ART OF THE WARRIOR LORDS, 5th to 10th Centuries
❚After the fall of Rome in 410, the Huns, Vandals, Merovingians, Franks, Goths, and other non-Roman
peoples competed for power and territory in the former northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire.
❚The surviving art of this period consists almost exclusively of small-scale status symbols, especially
portable items of personal adornment such as bracelets, pins, and belt buckles, often featuring
cloisonné ornament. The decoration of these early medieval objects displays a variety of abstract
and zoomorphic motifs. Especially characteristic are intertwined animal and interlace patterns.
CHRISTIAN ART: SCANDINAVIA,
BRITISH ISLES, SPAIN, 6th to 10th Centuries
❚The Christian art of the early medieval British Isles is called Hiberno-Saxon (or Insular). The most
important extant artworks are the illuminated manuscripts produced in the monastic scriptoria of
Ireland and Northumbria. The most distinctive features of these Insular books are the full pages
devoted neither to text nor to illustration but to pure embellishment in the form of carpet pages
made up of decorative panels of abstract and zoomorphic motifs. Some Hiberno-Saxon books also
have full pages depicting each of the Four Evangelists or their symbols. Text pages often feature
enlarged initial letters of important passages transformed into elaborate decorative patterns.
❚In Spain, Visigothic churches of the sixth and seventh centuries were basilican in plan but had square
apses and often incorporated horseshoe arches, a form usually associated with Islamic architecture.
❚Scandinavian churches of the 11th century are notable for their carved wooden decoration recalling
the pre-Christian art of the Vikings.
CAROLINGIAN ART, 768–877
❚Charlemagne, king of the Franks since 768, expanded the territories he inherited from his father,
and in 800, Pope Leo III crowned him emperor of Rome (r. 800–814). Charlemagne reunited much
of western Europe and initiated a revival of the art and culture of Early Christian Rome.
❚Carolingian illuminators merged the illusionism of classical painting with the northern linear
tradition, replacing the calm and solid figures of their models with figures that leap from the page
with frenzied energy.
❚Carolingian sculptors revived the imperial Roman tradition of equestrian ruler portraiture and the
Early Christian tradition of depicting Christ as a statuesque youth.
❚Carolingian architects looked to Ravenna and Early Christian Rome for models, but transformed
their sources, introducing, for example, the twin-tower western facade for basilicas and employing
strict modular plans in their buildings.
OTTONIAN ART, 919–1024
❚In the mid-10th century, a new line of emperors, the Ottonians, consolidated the eastern part
of Charlemagne’s former empire and sought to preserve and enrich the culture and tradition of
the Carolingian period.
❚Ottonian architects built basilican churches with the towering spires and imposing westworks of
their Carolingian models but introduced the alternate-support system and galleries into the interior
elevation of the nave.
❚Ottonian sculptors also began to revive the art of monumental sculpture in works such as the Gero
crucifix and the colossal bronze doors of Saint Michael’s at Hildesheim.
❚Ottonian painting combines motifs and landscape elements from Late Antique art with the golden
backgrounds of Byzantine art. Byzantine influence on Ottonian art became especially pronounced
after Otto II married Theophanu in 972.
THE BIG PICTURE
EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE
Sutton Hoo purse cover, ca. 625Lindisfarne Gospels,ca. 698–721Charlemagne or Charles the Bald,
ninth centurySaint Michael’s, Hildesheim,
1001–1031