used for storage or as monastic cells. Both had a separate room at the west end (under the tower at Deerhurst, and I guess maybe so at Santa María De Lara as well). Deerhurst certainly had a gallery around the nave. I'm not suggesting at all that there is a direct connection between these two churches - it's just that, although most of the Visigothic architecture is now destroyed, we can see traces of similar shapes and structures and likely uses of space in surviving churches from other parts of Europe before ca 1100. |
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| LithaEfthymiou | Mar 20 2015, 03:15 PM Post #6 |
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Thanks Kati and Emma, all of this information is so interesting - and so relevant to my area of study. As I think more about my Palm Sunday piece, I am wondering about levels of light. The part of the Palm Sunday ritual I am looking at takes place in the evening (I hope this is correct) and I guess, therefore, that candles were used to light the cathedral - but do you know if any part of the building was ever left in complete darkness? And if so, which part? |
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| Emma Hornby | Mar 24 2015, 04:20 PM Post #7 |
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There is the service where the candles are gradually extinguished (we were talking about it here: http://w11.zetaboards.com/Old_Hispanic_Office/topic/10799434/2/#new ). Usually (as Raquel says in that thread) the vespertinus was sung at the beginning of the liturgical day (in the evening), but it is absent in those last days of Holy Week. That's all I can think of - I don't think we have specific evidence about exactly where the candles were, and which bits of a church would have been lit up more than others. |
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| Raquel Rojo Carrillo | Mar 27 2015, 08:46 AM Post #8 |
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Here are some pictures of some Spanish towns that have preserved part of their Medieval buildings. I attach an image of the Church of Saint Christopher, in Beget (from the same webpage of the link above), which has a tower that was constructed in the tenth century. ![]() I will post about the candles and light soon! Edited by Raquel Rojo Carrillo, Mar 27 2015, 08:54 AM.
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| Raquel Rojo Carrillo | Mar 27 2015, 05:38 PM Post #9 |
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Hello again. About the light at the vespers services: I have found no evidence as to the exact moment in which the candles were lit in the liturgy. Candles were certainly used in the vespers service and romanesque candelabra and more simple candle-supports have survived (there are a couple at the Museum of Burgos, for example) but I do not know in what parts of the church they were placed. Medieval documents dealing with the Medieval Church of Spain, however, do attest to the existence of a ceremony for the offering of the light, oblatio luminis, at the beginning of the vespers service. This ceremony preceded the vespertinus and the sonus chants as stated in the Council of Mérida of 666 (more details in Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova Et Amplissima Collectio, vol. XI, col. 77-78, here). According to Pinell, the oblatio luminis was the initial rite of the vespers in which the deacon lit the lamp (I suppose that the main lamp of the church) and raised it in front of the altar saying: ‘In nomine Domini nostri Iesu Christi lumen cum pace’, after which the congregation responded ‘Deo gratias’ (see Pinell, Liturgia Hispánica, p. 229, available here, for the original quote in Spanish - I gave in this post a free translation to English). After this, the vespertinus would be chanted, and this genre of chant that often alludes to the metaphors light/God, darkness/sin. However, this light metaphors are not always accomplished by referring to candle-light. Instead, in these chants we can find mentions to the light of the sun, the moon and the stars, or mentions to the sky or heaven (caelus, i). Best wishes, Raquel |
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| Roi Khosro Ier | May 10 2015, 08:32 AM Post #10 |
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Were the external walls of this visigothic and mozarabic churches sometimes painted, like for example cathedrals in France ? Do we have any infos about who build them ? Are this churches resonant ? I mean also thought as a place where the liturgical chant "can vibrate and resonate" ? |
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| Raquel Rojo Carrillo | May 14 2015, 11:39 AM Post #11 |
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Thank you very much for your question! I have not seen any paintings on the external walls of the visigothic and mozarabic churches that I have visited and in which the Old Hispanic rite was practised, nor in the reproductions or reconstructions of Romanesque churches or parts of them at Museo del Prado or at Museo Arquelógico Nacional (both museums in Madrid). Nonetheless, this does not mean that these paintings did not exist. In fact, inside some Romanesque churches dating from the twelfth and thirteenth century we can still find some mural paintings. Some of these churches are: former Iglesia de San Román, today Museo de los Concilios y la Cultura Visigoda, in Toledo; Iglesia de los Santos Justo y Pastor, in Segovia; and, the ones that can be seen in this video. External paintings could have covered their walls too, but I suppose that these were more likely to have worn out with time. Although the Old Hispanic rite seems not to have been in vogue in these churches by the time that they were covered with paintings (perhaps this music was never heard there because they date after the time in which this rite was officially replaced by the Gregorian rite), these images are certainly inspiring and coexisted with the six mozarabic parish churches that were exceptionally allowed to practise this rite in Toledo from the twelfth to the fourteenth century (the aforementioned church of Saint Roman was not one of these parishes). Basic information about mural painting in the visigothic and mozarabic milieu can be found here: Ascensión Ferrer Morales, La pintura mural: su soporte, conservación, restauración y las técnicas modernas (Sevilla : Universidad de Sevilla, 1998), pp. 31 -35. This reference can be consulted online, here. Best wishes! Edited by Raquel Rojo Carrillo, May 14 2015, 11:40 AM.
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