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In the Middle Ages, angels were a constant presence and participated with the faithful in praising God. Due to the manifold roles played by angels in Christian theology, it is not surprising that they were a popular subject for church decoration. At the abbey church of Sainte-Foy at Conques, the attention paid to and regard for angels was expressed to an exceptional degree and therefore provide an excellent case study through which to understand how monumental sculpture communicated monastic identity and exegesis. This article considers the formal attributes and spatial arrangement of the sculpted angels at Conques as they relate to early medieval monastic conceptions of angels' function and role within the heavenly community, providing the monks with a celestial model to negotiate the boundaries between the active and contemplative life as articulated by Gregory the Great and the Venerable Bede. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American medievalist Arthur Kingsley Porter (1883–1933), author of such important texts asRomanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads(1923) andSpanish Romanesque Sculpture(1928), has long figured in the annals of art history as a ground-breaking scholar-photographer. Critical study of Porter's personal photographic archive and unpublished primary sources shows that this paradigmatic vision requires substantial modification. Lucy Wallace Porter (1876–1962), who became the medievalist's wife in 1912, was the chief photographer of the two from 1919 onwards. She made significant contributions to her husband's scholarship, alone producing more than two-thirds of the photographs published inRomanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads, which amounted to over 1500 prints. Our picture of Porter the scholar becomes very different if we realize that he often saw Romanesque sculpture through the eyes of his photographer wife. Moreover, all subsequent users of Porter's landmark publications have perceived Romanesque sculpture through her eyes as well. In addition to examining the holdings, history, and use of Porter's picture library, this article analyzes previously unpublished photographs that afford new vistas onto the couple's lives, imaginations, and camera work. It also explores the fascinating story of Lucy Porter's eye- and mind-training, proposing that she deserves recognition as one of the most influential women photographers in the field of art history during the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A Romanesque double-springer and five voussoirs, decorated with foliate carving and pellet, have been reused as a door-head in the ground floor of Church House, Gloucester Cathedral. The carved stones are illustrated, together with a reconstruction of the original double arch, which may have come from an early 12th- century pulpitum screen or the arcade of the first Norman cloister. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of the twelfth century, six fine Romanesque churches were built in the town of Uncastillo, Aragon. Three of these churches display carved hagiographic scenes on the tympana above their principal entrances, a highly unusual placement for saints’ lives during this period. Though the subject matter responds to a broad interest in hagiographic imagery across post-conquest Aragon, its prominent location and recurrence in multiple churches were both motivated by political and social factors shaping the kingdom at this time. On the one hand, the hagiographies’ allegorical evocations of the Christian conquest speak to the relevance of Aragon's territorial expansion to the town's inhabitants. On the other, the sculptures’ placement above the church portal – the focal point of the community – responds to the contemporary experience of urbanization in Uncastillo, which resulted in the town's organization into six different neighborhoods. Considering the hagiographic tympana with respect to sculptural traditions, reconquest rhetoric, and patterns of urban settlement and development, I argue that Uncastillo's experiments with form and iconography aspired to cohere urban communities during a dynamic period of social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not a single English Romanesque great cloister arcade survives in situ. Despite this, the existence of a number of 11th- and 12th-century rear walls, and the discovery of quantities of stonework likely to have originated in cloister arcades, make it possible to recover something of the likely appearance and character of the cloister in Anglo-Norman England. The following paper considers that evidence, and assesses how our understanding of the underlying topography and archaeology of Anglo-Norman cloisters might enable us to reconstruct their lost walks. It concludes with an appraisal of the chronology of English cloister building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this short article is to put on record the archaeological observations made between 1990 and 2002 during the decade of stonework conservation on the northern run of the frieze panels on the west front of Lincoln Cathedral. It is not concerned with the frieze sculpture itself but with its stones and the spaces behind the stones. Equally, this article is not an assessment of the sculpture and its dating but is an archaeological investigation which potentially has wider implications for the sequence of construction and carving of the Romanesque frieze now visible at Lincoln. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interaction between monumental Byzantine relief icon sculptures and Romanesque sculpture on the Adriatic coast near Ravenna, Italy. The author discusses sculptures by the Romanesque sculptor Niccolò and suggests that the Byzantine relief icons predate his work. The author describes relief icons on the façades of churches, such as the church of Santa Maria della Piazza in Ancona, Italy, and suggests that relief icons acted as part of the environment of public inscriptions. The author discusses similarities between Byzantine relief icons and Romanesque monumental sculpture such as the Romanesque tympana sculpture of the cathedral of San Giorgio in Ferrara, the church of San Giorgio in Argents, and the Cathedral of Verona.

The article offers a reassessment of a pair of 12th century carved rectangular marble pieces, on view at the Islamic Museum at the Haram Al-Sharif in Jerusalem, Israel in 2000. The pieces, described as examples of Levantine Romanesque sculpture, are concluded to have been made as the lintel of a doorway in the 1160s. Speculated original location of the pieces is the portal in either the Austin or Templar cloisters on the Haram, or the portal of the Church of Saint Mary the Great in Jerusalem.

Discusses the meaning of the choir capitals of the Saint-Lazare cathedral of Autun in Burgundy, France. Proposal of an alternative way of reading the iconography of Romanesque cycles; Construction of meaning in Romanesque art; Relationship between text and image; Repercussions of the physical layout of the choir on the sculpture; Complexities of word parallels in Romanesque sculpture.

Describes the author's use of female figure to draw together elements of the style of heroic images of males in 12th-century Romanesque sculpture. Relationship between the figure and the frame in Romanesque reliefs; Showing of determination by a female figure; Viewing of the heroine in relation to convention.

The article offers information on the narrative art in the Italian medieval church. It is argued that Romanesque sculpture often appear inexpressive in modern time. The simplicity of Italian Romanesque art and drama represent a narrative form liturgy. Amalarius, Bishop of Metz introduced the liturgical reform movement which became the notion of narrative art found in Italian churches. Details related to the Planctus group from S. Pietro in Bologna, an Italian Romanesque wooden sculptures are presented.

Examines the origins and chronology of the Romanesque sculpture in the capitals of the churches of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, Selles sur-Cher and M é obecq in France. Categories of the capitals of the tower porch of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire; Presence of the same groups of capitals at the church of Selles sur-Cher and M é obecq; Analysis of the distribution of capitals within the buildings.

The article presents information on the Aston Eyre Church located in the village of Aston Eyre in Shropshire, England. The church is comprised of an unaisled nave and channel, with a porch to the south door and a double-bell-turret to the west gable. The subject of the sculpture of the south door tympanum was Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. It is suggested that the carving was an early work of a Shobdon master and so an example of the Herefordshire School of Romanesque sculpture. Information is also presented on the restoration of the tympanum.