How Long Are the Lives of Medieval Buildings?

This chapter begins by discussing the advantages of a diachronic approach to buildings; it turns, then, to distinguishing major approaches to the study of their long lives. To explain the dynamics of the long construction times, Trachtenberg identifies willingness on the part of medieval builders not only to redesign continuously, but also to offer up solutions as new challenges arose on a work site. The conventional approach, which this edited volume revisits and challenges, focuses on a building’s moment of inception, with particular attention given to the architect, patron, social conditions, or even technical aspects that brought the building into existence. A diachronic approach does more than look at a building over many synchronic moments. Those moments—what might be termed a building’s temporal parts—are means to an end for the scholar of a building’s long life. Any dissimilarity in a building’s temporal parts is an instance of change; conversely, any similarity is a case of continuity.