the North, the zone septentrionale as defined by the French scholar Henri Focillon, who
contrasted this northern Early Romanesque to that of the southern, mountainous regions
of France and Europe. Northern Early Romanesque monuments of major significance and
interest, military architecture excepted, are almost exclusively churches.
Monuments found in the poorer, mountainous areas of the south were usually of the
vaulted type, without transept, compact, smaller in scale, and constructed of small,
semidressed stones. External walls were invariably decorated with shallow, irregular
arcades framed by flat pilasters engaged onto roughly coursed walls and towers. This
style, European in scope, was labeled le premier art roman
Anzy-le-Duc (Saône-et-Loire),
Romanesque vaulting. Photograph
courtesy of Whitney S.Stoddard.
by the Catalan scholar J.Puig i Cadafalch, who gave it its art-historical identity. Such
churches have survived in relatively large numbers. Their counterparts in the wealthier
cities and abbeys of France, however, were almost always remodeled or replaced in later
times, but their characteristics can often be determined from excavations, from
archaeological traces surviving in the remodeled structure, or from old drawings and
photographs.
Early Romanesque in the south flourished in the Alps, in the Pyrénées, in the
Languedoc, and in other mountainous regions of southern France. Fine examples can be
seen at Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa and Saint-Martin-du-Canigou in the Pyrénées, or at Saint-
Guilhem-le-Désert in the Languedoc. Important churches in this style can also be found
in the plains and river valleys, or in small villages, such as Chapaize in Burgundy.
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