The mastery of masonry vaulting was the most significant technological stride made
by Romanesque builders. The first completely vaulted structures, including Cluny II (ca.
1010) and Saint-Bénigne, Dijon (1001–18), probably drew upon slightly earlier Lombard
models. In the course of the 11th and early 12th centuries, each region seems to have
developed its own response to the new technology. Spacious domed churches rose at
Angoulême, Cahors, and Périgueux in Aquitaine. Hall churches appeared in Poitou. In
Burgundy, pointed barrel vaults were introduced in the churches of Cluny III, Autun, and
Paray-le-Monial; transverse barrel vaults covered the nave of Saint-Philibert at Tournus;
while the nave of Vézelay received a groin vault. Norman churches, such as Bernay and
Jumièges, retained timber ceilings through the 11th century but during the first quarter of
the 12th introduced the ribbed groin vault at Saint-Étienne and Sainte-Trinité, Caen.
Vaults appeared in combination with a variety of wall systems. At Dijon, the barrel vaults
were supported by a vaulted gallery, but their weight reduced the windows to small
openings. Such later examples as Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, and Conques retained galleries
to buttress their barrel-vaulted naves but eliminated windows. In the “thick-wall” system
of the Caen churches, a muscular wall, honeycombed with passages, was developed in
depth while the “thin-wall” structure of Jumièges or Saint-Martin-de-Boscherville
achieved stability through vertical masonry spines applied to the interior and exterior
while emphasizing mural planarity. One of the stimuli to the widespread experimentation
in Romanesque architecture may have been a search to combine the fireproof stone vault
with greater interior illumination.
During the 1130s in the area around Paris, a new style began to take shape. Combining
diverse Romanesque structural elements, such as the ribbed groin vault and pointed
arches, this architecture, exemplified by the new choir of the abbey of Saint-Denis
(1140–44), achieved a breathtaking spaciousness and visual lightness. In the course of the
following century, master masons exploited the structural advantages of the ribbed groin
vault to eliminate progressively solid areas of stone and transform the wall into a glazed
membrane. With the invention of the flying buttress in the mid-12th century and the
introduction of tracery in the early 13th, French architecture combined stupendous size
with small-scale effects that effectively expressed transcendental spirituality and
intimidating ecclesiastical power.
In writing about the reconstruction of Saint-Denis, Abbot Suger remarked that his
master mason laid out the choir through his arithmetical and geometrical cunning. As
plans became ever more complex, including congregational and clerical spaces,
peripheral aisles for circulation, and a multitude of secondary chapels, and elevations
grew taller yet more finely detailed, the master mason increasingly turned to drawing as a
tool for design and to ensure precise execution. Small-scale preliminary sketches and
full-scale plans of such elements as piers, window-tracery patterns, and flying buttresses
were drawn in temporary tracing houses or on the floors and walls of the buildings
themselves. Parchment drawings, which served as show plans to a patron as well as
project blueprints, survive from the mid-13th century, although their previous existence is
likely. The illustrations of church plans, stonecutting, and surveying procedures in the
sketch-book of Villard de Honnecourt (ca. 1230) disclose the centrality of geometry to all
aspects of the architectural endeavor.
Faced with the daunting task of erecting monumental buildings with the greatest
possible speed and economy, Gothic masons evolved a system of production based, as in
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